Okay, let’s get right to it – who assassinated the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Was it:

1) CIA operatives

2) Cuban dissidents

3) Lee Harvey Oswald alone

4) Robert F. Kennedy

5) J. Edgar Hoover and FBI agents.

Let’s hear your vote!!!

Jason Statham is not a man, nor is he a human being. He transcends the categorization of mere mortal, with the ability to shape worlds and break hearts with his fists.

"Statham"

This former footballer/actor/super-lover has a mythos that spans beyond human cognition, on the level of time travel, black holes and European carry-alls. A few brave souls exchanged their lives for the ability to comprehend that which is Statham, and selections from the sagely annal, Variety Magazine, are deciphered — with the help of a Stathamian sociologist simply known as “Arran” — from an otherworldly language of stick figures engaging in violence and strong sexual content:

Excerpts from Book XII:

Statham only has two emotions: relaxed and massacre. When Statham is in the mood for sex, many wonder if he is relaxed or ready for massacre. While Statham clearly is never nervous before coitus, he will tear that ass up something chronic. It’s not a literal massacre, but it’s close.

His tearing up of ass is like him imagining himself brutally beating up a bad guy within an inch of their life — but with his penis. Ultimately, Statham is a tender lover, but you may not walk right for at least a year. This is why Statham is unable to keep a lover for more than a day.

Statham, about to "tear that ass up."

Excerpts from Book XXIV:

Statham’s testosterone-powered seed overwhelm the ovaries so much that their reproductive systems hibernate to recover. It’s what gynecologists have dubbed the “Statham Effect.” It’s also why Statham doesn’t have known offspring, for no Earthly woman has the reproductive organs strong enough to handle the onslaught of Statham’s seed, let alone allow one to fertilize an egg without exploding.

In the unlikely event that a woman’s egg was fertilized with Statham’s sperm, she wouldn’t be able to carry a Statham child to term; the fetus would punch its way out of the womb within a month. This has not deterred many women from trying, though. Unfortunately, the result is always the same: the baby punches its way out, utters “Let’s get CRANKED,” and then proceeds to try and have sex with the midwife. Fortunately, Statham himself has always been there to stop this by killing the baby with a single karate kick to the sternum.

Statham, winding up to kick-kill another heir to the Statham throne.

When the baby attempts to sex the midwife, it kills her with its powerful thighs and the translated cries of “I’d like to offer you one: permanently disabled!” Statham, seeing the threat that the baby poses to his throne of ruler of Fuck City, kills the baby, yells at the dying corpse, “Fuck your mother! I let boss know you shit in Superman’s stomach. Dumb ass!” and flees the scene.

Excerpts from Book XXVIII:

The women that attempt to have sex with Statham are not bright, nor know how to navigate the internet to read the detailed reports of Statham’s seed shutting down their reproductive systems. This is how Statham likes it.

However, with celebrity-obsessed television show Entertainment Tonight — due to an extraordinary and unexpected piece of journalism — linking the trail of dead babies and midwives to Statham, he decides to relocate to a place where the women are gorgeous and don’t know how to use the internet and television: Croatia.

While Statham hatches a plan to eliminate the threat of trashy entertainment television like Entertainment Tonight, he spends his time manipulating his seed to not create life. He tests it by tearing that ass up of every Croatian women he deems “fuckable within an inch of their life.” His plan almost works.

The world, of course, is somehow unaware that Statham is actually immortal – that Statham is everliving. Statham still decides to keep his eternal status a secret just to fuck with everyone, as due to his extreme intelligence he regards anyone with an IQ under 364 as “a dopey cunt.”

Statham, applauding a retrospective of his carnal exploits.

Excerpts from Book XXX:

As another ripping gag, he decides to fuck Italy. Not all the women in Italy: the actual country.

The fucking of Italy plunges the country underwater — a brilliant maneuver as the genetic makeup of Italian women are the strongest to give life to a Statham that could withstand the abuse that the elder Statham can give.

What Statham didn’t know was that the future mother of his child, Lady GaGa, was of Italian and Martian descent. (Anthropologists are undecided on GaGa’s Italian heritage.) Upon meeting GaGa at a party in Fuck City, he was intrigued by her brazen fashion and extraterrestrial mannerism, wanting immediately to mount her like a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Louvre Museum.

Lady GaGa, mother to Statham's seven sons.

As he sawed into her like a jackhammer on pavement, his seed was in for the fight of its life, warring with GaGa’s eggs for hours upon end until they burst through with their tiny fists and feet. The division of cells, creating life, were fought with similar vigor, fighting tooth and nail to give life to the growing Stathams in GaGa’s womb — equipped for carrying strong warriors… and other things…

Excerpts from Book XXXVII:

As Statham stared down the remains of the evil clone of Gabriel Yulaw, a bigger threat loomed on the horizon.

There were seven children in their beginning stages of life, each representing the very threat to Statham’s throne of King Shit of Fuck Mountain of Fuck City, and each would have to come out with guns-a-blazing from the very moment of their human lives — which they would.

