Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Oh wait, we are!

[captainsblog]

Somewhere in the midst of all the year-in-review and year-ahead and damn-football-score stories of the past 24 hours, there was this odd tidbit- once again, from the Sunflower State (where we just went yesterday with some random rolls of Kodachrome):

Four students who posed for photos with a human placenta have been kicked out of a suburban Kansas City nursing program after one of the pictures was posted on Facebook.

One of the students, Doyle Byrnes, has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Kansas seeking to force Johnson County Community College to reinstate her before classes resume Jan. 19.

The Kansas City Star reported that Byrnes and several other students were attending a lab course at Olathe Medical Center in November when one of them asked a nursing instructor for permission to photograph the placenta so they could share the experience on Facebook.

The lawsuit against the college and several of its employees said that the nursing instructor responded, "Oh, you girls," but didn't tell them not to do it or that it could result in discipline.

Afterward, Byrnes posted a photo on the social networking site showing her smiling broadly, wearing a lab coat and surgical gloves and leaning over the placenta in a tray.

Ultimately, word of the picture got around, and the students got thrown out. But on account of its shock value? Offense to the pro-life movement? No!



For not including the right product placement with it!

In my ancient collection of reading material, I have a book of scripts and whatnot from the first couple of seasons of NBC Saturday Night. Included in it were a couple of sketches that didn't make the censor's cut, and one of them was this one, for an unfortunately relevant fake commercial, featuring a padded-up Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner as a pair of old friends now both finding themselves preggers:

Laraine: "By the way, are you planning to eat the placenta?"

Gilda: "You're kidding! You mean the afterbirth?"

Laraine: "That's right. Many mammals eat their own placenta. It's nutritious, it's 100 percent natural, and now that you're going to have a family, you've got to watch your food budget more than ever. And there's no cheaper meat than placenta."

Gilda: But is there enough placenta to make a complete meal for my husband and myself?

Laraine: Not if your husband has a hearty appetite like mine. And that's why you need Placenta Helper.

Gilda: Placenta Helper?

Laraine: That's right. Placenta Helper lets you stretch your placenta into a tasty casserole. [Holds up a box of Placenta Helper.] Like Placenta Romanoff--a zesty blend of cheeses makes for the zingy sauce that Russian czars commanded at palace feasts. Or Placenta Oriental. An exotic mixture of oriental vegetables and exotic herbs and spices creates an exotic meal. Look, you can have placenta only once every nine months. Why not make a rare occasion, a rare occasion?

[CUT TO: Gilda's kitchen. John Belushi, as her husband, has just finished his placenta casserole.]

John: Ummm. That was great. Let's have Placenta Helper every night.

Gilda: Oh, honey!

[THEY LAUGH AT HIS STUPID MISTAKE.]

And the author of this hideousness? None other than the now-Honorable Senator from the State of Minnesota!



Good God. If Michele Bachmann ever gets a hold of that, Franken's political career is OVA.

(Sorry. For all of it. Really.)



Okay. Time to go lead a church service;)