[laughing] Yes, I have seen King Cakes with warning labels on them! "Caution: Choking hazard! Contains small plastic figurine. Do not serve to infants." They provide an extra baby to show what it looks like. Though, I grant you, in a region in which King Cake is a novelty and we usually eat donuts on Mardi Gras, the warning makes much more sense than the ludicrous "Coffee Is Hot!" caution.

I understand a person can break a tooth on some of the older, harder items people traditionally put in Twelfth Night Cake (the night before Epiphany, January 6), so I guess there's an art to eating such confections. Sort-of like learning to eat Cherries Jubilee without singeing off your eyebrows.

As a teenager, I noticed the similarity among the various stripes of extreme politics, not in philosophy but in method and implementation, which led me to believe that human behavior is circular and that the extremes will meet. This has also led me to believe -- a belief that becomes stronger every year -- that the opposite of one extreme is not the other extreme, but moderation. The problem I see is that, as we become more and more polarized, there will be less ability (let alone incentive) to see those unlike ourselves as having worthy, if different, viewpoints.

When the people in the middle start throwing rocks, there's no middle left, right?

I like those old movies too. In a world in which there's not much opportunity for Heroism, and in which the small heroisms remain unadvertized, the small heroisms on the big screen provide the ideals and images that were once sung by travelling minnesingers and troubadours.

Happy Mardi Gras, Frank. Have a donut.

Regards--
Mary Anne