GENE ... a voice in the wilderness

MISSION STATEMENT ... To celebrate where it's deserved! ... To take the Michael out of institutions and individuals where it's deserved! ... Recently I had occasion to prepare my gravestone epitaph: GENE... Educator, Novelist, Humanitarian and Humorist - TO KNOW HIM WAS TO LOVE HIM - Rest in Peace ....... But while I am still walking the earth do not hesitate to contact me at: bobbyslingshot8@gmail.com

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Government opens inquiry into Liverpool Care Pathway

By Simon Caldwell on Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Norman Lamb, Lib Dem MP and care minister (Photo: PA)

The Government has opened an independent inquiry into allegations that an end-of-life protocol is operating as a euthanasia pathway.
It said the inquiry would investigate complaints raised by families who say that relatives have died after they were placed, without their knowledge, on the Liverpool Care Pathway. The framework, intended for people in their final hours of life, often involves sedation and withdrawal of life-prolonging treatment, which under includes food and fluids. Critics say it is being used to hasten the deaths of terminally ill and elderly patients who are not imminently dying.
Norman Lamb, Britain’s Care and Support Minister, said in a statement on Monday that the inquiry would also review whether financial incentives – paid to state-funded NHS hospital trusts to hit targets on the percentages of patient deaths on the pathway – might have led to “bad decisions or practice”.
“It is vitally important that everyone can be confident in the findings of this work – and that we learn lessons where they are needed, so we can ensure that end-of-life care is as good as it can be,” said Mr Lamb.
Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark, chairman of the English and Welsh bishops’ Department for Christian Responsibility and Citizenship, welcomed the review. A statement issued on Monday said the archbishop had passed on “specific concerns raised with him by some clinicians” and had called for such an inquiry in a September 27 letter to the Government.

The Beatles and “Please Please Me,” November 1962

By Gordon Thompson

Fifty years ago, the Beatles recorded their arrangement of “Please Please Me,” a lilting lover’s complaint transformed into a burst of adolescent adrenaline. On 26 November 1962, after repeated attempts to capture just the right balance of frustration and anticipation, George Martin informed them over the studio intercom that they had just recorded their first number-one disc. But the path to the top of the charts would not be easy.

John Lennon remembered the afternoon he began writing the song, sitting in the bedroom at his Aunt Mimi’s, playing Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” over in his mind, and beginning a song that would include word play from a Bing Crosby record. He had studied the architecture of Orbison’s music and the American’s affinity for torch-song “climbers” (e.g., “Running Scared,” 1961) in which melodies gradually ascend to a dramatic climax. The young songwriter in “Please Please Me” shows he has learned the lesson well, the chorus and the refrains to the melody climbing to falsetto peaks. Another technique comes from the Everly Brothers from whose records Lennon and McCartney had learned about “wedge” harmonies (where one voice holds the top note while the other descends against it). The principal verse phrase of “Please Please Me” illustrates the same device heard in “Cathy’s Clown” (1960), McCartney pinging the top note as Lennon’s declaration tumbles.
When they first played Lennon’s song for artist-and-repertoire manager George Martin on 4 September, the tempo would have more closely approximated an Orbison slow-rocker, with a dragging backbeat and wide-open spaces between phrases. The producer recommended that they increase the tempo, which surprised the band, both because the new speed worked and because the word “tempo” was unfamiliar to them.
When they returned a week later to record a new version of “Love Me Do” and “P.S., I Love You,” they brought out a faster and improved version of “Please Please Me,” probably with an introduction and coda that they had fashioned with George Martin on the earlier recording date. With Ringo Starr observing, session drummer Andy White now improvised tom fills in the gaps that the Beatles had left after the end of the second verse and after the first phrase of the chorus. Ron Richards, who sat in that day for George Martin, would have known that the performance had potential, but that it lacked essentials.
The Beatles needed to work on their arrangement, which they would do during a pre-arranged (but inconvenient) return to Hamburg where they would be appearing with American legend Little Richard. Lennon remembers rehearsing the song over and over again, speeding it up, changing the words, and generally tightening the arrangement until they were happy with it. Moreover, for sonic continuity with their first recording “Love Me Do,” Martin wanted Lennon’s harmonica to proclaim the song’s recurring motif. They would spend afternoon hours in the Star Club rehearsing in anticipation of their next visit to the EMI Recording Studios in St. John’s Wood.
Back in the UK, unimpressed with the promotion that publishers Ardmore and Beechwood and recording company EMI had given “Love Me Do,” Brian Epstein engaged music critic Tony Barrow to help create buzz for the band and their recordings. Barrow had been one of the first in the media that Epstein had contacted in his efforts to get a recording contract and he now hoped the writer could get the Beatles the attention of the press.
Returning to the UK from West Germany, the Beatles entered a small studio in EMI’s Manchester Square offices on 16 November to record an appearance for the program “Friday Spectacular” that the company would broadcast with time purchased on Radio Luxembourg. “Love Me Do” had defied expectations, continuing to climb the charts and leading EMI to take begrudging interest in the band and to book airtime on the one station where Britons could hear more than a few hours of pop music. As host Muriel Young began announcing the band to the studio audience, teens screamed and rushed the stage; Barrow rightly interpreted the event as portending something special.
On 26 November, with the tempo increased again, a vocal response added to replace an awkward gap in the chorus, and Lennon’s harmonica proclaiming the song’s motif, “Please Please Me” was ready to rock. Capturing the best performance would not be easy and the Beatles would work through eighteen takes to get the recording right. In the end, Martin felt sure they had a hit, but a hit requires more than a good recording: it needs promotion, and neither their record company nor their publishers had given “Love Me Do” much support. Manager Brian Epstein, new disc in hand, set out to find someone who could change his luck.
On 27 November, the day after the Beatles had recorded “Please Please Me,” Epstein headed to the heart of London’s publishing district in search of a publisher who could deliver. There, in a redbrick building at the corner of Denmark Street and Charing Cross Road, the manager walked into the offices of the publisher who would help the Beatles reach a national audience. As a singer in the 1950s, Dick James had scored a modest hit (with George Martin as his producer) with the television theme for Robin Hood; but as his teenage appeal and hairline receded, James proved more successful at finding good songs. Indeed, he had been responsible for Ron Richards (and subsequently George Martin) hearing Mitch Murray’s “How Do You Do It?”, and Epstein hoped that the eager new publisher would give the Beatles the attention they deserved.
Back in October, the band had appeared on People and Places, a regional television program out of Manchester. On 23 November, needing national exposure, they had auditioned for BBC Television, but were unsuccessful. Brian Epstein wanted another chance and Dick James would give it to him. Listening to “Please Please Me,” James immediately offered to publish the song; but Epstein remained true to his original goal of making the Beatles successful recording artists, not just successful songwriters. Picking up the phone and talking with Philip Jones, producer for the British ABC television show Thank Your Lucky Stars, James held the handset up to the record player in his office. After a short listen, Jones let the publisher know he would book them for January. James had secured a spot on the show for the Beatles and for himself in history.
Epstein rightly felt optimistic, but January now seemed oh so far away.

