From Album 5

Tomorrow officially marks 50 years since fate and a remarkable set of coincidences met up in Texas. While I no longer believe in any conspiracy theories — I honestly think Oswald had motive and opportunity, and while not exactly of means, he managed to scrape enough together to purchase a rifle and pistol. History has plenty enough similar twists of fate.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying the ride through what’s now, well, the past (not to sound flippant, but some of the television footage looks almost like a cinema verite version of Mad Men). Apast that in some ways was very different from today, in other ways, maybe not so much.

If you’re interested, here’s a list of shows marking the passage of time. One that Adrastos mentioned — The Lost JFK Tapes — reruns tonight.

I have mixed feeling about JFK. I’m sure believed in what he was doing; however, he campaigned for president on a non-existent missile gap, attempted over and over again to, well, murder Fidel Castro (which could well have inspired Oswald, a pro-Castro Marxist, to act)…his not blowing up the world over Cuba is, well, nice, but is there really a faction of people out there other than the Curtis LeMay nutjobs who would have preferred annihilation?

Kennedy’s domestic agenda was both less ambitious than his successor, and less successful, though it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say Lyndon Johnson’s succeeded in part by evoking the legacy of a martyred president.

And, just my opinion, but to me the assassination marks the beginning of “the sixties…” a little ironic…JFK was certainly of the 1960s, but not “the sixties.”

OK, enough. Oh, one more thing. Yes, a few years ago I posted basically the same picture, sorry for the recycling, but have had some stressful things occur, including a significant electrical problem at my house that had me wondering how on earth I was going to afford an electrician…but which VERY fortunately turned out to be something the power company was resposible for…I’ll be sleeping much better now…