Nose Job

There was a time when Baghdad's reconstructive surgeons were rushed off their feet trying to repair the terrible disfigurements caused by war. These days, they're just as likely to find themselves giving Botox injections or performing nose jobs, as Iraqis take advantage of the calmer conditions to enhance their looks.

To say I disliked my nose as a teenager would be an understatement. Both its size (too big) and its shape (hooked) made me feel as if I stood out. Though I sometimes fantasized about getting it "done," a nose job wasn't something I ever considered seriously. At the time, the plastic surgery boom was just beginning to gain steam and, for the most part, adolescents weren't on-board. Times have certainly changed.

We have the right to choose between alternatives that are . . . morally permissible," writes Philip A. Lacovara in his defense of the Supreme Court's decision on abortion. My judgment is that my morals are just fine without Mr. Lacovara's bias. Further, in comparing a woman's decision to abort her pregnancy with her decision to have a nose job or a breast implant, Mr. Lacovara reveals sensitivity exceeded only by his chauvinism. Would he also compare a man's choosing to become a father (or not to become one)

The reigning Miss World, Peru's Maria Julia Mantilla, is considering suing her plastic surgeon, claiming that he's stretching the truth about the work he did on her. "He has said that I'm his product, the product of Peruvian plastic surgery, and says he molded my body, that he removed fat, and everything," the 20-year-old beauty queen said. "He's talking about things he never did."

A Reuben H. Donnelley telephone sales executive has sued her employer for forcing her into a promotional boxing match with a male co-worker who smashed her in the face and ruined her nose job. Vivian Mondello, in a $6-million suit filed in Manhattan federal court last week, accused Donnelley, its parent company Dun & Bradstreet Corp. and her co-worker of assault.

We couldn't put this book down. The narrative drive was relentless. There were highs and lows, ups and downs, nips and tucks. Who knew that a book about plastic surgery could be a page-turner? We are breakfasting with Joan Kron, a longtime reporter on the plastic surgery beat for Allure magazine and the author of "Lift: Wanting, Fearing and Having a Face-Lift" (Viking). We are hunkered down at Hugo's in West Hollywood, where we're dishing the dirt along with the oatmeal.