Call me crazy, but a school-aged child gaining five pounds in a year doesn't sound like a bad thing.

I put a grape in the microwave once when I was a kid. It turned into a raisin. I didn't know it could be dangerous.
I thought it was really interesting, though, because grapes in the oven just got warm.

I just want to say that you don't "get yourself kicked in the head." Somebody kicks you.

I got a B-. Sex ed was never that informative at my school. We were taught that you could get chlamydia from sharing a toothbrush. I mean, I suppose that's technically true, but you'd have to be doing something unusual with it.

@ Blindness, kids on planes probably scream because they are in pain. I had a bad ear infection when I was eight, and descending was always agonizing for years afterward. You might expect an adult to keep quiet about it, but it's a little harsh to demand it of a child.
I don't think much of this kind of argument. Yes, kids can be annoying, but they're members of society too. Adults can't just wall them out of public places.

I go to Reed. We do have underwater basket weaving, but only as part of Paideia, a week of student-taught classes at the end of winter break. It's really a pretty rigorous school.

I'm twenty, and it's almost physically painful.

Some combination of LOLcat fur and steampunk brass?

I don't know, man. Kids are going to argue with their parents. I think the mature course is to handle it without property damage.

This etymology is backwards. "Bear witness" is the older meaning of the root. "Testicle" is a diminutive that means "little witness" (to the owners masculinity).

It looks like an old tobacco pipe. They were made out of ceramic, and they were long like that so that after one person smoked from it, another could break of the end and keep smoking.

I'm a little bit skeptical about this. The association of blue with boys and pink with girls is only about fifty years old. This site has some links to articles about this.
http://www.songdog.net/blog/archives/000994.html