This just in: an update to an earlier post.

Surgeons have now removed a boy's brain tumor through his nose.

And I'm reminded that doctors for decades have performed pre-frontal lobotomies through the eye socket.

It's called "Pot Suckers" and "Kronic Candy." It comes in lollipops, gumdrops and other candy. It's marijuana flavored candy, and Georgia wants to ban it. The candy is already banned in parts of California, New York, and Illinois.

You know, kids start on suckers and end up shooting heroin in the bathroom of a Quick Trip.

The Georgia House says the candies give the "false impression that that marijuana is fun."

False?

"Testing Scarless Surgery, Doctors Remove a Gallbladder Through the Vagina" (Headline from the New York Times).

Where do I go with this?

This is a story about laparoscopic surgery. That's where surgeons make a small slit, insert a tube, and operate by remote control. This is much less invasive than conventional surgery, and avoids having to open the chest or abdomen.

To hide the scar, surgeons will sometimes go in thru the belly button or an existing orifice. In the past, doctors removed a patient's appendix through his mouth.

Who knows? In the future doctors might repair my heart through my asshole.

Vacationing in Baghdad? The Tourism Ministry of Iraq held a "Spring Fair" to promote the concept. There were displays of souvenirs, including weapons such as jeweled daggers and antique pistols. Pictures on the wall showed bombed out mosques, ruined archaeology sites and other tourist traps, some with Humvees parked in the pictures.

See the cradle of civilization before you die, or just do both at once.

Actually, 350 pilgrims visit Iraq every year, and many of them survive.

The election did not go well.

Many votes were not counted. Many more were counted twice. Some polling places were closed when they were supposed to be open.

Nigeria? No, Cleveland in 2006 according to a just-released audit from the Center for Election Integrity.

14-year-old Toni Scott was was suspended from her Napa Valley, California, school for wearing Winnie the Pooh socks.

The dress code prohibits clothes with insignia or pictures. It's intended to prevent the wearing of gang-related symbols.

The Winnie the Pooh gang?

Is it any wonder that most kids today think that most adults are complete idiots?

A Milford, Connecticut, funeral home is offering free funerals to city employees under its "Fallen Heroes" program. To get one, you must arrange to die during a scheduled work shift.

Here's a roundup of last week's public apologies.

Don Imus apologised for insulting the Rutgers basketball girls. He apologised over and over again to everyone he could buttonhole. It didn't work. Imus is between jobs.

Durham North Carolina District Attorney Mike Nifong, who railroaded those three Duke Lacrosse boys on rape charges, issued an apology. He apologised "To the extant that I made judgements that were ultimately proved incorrect." Legal experts are still trying to parse exactly what it was he was apologising for.

United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apologised for the way eight attorneys general were fired. He later clarified his apology, pointing out that -- as head of the justice department -- he had nothing to do with the actual firings. Good job, Gonzo.

Paul Wolfowitz apologised for getting his employee/girlfriend that sweetheart job and a big pay raise. Wolfowitz is president of the World Bank, for now. Good job, Wolfie.

And a USC hockey boy apologised for mooning the game crowd. He's charged with a misdemeanor. USC lost the game to Brigham Young.

That's the roundup of recent apologies. If I left any out, I'm sorry.

Elections continue in Nigeria. The death toll is 21.

I spent my spring vacation in mourning.

My mother-in-law died. It was sad but not tragic. She was 88-years old. But the funeral was unsettling.

When my father died a couple of years ago, it was again sad but not tragic. He was 90. There was no long hospitalization. He died at home watching football on TV. His team was winning. They later lost, but he never knew that.

He had a proper Jewish funeral, with a closed coffin. He was buried in a plain pine box, wearing a simple white shroud.

But at my mother-in-law's great big Italian funeral she was laid out for all to see, dressed up and wearing a new hairdo and a polished pink coffin with big brass hardware. She looked better than she's looked for years.

For the two days she was on display, friends and relatives came to socialize. "Hello, how are you, what are you doing now?" They all caught up on old times, while the preserved body in the front of the room persevered, maintaining some sort of dignity.

Don't misunderstand. I loved my mother-in-law. She was a lot of fun. We'd play poker. Sometimes I'd win 40-cents from her at a time.

But seeing her dead body was too intimate, like seeing her go to the bathroom or something. I found myself averting my eyes, out of respect or embarresment.

She loved to gamble. She'd go to Atlantic City and stand at the craps table, leaning over the table as far as she could go and throwing the dice as hard as she could. So her grandchild placed in the coffin a pair of dice to see her to heaven. I can imagine an archaeologist thousands of years from now trying to puzzle out the religious significance of those spotted totems.

Her husband is old and confused. He told my wife that his wife's health started declining after she had her uterus removed. He told his daughter, "That was a long time ago, before you were born."
He said his wife started looking older after that. He said he first noticed it when she turned 85.

And I noticed for the first time how much my mother-in-law looks like my wife.

And I thought, "Now I know what my wife will look like when she's dead."

I learned an important life lesson last weekend. The lesson is this: Don't surprise your wife on April Fool's Day by short-sheeting the bed. It'll only make her angry.

"What is this," she asked, "something you guys do to each other at summer camp?"

I admitted that it was.

"Is this like that Three Stooges humor you guys thing is so funny?"

Suspecting this was a rhetorical question, I remained silent. I'm learning.

Next year, it's back to the old plastic cockroach in the sugar bowl gag.