Yes, you should eat one. (Marco Secchi/Getty Images)

The delightful strips of deep-fried dough pictured at the right are called chiacchiere, and they’re served during Carnival in Venice (happening right now!).

In Italian, chiacchiere means “gossip,” which is, like, the perfect word for deep-fried dough — ’cause we all know how deep-fried dough goes down (deliciously), particularly when it’s dusted with powdered sugar (a sprinkle of guilt).

During Carnival, you’ll find various versions of deep-fried dough treats around, and you might as well eat ‘em while you can, particularly if it’s Fat Thursday, which the Florentines once called Berlingaccio — another Italian word that has to do with running your mouth. According to writer Elena Kostioukovitch et al, belingare meant “to chatter, prattle or jabber” on about something, particularly when your belly is all filled up with wine, deep-fried doughy goodness and other foods.

And that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do on Fat Thursday: run your mouth while you stuff your mouth. Sounds like a wonderful way to spend a day.

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• Romantic comedies: I like them. Holly doesn’t. But, as she describes, she’s a more idealistically romantic person in real life than I am.
• “Jerry McGuire“
• In a 12-year study of couples, the ones that believed in love at first sight and characterized their relationship that way disproportionally split up after about 7 years, as all the relationships in the study cooled
• My love/hate relationship with romantic comedies and the idea of love at first sight
• The idea of finding “the right one” and relationship destiny
• Dysfunctional relationship beliefs that tie in to the idea of relationship destiny, including the Relationship Belief Index (RBI)
• Brain chemistry and love
• How many young people look to movies and TV for relationship advice, as opposed to their mom or dad
• Long-distance relationships
• The way movies and TV show the best parts of new relationships and the best parts of established relationships happening simultaneously
• The connection between media consumption and belief in relationship destiny
• Cultivation theory, social cognitive theory, and how they relate to relationship knowledge gleaned from movies and TV
• Lindsay Doran on what viewers want in movies
• Moves are so wrong about romantic relationships! But so right about friends with benefits.
• The giant list of romantic comedies I love that was written in my notes during recording: “Serendipity,” “While You Were Sleeping,” “High Fidelity,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Harold and Maude,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Chasing Amy,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “About a Boy,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Annie Hall,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Before Sunrise”/”Before Sunset,” “Amelie,” “Sideways,” “About a Boy,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “Waitress,” “Kissing Jessica Stein,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Groundhog Day,” “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” “As Good As It Gets,” “Shakespeare In Love”
• Our opposing readings of “High Fidelity“
• My inability to answer Holly’s question of what is the most romantic movie
• Holly’s is “Empire Strikes Back“
• “When Harry Met Sally” as a bad act to follow
• Whether “Breakfast at Tiffany’s’” is a romantic comedy
• Don’t watch “The Truth About Cats and Dogs” with your mom.
• Avoid romantic comedies if you’re unhappy about your singlehood: actual sound advice
• Go watch “The Straight Story.”
• Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! Movies are messing up your head.
• Listener mail! It’s from Jeremy on our Play It Again, Sam episode.
• How Marriage Works, How Love Works, Is love at first sight possible? and Love Potion No. 9: Top 5 Love Chemicals in the Brain

My research:

• Hazan, Cindy and Phillip Shaver. “Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 52, No. 3 1987
• Holmes, Bjarne M. “In Search of my One and Only: Romance Media and Belief in Relationship Destiny.”
• Holmes, Bjarne M. and Kimberly R. Johnson. “Where Fantasy Meets Reality: Media Exposure, Relationship Beliefs and Standards, and the Moderating Effect of a Current Relationship.” Social Psychology: New Research.
• Johnson, Kimberly R. and Bjarne M. Holmes. “Contradictory Messages: A Content Analysis of Hollywood-produced Romantic Comedy Films.” Communication Quarterly. Vol. 57, No. 3, July-September 2009.
• Shapiro, Joan and Lee Kroeger. “Is life just a romantic novel? The relationship between attitudes about intimate relationships and popular media.”

Holly’s research:

• Perfectly Happy, Even Without Happy Endings
• Rom-coms ‘spoil your love life’
• Contradictory Messages: A Content Analysis of Hollywood-Produced Romantic Comedy Feature Films
• Are Romantic Movies Bad for You?

Episode link: Did movies ruin love?

You can follow PopStuff on Twitter at @PopStuffHSW, and you can keep up with us on the official PopStuff Facebook page.

Out of curiosity, I decided to look up what the average police chief salary is in the United States. According to salary.com, the median base salary for a police chief is around $100,000 per year. For West Virginia, it’s a bit lower — right around $83,000 per year. That’s certainly a comfortable salary but I’m not sure it’s out of line for a job that includes organizing and leading a group of law enforcement officers who, as part of their job, could be put into deadly situations on a regular basis.

