Happy Towel Day!

Why do I want to see Pearl Harbor? I don't like war movies much, I can't stand empty, overly emotionally manipulative movies (which is why I like so few Spielberg films) and Pearl Harbor is getting incredibly bad reviews. It looks to be everything I hate in a movie, has been over-marketed in Disney's inimitable fashion (multi-million dollar premiere party on a fucking aircraft carrier in Pearl Harbor when Disney is lopping off employees' heads, for G-d's sake) and has none of the actors that would pull me in to see the worst of movies.

But.

I'll be damned if that self-same marketing that usually revolts me isn't pulling me into the theaters. Then again, I kinda wanted to see Armageddon and I managed to resist that. So far. (I even find myself drawn in by that Aerosmith song, though I think it's schmaltzy in the extreme.)

Someone please save me.

As announced yesterday, Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords is leaving the Republican party to align himself with the Independents. Excuse me while I dance a happy little jig of joy.

So many things about this story make me a very, very happy person, but I'll just mention three: the shift in power in the Senate (I thought we'd have to suffer through UnPresident Dubya's bullshit unchecked until 2002, when I was pretty sure that the Senate elections would bring the Dems back into power), the fact that Jeffords seems to be a politician with courage, honest conviction and integrity (so rare, nearly makes me want to move to Vermont) and the fact it's disposing a couple of my least favorite Republican senators from their chairmanships (see sidebar).

I swear, I'm as giddy as a school-girl. But this was a horrible time for my favorite politically-minded journaller to take a holiday hiatus. (A number of his entries featured sections that started with the sentence, "What has Bush done to piss me off today?" Gotta love that).

Well, I'm off to have a unexciting, yet no doubt fun and exhausting, Memorial Day weekend. Everyone, no matter what you country you live in, have a fabulous weekend.

And please remember what Memorial Day is truly about. Had family history worked out a little differently, my father could very well have been one of those brave servicemen that was killed in Vietnam. Those of you who have lost family and friends in wars, my thoughts are with you and yours. Those of you who have or had loved ones in the military that survived, remember to thank God for bringing them back to you, as I do nearly everyday. And those of you who have never come close, I pray that you never have to even think it. And that our current UnPresident's idiotic "foreign policy" doesn't bring us close.