As cited in Book XXXI, Passages 24-31:

Statham’s seed is especially notable in the field of biology, because in the incredibly rare case when a woman (such as Lady GaGa) has a womb strong enough to carry a miniature Statham to full term, it actually develops a pair of Glock 9mm pistols during the gestation period – one in each hand. The child is also born with the preternatural ability to wield said firearms with such skill that it makes Lee Harvey Oswald look like a mere patsy. (Indeed, legend has it that the Kennedy assassination was actually carried out by a spawn of Statham lost in the space-time continuum — another natural ability of junior Stathams being the bending of said continuum to their whims — but that is another tale entirely, referenced in Statham 17:29.)

On the predestined day that GaGa was ordained to give birth to Statham’s children, she flew to the remains of Italy and had a ceremonial water birth. The seven Stathams jump-kicked their way out of their restrictive womb, shouting “Don’t pop a blood vessel, you little penis!” to their birth mother, scattering around the world by swimming.

Lady GaGa, in the beginning stages of birthing the children of previous mate Kermit the Frog.

This did not please Statham, who until then was unaware of the survival of the children to term because of GaGa’s lead-clad womb and inexpressive Poker Face. He sensed a disturbance that was brought about the children’s births, and he knew that he had to bring them to their end. But he would need help, for even he could not kill seven Statham’s at once. He turned to the one man who could not feel pain — remembering the wise words of one scholarly man: “pain don’t hurt.”

He dug up the remains of Patrick “Dalton” Swayze.

Excerpts from Book XXXIX:

Statham rejuvenated Swayze with the magical words “Get up, you daft cocksucker!”, causing the corpse of Swayze to reanimate just to chastise Statham over the fact that the phrase “cocksucker” is merely “two nouns combined to elicit a response.” Statham knew that he had found the only being completely fucking hardcore enough to team up with.

After being informed of the situation with the Seven Sons of Statham, Swayze opined “It’ll get worse before it gets better.” Statham, humbled (as much as he could possibly be) by the only man to ever star in a movie more awesome than one of his own, had to agree.

And thus the greatest, toughest, mostest awesomest duo in recorded human history (narrowly edging out Hall and Oates) was formed with a single goal: seek and destroy the Seven Sons.

So first of all, an apology. Over the past week and a half, I’ve been totally unable to keep this up. BUT, the good news is, I’m back. And just in time, too.

Tomorrow I’m sure there will be a lengthier post about Copenhagen, and the “dirty old man” I come from. But first…

The Liberals were suggesting today that Stephen Harper would probably rather be anywhere but Copenhagen. I don’t disagree; I’m sure he’s miserable. But in the midst of their Harper-bashing, the Liberals decided to post this:

I really doubt Harper would rather be shot down on live television...

To the Liberals’ credit, they took this down after a couple hours. But this was their way of saying Harper would rather be Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot than be in Copenhagen….

That’s about as ugly as The Guardian calling Canada a “dirty old man.”

The faux outrage circulating the Canadian blogosphere today is directed at a crude, but ultimately harmless, series of badly doctored photographs featured on the Liberal party website. The theme was based on a contest in which Liberal supporters could send in photoshopped images of where Stephen Harper would rather be than Copenhagen, and the images chosen were predictably iconic historical archives of places and events people could instantly recognize.

There’s one with Harper superimposed into an image where cabinet ministers for the Pacific islands of Maldives held a conference underwater in order to draw attention to their country being ravaged by rising sea levels [which is actually kind of ironic]; there’s one with him in a Simpson’s episode with the Stonecutter’s guild; and then of course there’s the one that was deemed so offensive by everyone that they raised a large ruckus and forced the Liberals to take it down. It features the famous photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald being assassinated before his trial in the John F.Kennedy assassination, with Stephen Harper’s face superimposed over Oswald’s.

Personally, I think the photograph is perhaps one of the only clever ones in a series of terribly unfunny, pointlessly dull photos. After all, the expression on Mr.Harper’s enormously superimposed face transforms it into a kind of farcical cartoon image.

Is anybody seriously insulted by this photograph? Seriously? Based on some of the outrage I’ve read and listened to so far, it seems they are. It also seems people are pretty easily offended. I can understand if someone had photoshopped Mr.Harper’s face over the naked girl running from a napalm attack, Kim Phuk, from 1972, or some other kind of serious war crime. That’s not to say that the events surrounding the JFK assassination weren’t serious, but they have been no less subject to invented paranoia and lampooned pop culture jokes than any other political incident.

For their part, the Liberals have apologized and that, as they say, should be that. Yes, I do understand the glaring hypocrisy of the Liberati, considering the hard time they gave the Conservatives over their equally juvenile and pointlessly inane “puffin poop” flash movie. And is anyone really surprised to learn that the Liberals don’t abide by their own rhetoric either?

“… [Ignatieff] criticized Harper for what he called the ‘politics of personal attack,’ and the ‘politics of take no prisoners, leave ‘em for dead on the side of the road. We don’t do that kind of politics in the Liberal party.’”

I find it rather unlikely that Michael Ignatieff or Stephen Harper even really know or pay attention to who is responsible for attack ads on their website. If anything, the Oswald oversight and the puffin poop were both green-lighted by war room strategists, and have little to do with the actual party leaders themselves. But they do provide an insight into how low the bar has been set for political discourse in this country. That silly, infantile, and ultimately meaningless caricatures of one’s political opponents is what gets people worked up these days but not, apparently, rumours that Parliament may be prorogued for the second December in a row, says quite a lot about what grabs our attention.

