On November 16th NPR ran an audio documentary called "My Lobotomy." It's the chilling story of a 56-year-old man named Howard Dully and his journey to find out why he was given a barbaric "ice-pick lobotomy" at the age of 12. A shocking 8-minute operation performed in the doctor's office.

This quickie form of lobotomy was pioneered by Dr. Walter Freeman in 1946 and became fairly popular until it faded out in the late 50s.

I have been haunted by this story since I read and heard it a couple of weeks ago. (You can find both the written story and the audio mp3 here.) In fact, I think yesterday was the first day this man's story didn't cross my mind.

This morning I received an innocent email from a reader that included a picture of a bizarre toy. It's from the makers of "Operation."

I guess I won't be forgetting about gruesome homemade brain surgery for awhile. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

(Thanks, Barb and Joe Ho!)