holy crap!

its popcorn outside. we're getting his by massive amounts of golf-ball hail here in fair oaks. they're big enough that they haven't started melting on the roof of the parking garage yet.

the north office windows still have 0 visibility.

damn...

i think today's basketball matchup's been cancelled. oh well.

well, that was short...

its pretty much gone. yeah, already. all we have now is some lightning to the east at the trail end of it, moving towards the beltway & DC.

but, damn...

good quote

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
-- Susan B Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)

Disney and Historical Events...

In ARF, Seth H Holmes wrote:
> There were rumors that Disney wanted to buy KRF in Carver, MA a few years
> back. (Maybe it was because the plot was so Disney.) But TRF and Sterling
> are very different faires (or so I'm told having been to neither).
>
> Most people expect if Disney bought a Ren Faire, it'd turn into wussyville.

Actually, dark or bright, the innacuracies in most Disney historical works (and the deviation that their fairy tales have with the original Anderson or Grimm stories) is what concerns the "critics".

Take the two versions of Davey Crockett's story that they've produced (the TV series of the 50s and the recent Alamo flop). Both portrayed a Crockett of extremes. The 50s was extreme niceness and honor and dignity, and the 2004 was extreme humanity to the point of frailty, a flawed character not worth any sympathy or memory at all.

So where is the balance? Where is a REAL person in the two portrayals, the person who's (real) actions created the legend?

And if Disney can so screw up a single historical figure, of which much is written that contradicts BOTH portrayals, what will they do with an entire era?

Or all of history itself? (the main gripe, besides traffic, against them and their american historical park they were going to build near Manassas, VA in 1996)

Now, mind you, EVERY faire has positively tainted the renaissance, particularly foreign relations, Elizabeth's public niceness, and Henry VIII's popularity. Add to that better plumbing, cleaner food, and street people who've actually showered in the last 24 hours.

Certainly NYRF's Robin Hood, and the many fantasy kings that some faires like CRF have, are realms which pretty much state to anybody in the know that a Renaissance Festival is hardly "Living History" or "Historical Reenactment".

But if Disney were to get in on the act, the criticisms will be 10 times louder, and could hurt the other faires for their lack of accuracy in the process with all the attention brought to them over the issue.

So Disney getting into the rennie business is NOT something that I would like to see...

quote

"It’s been my observation that the fastest way to get voters to approve special local sales taxes for education is to threaten to cut athletics." --
Reed A. Cartwright, in a comment at Panda's Thumb.