It's one of those mornings! And, strangely enough, I got plenty of sleep last night. If "last" is the right word. The night is just ending.
IN THE COMMENTS: David invites us to commemorate the JFK assassination, and I reject the invitation.
November 22, 2014
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
53 comments:
Dawn patrol.
Sunrise is the perfect way to end a great day.
I'll never complain about the agonies of getting into or out of a wetsuit again. http://vimeo.com/9358866
November 22. JFK assassination. Always a strange day for me because of that memory.
I always like seeing the "strangely early in the morning" tag before I go to bed.
"November 22. JFK assassination. Always a strange day for me because of that memory."
Last year was the 50th anniversary. I think I said at the time that I don't like making death days so important and that I hoped we could stop the annual memorializing going forward. I recommended cutting back to only every 10 years now that we passed the 50-year mark.
Yes, here's the post from last year: "10 rules for writing about the 50th anniversary of the day John F. Kennedy was shot":
"8. Don't commemorate murder. A man managed to kill the President. He's already gotten far too much press. He doesn't deserve our endless attention. I'm sick of "celebrating" a death day. We don't make anything of Lincoln's death day. We celebrate his birthday, like Washington's, because he was such a great President. We don't celebrate JFK's birthday — I don't even know what it is — because he was not great enough. We celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday, not the day he was assassinated. Why? Because of his greatness, and because we don't want to direct our attention toward his murder. So why do we focus on Kennedy's death day? It must be because he was not great enough, and because of points #1, #2, and #3, above. It's about ourselves. A man died and we morbidly relive it annually, for some reason that must make little sense to those under 50.
"9. Do write to end the annual ritual of death commemoration. Nail down the coffin lid and give the dead President some peace. Inspire us to move on to modest acknowledgements of the date at 10 or 25 year intervals up until 2063, when we — those of us who survive — can go big for the centennial."
I'm not seeking any formal commemoration (though I guess my comment could be seen as one by me.) But I always remember that particular November 22, and have to shake off the feelings.
"1. Don't repeat the cliché that everyone who was around at the time remembers where he was and what he was doing when he heard the news.
"2. Don't tell us — especially don't tell us as if it were not a big cliché — what you happened to have been doing and how you've always remembered that. After 50 years, can you not finally see that it doesn't matter?
3. Don't even attempt to say that the assassination had a profound effect on people. There is no new way to say that. We know!"
I am putting footnotes in my abortion book, trying to document everything. 714 footnotes so far. Although a lot of those are Id and Supra. I love Id and Supra.
Also I'm very, very proud of my footnotes, which are fun to read. A footnote is kinda like blogging, you can go off in sorta relevant/sorta irrelevant directions. If people want to go down that road, they can read the footnote. But if they don't they can just skip it. You've got the narrative and the footnote is like a subtext. That's why I love my footnotes, I can explore the subtext.
(Trying to help you "shake it off.")
You know it seems like some people are eager to commemorate somebody else's death, but when it comes to their own, suddenly all you hear hear is crickets.
JFK I remember they had to close down work because the mailgirls couldn't function.
I went flying.
I have more friends on facebook born on 22 November than any other day.
People commorate it because it's entertainment for themselves.
It's the soap opera gene.
For RFK's funeral train, when it killed a man packed in some wayside station, when my father saw it on TV, he said "The Kennedys are killing everybody."
He was not as repelled by TV as I was, but he had the bemusement right.
Big bucks for the TV drives it.
Althouse asked once if there were any other Kermit Gosnell people out there.
I have found 15 abortionists charged with murder since Roe v. Wade.
William Waddill
Bruce Steir
Raymond Showery
David Benjamin
Alicia Ruiz Hanna
Gordon Goel
Joseph Melnick
Kermit Gosnell
Steven Massof
Lynda Williams
Adrienne Moton
Sherry West
Douglas Karpen
Steven Brigham
Nicola Riley
Showery, Benjamin, Hanna, Gosnell, Massof, Williams, Moton, and West were all convicted of murder. Showery was convicted for killing a newborn, Benjamin and Hanna were convicted for killing the moms. Gosnell you know about. Massof, Williams, Moton and West all worked in Gosnell's clinic, and all were convicted of murder, too.