Although Michael Ignatieff has so far refused to apologize, if history is any indication he may be forced to. After all, Stephen Harper issued a personal apology to Stephane Dion over the puffin incident, and I’m sure the Conservative Party hasn’t forgotten about that one. We’ll file that under “important things for the media to watch” over the next twenty-four hours.

Read a fasincating quote from John Kennedy this week, and am wondering what the source of it might be. Any help would be appreciated. It read:

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of truth.”

This is the longest title I have ever used. And it is one of the most absurd of historical fictions. And yet. Is it possible in some other dimension? In some other possible universe? The image itself might well spin out an entire novel. In the viewer.

Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama

Thankfully, President Barack Obama has begun restoring our severely tarnished reputation. Early in his presidency he prohibited the illegal torture techniques that were sanctioned by the Bush/Cheney administration, and he ordered the eventual closing of our prison at Guantanamo. Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced the trial of five alleged terrorists accused of involvement in the 9/11 criminal conspiracy (eight years after the atrocity). Appropriately, the trial will be held in a federal civilian court in New York City. Hopefully, we will soon see an end to all of Bush-Cheney’s open-ended incarcerations without charges or trials. That policy violated our traditions dating back to the Magna Charta of 1215 and our own Constitution, which guarantees the writ of habeas corpus and a speedy trial.   

However, we need to do more. While insisting that his administration won’t violate the Constitution and international treaties, President Obama has done nothing to ensure that these immoral, unethical, counterproductive, and criminal activities won’t be resurrected when the next Bush/Cheney-type administration comes to power. Although prosecutions are not necessary, we need to know why any of the instigators and violators believed that the president was above the law.

Investigations need to be continued by the Congress, the CIA, and the justice department. We must insist on a thorough study and full disclosures. Laws must be passed to prevent the USA from ever lowering itself into officially sanctioning this kind of behavior ever again. Future presidents must be put on notice. The despicable concept that we must use the methods of the enemy to defeat the enemy simply means that neither one of us can claim the moral high ground. As Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon said during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, “We have to remember who we are.”

We can understand why President Obama has been reluctant to investigate those who authorized the use of torture or those who followed orders and personally committed barbarous acts. Democrats in general don’t have that revengeful spirit so typical of the Republican Party. Mr. Obama, himself, seems to have that Clintonesque characteristic of wanting to be liked by everybody, even when (like Bill Clinton) many people are going to hate him for no other reason than he exists. Regardless, a sense of justice demands action.  

Mr. Obama has been particularly protective of CIA agents who committed the acts of torture, even though the USA has been historically unsympathetic to those who “just followed orders”: after our Civil War, there was the trial of the Confederate commander of the Andersonville prison; after World War II, there were the Nuremburg, Germany, trials of Nazi accomplices to the systematic murder of 12 million innocent people; also after WWII, there were the trials of Japanese war criminals (when we executed those convicted of water boarding, a torture procedure that Dick Cheney seems particularly fond of).

President John F. Kennedy

To some of my friends, I somewhat facetiously defended Obama’s reluctance to investigate the CIA’s role in the Bush-Cheney policy. Based on CIA assurances in 1961, President John F. Kennedy approved the Eisenhower administration’s CIA plan to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, an act that was supposed to provoke an internal uprising that would overthrow Fidel Castro. It was a disaster. After learning that virtually nothing the CIA had told him about the operation was true, Kennedy made the mistake of saying, “I wish I could tear up the CIA and throw it to the winds.”

After that, JFK had a major house cleaning at the top of the CIA, but his relationship with the CIA was strained. Nor was JFK ever again completely confident of what the CIA told him. JFK did support the CIA’s coup to overthrow the South Vietnamese president Diem: Kennedy probably hoped to replace him with someone who might institute land reforms that would give the government some popular support. But when the CIA told him that Diem had committed suicide, JFK didn’t believe it. Diem may have been an incompetent president, but he was a devout Catholic.  JFK believed Diem would never have taken his own life.

Some conspiracy theorists have included unspecified CIA agents as among the large, diverse group who hated JFK and who may have been involved in his assassination. Of course, there is probably nothing to it, but how could anyone with Lee Harvey Oswald’s known, suspicious background have been allowed anywhere near Kennedy without being under close surveillance? Regardless, whether or not Mr. Obama has been thinking about this, no president wants to raise the ire of the CIA. He needs the CIA on his side.

Scooter Libby, VP Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff (Scooter Libby, David Addington, Douglas Feith, et al.) are probably the only members of an executive branch that were ever feared by the CIA. They even got then-CIA director George Tenet to change the CIA’s assessment of Iraq’s potential of having weapons of mass destruction to support the Bush-Cheney position. Amazingly, only Scooter Libby has been held accountable for the lies that got us into Iraq – but not directly.

