On this holiest of America’s fireworks-oriented days off from work, I’d like to talk a bit about how much I love my country.

My parents used to take me to the 4th of July parade in our New Jersey town. I thought I loved my country then.

At the fireworks later that night, everyone would talk about the “grand finale” — when was the “grand finale?” I thought I loved my country then.

But when I was 15 years old, again on the 4th of July, I truly learned to love my country.

Because on that day, at the Warner Quad in Ridgewood, NJ, in the company of a friend with the patriotic and appropriate last name of Hancock, I first saw Independence Day.

The top 10 things I learned that day that I would never forget, after the jump —

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Have you seen the May 5 cover of Time Magazine? Christopher Lambert has seen it, and it’s difficult to tell whether he’s amused or not.

Hey, he’s Christopher Lambert — the man doesn’t have a ton of range. But he does know how to chop someone’s head off.

And now, apparently, so do the season’s Democratically ordained Princes of the Universe, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Oh, I know the temptation is to dismiss the citizenry of the overthinkingit phantasmagoria — guys like Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod (who has a lifetime membership) — but if current trends continue, you’re likely to hear a lot more of this guy in the darnedest places.

The cover, and the future, after the jump –

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AGENT JONES: Spill it, Spitzer.

SPITZER: You’ve got nothing on me. Quit wasting your time.

AGENT JONES: We know you did it. All of it.

SPITZER: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

AGENT JONES: We have the documents, Eliot. The phone calls. The paper trail. We found the Russian one. The Asian one. The Spanish one. We followed the money Eliot, and we found what you did.

SPITZER: You found the Spanish one?

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[This post begins a five-part weekly series by Matthew Belinkie. Come back every Friday for a new installment. —Ed.]

The Movie: Street Fighter

Why It Strains Credulity:

Van Damme was 34, and a former kickboxing champion. Julia was 54, and visibly gaunt from terminal stomach cancer. more »

The authors of Freakonomics posted on their NY Times Blog an invitation for readers to submit a six word motto for the US. Being industrious, the crew of Overthinking It individually submitted some suggestions, which were denied (!) by whoever moderates the comments over there. Here’s the list: more »

This week, I’ve delved into the True Meaning of Rambo in preparation for his (brief) return from irrelevance. Today, I’ll close the series out with a quick look at two great characters Mr. Stallone originated — one has his own statue, and the other languished in condemnation for 20 years. We celebrate the one who feeds us dreams, and we condemn the one who shows us ourselves. more »

Above all else, America is dedicated to the proposition that “what happened to other countries isn’t going to happen to us.” As such, our variations on the tragic hero struggle to buck free of their core restrictions, often with startling results.

John Rambo (the movie hero and cultural icon, inseparable from Sly Stallone) is an example of one such effort — The Reverse Tragic Hero. more »