Did He Eat the Placenta in Silence?…

…and really, what sort of wine goes with placenta?

As a full-service blog, Hit & Run endeavors to bring you the latest news and commentary on all the innerestin' stuff happening in the world. And since a recent post about the name of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' baby pulled no fewer than 60 comments, I assume readers may be interested in more Cruisiana, courtesy of an Irish Web site. This came out before the birth of Suri:

Cruise to eat nutritious placenta

Hollywood actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise is planning to eat Katie Holmes' placenta….

Cruise told GQ magazine: "I'm gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I'm gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there."…

He has also defended the Scientology belief that women should give birth in silence.

"It's really about respecting the woman. It's not about her not screaming," he told GQ.

More here.

Did he actually eat the placenta? (Go here for the Amateur Gourmet's Placenta Polenta recipe and here for his denial that he ever was intended to chow down thus). As the late, great Albert Popwell put it in Dirty Harry, summing up all our desire to learn, like Oedipus, the very truth that might destroy us, "I gots to know."

And does anyone know why Scientologists believe women should give birth in silence? What's the provenance of such a belief? I assume it's one of L. Ron's own and I aways find male-issued dicta about childbirth interesting, rooted as much or more in a desire to control the female body than anything else.