Good piece on Showery here.
You can also read about Showery in the New York Times. See if you see anything interesting about the language in the NYT article.
Hanna was a non-doctor who was doing abortions in California, typically among illegal immigrants. An actual doctor was on file with the health department, but he was never at the clinic. She was the one doing the abortions.
She killed her patient with a first trimester abortion. And then tried to stuff the body into the trunk of her car.
David Benjamin got 25-to-life for depraved indifference to human life.
The other 7 abortionists either pled out or prosecutors decided not to go forward. Brigham and Riley is a really interesting case for lawyers. Prosecutors were attempting to charge them with murder for killing unborn children. You would think under Roe v. Wade that would be impossible! But Maryland (like many states) allow you to charge somebody with murder if you attack a pregnant woman and abort her against her will.
The novel theory of the prosecution was that Brigham was not a licensed doctor and Riley had never done the surgery before. In other words they obtained consent by fraud, so this was an illegal abortion, so murder charges can go forward. It's a novel theory and they elected not to go that route. You can read about Brigham in the New Yorker. (The guy who writes that article is pro-choice and his dad used to be an abortion doctor. Really strong journalism for the most part).
It's easy for me to shake off the JFK date of death because it's my Dad's birthday. He would have been 92.
Caution should be exercised in publicly publishing one's unconventional sleep habits and productivity levels. Just sayin'...
Saint Croix, please review comments on your web portals when you have time. Free books are delicious.
I think part of my interest in abortion might be morbid fascination with evil and death.
Mostly it's upsetting and depressing though.
rh @ 7:43
If you write a memoir, Life With My Father, I will read it.
"Caution should be exercised in publicly publishing one's unconventional sleep habits and productivity levels. Just sayin'..."
Why?
I think it's good that people know that someone might be up and about in our house at any time of the night or day. I see that as a security plus.
Yes, Ann, but do you have a means of self-defense more deadly than Meade or your laptop?
You don't have to commemorate the assassination. As a statement on the importance of Fashion you can commemorate Jackie's outfit that day:
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy wore a double-breasted, strawberry pink and navy trim collared Chanel wool suit on November 22, 1963...
My brother and I were there on the 30th anniversary. The weather was identical and of course there were crowds there so it wasn't hard to picture the scene as it was in 1963. The streets have changed very little.
Surfed: Thanks for the link. Really inspiring. Thought you might be interested in this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mind-Surprising-Healthier-Connected/dp/0316252085
There was a big intel report that came out yesterday on Benghazi, and strangely, it's nowhere to be found on Drudge. Maybe he's sleeping.
Last year was the 50th anniversary. I think I said at the time that I don't like making death days so important and that I hoped we could stop the annual memorializing going forward. I recommended cutting back to only every 10 years now that we passed the 50-year mark.
I think I commented at the time that we commemorated Lincoln by issuing a new coin on the centenary of his birth in 1909. We still use that coin. The tradition was undone in 1965 by the appearance of the JFK half dollar which we never much use.
Oops, (1964 not 1965 for the JFK half dollar). But the point remains.
@Howard - Thanx!
Saint Croix, please review comments on your web portals when you have time. Free books are delicious.
I was like, web portals? And then I remember I have web portals. Unfortunately I am not reliable like Althouse. I am not the Iron Horse. I am more like Babe Ruth, King of All Strikeouts. Babe Ruth crossed with Mario Mendoza.
Sometimes I get a hold of one, I guess.
I am deeply appreciative of anybody who takes the time to read one of my blogs, let alone comment on it. I am also embarrassed and apologetic that I abandon things that other people find worthwhile.
I've been trying for 20 years to figure out a way to talk about abortion. I finally did it with the help of this blog. I am so very appreciative and anybody who wants a free pdf, just shoot me an e-mail.
oystermanproductions@gmail.com
I'm still farting around with the footnotes so it might be a week or two before it's ready.
Garage: maybe there is nothing about the Benghazi report because it is a nonsensical report. These two paragraphs are in sequence in the report.
"Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people."
