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45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
Remember when we were all laid off? Oh, right, you're 25
Flashback! Lots Of People Have Failed Len Downie

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Ghede
11/24/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
Stabilized video of the assassination.

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postnocomments
11/23/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
These days you don't need to conspire an assassination to rob us of our leaders, if Florida 2000 is an indication. Gosh, sure we at least had closure and Gore is alive and kicking, but the despair I think was the same. And the nightmare that followed almost makes November 1963 pale in comparison.
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@postnocomments: Roger that. The difference between JFK and LBJ was minimal compared to Clinton and Dohbya. With LBJ we had the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Act (and the repubs got the south); with Dohbya we have unmitigated catastrophe.

Sorry to take up so much space, but this is the only topic I know even something about.
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mepo - Robert Cornhole invented it
11/23/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us

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TheologicalSong
11/23/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
I grew up down the street from the Zapruder grandchildren in Chevy Chase, MD. wonderful family.
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purn
11/23/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
was anyone else thrown off by seeing william k. smith's mug on the front page of the times on friday? how old is he now, is he still raping.....does he have other stuff to do?
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PandoraSpocks
11/23/08

@purn: He's with some organization of doctors who do a lot of work in poor countries. Which is like a lifetime of penance.
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lobstr
11/23/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
Now for a happy clip from that day, the morning of the assassination when JFK was down the highway in Fort Worth making a speech to a bunch of folks at the hotel he stayed at. What really strikes me is that he is so enthusiastic and whimsical and charming well beyond your typical politician when it comes to playing to the local crowd. And while I wasn't even alive when this happened, his lil' speech makes me proud to live in FW :D

I cannot imagine what any of those people in that ballroom must have thought later on in the day, after such a fun-natured breakfast with the President.

The clip is chilling in that it captures his last speaking moments, but it also shows that the same horrible day had a lighter side.

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PandoraSpocks
11/23/08

@lobstr: Oh. Wow. Thank you.
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miacates
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
I was in 3rd grade, home from school sick and alone as my mom was getting me medication when they broke in on CBS. I was terrified. Mom came home sobbing. Crazy weekend - Oswald shot on Sunday as my family was at church. It seemed like the world was going to end. That said, I have a relative in the Secret Service who compared tactics then and now and although it really only takes one nut I think Obama is in safe hands.
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Weegee's bored
11/22/08

@miacates: I do too. It's entirely different. You just can't walk up the the guy anymore.
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krismry
11/23/08

@miacates: It takes more than one nut. It takes a direct order for personal protection to stand down.
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@Weegee's bored: You see photos of the scene, and you know something about the mentality of Dallas back then, and you only wonder at the utter stupidity of parading JFK through the downtown streets without even the protective bubble over his limo. What's amazing is his progress through that city to Elm St without being fired on once!
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Bunsy
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
There was no conspiracy theory. I lived in WDC and worked as a journalist, and I am not kidding -- that town could not keep a secret a day and a half, let alone hold something of this nature for 45 years.
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Weegee's bored
11/23/08

@Bunsy: Agreed. Oswald shot Kennedy. End of story. We shoud all satisfy our need for mysticism and irrepressible evil by watching Star Wars over and over.
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krismry
11/23/08

@Bunsy: Jeepers honey! Ever hear of the Manhattan Project? How bout the Green Run? No? Read more! It's fun!
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krismry
11/23/08

@Weegee's bored: That's what I think too.
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@krismry: The Manhattan Project was general knowledge at the time it was going on. Joe Stalin knew about it, if H S Truman didn't. That's sort of why the Rosenbergs were killed, you know. And, unlike the monster CIA/Cuban/KGB/Mafia/Colt Firearms/Hearst conspiracy, that one was later to become sort of established, you know? Name another in world history of the magnitude of the one claimed for Dallas in 1963 which has been kept secret forever ... except for the usual inquiring mindless kooks, of course.
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krismry
11/23/08

@Tremonius: Tremonius I am so glad you are here to set us straight with pure certainty and absolute knowledge of the past. You're right, inquiring mindlessness must end immediately, it's so useless a pursuit. And if something's been kept a secret forever, how would we know it?
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@krismry: I have in my time met up with plenty of people who know with absolute logic many secrets hidden forever from the public. In fact, back in my old home town, we knew with impeccable logic all there was worth knowing at birth! Learning in our day and time indicated weakness, and so none of us ever fell for it. It's like Viagra.

There is a witness to our methods from another small town a few miles to our west: Midland.
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SinisterRouge
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
I do love the Kennedys so. No matter what. I really really do. Their family, though flawed (whose isn't??), was a family that had great fortune and still had the interest of the less-fortunate as the guiding light of their works.