Further, much of the information posted by the group was already publicly available. It just wasn’t collected in a single database available to the public before now. But let’s set all that aside.

If there is any justification in the group’s actions — if police in West Virginia have been guilty of victimizing citizens — addressing the problem through official channels can be complicated. It also tends to be a slow and thorough process. This is by design — rushing to mete out justice can sometimes lead to very unjust outcomes. But having to wait for wrongs to be righted isn’t easy, particularly if it looks like the system is protecting its own agents even if they’re in the wrong. We tend to want our gratification to fall into the instant category. I think that’s one reason why vigilante fantasies have been so popular.

Vigilante fantasies are nothing new. Our mythology is packed with stories of people who take it upon themselves to right the wrongs of society when institutionalized approaches can’t  help — or are part of the problem. Just look at tales about Robin Hood, Batman or Hello Kitty. Well, probably not that last one, but I have a feeling she could really mess you up if you got on her bad side.

But usually vigilante activity stays put in the realm of fantasy. There are only a few examples of people actually becoming a vigilante in real life. For one thing, the complications of such a lifestyle choice are many and it’s likely you’d be caught and put away shortly after your first outing. At least, that’s how it’s been until fairly recently. Computers and the Internet give average citizens access to far more power than they had a generation or two ago. It’s not really feasible for a ticked-off person to don a pair of tights and fight corruption effectively. But to use a computer to infiltrate a network and cause trouble? That’s totally possible.

And that’s what has happened. Whether you think of Anonymous as a group of experienced hackers or a collection of script kiddies (the truth is probably somewhere in the middle — some members of Anonymous clearly know their way around a security system), there’s no denying they and other hacker groups have made an impact. They’ve exposed scandals and have caused trouble for numerous companies, organizations and governments. And even though law enforcement agencies are scrambling to identify and potentially arrest members of Anonymous there’s no sign of them slowing down anytime soon.

Increasing security and chasing after hackers is a reactionary strategy that ultimately isn’t likely to prevail. There will always be more hackers willing to exploit vulnerabilities if they feel it serves a greater purpose. Personally, I think the best response to hacker attacks is to adopt a transparent approach that allows for a reasonably-paced avenue for people who feel wronged to pursue their claims. Making the system itself easier to understand and navigate — and removing elements that contribute to a perception of self-protection — would go a long way to mollifying attackers. It’s when there’s the perception of injustice and corruption that leads to a vigilante mindset. That’s a key factor — the system itself may be free from corruption but if it’s not a transparent system people may come to the conclusion that it’s compromised.

To be clear, I’m not in favor of vigilante justice. Not only do I find it presumptuous to attack someone or something without knowing all the facts, but also I think it’s more likely to lead companies and governments to enact tougher policies that could end up causing an even bigger problem down the road. However, I can understand the frustration of living in a world that seems to favor certain large organizations that at times may seem indifferent to the fate of an average Joe, particularly when it can be difficult (if not impossible) and confusing to fix the problem through legal means. What’s your opinion? Are hacktivist groups fighting the good fight or do they cause more trouble than they solve?

No…not this halftime. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Was it even intended to be political at all? Maybe that’s a better question to ask. By now, you know the one I’m talking about, right? The Clint Eastwood “It’s Halftime in America” commercial for Chrysler. I won’t say too much about this, mainly because I want to hear what you think in the comment section below. However, I will tell you this… 

I saw the ad during the game, and I thought it was so well done that I immediately used the DVR  to watch it a second time. Same thing happened the second time around: Goose bumps on my arms. I’m not kidding. And no, I didn’t hear anything political in there. I just thought it was an inspirational message about the Motor City (finally) starting to gain some strength once again — and I thought the gritty voice of Clint Eastwood was a perfect fit. Simple as that.

 It wasn’t until the following day, when I heard some of the backlash and political commentary, that I realized that others had a completely different experience. And while the ad was pulled almost immediately from YouTube due to some type of copyright claim by NFL Properties LLC, it’s back again, and you can watch it right here, right now:

 “It’s Halftime in America” – Official Chrysler Commercial from 2012 NFL Championship Game

 So now that you’ve seen it, what do you think? Is this a political message or not? I’m sticking with my initial reaction that it’s not political at all.

 Oh, and don’t forget that you can keep up with CarStuff on our Facebook page and on our Twitter feed, too. Let us know what you think!

