What did the Mona Lisa ever do to you?

Why are people attacking the Mona Lisa?
Sure it's in the most disgusting museum in the most disgusting city in the world, but it did not choose it's home.
I hate Paris. The rest of France is wonderful and I would be mind numbingly happy on the Riviera, but Paris is a city of Hate. The closet thing we have in the states would be West Palm Beach, Miami, Naples triangle.
In Paris they hate you for not being Parisian. They stand in their Levi's and berate America and Americans. They will personally insult you for Government actions. I came to the aid of a poor Canadian being attacked for a cheese import tax. In the Louvre I was sent to the restaurant ten times while looking for the rest room. No, don't look at me like that, I knew to ask for the WC. The staff was laughing at me, another Frenchman came to my aid. He took pity on me and explained that they did this to tourist all the time. He was from Normandy and loved the English and Canadians and Americans. I bought him a truly great coffee while my family shopped the insanely overpriced and over large gift shop. He was very happy that we were leaving Paris the next day.
But I digress. The Mona Lisa is very small in real life. It's behind very thick glass, behind a very imposing rope. The Mona Lisa is impressive because of it's age and the little smirk on her face. When you think that 500 years ago a man found a hooker and ground up rocks and sea shells and whatever else was needed to make paint, then sat for hours painting the hooker, and today it's still culturally relevant. Well that's just amazing. But after moving around a few countries and watching the fall of the Catholic Empire, people are now taking flash photos of the Mona Lisa and throwing mugs at it.
The best museum I went into in Europe was in Rome. They had a sorta Renaissance gone wrong room. It was a long, long narrow, high walled wonder room. It was filled, absolutely filled with green Madonna and Child paintings. When they mixed the paint way, way back in day, if you got the wrong egg ratio, after a few decades all the white paint turned green. I was enchanted with that room. Once you realize what happened and could look around the vampire mother of god, there was some amazing art work, that could never be loved, the way the pretty Christ Children would be. A Docent in broken English explained what had happened with the paint. She went on to say that the artist would have never known what had happened with the limited life span of the day.
I like Rome. It's dirty and expensive but the people are happy and proud of their city. Not like the people of Boca Raton.

marriage and idiots

So I've got friends who are married. Some have been married once and stayed that way for years. My Mom and Dad have been married for 46. I have other friends who are on second, third and my Buddy Hopeless is fresh out of five and looking for lucky six. I know a precious few geniuses who never took the plunge.
Me, I got burned bad once and have no need for another try. It's not fun to have a Judge take away your kids, house, car and dog and then leave the debt with you. When I was six I jumped off our back porch onto my tricycle, Cowboy movie style. Only I did not ride off into the sunset, I rode in an ambulance with a broken leg and a future scar on my taint. I never tried to jump on my trike again and see a direct correlation with marriage.
All the people I know who are happily married are happy. In public they are. You can never be sure who is screaming behind closed doors and who is wiping silverware on their ass while the other is out of the room.
But those of us who are single and content are happy all the time. There is nobody to scream at behind closed doors. We can go to places with another person for a dinner or a movie or a drink or dam near anything and then part ways. If we like the other person we can go and do more stuff together and maybe when we spot another person we can do stuff with the new person when the first person isn't around.
It's an amazingly wonderful life.
And that brings me to the idiots. The people who get married and have a couple of kids and then when it spirals out of control they get some other idiot to marry them as soon as the divorce decree is dry.
These are the idiots who aren't happy with themselves. They can't be alone for any length of time. I run across them once in a while and then run away. The Guys always are into something useless. Star Trek, Cars, Sports, something you can spend gobs of money on and still have no direct impact on the outcome. The Women are almost always Mothers, Single Mothers whose kids are their whole life. These people will do anything to be together. It doesn't matter with who.
I've noticed the guys will go for younger chicks with low self esteem. The women will pair up with anyone who shows a little interest, usually with men genetically predisposed to class action lawsuits and second hand trailers.
I love it when two of these idiots find each other. It's best when they are in the other half of duplex or triplex. The arguments always start about money, diapers, school. movie tickets or sports package satellite deals. They move on to unfaithfulness, money, diapers, child abuse, cable sport package deals etc. Then the explosion and the slamming doors the restraint orders and the deputy wasting taxpayer dollars watching him pack up a few Action Figures or signed Caps. And then she starts dating some jerk in a Trans Am with bondo on the quarter panel.
I've sold my share of abandoned cribs and Official Star Trek Doodads taken out of the other side of the duplex after the dust settles. I wore a Devils Hockey jersey for a whole winter before a guy in a bar bought it off my back after explaining what it was.
Marriage truly a gift from the Gods.