JFKool

Just spent two hours voluntarily researching John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America. It's not often I get these urges to educate myself, but I saw X-Men: First Class yesterday (which for the record, sucked), and it's loosely based around the 'Soviet missiles in Cuba' incident that happened way back in the 60's, near the end of the film. If you want to see the suck-ass movie, skip the next few sentences. The movie tells us that the super powered up gangster X-Men all play a part in managing to stop the U.S. from firing at the Soviets, and the Soviets from firing at the U.S., woohoo no World War III thanks to Magneto and Co! Cutting to the chase, I wanted to know if the X-Men really did play a part in the historical event (seeing as I'm positive I was a 60's child in a previous life, remember, I figure it's important to know my roots). Turns out they're not even real - downbuzz.

Also recently read a book about three generations of Chinese women who went through hell in their combined lifetimes, from Chinese empires being overthrown in the 1900's, to Japanese invasions of China, all the way up to Pearl Harbour. 'Wild Swans' by Jung Chang - fully seck book if you're into crazy drrrama intertwined with a bit of history for yo ass.

So! After educating my small brain a bit more, everything is so much clearer! One of JFK's earliest most defining moments as President surrounded the crazy ass Russians planting missiles on Cuba, which is super close to the U.S. It was weird and confusing - were the missiles planted in defence or were they planning some super saiyan nuclear attack on America? Although JFK was being pressured by others in his cabinet to attack their asses, his smart, collected and ultimately correct decision making lead to the retrieval of the missiles. He referred leading with an attack as "Pearl Harbour in reverse". Hence, my connection to ze book!

Both rather weird connections, but they pressed me enough to look into the Kennedy family and the history behind what I thought would be their political hungry lives. Sure, they're not all perfect. JFK was rumoured to be a bit of a dog, his parents tried to send his sister to a Convent - whatever. I'm pretty much in love with the guy. JFKool in my eyes.