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Though we think it's a query better handled by their excellent "Explainer" column, Slate teases its round-up of the week in tabloids with the question, "Is Tom Cruise ugly?" Naturally, a truly sincere examination of the issue would be patently ridiculous, as we all know that Cruise is the embodiment of physical (and mental and emotional) perfection sent by an ageless intergalactic dictator to mesmerize the world with his smile, but it's always interesting to plunge ourselves into the wildly hypothetical. One doctor weighs in from the supermarket check-out stand:

Life & Style asks a plastic surgeon what she'd recommend for Tom Cruise, whose handsomeness, if little else, you may have believed to be unassailable. Not so. Dr. Linda Li, "a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who hasn't treated the star," suggests: upper- and lower-lid eyelid work; Botox on the eyes and forehead; a modest brow lift; laser treatments or a chemical peel to maintain his skin's elasticity; " 'a very conservative refinement of the nose' "; veneers to make his teeth more symmetrical; and a neck lift or liposuction beneath the chin.

We're already tired of this tabloid parlor game. Trying to improve on Cruise would be an utterly pointless act of aesthetic vandalism akin to circumcising Michaelangelo's David with a jackhammer.