LIFE Magazine & JFK

Life magazine, that onetime cultural mainstay in the United States, played a troubling role in the JFK assassination.

There are a number of problems with its relationship to JFK's death. I'll limit this to just one.

Life published three versions of its October 2, 1964 issue (right), which featured an article trumpeting the arrival of the Warren Report. Included were a series of Zapruder film frames that, on inspection, did not seem to support the official line that a lone assassin shot Kennedy from behind.

And so the article was revised and the issue republished two times – "an enormously costly undertaking that required breaking and resetting plates not once, but twice," according to Jerry Policoff. [1]

The subsequent versions presented different frames and rephrased captions.

Seeing is believing. Spreading the three versions out over a large table is the best way. But I've tried to demonstrate Life's three versions on a web site.

Someone once quipped: Life be not proud.

[1] "The Second Dallas Casualty: The Media and the Assassination of Truth," by Jerry Policoff, included in Government by Gunplay: Assassination Conspiracy Theories from Dallas to Today, edited by Sid Blumenthal.

JFK Assassination

November of this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first Kennedy assassination.

The assassination is an evergreen, as far as the nation's media is concerned. There are peaks and valleys, but interest is always there, even though by now most people were not yet born at the time it happened.

As this is written, we're a few days past a widely publicized remark by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The late Senator, according to his son, considered the Warren Report "a shoddy piece of craftsmanship."

RFK Jr. said that he, too, rejected the lone nut fairy tale.

So it appears the JFK murder is creeping steadily back onto the national agenda. No surprise there.

I can't help myself. I've got a few things to say about it. First, though, check out some pictures of the Dealey Plaza area, and some related stuff. Most of the pictures are by me.

The pictures won't tell you anything about the conspiracy. This site, however, just might.

Year-Ender 2012

A long time ago, when I was learning how to use FrameMaker, I created a bogus newsletter. I set up a three-column template, made a second "jump" page, and connected the two so text would flow from one to the other.

The whole thing was an exercise in formatting. I wanted to give it a silly, playful name, and settled on Lung. Years later, I dredged up that name for this blog.

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Here, at the tail end of 2012, are some of my favorite Lung posts from the last twelve months.

A series of posts relate to an injury sustained by my daughter – including, but not limited to:

Broken Arm
She Said No
Back in the Saddle.

Another post, Everything Hurts, relates to an accident my wife had.

In June I noted the passing of tenor man Faruq Z. Bey.

Earlier I'd become fascinated by the fate of a century-old structure in my town, and wrote about it in more than one post.

Right after Thanksgiving I went to an exhibit of Vincent van Gogh paintings and drawings.

The Presidential election inspired several posts.

And I began the year with a whimsical flight of fancy centering on the new year.