• My legendariness as a social construct
• Drum corps, specifically Carolina Crown circa 1992
• My first urban legend: I think it was probably Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light? but maybe it was Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe or the pack of biscuits
• The Nestle Tollhouse recipe as shown on “Friends,” “The One with Phoebe’s Cookies“
• Holly’s first urban legend: razor blades in the apple
• The Tylenol murders
• Urban legends reflecting the fears we have as a society back at us
• The one about the mall perfume criminals and the one about the slashers hiding under cars in parking lots
• Waking up in a bathtub of ice
• The ways urban legends are like gossip
• And the hook was still on the door handle!
• My BBS history
• Craig Shergold
• Our love affair with Snopes
• Syringe legends vs. syringe reality in Georgia
• Headlight flashing as a gang initiation and how Holly and I are reluctant to flash our lights with people because what if copycats
• How the Internet has changed the oral tradition of urban legends
• The continuum of grossness and exploding cockroaches
• Halloween urban legends
• Cutting your apples like on “Firefly” for safety
• That show Wilford Brimley was on, which was “Our House“
• The Mexican gnome and chupacabras
• The “American Horror Story” house
• Listener mail from Justin! He wrote on our episode on replay value.
• How Urban Legends Work

My research:

• Best, Joel and Gerald T. Horiuchi. “The Razor Blade in the Apple: The Social Construction of Urban Legends.” Social Problems. Vol. 32 no. 5. June 1985
• Heath, Chip et al. “Emotional Selection in Memes: The Case of Urban Legends.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 18, No. 6
• Fernback, Jan. “Legends on the Net: An Examination of Computer-mediated Communication as a Locus of Oral Culture.” New Media and Society. Vol. 5, No. 1

Holly’s research:

• The transmission and persistence of ‘urban legends’: Sociological application of age‐structured epidemic models
• Analyzing Rumors, Gossip and Urban Legends Through Their Conversational Properties
• The Razor Blade in the Apple: The Social Construction of Urban Legends

Episode link: Urban Legends

You can follow PopStuff on Twitter at @PopStuffHSW, and you can keep up with us on the official PopStuff Facebook page.

A favorite tangled rat tale of mine... (Leonard Shoup Books)

The furniture is chewed and the cupboard raided of every last crumb. Feces litters the house and very walls seem alive with the clawed scurry of diseased rodents.  You’ve evacuated the the children, grandmama and the family dog.

Even now they seek refuge at the church, as you drive your axe into the floor and pull back splintered boards. As you cast your flickering lantern light down on the horror that squirms beneath your home: a dozen worm-like tails knotted in blood and excrement, gleaming mad eyes and the hideous shriek of the Rattenkönig.

In medieval Germany it was a dire omen of plague-ridden doom. Today, it remains more of a grotesque cultural reference and cryptozoological oddity. Yes, in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I enter the lair of the rat king, that fabled, vile mass of tail-tangled rodents. Is there any truth to the legends? Prepare to be shocked by the reality of microbial rat kings and museum horrors.

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

Image source: Leonard Shoup Books

Skull still intact? Follow Stuff to Blow Your Mind on Twitter and Facebook.

Amoghapāśa Five-deity Mandala from 16th century Nepal. (Michael C. Carlos Museum/Emory University)

A world simulated in the mind, where fortresses of bone rise above a sea of blood. Where a pantheon of wrathful and serene deities assemble in precise arrangement.  Where multi-limbed beings dance, cyclopean architecture looms high and a mountain bridges Earth to the cosmos.

That’s the rich world of the Mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”), an artistic visualization tool that allows Tibetan Buddhism ‘s most advanced psychonauts to enter heightened states of meditation.

It’s essentially an imagined palace, not unlike the dreamscape architects in the sci-fi film “Inception,” or the famed “memory palace” mnemonic device that emerged in ancient Rome. Julie and I covered memory palaces in this STBYM episode, but it all basically boils down to employing spatial memory to memorize information by placing it all in an imagined “palace” filled with memorable symbols.

East Asia scholar Dan O’Huiginn provides some interesting commentary on the concept of Mandala-as-memory-palace in this wonderful post. He even argues that the deities in a Mandala are themselves parts of the memory palace, their various physical characteristics all symbolizing Buddhist doctrine.

I recently attend Emory University’s “Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism,” so all of this is still bouncing around my head. The Atlanta exhibit (running through April 15, 2012) provides fascinating insight into Mandala tradition, and you’ll even get to witness the live creation (and destruction) of a sand Mandala by actual Tibetan Monks if you drop by before Feb. 11.

I love the cosmology of Mandalas. I love the art. And, having recently researched the future of virtual sex and the Living Earth Simulator for HowStuffWorks, I found the concept of Mandala computer models rather fascinating. What was once simulated in the mind comes to simulated life inside the virtual world.

I’ve included some video clips of computer Mandalas here. Think about them. Might future virtual worlds be used for more than mere escapist fantasy and hedonistic indulgence? Might we use them to attain spiritual liberation?

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

Skull still intact? Follow Stuff to Blow Your Mind on Twitter and Facebook.

