A Glorious Fourth

Kim Ode, one of the Minneapolis Strib's op-ed columnists, asks what flying the flag means to us. Turns out that the act of flying the American flag is these days interpreted by many as signifying the flag-flier's support of the war in Iraq and of the Bush administration. What th'...? Of that particular spin I had never heard, but it doesn't surprise me one bit. Read the Kim Ode column, including many responses to the question of Why Do You Fly The Flag?

Link

Know what? Gonna fly the flag anyway. Dumbya and his cretinous gangsters don't own the American flag. I do. And you do. We all do.

Also today, symbolically thumbing my nose at that #ucking nitwit, I made a flag cake, or flag pudding, or flag ...layered dessert ...thingy. OK, so I just checked, and I guess its official name is Wave Your Flag Cheesecake. Yeah, it calls for a tub o Cool Whip topping. And for lots of red Jello. Deal with it, my all-natural purist pals -- the picture just looked too damn good. This recipe called out to me; nay, more than called out, it verily demanded to be made! I salute you, Red Jello Cool Whip Layered Dessert Flag Thingy!

In other news concerning the food we ate today: Slaves to consumerism that we are, we partially recreated Slate's hot dog taste test. As there is no way I would touch one of the tofu franken-franks the Slate testers had to endure, the only two brands we used were our current fave rave, Hebrew National Beef Franks, which came in second in Slate's test, and the Slate winner, Nathan's Skinless Beef Franks. The results: Couldn't choose one over the other. Both are juicy-greasy -- but in a good way!-- with great mouth-feel, and just the right amount of garlicky, spicy, salty flavor. Yum. Best. Hotdogs. Ever.

So, in the evening the boys biked down to the local celebration at Round Lake and hung out with their respective peeps, mostly at the Democratic Party booth. The hub and I stayed home and offered comfort and protection to Bandit, our 80#, 11-year old, dynamic and heroic dog who is afraid of only one thing in this world, and that one thing is fireworks. Poor pup; he was trembling so violently that petting him was like putting your hands on a vibrating Happy Fingers massage mattress (you know, those coin-fed conveniences in cheap motel rooms of yore.)

After the kids returned home at about 11pm, we ate the fabulous flag cake/dessert/thingy, and it was indeed fabulous. Then we all watched THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, and I had the great enjoyment and satisfaction of seeing my kids discover for themselves one of my alltime favorite films. They were just blown away by it. Talk about the perfect movie to watch on July 4, 2004!! .. No wonder the remake is going to be opening in theaters in a couple weeks. Just in time for the national conventions!

I hear the remake shifts the locale and time to the first Gulf War. Hmmm.... actually I don't know how they're going to get by with calling it the Manchurian Candidate this time. From the locale shift, I'm surmising that they might want to call it the ...uhhh .......How about the SaddamHusseinian Candidate? the BinLadenian Candidate? Whatever; the word "Manchurian" would seem to make the whole thing a bit dicey 42 years after the original was made. Wonder how much the remakers will adhere to Richard Condon's novel? We'll see how they handle those pesky little details. Casting sounds pretty darn good to me, with Denzel taking the Sinatra part, Liev Schreiber playing Raymond, and Meryl Streep playing Raymond's mom. Yikes!! You just know La Streep is gonna rip up the screen, but even she will have a hard time topping Angela Lansbury's performance. Definitely the mother of all monster-mothers, that part.

Hope everyone's had a happy and glorious Fourth. Remember: we are not playing a game of Capture the Flag, folks. Don't let Bush/Cheney and the rest of that gang of jackbooted thugs hijack the Stars and Stripes. FLY THE FLAG.



Cross-posted at Tild~