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Archive for the ‘Smooth or Crunchy’ Category

Conspiracy Theory Wednesday-WHITEWASH

Posted in Conspiracy Theory Wednesday, tagged , , on July 21, 2010| 1 Comment »

It just gets better each week! This conspiracy theory is unfolding like the layers of an onion.  Week 8 – if you haven’t read the previous chapters, you can look them up under Conspiracy Theory Wednesday in my categories.

President John F. Kennedy's assassination, JFK murdered, Warren Commission, Magic Bullet theory, Allen Dulles

THE WARREN COMMISSION REPORT

THE WARREN COMMISSION

On November 29, 1963, Chief Justice Earl Warren tearfully accepted chairmanship of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.  At the Commission’s first meeting, ex-CIA Director Allen Dulles set the tone for their investigation handing out copies of a book claiming presidential assassinations are always loners.  Ha leads, the Commission took depositions from 552 witnesses, consistently highlighting testimony that supported the lone assassin theory.  While important evidence such as Kennedy’s autopsy X-rays, were not included in the report, dental X-rays of Jack Ruby’s mother’s teeth were.  In September 1964, the Commission concluded that both Oswald and Ruby were lone assassins.

This fixation with squelching rumors of conspiracy resulted in the Commission’s endearing Magic Bullet Theory.  Knowing that Oswald could not have fired four times in the  allotted time span, and having to account for Kennedy’s head wound as well as a bystander’s injuries, the Commission contradicted its own ballistic experts by concluding that Exhibit 399, a bullet found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital in near pristine condition, had entered Kennedy’s upper back, exited his neck, and gone on to break Governor John Connally’s rib, shatter his wrist bone and lodge in his thigh.

Ironically, the Warren Commission’s insistence on lone assassins led to periodic re-examinations of evidence withheld from and suppressed by the Commission, and gave rise to a legion of “conspiracy theories” involving various shadowy figures presumed to have masterminded Kennedy’s murder.

NY Times Kennedy assassination, President Kennedy shot, JFK murdered, Allen Dulles, Chief Justice Earl Warren

The Warren Commission Report

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Six Word Memoir Monday-Your Life in Six Words

Posted in BY THE WAY, Six Word Memoirs, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged on July 19, 2010| 7 Comments »

I bet  you thought I was going to give this up since so few of you sent in a response? NOT – going to keep on plugging away at this and see if I can lure in some more talent.

I did get a submission from one of my friends and followers affectionately known to those who know as Weez:  Thanks much!

Should have attended a better college

Recently as you may have read I had a day in the sunshine in the blogosphere because one of my posts was featured on the SITS (The Secret is in the Sauce) site.  If you are interested in learning more about SITS there is a button on my page which you can click thru to. AND as a result of that day of the 259 hits, I received an entry to our Monday  Six Word Memoir exercise.  It was sent in by Anna of  Goannatree (http://goannatree.blogspot.com/).  Anna is in her own words; Reader. Thinker. Writer. Traveler. Dreamer. Scholar. I’m honored that she stopped by my blog and took the time to send in a Six Word Memoir and her’s is: Dancing around the world and back. If you visit her blog you’ll understand the memoir.

And for this week as I sum up my life in six words:

Two husbands, two children, two lives

Merry Monday to everybody!

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Conspiracy Theory Wednesday – The Other Assassination

Posted in Conspiracy Theory Wednesday, tagged , , , on July 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

We’re in week 7 of exploring the conspiracy theory about the assassination of JFK.  The jury is still out on this with many of us who remember EXACTLY where we were and what we were doing the moment we learned when our President had been shot and died.

RUBY KILLS OSWALD

On Sunday morning, November 24th, millions of television viewers watched in shock as Lee Harvey Oswald was shot dead in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters.  With Oswald gone, the evidence against him escalated.  On the 25th, the Dallas Police revealed they had found Oswald’s palm print on his rifle.  The funeral director later said that police officials had spent hours with Oswald’s corpse, leaving ink all over his hands.