You could say the red scarf comes in handy for mopping up blood but according to SanFermin.com, it has a religious significance.  Priests dress in red to honor martyrs, such as the original San Fermin.  Also during a terrible plague in 1599, residents of Pamplona placed a red scarf on the chests of the sick to symbolize the five wounds of Christ and it apparently helped to cure them.

At any rate, the red scarf is an older custom than the white clothing, which was actually popularized by a mayor of Pamplona in the 1960s.  Even if you’re not going to run in front of the bulls, but want to take in the rest of the fiesta, you’ll still need your outfit, which is sold cheaply all over the city.  Experts advise having a few sets of shirts and pants since you’ll probably get drenched in red wine and sangria.

Want to see the actual event?  Check out this video link:

http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/video/pamplona-bull-run.htm

Practical Info

Getting there:  Since hotel rooms and tickets are so hard to get during the San Fermin festival, your best bet might be a package tour. However, if you want to do this on your own, fly to Vitoria airport and take a train (an hour’s trip) to Pamplona.  Or fly to Barcelona, Zaragoza or Bilbao airports and then take a flight to Pamplona.

When to go:  The even always takes place July 6 to 14.  The running of the bulls starts the morning of July 7 and runs through July 14.

Cost:  It’s free to participate or to watch from the sidelines.  Expect to pay hundreds of dollars for a balcony view or a bullfight ticket.

Have you ever been or participated in the Running of the Bulls and lived to tell about it?  Let us know!

You can find the Coolest Stuff on the Planet podcast on iTunes and at the RSS feed.  Follow Coolest Stuff on Twitter  and on Facebook.

A couple has their wedding photo taken in Brooklyn Bridge Park. (George Rose/Getty Images)

I was reading up on city parks yesterday and came across a BMW Guggenheim Lab Q&A with landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, who designed Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York. Apparently, 13 years ago, when the park was just a proposal, it was fairly controversial, and not everyone was in support of the concept. But at the first meeting about the park, a woman about 80 years old got up, shuffled to the microphone and said something like this, Van Valkenburgh told the Lab:

“I’m an old retired lady and I don’t have money to go to the country anymore. And the one thing that I want you to let me do in Brooklyn Bridge Park is go down to the edge of the water at night and put my toes in the water and to see the reflection of the moon in the night sky.”

“It almost made you want to burst into tears,” Valkenburgh told the Lab, which is exactly what I almost did when I read that quote.

Ultimately, I guess all city parks probably attempt to have a heart just like this elderly woman’s. Since I was thinking about city parks, I came across a few lists of the best ones, which you might want to peruse, including this list put together by Project for Public Spaces, this one by Atlantic Cities and this one by Travel and Leisure.

Where’s your favorite park, and does it have a soul?

Back then, armed with an entry-level job — and its matching salary — and facing student loans while trying to save money for graduate school (I was taking a break between academic stints), the idea of actually getting to go home with a painting, sculpture or mixed media piece in tow was unthinkable. So, I did the next best thing — I collected artists’ post cards. You know what I’m talking about — the awesome cards that depict one (or more) pieces of the featured artist’s work.

At first, I kept them in a box — picture a large recipe box — that I cataloged the cards in by type (pottery, glass, paintings, sculpture, mixed media, jewelry, etc.). Eventually, I started posting my favorites in my office and at home. I’d create interesting collages by tacking them to a large cork board or French memo board. And a few very precious ones found their way into decorative photo frames displayed on a book shelf or wall. For those, I’d put a small label on the back with the name of the artist and the studio where I’d seen their work. I did this so that when a friend or family member took notice, they’d be able learn the artist of the piece. This actually led to a few purchases — by friends and, later, by me.

Over the years, I’ve collected many of these cards from galleries all over the country. And although I eventually graduated from gathering these small marketing pieces to purchasing the occasional print, piece of pottery or glass, I still do collect the cards. They’ve inspired my own art at times. They’ve become place holders of fond memories. And they’ve proven helpful when looking for special gifts for loved ones.

A few years ago, after attending an out-of-town wedding, we found ourselves on a gallery crawl in an artsy mountain town. There were tons of great artists and I collected my fair share of cards and we even picked up a few modest pieces of functional art (a pottery vase and a platter). One painter’s work (Sarah Faulkner) really resonated but, unfortunately, the gallery didn’t have any cards representing her work. And they didn’t have any prints, either. I jotted the artist’s name on a scrap of paper along with a brief description of the paintings I’d seen and stuck it in my purse — planning to Google her when I got home.

Sometime later, I found the scrap of paper and posted it to the art board in my office, where it sat unnoticed for more than a year. Lucky for me, my husband went looking for gift inspiration among my collage of artists and found the scrap of paper. You might be happy to note that the art board in my office now has a beautiful, joy-inducing neighbor.

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