Tale of the Tapes: Author Diane Middlebrook...

Tale of the Tapes: Author Diane Middlebrook says she is shocked. Shocked that a psychiatrist’s decision to hand over tapes of therapy sessions with the late poet Anne Sexton has set off such a brouhaha over privacy. Middlebrook said in Boston she expected a flap instead over her revelations about a second psychiatrist, the one who had a sexual relationship with Sexton: “I was quite worried that he was going to get in a lot of trouble.” Sexton, a housewife-turned-poet who won the Pulitzer Prize, killed herself in 1974.

Human Progress: Interior Minister Philippe Marchand on Wednesday banned dwarf tossing in France, calling it an “intolerable attack on human dignity.” The spectacle, often staged in bars, involves throwing a dwarf in protective gear as far as possible onto an inflated mattress. More than 40 establishments had staged dwarf tossings.

Try Again: Jean Harris, the former headmistress in jail for a decade for the murder of “Scarsdale Diet” inventor Dr. Herman Tarnower, filed a new motion seeking to reverse her conviction. Harris, 67, pleaded that her trial attorney was “ineffective.”

Try This: A New Zealand entrepreneur is poised to try to deport some of the country’s most pesky residents to a land where they’ll be welcome for dinner. Some 2,500 possums, who defoliate forests and carry tuberculosis, are going to Hong Kong, where they are considered a taste treat. Nick Wijnstok has been trapping enough possums to fill a large holiday order. But what about that TB? The entrepreneur promises to ship the possums only after they pass a 28-day quarantine.