Oswald’s  killer was Jacob Leon Rubenstein, a.k.a. Jack Ruby, owner of a local strip joint called The Carousel.  Ruby’s perfectly timed, unseen access to the basement suggests the complicity of one or more Dallas policemen. many of whom frequented  The Carousel, where they received free drinks and occasional  favors from Ruby’s “girls”.  Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry chose the basement route for Oswald’s transfer to Dallas County Jail despite early morning phone  calls a warning of a plot to kill Oswald “right there in the basement”.  The officer in charge of basement security was Lt. George Butler, whom Ruby had known since 1947.  Like many Dallas police Butler was a KKK man and he moon lighted as a personal security guard for oil billionaire H.L. Hunt.  Moments before the shooting, Ruby concealed himself behind his friend of 11 years,  Detective William “Blackie” Harrison.

In 1963, Ruby’s failing nightclub was for sale, and he owed $40.000 in back taxes.  Three hours after Kennedy’s assassination, he went to his bank with $7000 in large bills.   He then closed his club and for two days stalked Oswald, visiting the police station several times before finally silencing him.   Had someone made Ruby an offer he couldn’t refuse?

Dallas Police Headquarters, assassination of John F kennedy, JFK, The Carousel strip joint, Lee Harvey Oswald,

Jack Ruby

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Nurse Ratched Here

Posted in Smooth or Crunchy on July 11, 2010| 4 Comments »

I am SO NOT a nurse! Not enough empathy, not enough patience, high level of squeamishness and not enough curiosity about the human body and its functions.  If it works, I tend not to pay attention to it.  SOoooo now I find myself playing nurse for Peter.  I know that already this is going to sound rather callous and I don’t mean it to be because the fact is I do care – what I’m really referring to is his inability to be a “good patient” at home.   I believe that you have to do what they tell you to do because they told you to do it for a reason.

sexy nurse, hypodermic needle

This is Peter's Private Nurse

It started with the surgeon, then the RN, then the LPN, then the Physician’s Assistant  and the Nurse’s Aide and even the pharmacist- they all said  “YOU HAVE GOT TO WALK” !!  Apparently walking is the absolute mandate and cure-all for what is ailing him.  If he walks, then the gas they pumped into his stomach will move down and out, if he walks and the gas moves then he will feel better, and when he feels better he will want to eat – of course he can’t eat until the gas does move and consequently he doesn’t eat and takes a pain pill and then he’s dizzy and nauseous and then he doesn’t want to walk or eat.  NOW can you see the crazy merry-go-round we are on?  Also he somehow has misinterpreted the vow of in sickness and in health to mean I am now the RN, LPN and Aide all rolled into one.   Again let me clarify, I am happy to keep track of his meds and when he should take  them and prepare soft foods and keep him supplied with tea, Gatorade, apple juice, ice water and anything else my prince desires.   However, there are some things he really should do for himself.  The nurse showed him how to take care of incisions and how to work with and clean the equipment they sent home.   He doesn’t want to.  He can’t. Uh huh doesn’t this sound like a child who doesn’t want to do a chore you have assigned knowing full well they are capable of doing???  He woke me up at 7:30am this morning demanding that I help him.  When I suggested it was a little early to get up on a Sunday morning, he yelled that he couldn’t stay in bed anymore because he couldn’t stand lying on his back.  This was NOT a good way for us to start the day.

Right now as I sit here typing my frustrations away, he is watching television.   A half hour ago I finally got him out of the house, dressed, shaved and we were to go for a good long walk.  By the time we got to the corner, he said he didn’t feel well.  We walked one block and crossed the street and that was it for him.  He accused me of not being a good wife, not understanding how sick he feels and he wanted to go home.   Let me add that before we went out, I finally got some soft food into him; scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes (apparently he was fine then).    And now that he is sitting in the air-conditioned house he is fine.

THE PROBLEM IS HE IS SUPPOSED TO WALKING 2-3 MILES A DAY!!!

Sometimes a blog is just a rant – file me under raving lol lol.

