Thursday, December 07, 2006
Deja Vu 43 Years and Counting...
When this blog was started as a project to air some views and maybe make a little money on the side, the name, Thought Puh-leeze was not my invention, but that of my then-partner who has recently become a non-partner, due mostly to being a non-participant and soon, in my mind, a non-entity.
It's difficult when one realizes that bonds formed years ago still have the same petty strings attached and that those fragile things we call egos can still be damaged and hurt by blunt talk. What's particularly discouraging, though, is that one's feelings would rank above and beyond the purpose of informed dissent and minor matters such as free speech, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus.
But that is as it is, and so shall it remain.
Getting back to the name of this blog, and the photo I chose as its signature image, the infamous picture of Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby in a Texas courthouse basement. For years - actually all 43 of them - I've wondered about who that surprised lawman in the hat might be. His identity seemed as much a mystery as the intrigue surrounding the death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but today, there he was, as large as life on the NBC Nightly News, one Jim Levealle, a Pearl Harbor survivor and in 1963, a homicide detective in Dallas. Levealle is the man on Oswald's right in the photo, the man in the Stetson hat.
So, now I know all of the people in the photo, but why do I not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, that he alone, a madman with a rifle six stories above and half a block away - and no apparent reason, would kill a president?
The question haunts our generation and peers into our collective psyche. Who killed Kennedy? And why? In days that seem all too familiar, our current president resists good advice, our Congress fails to act and the same players from 43 years ago reappear as chimeras and nymphs with lutes, singing songs and carrying signs. We cannot forget, nor should we fail to ask until we are answered.
It's difficult when one realizes that bonds formed years ago still have the same petty strings attached and that those fragile things we call egos can still be damaged and hurt by blunt talk. What's particularly discouraging, though, is that one's feelings would rank above and beyond the purpose of informed dissent and minor matters such as free speech, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus.
But that is as it is, and so shall it remain.
Getting back to the name of this blog, and the photo I chose as its signature image, the infamous picture of Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby in a Texas courthouse basement. For years - actually all 43 of them - I've wondered about who that surprised lawman in the hat might be. His identity seemed as much a mystery as the intrigue surrounding the death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but today, there he was, as large as life on the NBC Nightly News, one Jim Levealle, a Pearl Harbor survivor and in 1963, a homicide detective in Dallas. Levealle is the man on Oswald's right in the photo, the man in the Stetson hat.
So, now I know all of the people in the photo, but why do I not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, that he alone, a madman with a rifle six stories above and half a block away - and no apparent reason, would kill a president?
The question haunts our generation and peers into our collective psyche. Who killed Kennedy? And why? In days that seem all too familiar, our current president resists good advice, our Congress fails to act and the same players from 43 years ago reappear as chimeras and nymphs with lutes, singing songs and carrying signs. We cannot forget, nor should we fail to ask until we are answered.
