EAT, DRINK, NO MERRY

Even when stressed, humans do not eat their young. It's a literal distinction, sure, but it still separates us from invertebrates and the occasional hamster.

Figuratively, however, we're cannibals, smacking our lips and relishing the squirt of saliva that presages a fine meal of meat. Any claim of disgust is flimsy, and made between bites and swallows.

•Sunday night on "60 Minutes," Katie Couric interviewed John and Elizabeth Edwards. Couric didn't shy from asking questions that most Americans had inside their heads. This makes her evil in the minds of some Democrats, and now they rant about Couric being an agent for the GOP (never mind that the same Dems thought Couric was aces when she laced into George H.W. Bush during a 1992 interview -- the meat on Couric's bones is too toothsome to decline, and it masks the taste of hypocrisy).

•Anna Nicole Smith's remains make for great leftovers. On Monday a medical examiner in Florida announced that Smith died from gobbling too many legal drugs, including chloral hydrate. The autopsy report also revealed that Smith's body boasted several tattoos, including:

•A pair of red lips in the right lower abdominal quadrant.
•Two red cherries on the right mid pelvis.
•A Playboy Bunny on the left anterior mid pelvis.
•The words "Daniel" and "Papas" on the mid anterior pelvis.
•A "mixed tattoo" on the right lower left and ankle included "Christ's head, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Holy Bible, the naked torso of a woman, the smiling face of Marilyn Monroe, a cross (and) a heart and shooting flames."

Christ and Marilyn in the same tattoo. Tasty, this entree.

•Dessert is also a meat dish, made of flesh from the newspaper industry. According to this New York Times report, paragraph factories are dying, with February ad revenues below the typically dismal January report. Said one industry analyst:

“There is absolutely no question that the next 10 years are going to be really bad for the newspaper business. This is a time of wrenching change and chaos. All of our assumptions about newspapers are going to be changed. The format, the business model, the organization of newspapers have outlived their usefulness.”

Now gorged and suddenly anxious, we must purge to make room for the benzodiazepines. And the next meal of meat.