March 17th is St. Patrick's Day.

While I'm not into the whole "let's drink ourselves stupid 'cause it's the Irish thing to do," I'm at least down with Ireland having it's own holiday here in the states. My last name is synonymous with the Emerald Isle and I have a certain amount of pride for my ancestral roots.

March 17th 2005 is also the day on which the film "V for Vendetta" was released theatrically here in the U.S. You may wonder what these two things have in common ... and I'll tell you!

Well, aside from the fact that I think both things are great (VfV is a fantastic book I advise everyone to read at least once), there's some serious historical irony to the film opening on St. Patrick’s Day.

For those who don't know, V for Vendetta was written in the early 1980s at the height of the Thatcher administration in the UK. It was a neopuritanical and ultraconservative government, not unlike today's Bush administration. Alan Moore (the writer) devised V for Vendetta as taking place about the year 2000 or so (we're living in the future!) and a government that’s taken total control controls Britain. It's a step up from Orwell's 1984, but not a huge difference. V, the unnamed character in the Guy Fawkes mask (check my photo to the left) is a terrorist trying to break the grip this government has over its people. I won't go into details because I'm hoping you'll read the book and enjoy it as much as I did.

Anyway, this is funny because the film is being released on the day we celebrate Ireland. As most people are aware, Ireland is one of the first major nations to attempt to break away from the United Kingdom several hundred years ago. They didn't have the most success at it and struggled for hundreds of years under the crown, but they did finally secede from Britain (though I won’t go into the whole Ireland vs. Northern Ireland deal 'cause I'm not touching that with a 10 ft. pole).

So a film about rebelling against an empirical British government is being released on the day we celebrate a country that spent hundreds of years and millions of people trying to break away from an empirical British government. The irony is just too good to pass up. It’s hilarious!

And remember, as V says in V for Vendetta, "people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people."

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the "V" in the title does not stand for the character V in the book/film. It has two meanings. The most obvious is that during World War II the slogan the Brits used to unite everyone was "V for victory." This was accompanied by putting two fingers in the air in the shape of a V. This was later usurped by Americans to mean "peace."

The second meaning to V is the Roman numeral for 5. Guy Fawkes Day is November 5th in England. V wears a Guy Fawkes mask and Fawkes himself was a rebel against the British Empire in, I believe, the 17th century. Another one of V's lines states, "Remember, remember the fifth of November..." Apparently, this is the beginning to a popular poem in England that describes Fawkes and his actions.

Now you know ... and knowing is half the battle.