Good to know. Thanks very much for the clarification!

I'm unclear about this in-school suspension thing. I saw it mentioned the other day, too, so I guess it's a thing now.

"I commend him for standing up for his beliefs."

I don't claim any legal expertise, but I sort of recall something about school kids not having any rights, at least not the speech/unlawful search kind.

Actually, I really hope they are. Not because of the silly record, but because they appear to be a couple of great kids.

Um, is it actually legal for them to be so freaking cute, both individually and as a couple? And so alarmingly cheerful, too. Geesh.

Oddly, there was a pretty good movie a few years back named Palo Alto, CA (http://m.imdb.com/title/tt083493…).

Nice application of snark. Thanks.

Friend and sisters *not* movie stars, yet that doesn't stop the food-police folks from badgering them.

So it preserves their integrity if they watch something die that could be treated, but it doesn't damage their integrity to stage hunting scenes?

Oh, I just remembered, regarding nature shows, and animals being hunted: on the few occasions I hadn't managed to turn off the show in time, it sure seemed to me like the "Oh, and look, here comes a nice white bunny rabbit now ... let's see what the fox does ...." scene was awfully convenient, and likely the poor…

Well, there's also the possible issue of losing the final remnants of her baby fat. She's so young — perhaps the "weight loss" y'all are seeing can also be attributed to maturing into an adult body. I'm not saying I know better, but if you're speculating stress and disease, also include a very real growing-up…

A good friend has three sisters. They, and he, are all of slight build (read size 0). They are healthy and eat normally, but his sisters are constantly being pretty much accused of having eating disorders, and are really fed up with getting this from strangers who feel entitled to butt in uninvited.

So sorry. Ugh. (And so they just watched it starve to death? I know there's a fine line between doing a story and becoming part of a story, but when it's a life/death situation (with no potential fallout), I don't understand willful inaction.)

I know that they didn't kill it — hence "essentially." Although one might argue that just walking away doing nothing carries a certain weight of culpability. Of course this happens all the time, but there aren't humans with the ability to make a difference "all the time."

Hmm, maybe I got lemurs and meercats confused? I was pretty sure it was lemurs, but what are the odds of the exact same situation happening twice?

I know exactly what you mean. Several years ago I was happily watching a documentary (PBS) about the cutest gaggle of lemurs, when pretty much out of nowhere the narrator says that the toddler lemur was not thriving, and the mother lemur was going to have to abandon it to die. And then there were the heartbreaking…

Well, then let it be a pleasant surprise. :O)

Really odd, at the time I replied, it looked as though there were no other replies. I posted, my post vaporized, but a few other posts showed up. Now that you've replied to my second post, I see a whole slew of replies — seems I was pretty late to the party. Glad you got your questions answered.

Hmm, I answered your earlier post, but it appears to have been eaten. To answer your final question, yes, with a plural possessive you only add the apostrophe, not the trailing s.