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson

Libby had lied to investigators who were trying to find out who blew the cover of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent for twenty years. Her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had exposed part of the Bush-Cheney hoax when he wrote a New York Times op-ed piece. Wilson made it clear that President Bush was well aware that Iraq had not been trying to obtain uranium yellow cake from Niger as he had claimed. Ms. Plame had been a vital deep-cover agent in acquiring information about Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Also, her exposure as a CIA agent certainly jeopardized her numerous contacts. This was a clear warning by the administration as to what would happen to other whistleblowers.

(I understand that some people oppose the justice department’s investigation of CIA abuses – remember, the FBI refused to participate in those “enhanced” interrogation techniques. Some have claimed that these torturers were our deep-cover spies who operate under various respectable professions in foreign countries. No, agents like Ms. Plame could never do that. That’s not their job; and if they did, it would blow their cover. Anyone to whom they exposed their true identity would probably have to be murdered.)

Once again, it is both amusing and troubling that the same people who object to investigating CIA operatives who engaged in reprehensible interrogation practices never objected to the vindictive Bush-Cheney staff’s destroying the career of Valerie Plame. Hardly anyone complaining now ever cared that Bush-Cheney had deliberately exposed one of our most effective spies in the Middle East. Where were these people when we really needed them?

by David Offutt
A version of this essay was published November 27, 2009, in the El Dorado News-Times as a letter to the editor.

Lee Harvey Oswald posing with his mail order weapons in May 1963

November 29, 1963: President Lyndon B. Johnson forms a commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The Warren Commission was headed by Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren and consisted of Representatives Hale Boggs [D- Louisiana] and Gerald Ford [R- Michigan], Senators John Sherman [R-Kentucky] and Richard Russell, Jr. [D-Georgia], Allen Dulles – former director of the CIA, and John J. McCloy – former president of the World Bank.

The conclusion reached by the Commission after exhaustive study was that Lee Harvey Oswald was working alone. Oswald could not be questioned as he had been shot and killed by Jack Ruby in front of millions of television viewers while Oswald was in police custody on November 24, 1963. Oswald is said to have fired three shots. The first shot struck President Kennedy in the upper back, passed through his body and then struck Governor John Connally. The second shot is said to have missed its target. The third shot struck the President in the head. The total time for the shots was 4.8 to 5.6 seconds.

Was the Commission merely a cover-up? There is controversy over the issue even today. Three later US government investigations agree with the Warren Commission’s finding of the number of shots fired and Oswald acting alone. The 26 volumes of testimony is not without criticism. Only one of the 94 witnesses were heard by everyone on the Commission. The star witness, Howard Brennan, had inconsistencies in his testimony. The Commission found fault with the Secret Service pointing out the total inadequacy of the security.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations felt that there was a fourth shot fired, by someone on the “grassy knoll” based on acoustic evidence. This fourth shot missed, but it meant that Oswald was not acting alone. The debate continues, books and movies have been produced siding with lone shooter or conspiracy theory. We may never really know.

“It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad all that the facts have been told and a statement to this effect be made now.” – Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, November 25, 1963

“What was really drawing me to the material was entirely unresolved feelings I still had from the age of 17. The Kennedy assassination was something that to me made no sense.” – John Weidman

“The ’50s was the last good decade of American history. It was really a 10-year vacation between the horror of World War II and the assassinations [John F. and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr.] and Vietnam War of the 1960s. The ’50s was the last feel-good era.” – Richard Lindberg

“Assassination has never changed the history of the world.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Also on this day, in 1877 Thomas Alva Edison demonstrated the phonograph.

JFK was shot on the 22nd November 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) on the 24th.

After President Kennedy was fatally shot,  Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder. The official idea was that he’d been acting alone, and since they’d got the guilty man, people should forget about it. But there were many inconsistencies, and huge numbers of Americans smelt a rat.

On the 24th the murderer became the murderee. The shooter in these incredible photos is Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner, high on phenmatrazine at the time. He left his dog Sheba in his car on the morning, casually walked to the police station, and achieved what he set out to do. The avenging of  JFK, with a single bullet to Oswald’s chest. He thought he was helping Jackie Kennedy, he said after being immediately arrested. He talked of redemption for the city of Dallas.

Ruby himself died a few years later. His last words were “there was nothing to hide…there was no-one else“. This hasn’t stopped the conspiracy theories on these few days of November 1963. Was LHO part of a great conspiracy to get rid of JFK? Was Ruby part of it too, to get rid of the living evidence? And was he got rid of too, for the same reason?

See John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, and JFK Conspiracy? for more on all this. Are we all bored of conspiracy theories yet? In its defence, this one is a bit more believable than 2012. And with Oliver Stone’s JFK, its got much better movie back-up.

by Means of Natural Selection, or
the Preservation of Favored Tastes in
the Struggle for Life

1—Variation Under Domestication

Peanut butter cups
are eaten in many different ways,
depending on the home in which the cup
is found.

2—Variation Under Nature

A peanut butter cup eaten
outdoors becomes soggy in the rain,
but melts if left for too long in the sun.

3—Struggle for Existence

The first cups were made by H. B. Reese back
in 1928, but he merged with
the Hershey Company in ’63.

4—Natural Selection

You might enjoy Big Cups, but your sister
might prefer Dark Chocolate, or even
NutRageous bars.