RFK :(

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VoxPopuli
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
That picture of LBJ taking the oath has always fascinated me. The look at Jackie's face just speaks volumes about what she's been through. Horror, grief, fear and a strange "is this really happening" detachment.
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VoxPopuli
11/22/08

@VoxPopuli: um, on Jackie's face. You guys get what I meant.
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HK_Guy
11/22/08

@VoxPopuli: It was a day or two later and it was the same blood-stained outfit.
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krismry
11/23/08

@HK_Guy: Well, you're wrong, Kong. It was an hour or two later and she refused to change out of her clothes because, as she said, "Let them see what THEY've done." She was a pretty close witness, closer than the people who think, as you do, that Lee Oswald, of Atsugi air base and CIA, possibly FBI, almost certainly ONI, somehow managed to shoot anyone that day, let alone all by his lonesome. But truly, believe as you choose, not for me to interfere with anyone's articles of faith or religious beliefs.
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@HK_Guy: What? The picture I thought was the subject was taken on the Love Field tarmac the day of the killing, aboard Air Force 1, preperatory to the flight back to DC. It was a hurried swearing in for continuity, you know. Mrs Kennedy did keep the dress on that day when it was suggested she might change out of it, but she would not. "I want them to see the horror." Gore still on the skirt.
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@krismry: I know it's foolish to go on with this, but I've always been curious about those who make such great leaps of faith on no substance, like Wiley Coyote. The only evidence for all of the claims about the nefarious connections of Oswald are spoutings of one konspiracy kook quoting another. And the quote from Mrs Kennedy is not correct. I remember it from the Manchester account, which is the original, I'm sure. Again: "I want them to see the horror." The notion that someone watching her husband's head explode is somehow a witness to Umbrella Man and Grassy Knoll nuttiness is just more of the same.

"To think he couldn't have died for civil rights; it was just some silly little communist!" Not an exact quote from Mrs Kennedy, but close, and also from Manchester.
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krismry
11/23/08

@Tremonius: Some good points, and appreciate your time to expand on this. Unfortunately is difficult to convey precision of meaning as I did hurried post in attempt at brevity at expense of clarity. Wiley Coyote reference funny, appreciated, but sounds like you're a student of Gerald Poser, so not much use in my bezzling bandwidth to clarify my post. Glad we both care though.
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krismry
11/23/08

@krismry: oh i forgot to say this, she wasn't a witness to bystanders but a witness to what happened inside the car. the full stop for example. but enough for one day, maybe by 50th anniversary this will be equally mysterious.
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@krismry: Well spoke. And I was on my way to my smalltown Texas factory job when I turned onto the highway and the news came over the radio. It's even more frightening when the commentary is casual, as the shock for them was over and they were just going over Parkland Hospital details. I suspect that may have engendered some panic back in 1938 when the War of the Worlds was broadcast; I'm thinking as I'm keyboarding how many missed the preface with disclaimers because they were just switching over from Charlie McCarthy on another station after its first break, and here there's a Martian invasion going on and they're just going over Parkland Hospital details - hey, this is where I came in!
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Tremonius
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
The burdens of proof is with the conspiracy theorists on this one. Every mythological suspicion has been busted by thoroughgoing writers named Poser and Bugliosi. And has anyone ever come up with a plausible explanation as to how Oswald could be advised of a job at the Depository by his wife's friend and benefactor sometime before the parade route for JFK had even been set?
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apocalypse-nowish
11/22/08

@Tremonius: He got that job like a month before. And that stupid woman made sure to point Marina right to the cops as soon as it happened, and made sure to tell everyone about how she saw Lee do this, and saw Lee do that. How interesting it is that she was right there to see all of these things happen.

And Bugliosi's book was so horrible and so literally heavy (as in full of shit) that it's only been actually published a few times. It is considered to be one of the worst-selling books in the past few years. The Bug Man has no idea what he's talking about.
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HK_Guy
11/22/08

@Tremonius: Oswald did it. End of story. Those theories have gotten really boring.
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@apocalypse-nowish: I haven't read Bugliosi's opus. Maybe nobody has. (Have you? Then how can you describe it? Name a fact he misses.) But I did read Case Closed, and it is. But you have to close your eyes and tiptoe over a lot of tulips in order to enjoy this particular conspiracy fantasy. The rifle was traced to Oswald, was found where he worked with his fingerprints upon it, and he was the only employee working that day to be missing when they were assembled. He also shot Officer Tippet near where he was captured. But this all begs the first question: How was it, regardless the tactics or memory of Mrs Paine, she informed him of the School Book Depository job long before the JFK team had any idea of even going to Dallas, and the route past the Depository was not set until the day prior!
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Tremonius
11/23/08

@HK_Guy: It's childhood skepticism run wild to make a good story, like kids first realizing Santa Claus is a parental plot, then deducing from that there really ain't no such thing as parents.
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RonnSicTorossian
11/24/08

@Tremonius: the motorcade route was published in the newspaper, which is how Oswald heard about it.

It was just a bizarre coincidence that the route happened to go by the place where he worked.

Just saw it on a doc tonight.
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Tremonius
11/25/08

@RonnSicTorossian: You won't believe this, because it'll read like another of those post-premonition stories, but I recall seeing the route published and thinking, this sure doesn't seem too smart. But, then, I knew the area, and I guess Camelot didn't.

And I love to play around the station long after the train has left. These old threads are like ghostowns.
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Triborough
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
LBJ did it.
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Xylo
11/22/08

@Triborough: He wasn't a corrupt hack from Chicago; therefore that's impossible.
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naugahydeinplainsight
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
Really curious to see how Mad Men deals with this next season and how it effects the various characters and arc of the show.
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Saxon 212
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
I arrived in Hololulu on November 22nd 1980. I have been in this country exactly 28 years.
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Shelwood
11/23/08

@Saxon 212: Happy Anniversary.
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Xylo
11/22/08

In reply to 45 Years Ago, JFK Left Us
The assassination may have imprinted my first vivid memory of my mother - sitting on the sofa sobbing her face off in front of the TV, tiny me watching from the doorway. I think it affected my feelings about her from that moment on, in that way only Alice Miller "gets". :((
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