TYNESIDE ... Bob Dylan appreciated

The Dylan Project, The Sage Gateshead

The Dylan Project

IT may be a little rambling and shambolic at times but the message is loud and clear. These guys revel in paying homage to the legend that is Bob Dylan.
The rambling introductions are almost a false start to what follows as Steve Gibbons, at 71 the same age as the man himself, leads his musical mates on a blistering trawl through the American’s seemingly never-ending catalogue.
And it is not the just the standards that are the highlights. Versions of Senor, Cold Irons Bound and Not Dark Yet remind us of the bleakness and power of Dylan’s prose along with a highly upbeat blast of Subterranean Homesick Blues and a finale rendition of Like A Rolling Stone.
The audience in the intimate Hall Two appeared to be mostly middle-aged and those who have grown up with Dylan as a soundtrack to their lives. But there was also a spattering of the younger generation, perhaps there out of curiosity rather than commitment.
Gibbons, who readily admits getting his friends together at this time of year to become The Dylan Project, says it is more a labour of love than a tribute.
His band, Dave Pegg, Gerry Conway, PJ Wright and Phil Bond, certainly seem to enjoy the shackles being off and turning their collective enthusiasm and passion for the singer on to full power.
With Dylan releasing Tempest this year, his highly acclaimed 35th studio album, these guys may have even more material to keep them going as long as the legend himself.

In the meantime, this hugely entertaining evening probably prompted many who were there to go back home and play some of the albums that may have gathered dust over the years.
It was like a juddering jolt to remind us that Dylan is still around and his words should not be lost.

Parliament should beware taking a People’s Republic of China approach to women bishops

Something rather sinister has happened in the wake of the General Synod vote

Politburo Standing Committee members Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. China does not let the Pope choose his bishops (Photo: PA)