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Conspiracy Theory Wednesday-Alias Alek Hidell

Posted in Conspiracy Theory Wednesday, tagged , , , on July 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Week 6 of the serialized conspiracy theory about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The Mail-Order Rifle

Oswald was charged with the murder of the President at 1:30am, November 23rd.  The key to proving his guilt lay in linking him to the alleged murder weapon.  The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in the FBI’s possession might not have been the rifle found near the sniper’s nest (that gun had been identified as a Mauser), but it most certainly  belonged to Oswald.  However, despite an adjustment of the rifle’s badly misaligned telescopic sight, no marksman has ever duplicated the speed and accuracy attributed to Oswald and his notoriously  unreliable Mannlicher-Carcano.

The FBI discovered that one A. Hidell, using Oswald’s Dallas post office box, had mail-ordered such a rifle eight months earlier.  When two forged military IDs in the name of Alek J. Hidell were found in Oswald’s wallet upon his arrest, Dallas Police asked Military Intelligence to check their files on Hidell, which they found cross-referenced to Oswald.  That the military had files on Oswald’s rarely used alias, Hidell, suggests they were aware of his gun purchases.    Unfortunately, these Oswald-Hidell files were later “routinely” destroyed before being examined by official investigators.

When Oswald was shown a photo of himself holding a rifle in one hand and a “communist” newspaper in the  other, he claimed the picture, found among his possessions, was a fake, and later hew would show how it was done.  By 1975 three versions of this photo had surfaced, each different than the others, but all with the identical head, and all with mismatched shadows.  Some researchers think Oswald created these photo-montages for a still-hidden purpose.

Oswald's weapon, assassination of President Kennedy, TSBD, Texas school book depository

The infamous Mannlicher-Carcano rifle

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Conspiracy Theory Wednesday – Patrolman Murdered

Posted in Conspiracy Theory Wednesday, tagged , , , , , , , on June 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Week 5 of the serialized conspiracy theory about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

J.D. Tippett

Lee Harvey Oswald claimed he was eating lunch at the TSBD when the shooting occurred and that he left shortly thereafter, believing there would be no more work that day.  According to his landlady, he arrived at his Dallas rooming house 1:00 p.m., changed his shirt, and departed at 1:03.  She also testified that while he was there, a police car pulled up to the house and honked.

Between 1:06 and 1:15, a mile away, Dallas patrolman J. D. Tippett was shot dead next to his car.  At 1:45, receiving a report that a suspicious man had just sneaked into a movie theater 1/2 mile from the Tippett slaying, police converged on the scene.  Someone fingered Oswald, and after a short scuffle he was arrested, gun in hand.  The theater concessionaire later said that Oswald had entered legally.  Meanwhile, police also searched for a 1957 Chevy seen near the murder.

The only witness to the murder of Tippett who identified Oswald in the police line-up was Mrs. Helen Markham.  However, she failed to recognize him eight times until she was asked, “Was there a number two man in there”? to which she responded cryptically, “Number 2 is the one I picked…when I saw this man I wasn’t so sure, but I had cold chills”.  Four bullets were recovered from Tippett’s body – three copper-coated Westerns and one lead Remington, none traceable to Oswald’s gun.  Four shells which did match his gun were sent to the FBI a week later – Two Westerns and two Remingtons but they no longer bore the initials of the policeman who had  received them as evidence.  Did someone plant these unmarked shells to further incriminate Oswald?

J.D.Tippett, John F. Kennedy, JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, composite photo, assassination of President Kennedy, Westerners, Remingtons

