Who would know more about affairs of the heart than St. Paul Medical Center, where they regularly repair and transplant them? The hospital's cardiac-rehabilitation program's "Going Home Instructions," handed to recovering surgery patients, is full of common-sense advice about exercise and warning signs. And to their credit, St. Paul's rehab folks tackle a sensitive subject: sex, recommending that patients wait two to three weeks before doing the nasty. But the instructions have an interesting proviso: "avoid extramarital affairs or sex with new partners as it will place more stress on the heart." Buzz would like to get a gander at that medical journal article. When asked about the sanction on extramarital sex, a sheepish rehabilitation therapist could only say, "Well, I guess because it's a Catholic hospital."
The rehab program includes a chart that breaks the energy requirements of physical activities into metabolic equivalents, or "METs." For instance, it takes one to two METs to knit and six to seven METs to rumba. According to the chart, "sexual activity (marital)" takes five to six METS. But the chart fails to give insight into the energy expenditure for lovin' on the cheatin' side of town.
Playing it safe
Speaking of sex, Dallas was one of five cities featured in the 1995 Sheik/Ramses Condom Culture Report, which revealed some exciting results. For instance: Dallas ranks second only to Atlanta in terms of the most sexually active city--nearly 30 percent of Dallas respondents have sex more than 15 times per month. (The survey did not specify whether or not this was marital sex, but Buzz can hazard a guess.) The survey also revealed that Dallasites are either too cheap or too sexually active to eat a leisurely meal: more condom users in Dallas eat at fast-food restaurants than those in any other city.
A response to one question, however, perplexed us. Respondents were asked whether they were most likely to put condoms on in the dark or with a light on. Twelve percent of Dallasites answered "other" to this question.
Beret new world
Folks who attended an advance screening of Mario Van Peebles' controversial new movie Panther at North Dallas' AMC Glen Lakes theater last week got a shock when they walked out of the movie.
It wasn't the sight of a handful of young African-American men in black berets outside the auditorium dispensing leaflets about the film, its soundtrack album, and the Black Panthers. After all, the movie is a biopic about the Panther Party for Self Defense. What was stunning was the sea of white moviegoers pouring out of another theater across the lobby--hundreds of them--also sporting black berets. Had this film produced a historic mass conversion of white North Dallasites to political radicalism?
No such luck. The berets on the white folks were tie-in merchandise handed out to promote the Meg Ryan-Kevin Kline vehicle French Kiss, a romantic comedy set in Paris. Its screening ended at exactly the same time as Panther.
