An opinion column in this morning's Boston Globe by H.D.S. Greenway made my head hurt. It is a treatise on the parallels between the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling on same-sex marriage and the French parliament's new law banning Muslim head scarves and certain other visible religious accessories in schools. The title gives a pretty good idea of the drivel contained within: "When words, scarves threaten democracies."

Sigh.

A careful reading of the column, convoluted as it is, reveals nothing of substance about "words" threatening democracy. The weak analogy of the Massachusetts ruling (that it's not sufficient to deprive same-sex couples of the right to a legally-sanctioned domestic partnership called "marriage") to the French head scarf prohibition seems to have been concocted by Greenway to create the illusion that he isn't, you know, a fascist bigot.

His argument is basically that of the French government and a majority of the French people, who believe that the country's official policy of secularism is compromised by allowing students to visibly express religious affiliation in a government-run school. It goes without saying that France has nothing remotely akin to the United States constitution's first amendment, though they become suddenly enamored of unbridled free expression when the expression in question is virulent anti-Semitism. But that's a topic for another day.

What got me even more than the French law, which has been in the news for several weeks now, was Greenway's encapsulation of the issue:

"The issue, finally, came down to inclusion and tolerance. Whereas some said that those virtues would be best served by allowing Muslims their religious symbols in school, the majority felt that to allow such a symbol in the public schools would actually lead to a greater intolerance and a separate status for Muslims that would, in the end, mean that they would be something less than French."

Huh?

The mental gymnastics required to construct that notion are complex indeed, not to mention Orwellian. Remember the U.S. military philosophy in the later part of the Vietnam war that held it was necessary to "destroy a village in order to save it?" It really isn't a great leap from there to "Freedom is Slavery." The French must not tolerate Muslims' wearing religious garb because to do so would promote intolerance of Muslims. Maybe if Hitler had used that sort of argument as he marched into Paris, the French army wouldn't have fought for that half hour.

The majority of French citizens may indeed be in favor of telling people from certain religions what they can and cannot wear, just as the majority of American citizens may be in favor of telling people whom they can and cannot marry. But it has anything to do with tolerance. Cloaking the ban in the language of tolerance is like putting Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother's bonnet on the big bad wolf. Anyone with open eyes and an open mind will see through it.

Which explains why the obvious so escaped the French.

I'm certain I shouldn't be nearly so amused, but even while gape-mouthed and horrified, I laughed out loud as I read this.

Was he an aspiring human piggy-bank? Or did he just want to make sure he got his recommended daily allowance of minerals?

And is this not a French joke just waiting to be told?

The story is that of an unidentified man who died in France in 2002 after having 12 pounds of metal, mostly coins but also jewelry and needles, surgically removed from his stomach. He suffered from a little-known psychiatric condition known as Pica, which is characterized primarily by the action of eating non-food items for a period of more than one month.

A psychiatrist with whom I work assures me that it is, indeed, a recognized psychiatric disorder, even listed as diagnosis code 307.52 in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

A web site called SCaRED (Support, Concern and Resources for Eating Disorders) claims that Pica isn't is an eating disorder. KidsHealth says it is. In the DSM, it's sandwiched between Bulimia Nervosa (307.51) and Rumination Disorder (307.53), both of which are identintified along with Pica as eating disorders by BehaveNet.

From a quasi-layperson's perspective (I am not a mental health clinician, but I have worked for 2 1/2 years as a psychiatric disability claims analyst), any disorder that involves eating, food or otherwise, is an eating disorder. Perhaps it's also akin to obsessive-compulsive disorder or some sort of self-mutilation. In any event, like most such disorders, it is as tragic as it is baffling. I doubt even sufferers understand it.

So when I laugh about the Frenchman's story, I fully understand its seriousness. After all, the man is dead after at least ten years of ingesting coins and other objects that evidently caused severe gastric damage.

It's either laugh or cry.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit up front (perhaps a poor choice of words) that I did not watch the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show. I almost never watch the halftime shows, the exception being two years ago with Sir Paul, because they are almost always lame, the exception being two years ago with Sir Paul. But what I have heard, read, and seen about the exposition of Janet Jackson's right breast by Justin Timberlake (a boob exposed by a boob?) since Sunday evening not only affirms the wisdom of my decision but also renders me qualified, if I may, to opine about the whole sordid event.

Here's what I think in a nutshell, or more appropriately in a C-cup: it was a disgrace, though not for the reasons everyone else is giving. What I saw in the uncensored still photo on ESPN.com wasn't appropriate for prime-time family viewing. But I wasn't truly outraged until I saw the video clip on FoxNews.com, which showed the manner in which the uncovering happened.

Since when is seeing one person violently tear the clothes off another person considered entertainment?

Whether it was an accident or not is irrelevant. Even if the red lace bra under the bustier was supposed to stay there, it still intimited violence. (For the record, I don't believe it was unintentional, unless you believe that a bra would come apart that easily and Janet just happens to wear starburst pasties all the time.)

Movie director Spike Lee objected to the stunt on artistic grounds. The Associated Press reported, "Lee said it's not enough to be a good singer, and that entertainers 'have to do something extra' -- such as the openmouthed kiss Madonna gave Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera during the MTV Video Music Awards in August."

But Janet Jackson isn't a good singer, nor are Spears and Aguilera. Obviously they all feel the need to do something, anything, to compensate for their lack of talent. Too bad what they, with the help of people like Timberlake and the rocket scientists at MTV, choose to do is so crass and demeaning.