In the first paragraph it says "there was no intelligence failure" and in the second paragraph is says "it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call". Huh?
Is rapier wit a self-defense?
Garage: maybe there is nothing about the Benghazi report because it is a nonsensical repor
Keep clinging!
I saw one of those lumberjack hipsters in the wild. He was svelte, had a nicely trimmed full beard, the classic black and red plaid flannel shirt, Buddy Holly glasses, work boots, and fantastic hair. He was leaving a high end salon to get into a pickup truck.
There's a lot of that urban lumberjack look around here, but this was the most comprehensively executed I've seen.
And his hair was perfect.
@ Garage
The, just issued, House report is about intelligence being confusing and mis-interpreted. "Intelligence" is always confusing. The House report only focuses on how the intelligence was interpreted for public consumption after the attack. The report gives a pass to the WH for attempting a "flawed" deception. In other words, they misinterpreted the intelligence that they did have because they were incompetent, lazy, confused, deceitful, or all of the above. If the intelligence was unclear then they could have said so.
The Senate report ( here) deals with the actions before and after the attack and is quite damning. The House report only deals with intelligence failure. The real problem was that the death of Ambassador Stevens, et. al. was caused by a COMMAND failure at the state department and WH.
The weekend after the Kennedy assassination was the opening day of pheasant season. I went hunting and my wife was glued to the TV. I had a much better time.
The true urban lumberjack look is complemented by the eating of the traditional cannibal sandwich, ground vegetable protein replacing the raw ground beef.
Surfed
Thank you for the link.
And his hair was perfect.
Indeed.
The other day I went into a convenience store and asked the woman behind the counter where I could find the "Mexican Coke." (I couldn't find it.)
She was taken aback. "Uh..."
"You know, it comes in a glass bottle..."
"Uh... Jerry, can you help her find the... uh... the uh... the glass bottle Coke."
He found it. I took it up to her to ring it up. "I didn't mean 'Mexican Coke' as something strange, it's imported from Mexico."
"I would call it 'the Coke in the glass bottle.'"
"Okay. It has a slightly different flavor than American Coke. It's usually called Mexican Coke. It's a thing."
"Oh, well, I wouldn't know. I don't drink regular coke."
Heh.
The, just issued, House report is about intelligence being confusing and mis-interpreted. "Intelligence" is always confusing.
Ask for a refund from the people that peddled this idiocy.
@Mark O -
"And his hair was perfect."
Ah-ooooooooo!
Garage
You appear to like being lied to. Doesn't bother you a bit.
You are gull enough to believe you can keep your plan, that a bad movie.....etc
Pretty funny actually.
Althouse, I am shaken but not stirred. Thanks for the blog.
The story that shook me the most in the past week:
What frightened the USS Donald Cook so much in the Black Sea?
November 22, 1963 is just my younger sister's birthday.
apropos of nothing...
January 14, 2013
A wit, a fool, a scribe, a lowly non-economist...
Jon Stewart
puts an arrow in the eyeball of Paul Krugman
For some reason and fro quite a while, I used to think Zevon was singing "his hair was purple" .
Surfed
Maybe you can get over to the Cocoa Beach event this coming spring. We even have one out here on the leftiest part of the left coast These events are quite humbling.
Operation Surf
November 22. JFK assassination. Always a strange day for me because of that memory.
11/22/14, 7:03 AM
It's also the day C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died. So if you don't want to commemorate a murder/assassination, you could maybe commemorate the other two who died of natural causes -- always assuming that commemorating any kind of death is a little weird.
I'm reminded of the book Between Heaven and Hell by Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft which portrays Kennedy, Lewis, and Huxley in limbo, debating what's going to happen next. It's a good read.
Blogger Freeman Hunt said...
And his hair was perfect.
Indeed.
The other day I went into a convenience store and asked the woman behind the counter where I could find the "Mexican Coke."
You are right that the Coke from Mexico is great. My youngest daughter and I were in Colorado in July to drop her off at an Economics camp at UC Boulder, but decided to try lunch at an authentic Mexican restaurant in an area where it was predominantly Hispanic. My daughter brought the bottles back as a remembrance.
Post a Comment