5—Laws of Variation

People do not enjoy
their preferred peanut butter cups by chance,
but due to some predisposed condition.

6—Difficulties on Theory

But then, should there not be an infinite
number of peanut butter cup types and
varieties?

7—Instinct

That’s my gut reaction.

8—Hybridism

There are indeed many varieties:
White Chocolate, Caramel, Inside Out,
the cute little mini-cups.

9—On the Imperfection of the Geological Record

It’s quite hard
to keep track of every single cup
you’ve ever eaten.

10—On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings

You may not know this,
but there are actually other types
of candy in the world, and some even
contain peanut butter and chocolate.

11—On Geographical Distribution

I hear those Cadbury guys make a mean
fruit and nut bar.

12—On Geographical Distribution continued

It is interesting
to note, however, that Hershey’s holds a
license to manufacture Cadbury
chocolate products in the USA.

13—Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs

Good chocolate is just good chocolate.

14—Recapitulation and Conclusion

Almost all confections today retain
a common sugary ancestor, and
many still claim direct descent from milk,
cocoa beans, and George Washington Carver.

October, 1963 - My Sophomore Year

Today marks the 46^th anni-versary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, who was killed on this date in 1963.  At the time of his death, I was a sophomore at George Washington High School in Denver, Colorado.  I had recently turned 15 years old, and had begun keeping a diary only the month before.

I watched the non-stop news coverage of the assassination obsessively, waiting for some detail or explanation that would help make sense of the incon-ceivable.  Perhaps more real to me than the image of Kennedy as President was my image of him as a family man.  He was only 46 years old when he was killed.  His beautiful wife Jackie was 34, his daughter Caroline almost 6, and his son John Jr. almost 3.  Regardless of one’s politics, they were our First Family, and their loss was our loss.

Writing in my diary was one way I tried to come to grips with something totally outside the realm of my experience, but not for days would I escape a dreamlike sense of unreality.  With a tip of my hat to the boy I was then, I have reproduced below my three entries relating to this historic event.

Friday, November 22, 1963

What a day this has been.  The events of this day still seem unreal to me.  The date, November 22, 1963 will go down in history as one of the most earth-shaking days in this century.

For me it started quite normally.  I was wakened at about 7:00 o’clock.  I dressed and went downstairs.  Mom took me to school because the temperature was twenty-seven degrees.  Today was to be the day of the Thespian play, “The Late Christopher Bean,” and after fourth period I went directly to the ticket booth to sell tickets.  Nobody was in the booth, and this was strange because someone should have sold tickets fourth period.  The treasurer was there and she asked me to go to her office to get the box which contained the tickets, the key to the ticket booth, and five dollars in change.  As I left for her office, I saw a girl lying on the cement deck by the patio door.  I heard someone say that she had hit her head on a metal banister.  I ran to the nurse’s clinic, getting there just before two other girls.  I explained to the nurse that a girl had been hurt, and left the rest up to her.  I then went to the trea-surer’s office.  When I returned to the ticket booth, I prepared to sell some tickets.  I saw the girl being carried away on a stretcher.  Just then [School Principal] Mr. Waldman’s voice came over the P.A. system.  He said something to the effect that there had been a great tragedy.  At first I thought he was talking about the unfortu-nate girl.  He continued, saying, “The President of the United States and the Governor of Texas have been shot.”  I don’t remember the rest of what he said except that they were both in critical condition.  I was completely stunned.  The blood all rushed to my face and my skin became very hot.  Later, when Karen [another Drama Club member] came into the booth, we said very little.  It was just too hard to understand.  In seventh period we were told that Mr. Kennedy had died.  This only confirmed my belief.  It is still hard to grasp the fact that he has been assassi-nated.  It all seems so unreal.

Saturday, November 23, 1963

I am finally able to grasp the fact that President Kennedy is dead.  Our family has spent almost the entire day watching the television and I am able to relate most of yesterday’s tragic events.

President and Mrs. Kennedy, with Governor and Mrs. Connally, moments before the assassination.

President Kennedy had gone to Texas; although it was classified as a non-political trip to heal the Democratic Party split, most people were sure that it had political connotations, next year being an election year.  He had made a speech in Fort Worth and had then flown to Dallas.  He was in his famous bubble-topped Lincoln Continental with Mrs. Kennedy and Governor and Mrs. John Connally of Texas when three shots rang out.  Two of them hit President Kennedy.  The third hit Governor Connally.  Mrs. Kennedy screamed, “Oh God, he’s been hit.”  The time was 11:30 a.m. MST.  The car then rushed to Parkland Hospital where Kennedy was rushed to the Emergency Room.  The Governor was also rushed to a separate Emergency Room.  Doctors worked frantically for about thirty minutes but at noon he was pronounced dead.  Governor Connally was in critical condition.  President Kennedy had been hit by two bullets, one in the brain, the other in the chest.  Governor Connally had been hit by one, which went through his collarbone, punctured a lung, broke three ribs, and passed out of his body.

There is a prime suspect in the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald.  He is a self-styled Communist.

President Johnson was sworn into office on the plane that carried President Kennedy to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.  He is our thirty-sixth president.

