The first time I watched The Jewel of the Nile I might have cried because it was so very bad. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad, but it definitely wasn’t as good as the first movie with Joan and Jack- Romancing the Stone.

This time I watched it and kept finding reasons to cry. I cried to see Michael Douglas so young and far-removed from his battle with cancer. I was saddened to see with my own eyes what menopause had done to Kathleen Turner and I knew full well that it had done the same to me.

I was insulted by the way that middle eastern cultures were represented. I was horrified to watch an action flick about an Islamic madman knowing how many lives have been lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia.

I was reminded of the terrorism in Libya and Iran in the decades between and how we cheered the Afghan people as they fought invasion by our old enemy- the Russians.

Yes, time burns us in our conceit. It burns us for our short-sightedness. It burns our ignorance, but it doesn’t burn it away.