Special Birthday Wishes for TJ

Friend of the site Hilary reminded us today that it is one of the most special days of the year, not only because I had scrambled eggs for breakfast instead of my usual yogurt/splenda/tears concoction. It's Thomas Jefferson's birthday! You may or may not be familiar with our feelings here at MG about TJ (pronounced Teej), but if you are not, let me explain: We f-ing love him, and though we'll be the first to acknowledge his faults (had an affair with his slave Sally Hemmings, had slaves), we'll defend him until the end (she was his beloved dead wife's half sister ok, the situation was COMPLICATED) as a great thinker, scientist (love that copying machine!), architect, President, and all around cool bro. Happy birthday TJ, why today is not a national holiday is blowing our minds.

Our Favorites on Screen: TJ and Oscar Wilde in The Rock

Sean Connery is well versed in combat and literature

I first saw The Rock starring Nicholas Cage (and directed by the pride of Wesleyan University, Michael Bay) when I was ten. I immediately pronounced it the greatest film ever. But after watching it for the first time in a few years, it got better. Already a subtle film with an intricate plot, it has many excellent jokes. (some of the best feature twitching corpses) But Sean Connery's joke in the clip above, which I had missed before, put it over the top. Maybe I missed the joke because I didn't know who Oscar Wilde was the last time I saw it, or I was distracted by Ed Harris's swift 'bow to Connery's neck. I guess I should have expected a witty Wilde reference in a Hollywood blockbuster about a renegade group of marines who hold San Francisco Bay for ransom with VX poison gas missiles, the country's only hope being a science nerd and a washed up James Bond.