In a "personal development seminar," Chantal Lavigne was accidentally 'cooked to death' during a class called 'Dying in Consciousness.'"

This happened in Canada last year:

Participants were wrapped in mud and plastic, covered with blankets, and left immobilized for about nine hours. Cardboard boxes were placed over their heads and they were encouraged to hyperventilate. Lavigne died of hyperthermia when her body was unable to dissipate heat properly.

The seminar was held at a spa called Ferme Reine de la Paix and organized by Gabrielle “Séréna” Fréchette. In her work as holistic healer, Fréchette channels “Melchizedek,” a mysterious king and priest that appears in the book of Genesis. Lavigne had already completed 85 personal development seminars at the spa, for which she paid more than $18,900....

In audio recordings of the session, Fréchette allegedly states, “The time has come for this body of death that you believe is yours… Death is freedom… death is the truth.”

"When I read a book, I'm handling a specific object in a specific time and place."

"The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing – that's reassuring."

Jonathan Franzen worries that ebooks — in place of print books — will reorient us in negative ways.

"They're trying to crucify this man...."

Delving into a presidential candidate's record and criticizing him vigorously is crucifixion?

How about the way we failed — back in 2008 — to delve into Obama's record and failed to criticize him?

Here's a clue: Get yourself perceived as The Messiah and the good people of the United States of America will refrain from crucifying you.

Worrying about the 1,900 tiny plastic fibers released by each item of clothing made from synthetic fabric every time it's washed.

"Microscopic plastic debris from washing clothes is accumulating in the marine environment and could be entering the food chain, a study has warned."

Please do not confuse this pressing problem with "A Million Little Fibers."

Newt in '09: "We believe that... everybody should either have health insurance or if you’re an absolute libertarian..."

"... we would allow you to post a bond, but we would not allow people to be free riders failing to insure themselves and then showing up at the emergency room with no means of payment."

"The weirdest thing about the rumor that Kim Kardashian gets paid $10,000 for a Twitter endorsement is..."

"... that it’s true."

The biggest player in the pay-to-tweet market is Ad.ly, a social-media advertorial clearinghouse pairing brands with celebs to inject highly personalized advertising into their Twitter streams.

"She’s had a miraculous turnaround."

Said Rick Santorum.

"I know how she got through it... It was with the hands of these doctors and the prayers that guided those hands."

Religion and politics. Children and politics. Medical problems and politics. When is it too much? When will you say it's too much?

"But controlled rot tastes good in this case — at least to us (or most of us)."

"The key is to manage the decomposition in such a way as to get that desired flavor and to ensure that we don't get sick from consuming the food (in some cases, rot is actually necessary because the fresh version is poisonous)."

"It's all Gladys' fault! She's sending me straight to hell!"

Millie Jackson sounded too much like Gladys Knight and needed to distinguish herself.

Jackson's first hit song, a 1973 cover of "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to be Right," caused a furor. In the middle of the song, Jackson starts talking about being the "other woman" in a relationship, and loving it. The protests put her on the path to stardom, but they also created a niche Jackson has found hard to escape.

I heard the Luther Ingram version of this song the other day and — even without a spoken-word interval — I got the feeling this is a terribly dangerous song. It must have gotten an awful lot of people into trouble over the years.

A great collection of celebrity high school yearbook pictures.

Fascinating to see those who were always great looking, those who were always bad looking, and — most interestingly — those who looked awful in high school and got much, much better, the most extreme example of which is this:

At the Blonde Dog Café...

... curl up and get comfy.

Young brains.

1. Does homosexuality reside at the biological brain level? "There is substantial evidence of various connections between genes, brain, hormones and sexual identity... But those do not amount to a simple picture that A leads to B." So gay people aren't born gay? "I honestly have no idea if I was born this way. My memory doesn’t stretch to the crib. But I know that from the moment I felt romantic stirrings, it was Timmy, not Tammy, who could have me walking on air or wallowing in torch songs and tubs of ice cream."

2. Do kids with ADD have a different kind of brain that makes stimulants like Ritalin have a mysterious opposite effect, calming them down? "Putting children on drugs does nothing to change the conditions that derail their development in the first place. Yet those conditions are receiving scant attention. Policy makers are so convinced that children with attention deficits have an organic disease that they have all but called off the search for a comprehensive understanding of the condition."

3. Are teenagers defective at the brain level? "Brain research is often taken to mean that adolescents are really just defective adults—grown-ups with a missing part. Public policy debates about teenagers thus often turn on the question of when, exactly, certain areas of the brain develop, and so at what age children should be allowed to drive or marry or vote—or be held fully responsible for crimes. But the new view of the adolescent brain isn't that the prefrontal lobes just fail to show up; it's that they aren't properly instructed and exercised.... Instead of simply giving adolescents more and more school experiences—those extra hours of after-school classes and homework—we could try to arrange more opportunities for apprenticeship. "

New Rasmussen poll has Romney at 44%, Gingrich 28% in Florida.

Announced this morning:

These figures reflect a significant turnaround over the past week. Last Sunday, just after his big win in the South Carolina Primary, Gingrich led Romney by nine.  By the middle of this past week,  Romney was back in control with an eight-point advantage. Despite all the ups and downs, the results today are very similar to polling results found in Florida three weeks ago, coming off Romney’s decisive victory in the New Hampshire Primary.

What happened? Was it Romney getting tougher in the last debate? Romney's ability to advertise pervasively in the big state? All the conservative big shots who ganged up on Gingrich? That crazy moon-shot business?

"RECALL WALKER/Tell him: Keep it up/IT'S WORKING!"

Photo taken today by the commenter James.

"Apparently @TPM doesn't expense its employees' salaries."

Pithy takedown.