Composite Photo JFK/JD Tepett

and there is more…the following is excerpted from a blog by Bongwater.com

The devil is in the details: Tippet was killed 40 minutes after the President and taken to the same hospital, with a bullet wound to his head being the cause of death. Eerily enough, Tippet’s wounds were identical to those reported by the JFK autopsy. Tippet was buried the following day in Dallas in a closed casket. The burial occurred less than 20 hours after he was killed. He remains the only Texas peace officer shot on duty who was ever buried without an autopsy.
An examination of photos of Tippet and Kennedy shows the remarkable resemblance. Could he have been murdered so that his body could be used for x-rays and other forensics available at the time? Was J.D. Tippet ultimately buried at Arlington Cemetery?
As shocking as this may seem, consider the words of Senator Robert F. Kennedy as he viewed the body in the open casket. William Manchester reports that as RFK looked at his “brother” for the last time, he said: “It doesn’t look like him at all”. Manchester’s news story continues, “His eyes full, the Attorney General turned to Bill Walton and whispered, ‘Please look, I want to know what you think.’ Walton looked as long as he could, with a growing sense of outrage. He said to Bob, ‘You mustn’t keep it open. It has no resemblance to the President.’” Arthur Schlesinger said: “It is appalling,…At first glance it seemed all right, but I am nearsighted. When I came closer it looked less and less like him.” And Jackie said “That’s not my husband. It’s not Jack”, and turned away sobbing. These people knew the President well.

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Conspiracy Theory Wednesday-The SNIPER’S NEST

Posted in Conspiracy Theory Wednesday, tagged , , , on June 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is the 4th installment in the detailing of a conspiracy theory about the assassination of President Kennedy.

CROSSFIRE

Thirty minutes after the assassination, Dallas Police found what they assumed to be a sniper’s nest – boxes piled high around a sixth floor window in the easternmost corner of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD).  Three spent shells lay neatly on the floor in front of the window.  Twenty minutes later a rifle, identified in a sworn affidavit by Dallas Police as a 7.65mm German Mauser, was found under a pile of books in another corner of the sixth floor.  The next day the rifle was re-identified as a 6.5mm Italian Mannlicher-Carcano that ballistically matched the three shells.

Of the 138 witnesses to the assassination later asked to testify as to where the shots came from, 32 said they came from the TSBD to the right rear of the President, while 58 named the grassy knoll above and to the right front of the limousine as the source of the shots.  Most of the other 48 witnesses heard shots from both directions.  In addition, many smelled gun-powder near the picket fence on the grassy knoll.  Police and bystanders rushed up the embankment toward the knoll.  Fresh footprints were seen behind the picket fence.  The first Dallas policeman to reach the parking lot above the knoll encountered a sloppily dressed man standing by a car, who produced Secret Service credentials.  The Secret Service later denied any knowledge of this “agent“.

At 2:30pm a man was brought into police headquarters under suspicion of killing a police officer.  His name was Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the TSBD, whose manager, Roy Truly, had last seen him two minutes after the assassination, drinking a Coke outside the second floor lunchroom.

TSBD, Texas School Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald, Dallas police, Roy Truly, 6.5mm Italian Mannlicher-Carcano, grassy knoll

The Sniper's Nest

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Conspiracy Theory Wednesday- Best Evidence

Posted in Conspiracy Theory Wednesday, tagged , , , , , , , on June 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

THE AUTOPSY

At Bethesda Naval Hospital the autopsy was performed by Commander James Humes and two other naval doctors, none of them forensic pathologists.  Their findings were incompatible with the observations of the Parkland Hospital doctors.  Parkland observed a three-inch hole in the back of the head, indicating a large exit hole of a frontal shot, whereas Humes, (whose first observation according to FBI agents at the scene, was that there had been “surgery of the head area”), described the head wound as a gaping hole towards the right front as from a rear shot.  Parkland saw a back wound under the right shoulder, which Humes located in the neck.  More incredibly, Parkland observed an entrance wound in the throat – where Humes saw only a tracheotomy.  After being informed of this mistake the next day, and without having followed the path of the bullet through the neck (on orders from an unnamed general), Humes concluded that this bullet had exited from the throat.  He then burned his original autopsy notes.  Humes’ findings, coupled with a bullet found on a stretcher at Parkland, set the scene for what was to become known as The Magic Bullet Theory.