I don’t think whoever killed Mr. Kennedy could have thought about the profound effect it would have on people of the United States and of the world.  Monday is a day of national mourning.  There will be no school in Denver and in most other cities in the United States.  This assassination has so much effect on this nation and the world that it is impossible to comprehend it.

Tuesday, November 26, 1963

Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

There has been so much that has happened in such a short amount of time that it is very hard to grasp the enormity of it.  Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspect in President Kennedy’s assassination, was himself murdered Sunday.  He was being transferred from the city to the county jail when a man, Jack Ruby, stepped out of the crowd of reporters, put a gun into the stomach of Oswald, and pulled the trigger.  Oswald groaned and slumped to the floor.  Police grabbed Ruby and immediately took him into custody.  Oswald was taken to Parkland Hospital, the hospital where President Kennedy died.  He died in a room only ten feet from where Kennedy died.

Maybe tomorrow someone will shoot the man who shot the man who shot President Kennedy.  What a mess.  Who has gained anything?

(Da Il Messaggero) – DALLAS (22 novembre) – Un filmato girato a Dallas il 22 novembre 1963, il giorno dell’assassinio di John F. Kennedy, è stato restaurato e andrà in onda domani sul National Geographic Channel. Nel filmato, scrive il Dallas Morning News, si intravede una figura molto somigliante a Lee Harvey Oswald – il presunto omicida – dietro la finestra da cui partirono i colpi che uccisero il presidente. Il filmato, inserito in un documentario, venne girato nel 1963 da Robert Hughes: riprende l’arrivo della limousine presidenziale in Dealey Plaza, teatro dell’assassinio del presidente.Un fotogramma è stato oggetto di numerose analisi e inquadra il Texas School Book Depository, il palazzo dal quale Oswald avrebbe sparato i colpi che uccisero Kennedy. «Grazie al restauro – spiega Tom Jennings, produttore esecutivo del documentario – si intravede una figura dietro alla finestra da cui partirono i colpi. Io penso sia quella di Oswald». Nel documentario, intitolato The lost Jfk tapes, sono stati inseriti anche altri filmati di quel giorno, tra cui soprattutto quello girato da Orville Nix, che riprese l’assassinio da una posizione opposta a quella in cui si trovava Abraham Zapruder.

.

It’s actually hard for me to fathom that that much time has elapsed since those frenetic days in Dallas.

I was four years old at the time, but I remember bits and pieces from November 22, 1963.    I wrote a post about it two years ago.   In it, I recalled what I remembered from that day and all that I had learned about the assassination since.   I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve read a lot about the Kennedy assassination.   Like many Americans, I am and always will be intrigued about how a transfer of power occured in 72 hours time, with only three deaths:  President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald and Dallas Police Officer, J.D. Tippit.  

But was it a coup d’etat as director, Oliver Stone would have us believe?  

I guess in a way it could be construyed as one,  though as Americans, we tend to deem these take-overs in a far more dramatic sense.   We deem them more as troops ordered by some military junta to storm through the streets of the capital of some banana republic with the order to shoot to kill anything and anyone.   All of this in order to place one man in power.   He’s dark and evil; someone the CIA has had in its crosshairs for years.   He’s almost a caricature.   He wears sunglasses and a military uniform adorned with scads of medal of a leader.  Shiny gold streamers hang from huge epaulets on his shoulders.  It looks like Christmas tinsel.  He has billboards of his likeness everywhere and where he can’t erect one, he has some artist commissioned (or forced at gunpoint) to paint his likeness on the sides of buildings.   He does this to intimidate and instill fear.  He wants there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that his is the face of total, authoritative power.

But coup d’etats in a Democratic state are much more civil.  In this country, they take place in a civil manner, every four years with a ballot box.

But the Warren Commission would have us believe that a singly,  scrawny 26-year old narcissist with a love of Marx and Lenin and a hatred for the Democratic process grabbed a 1940’s made Manlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle (with a bent scope) and from his perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building in downtown Dallas, fired three shots, one which injured the president; the other mortally wounded him.

I am a mere blogger.  I know nothing other than what I’ve read and while I don’t accept the bulk of what the Warren Commission would have me believe.  And since I’ll probably die before ever knowing  the entire story behind all the insanity that happened in Dallas 46 years ago, I have made it something of a mission of mine to seek out little known details about that day; such as the back stories and there were many.    If you’d like to read about what happened to Jackie’s pink suit; the casket that transported JFK back to Washington DC from Dallas and a host of other things, please see that post.  You can read it by clicking here.  

♦

It is isn’t uncommon for me to suffer prolonged stints of insomnia.   Whenever my life takes a surprising course, my sleep cycle  suffers.   Therefore, if you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you’d be able to deduce that I rarely ever sleep.

Sadly, TV viewing (cable and satellite offers little reprieve) isn’t conducive to the insomniac’s needs in the middle of the long, long night.    I mean, if the “Giant Ladder System” and “Lose Two Inches To Your Waist Instantly” are what you deem to be great TV, fine.   But I don’t.

On those long nights when I can’t sleep, I often watch old TV game shows from the early 60’s.   The Game Show Network is good about running the oldies into the wee hours of the morning.

