It was 1:23 by the kitchen stove clock this afternoon when I realized today was Nov. 22 and therefore an anniversary of President Kennedy’s murder in Dallas.

The Warren Commission, chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, officially concluded that an ex-Marine loner named Lee Harvey Oswald committed the murder unassisted, shooting from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Repository as President John Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy rode in an open convertible in a welcoming parade. Oswald claimed he was set up (he used the word “patsy”) and had not done it, but was himself shot dead while in police custody by an apparently distrught local restaurateur named Jack Ruby.

In the 57 years since the assassination, persons who have refused to swallow the official narrative but rather conclude it was a state murder and that the state involved was the United States, have been termed “conspiracy theorists” in the news media, and perhaps by friends, acquaintances and family. But as fewer and fewer people accept the narrative (as fewer and fewer people know there even was a President Kennedy, much less that he was assassinated by a sniper’s bullet), the news media are probably less and less likely to label dissenting citizens (who are increasingly in majorities) conspiracy theorists.

It helps that by now tens of thousands have read James W. Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Simon & Schuster, 2008). And that Douglass had to have been inspired and instructed by Michael C. Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil (New Society Publishers, 2004).

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It was about 4:10 this afternoon by the tiny clock on this computer when, after typing out the above paragraphs, I realized I hadn’t checked Ed Curtin’s blog, Behind the Curtain. Sure enough, he had turned out THIS, titled “Unspeakable Memories: The Day John Kennedy Died.” He links to “The Day John Kennedy Died,” a song written and sung by Lou Reed, which is accompanied by wonderful photos.

Now I’ll take a  break from this to finish reading that entry and, today or tomorrow, return and finish this.

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— Mark Channing Miller