Dallas, pristine bullet, Kennedy assasination, Kennedy, magic bullet

The Magic Bullet Theory


Had the body been altered en route?  The ornate presidential casket was left unguarded on Air Force One, (delayed before take-off from Dallas, by Lyndon Johnson, on his own orders, was sworn in as president), and naval officers later said that Kennedy’s body was brought to Bethesda in a body bag inside a cheap tin casket prior to the arrival of the official entourage.  Why wasn’t the autopsy performed in Dallas?  Lyndon Johnson refused to leave without the President’s widow, who likewise refused to leave without her husband’s body.

Be sure to watch for next Wednesday’s segment.

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Bringing Back the Bundling Board

Posted in BY THE WAY, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged , , on June 12, 2010| 5 Comments »

So what exactly is a bundling board and why am I bringing it up now? Well first of all it came up quite innocently in a conversation over ice cream – I said over the ice cream not about the ice cream.  One of our friends, Susan, did not know what it meant and when I hear that kind of response, I say to myself,  “BLOG”.

Bundling boards were believed to have originated in the Netherlands or the Brittish Isles  and were used as a form of courtship.  The young couple would be able to be intimate but not sexually.  They could talk through the night but no nooky.  The practice was limited to the winter months; the boy usually spent the night at the girl’s residence where her parents would give them separate blankets and put the board between them.  This courtship practice was more prevalent in New England and among the Amish people and the Mennonites.  It was one way to stay warm through the long cold winter nights!

In later years, the practice of bundling was extended to visitors who needed to spend the night before their long return journey home. most households did not have guest rooms and so sharing a bed was the only solution.  This practice remained alive well into the mid 19th Century.

There was also a commercial use of the bundling board – beds were scarce, travelers aplenty so depending on where you were in the country, you mi ght find yourself at an inn where you not only shared a room with several strangers, for an additional fee, you could rent half a bed, that is one with a bundling board of course.

This is a bundling board

Mennonite, Amish, bundling board, courtship bedding, New England
Bundle Up, Baby It’s Cold Inside!

An article in the Dec. 12, 1969, issue of Time magazine referred to a tongue-in-cheek effort to revive bundling by a so-called “Society to Bring Back Bundling.”

Due to the unexplainable popularity of this post, I did a follow-up blog  with more history and research on the subject.  Click on the link below to see the post.

“Bundle Up” – And it’s NOT cold outside?

 

 

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AMBUSHED – Conspiracy Theory Wednesday-A Day Late!

Posted in Conspiracy Theory Wednesday on June 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Things have been hectic around my house and my life and evidenced by the fact that Conspiracy Theory Wednesday is a day late!!!


AMBUSHED – THE SECRET SERVICE

Dallas Police and Secret Service agents Winston Lawson and Forrest Sorrells, who planned and were in charge of the motorcade, let Kennedy ride through Dallas in an open limousine, making no attempt to secure buildings or rooftops along the route.  Although Secret Service rules prohibit turns of more than 90 degrees, the motorcade made a planned but unnecessary 120 degree turn in front of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, causing the cars to slow down.  Seconds later, shots rang out, hitting the President and Governor Connally.  Films taken at the time (12:30pm) show that after the shooting began, the brake lights on the president’s car, driven by Secret Service agent William Greer, came on, again slowing the car before the fatal shot was fired, 6 to 8 seconds later.


The mortally wounded president was rushed to Parkland Hospital, where, after a tracheotomy and other life saving measure were performed, he was pronounced dead at 1:00 pm.  In contravention to Texas law and over the objections of the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Kennedy’s body was removed at gunpoint by Secret Service agents, taken to Air Force One, and flown to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

Several people observed the bullet hole in the windshield of the president’s limousine while it was outside Parkland Hospital.  The Secret Service immediately flew the vehicle to Washington DC, allowed the FBI to inspect it, and scrubbed it clean.  The windshield turned in as evidence several months later was slightly damaged on the inside as if from a bullet fragment, but had no hole through it.  Thus evidence of a possible additional shot or a frontal attack was suppressed.

ambush:

  1. The act of lying in wait to attack by surprise.
  2. A sudden attack made from a concealed position.
    1. Those hiding in order to attack by surprise.
    2. The hiding place used for this.
  4. A hidden peril or trap.

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