I, too, enjoy Blumenthal's columns, but I fail to see where this one said anything that we didn't really already know. Not only was it particularly short, but it's covering a story that was hot, um, WEEKS ago. It would have been nice to read when it had a tad more relevancy. I don't believe in letting a good story get let go of, either, but what did this piece teach us? It felt like a rehash. Maybe it was supposed to be published a couple weeks ago?

It isn't that difficult. Trust me.

Tacky? It's not tacky to spare kids the details surrounding something so traumatic.

However, I'm surprised that this would even be something that one would have to request. I can't imagine parents, even grieving parents (and mind you, these people have had a few months to grieve now, so they're likely no longer in shock), spilling terrifying information to small kids. Since they are parents themselves, I would think that they would know better than to discuss the worst parts of the ordeal around young children.

My family was an interesting model of secrecy and out-and-out idiocy. My parents did their best to make sure that the kids weren't privy to all of the darkest family information until we were old enough to understand (shotgun weddings, nasty divorces, domestic abuse, abandoned spouses - thank God our nuclear unit was normal). My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, spent much of her energy describing, in excruciating detail, every instance of abuse she had every witnessed, from her days in Nazi-occupied European prison camps, to her time volunteering with rescued animals in the U.S. If you want to traumatize a five year old, I recommend Nana's story about the village elders who were hung from meat hooks in her hometown's central square. Esepcially effective if told right when Christmas dinner is about to commence. To this day, I can't look at a turkey without feeling slightly nauseated.

Leaving children at home isn't an option. Grown-ups need to know when grown-up talk is appropriate, even if voicing their pain is a part of their grieving and healing processes.

Perhaps this couple could schedule some grown-up time after dinner - put the kids in PJs and pop them in front of a DVD. Then let the healing begin.

Right. And those latex barriers coated with spermicide are so much tastier.

Sounds like regular old contraceptive foam. Since when is everything so damn repulsive to everyone? What's the problem? It can't be vaginal insertion.... is it the size or shape of the can? Is it the fact that it's from China? What's the deal?

Since I loved the book, will probably like the movie, and am entranced by all things geisha (I've got books, photographs, old postcards, posters) I am PSYCHED over all the cross-marketing tie-ins. I LOVE the idea that merchandise can be so elegantly blended to entertainment - who needs a damn Batman t-shirt when you can get cherry-scented TEA and kimono-sleeved shirts! Besides, fashion has long taken its cues from Hollywood.

By the way, my local Banana Republic has been hyping the clothing line for a while - I heard about the clothing line before I even knew that that movie had finished filming. And the cross-marketing gurus worked the movie into a recent episode of "Medium".

Maybe I'm mistaken, but wasn't some fancy-schmancy James Bond watch marketed to men a few years ago?

Oh, I've been bitching for MONTHS about casting. I've lived in Japan and China and I love both countries, but I was horrified to see Chinese actresses cast in the main roles of a "Japanese" movie (and more disturbed to see more than a couple photos of said actresses mislabeled, as in a picture of Gong Li in some gossip mag, with the caption identifying her as "Ziyi Zhang").

It's obvious that there aren't any big-name Japanese stars that could carry such a movie, and that's too bad. I wish it were otherwise. Also, I really dislike Zhang Ziyi, with her pinched little pre-pubescent face, and her acting abilities (limited to what I call the glare-and-flare: eye narrow in anger, nostrils swell).

Of course, the book WAS written by a white American dude - with extensive research into the subject matter. So who says that the movie won't be an equally cross-cultural success? I wish it could be otherwise, and we could avoid this whole "they all look the same anyway" bullshit, but who else could have filled these roles and still pulled in the audiences?

As for the clothes, cosmetics, etc - Japan (and Korea, and Vietnam) borrowed so much from China that it is often hard to know where one robe began and another ended. I, for one, will relish the chance for a breath of fresh air in terms of laywomen's fashion - I'm sick of these goddamed Ugg boots and muffin-top jeans (that's where your jeans are so tight and low-riding that even slender women spill over the tops of them). I'll take faux pan-Asian prettiness over the current offerings any day.