 The grainy, black and white brain child  from veteran TV game show producers, Goodson and Todman, known as “What’s My Line”,  is one of my favorites.    The game show ran for an unprecedented 18 seasons, from 1950 to 1967 on CBS.   It focused on a group of elegantly dressed panel members (women in long dresses; men in tuxedoes) who tried to guess the strange or unusual occupations of  ordinary members of the American public.   

FOR EXAMPLE:   ”Ten down and no more to go.   Therefore, panelists, I’d like for you to meet, Mrs. Iva Lee Finkelstien,  Brooklyn’s ONLY female, one-armed haberdasher who’s also a blind albino with one polydactyl left hand!”

Every time I watch an episode,  I marvel at how formal and civilized everyone seemed back then.    ‘Twas a polite society indeed…or so it would seem.

It was rather pretentious too, and on that, there’s little doubt.

After the show’s intro, a panelist would enter from offstage, assume his or her place at the desk, then introduce his or her  fellow panelists who was seated to his or her right.   

I remember once hearing that obnoxious, gravel-voiced Bennett Cerf,  the publisher and co-founder of Random House, introduce Arlene Francis and that HUGE trademark, diamond heart pendant she’d always wear, by saying that he was “always charmed by her elan and perspicacity”, as if those were two  words were frequently bandied about over the dinner  table in most blue-collar American homes in a post Eisenhower existence.

The panelists for “What’s My Line”, have  always consisted of funny, pithy and well-educated people.   Noted thinker and funny man, Steve Allen was a guest panelist for years, but when he left to start “The Tonight Show”, he was replaced by 50’s comedian, Fred Allen (no relation) and little known Hollywood director, Martin Gabel who was also known as Mr. Arlene Francis would often make guest appearances as a panelist.  I should mention that his wife, the doting woman of Armenian extraction named Arlene,  was known for being a lesser known actress, but a rather prominent radio and TV talk show personality at the time.  

The show was hosted by a man who I can only describe as a seemingly kind and friendly elitist.    TV and radio newsman, John Charles Daly held the honor of show host for most of the show’s18 year run.   He was an eloquent man.   He’d been married several times, but seemed to have found the love of his life in a one Virginia Warren, daughter of Supreme Court Chief Justice, Earl Warren.    This important tidbit becomes a little more relevant later in this post.

But one of my favorite panelist of all time, was that crazy ass Dorothy Kilgallen, the newspaper reporter and columnist.   I’d watch her talk in amazement.   This photo indicates a wide, brimming smile, but in everyday pose, her mouth was tiny small.  I wondered how she ever formulated words and sentences out of   that centimeter wide opening,  which I swear was the tiniest pie hole, I’d ever seen.   

 Not only that, but she didn’t have the personality the other panelists.   The others could laugh and make jokes, she never did.  She seemed more focus on getting the answers right.  And not only that, I thought she maintained such a straight-laced countenance because she had no choice–her expressionless face might break otherwise.

But Kilgallen’s “What’s My Line” stoicism, wasn’t what fascinated me;  what actually enthralled me was her life and especially the way she died.

A little bit about her if I may:   reporting was in her blood.  Her father was a higher up within the Hearst newspaper monopoly.   She had something of a Patrician background and travelled a great bit as a young woman.   She dropped out of college to accept a gig as a reporter for the New York Journal, a Hearst publication, I might add.

Kilgallen covered her share of fluff….Broadway, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and bits of Hollywood gossip, but she was also known as a hard-hitting reporter.    She delved into crime and made some waves;  especially as a female reporter in a world of male dominated news.   She was heralded for her coverage of the Dr. Sam Shepperd murder trial.   The physician was charged and convicted for the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife.   There are those who feel certain that the television series and David Jansen vehicle, “The Fugitive” were loosely based on Sheppard’s story, though this has always been denied by the show’s creators.

But being the Kennedy assassination buff I am, I was always intrigued by Kilgallen’s role in the investigation.    (The bulk, but not all of the following was taken from DemocraticUnderground.com).

For starters, Kilgallen was the only reporter to interview Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby.   Not only that, but she found fault with what the Warren Commission gave as the official story regarding who killed Kennedy…how and why.    Sadly, that became the last  story she ever pursued.

She died mysteriously in November 1965, after being threatened, but the cops never probed further.

She had a good contact within the Dallas Police Department, who gave her a copy of the original police log that chronicled the minute-by-minute activities of the department on the day of the assassination, as shown in the radio communications. This allowed her to report that the first reaction of Chief Jesse Curry to the shots in Dealey Plaza was: “Get a man on top of the overpass and see what happened up there.” Kilgallen noted that he lied when he told reporters the next day that he initially thought the shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository building.

Dorothy challenged the credibility of Howard Brennan (who supposedly gave police a description of the shooter). She wrote articles about how important witnesses had been intimidated by the Dallas police or FBI.

On Sept. 25, 1964, Kilgallen ran an interview with one of the witnesses to the shooting of Officer Tippit whom the Warren Commission never questioned. Clemons told Kilgallen that she saw two men running from the scene, neither of whom fit Oswald’s description.

