No matter how hard you tilt at it, no one changes a windmill’s mind.

If they were easily stolen away from you, they were never yours in the first place.

The rhetoric of the Ugly Party shares some common themes: urging the death or sexual humiliation of opponents or comparing a political enemy to vermin or diseases. It is not merely an adolescent form of political discourse; it encourages a certain political philosophy - a belief that rivals are somehow less than human, which undermines the idea of equality and the possibility of common purposes.

Quoted from an excellent op-ed piece by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post.

“If you only take offense when the president of your party is compared to Hitler, then you’re part of the problem.” - John Avlon

The first road-ready flying car has been approved by the FAA for general use.

One hopes the approval includes hours of pilot training. The mere thought of ignorant, distracted, reckless drivers taking to the air is giving me shivers.

Oh, and by the way: I don’t want one of these. Really. Flight statistics prove that small planes go down much more often than large ones.

A380 or 787, baby.

Well, at least your personal information. But this, this goes a bit overboard, methinks.

Venture capital is what Facebook founders needed to get the site started. Wherever that came from, it was invested and will eventually be paid back to the investors. If the site is monetarily successful, the original investment will be paid back in full and perhaps with dividends. This is called “doing business.”

Regardless of the money to start it, Facebook, like all other Internet companies, wants to make money with your information. The government, whatever their interest in getting your information, will have to pay for it (unless there’s a subpoena involved). This is also called “doing business.”

If they pay and gather up a Big Brother-like database, start to worry. Until then, this is just another loony conspiracy theory.

Show me the money!

The first chart here - actually, the entire blog post - describes my last two weeks to a “T.”

I get caught up, I get complacent, I get behind, and the whole cycle starts over again.

I started laundry a little while ago. So that’s something, right?

Whatever.

The apathy is strong with this one.

Together. On a music project.

Listen to the album, in its entirety, here.

I’m only on track 3 and thus far it’s much too “pop” for my tastes.

Then again …

But the new Doctor eventually grew on me.

This, however, has made him much cooler in my eyes:

Even with a bow tie.

One in five American women in their early 40s are childless. Also from the Washington Post article:

Childless women are as happy as women who had children at typical ages, said Amy Pienta, a researcher at the University of Michigan who coauthored a study on the subject. “They are not any more depressed; their psychological well-being is just as high,” she said.

I’m just glad people have stopped asking me if I have kids or worse, why I don’t.

This is why we can’t have nice things!

Every year, one friend or another asks us if we want to go to the Colorado Renaissance Festival.

Every year, we politely say no.

Our initial reason - and the one that is good enough for most people - is it’s held outdoors. I’m not a fan of wearing sunscreen so thick it feels like a body condom in the first place, but add bugs, dirt, and sweat to the mix and it’s just no fun at all. (I could carry an umbrella or parasol, but that still leaves the bugs, dirt, and sweat. One-out-of-three isn’t an acceptable ratio in my book.)

The second reason is we’ve both attended renaissance fairs before, specifically in Texas, California, Michigan, and Arizona. Not once has either of us had a good time at one. Once you’ve consumed your turkey leg and seen the acrobats / bard with a mandolin / other act you can probably catch somewhere inside the Excalibur in Las Vegas, it’s pretty much over. Plus, all renaissance fairs are pretty much the same everywhere, so once you’ve seen one, you’ve probably seen a good majority of them.

We were discussing these reasons last night when this little tidbit occurred to us: They’re not renaissance fairs at all. They’re medieval festivals.

The actual Renaissance was an era of advances in the natural sciences, of new musical instruments (like the clavichord and the harpsichord), and the change in paintings from flat, 2-dimensional scenes to ones with 3-dimensional perspective. Improvisation, rich harmonies, and more than the divine 3/4 time in music became acceptable, effectively leaving traditional, monastic chant behind.

The icons of the period were Leonardo da Vinci, Gutenberg, Copernicus, the di’Medicis, Shakespeare, Michaelangelo, and Sir Thomas More. I will hazard a guess here that none of them (or their brethren) spent a lot of time at outdoor festivals. Nay, the activities of the upper classes took place indoors. Parties, group dance, recitals, card-playing, plays, salons, masquerades, musical concerts, and the advent of opera were nearly all held under a roof of some kind.

In the rural areas, however, the Middle Ages still ruled the pleasures of the masses - so when people throw a renaissance fair or festival now, they are celebrating the backward, country folk who had not quite caught up to the activities of the actual Renaissance.

But if you call an event a “medieval fair,” no one would come.

And marketing is everything.