Dorothy also approached one of Jack Ruby’s lawyers, Joe Tonahill. Surprisingly, Ruby (who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, who was suspected of assassinating John Kennedy) agreed to talk with her. Some have speculated that Ruby would not have told her anything important, but Tonahill strongly disagrees. “This interview with her was a very significant point in his classless life,” Tonahill asserts. He affirmed that Ruby “cooperated with her in every way that he could, and told her the truth as he understood it. It was just a very agreeable conversation between them. I just can’t understand people doubting the sincerity of that interview.”

The attorney, who observed the two talking, said that “I don’t think there was any doubt about it… Jack was highly impressed with Dorothy Kilgallen… Of all the writers that were down there during the Ruby trial — about 400 from all over the world — she probably was the one that, to him, was the most significant.”

Kilgallen never published any information she obtained from her private talk with Jack Ruby, but  many feel she was “saving it for a book.” She was under contract to Random House, Bennett Cerf’s company, to produce a tome that was supposedly going to be a collection of stories about the famous murder trials she had covered.

One of the biggest scoops of Kilgallen’s career came when she obtained the 102-page transcript of Ruby’s testimony to the Warren Commission. Readers were shocked at the hopelessly inept questioning of Ruby by Chief Justice Warren, and by Warren’s failure to follow up on the leads Ruby was feeding him. Attorney Melvin Belli called Dorothy’s scoop “the ruin of the Warren Commission.”   We should remind you that all of this took place at the same time she was a panelist on  “What’s My Line?”.   It caused an uncomfortable riff between Dorothy and host, John Daly.   Don’t forget , I told you to whom he was married, earlier in this post.

Kilgallen claimed to have extremely relevant information gleaned from her private interview with Jack Ruby that could stop the presses.   She told no one, save for her husband, and kept notes with her at all times.   As stated earlier, everyone believed she was saving the news for an upcoming book, bound to be a blockbuster.

But that never happened.

On November 8, 1965, Kilgallen was found dead on the third floor of her five-story townhouse, just 12 hours after she appeared, live, on “What’s My Line”.  Her hairdresser, Marc Sinclair, found her body when he arrived the next morning.   Her death was attributed to  a fatal drug overdose.  What’s interesting here is that no one knows for sure whether her death was considered a suicide or an accidental death.

By the way, the notes on the Jack Ruby interview, the ones she never allowed out of her sight, were nowhere to be found after her death.

In closing, because of her open criticism of the Warren Commission and other US government entities, and her association with Jack Ruby and  that “explosive” 1964 private interview with him, some speculate that she was murdered by members of the same alleged  conspiracy that murdered JFK. Her claims that she was under surveillance by the FBI led to a theory that some people had a motive for killing her. This is partially based on the fact that throughout her career she consistently refused to identify any of her sources

Her death certificate cites the cause of death as “undetermined”.

Incredibly, information from the Freedom of Information Act, accessed by  reporters in the years following her death indicate that the CIA had 53 field offices around the world watching her on her foreign travels. Given this context, it is hard to see her untimely death as a mere accident.

There is no statute of limitations on murder, and there are enough people still alive who know full-well what really happened  in Dallas on November 22, 1963, but will that ever happen?   Will we ever know the complete truth regarding the Kennedy assassination and what’s considered to be its vast  ”cover up”?   Can we or should believe the Warren Commission’s findings?  That Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone?

There are those who have believe there are answers to all of our questions about Kennedy’s murder.  They believe full disclosure will happen in the year 2043 (I’ve also heard the year to be 2028, too).   Those years were chosen for revelation, perhaps to ensure the deaths of every person involved.  I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’d love to think that my great nieces and nephews might someday know what I never will.    Something tells me that if this revelation should ever come to fruition, the list of names and the entities involved would be astonishing and much larger and far-reaching than we ever thought possible.  

Dorothy Kilgallen once wrote,  “Justice is a big rug. When you pull it out from under one person, a lot of others fall, too.”

In the case of the JFK assassination, wouldn’t it be lovely to think so.

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On November 22:

1574 Discovery of the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile.

1718 Pirate Edward Teach (best known as “Blackbeard“) was killed in battle with a boarding party led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

1808  Thomas Cook, British travel entrepreneur, was born.

1819  George Eliot, (Mary Ann Evans) British novelist, was born.

1859  Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species was first offered for sale, in London.

1899 Hoagy Carmichael, American composer, was born.

1890 Charles de Gaulle, President of France (, was born.

1913 Benjamin Britten, British composer, was born.

1914 Peter Townsend, British Equerry and air pilot, was born.

1919 – Máire Drumm, Irish civil rights activist, was born.

1928 The premier performance of Ravel’s Boléro took place in Paris.

1943  Lebanon gained independence from France.

1958  Jamie Lee Curtis, American actress, was born.

1963  US President John F. Kennedy was killed and Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald.

1975 Juan Carlos was declared King of Spain following the death of Francisco Franco.

1977 British Airways inaugurated a regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.

1998  British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher withdrew from the Conservative Party leadership election, confirming the end of her premiership.

1995 Toy Story was released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

2005 Angela Merkel became the first female Chancellor of Germany.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

NOVEMBER 22ND

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