Something rather sinister has happened in the wake of the General Synod’s vote not to proceed with the women bishops measure, and that is the call for Parliament to interfere. The Daily Telegraph has sensibly said that Parliament should “Leave the Church be” but this does not seem to be the position of David Cameron who urges the Church “to get with the programme”, without quite saying what programme he has in mind.
Moreover, on last night’s Question Time no less a person than Yvette Cooper seemed to think that unless the Anglicans sort this out, then Parliament will have to do so. The columnist Owen Jones was also on the programme and spoke about separation of Church and State, and that, given the Anglican bishops’ right to sit in the House of Lords, Parliament had a right to interfere with the running of the Church of England, specifically in the way it appoints its bishops. And behold, already people like Frank Field, a widely respected MP, who also happens to be an Anglican, are talking of parliamentary legislation.
Yet no one, not even the Conservative member of the Question Time panel, Iain Duncan Smith, seemed to grasp the essential point here: Parliament has no moral right to interfere with the internal workings of the Church of England, or any other ecclesial body for that matter, in matters of doctrine. The appointment of bishops and the changing of the supposed Apostolic Succession is surely a matter of doctrine.
Now, I fully accept Owen Jones’s point: Parliament must have a say in the appointment of its members. But this is not an argument for Parliament to say who should be able to be a bishop – it is an argument, and an overwhelming one, for bishops to leave the House of Lords. Membership of the Upper House compromises their religious role, which is something the Catholic Church has long recognised, forbidding, as it does, its clergy to sit in legislatures.
But what really worries me is the presumption that our secular government has a religious role to play, and the presumption that exemption from “equality legislation” is a privilege conferred on religious groups by government. Actually, it is not. In this country, and in every liberal democracy, it is the rights of conscience that are above all other rights – Parliament itself is subordinate to my conscience and should recognise that.
There is an amusing picture going round Facebook at present, of an English politician, the most high ranking of his day, who refused to get with the programme – Sir Thomas More. He paid the price. But it was a price worth paying. Erastianism, the doctrine that the state should control the Church, always was a heresy, and now is a heresy that has passed its sell-by date by several centuries. Its only adherents in the world seem to be people like Yvette Cooper, and of course the government of the People’s Republic of China, who refuse the Pope his right, which we believe to be given by God, to appoint bishops in his own Church. This behaviour by the People’s Republic is just one of the aspects of their unpleasant tyranny. British parliamentarians should beware going down the same path.
I never thought I would say this, but we all need to respect the integrity of the General Synod, and we all need to respect its decisions, carried out as they are in a transparent way according to rules that the Synod (and Parliament!) agreed on

It’s time for a boycott of cruelty in the media

It’s time for a boycott of cruelty in the media

Too often the media is used to inflict cruelty on our fellow human beings. It’s time consumers acted

By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith on Monday, 26 November 2012

Christopher Jefferies was wrongly accused of murder in the press (PA)

What is the worst sin you can commit?
The usual candidate for worst sin is pride. It was pride that caused Satan to fall, as it was pride that made him say “I will not serve.”
Much bad behaviour these days still comes from an overweening idea of one’s own importance. The refusal to serve others, and the stubborn belief that they are in fact there to serve you, is the cause of much suffering in the world.
But most of us understand this. We are all, unless we are saints, to some extent self-obsessed. We all have an over inflated idea of our own importance, but most of us do our best to rein it in. Social mores help us in this. Most obsessives are terrible bores, and we do not want to seem boring.
But if pride is a more or less universal human failing, cruelty is not. Most of us are revolted by cruelty. It seems unnecessary, capricious and arbitrary. We all condemn cruelty to animals. Remember the lady who put the cat in the bin? She was the subject of universal condemnation. Ironically, she was in the end the object of much cruelty herself.
Cruelty seems to be in the rise in our society. We pride ourselves on being humane to cats, but we are most cruel to our own kind.
Consider these recent cases.
An elderly retired teacher, Christopher Jefferies, was viciously persecuted by several national newspapers, who insinuated he was a murderer. His hair, his love of poetry, his harmless lifestyle, all were portrayed in a lurid light. The seriousness of this ‘monstering’ was reflected in the compensation he was awarded by the courts for this shocking defamation of character. But one assumes that the people who read about him in the papers enjoyed doing so, and the people who wrote and published these defamatory articles realised they had an audience for them.
Again we have the case of Lord McAlpine, a blameless man, whose supposed unmasking as a criminal was greeted with howls of glee from the twittermob.
This sort of behaviour is simply cruel. It is cruel to want to see people punished, even if those people are guilty, and even more so if they are innocent. The last public execution in England took place in 1868, though hanging, drawing and quartering were not officially abolished until a little time later. Such practices were recognised as cruel and unnecessary, and if anyone were to advocate them today, then they would surely be looked on as very strange indeed. Yet it is commonplace for us, if not to hang people in public in front of jeering mobs, then at least to witness jeering mobs conduct virtual lynchings online.
Even if someone were guilty of murder or paedophilia, surely they would still be guaranteed a minimum of decent treatment? And yet, at the height of the Twitter persecution, not a shred of decency was afforded Lord McAlpine. The people who sneered at him, and who sneered at Christopher Jefferies, need not just to pay compensation (though that too), they need to repent. And yet Mr Jefferies says that he has had no apology. That is a very sad.
In neither case above was the holding up of a person to public ridicule and contempt in any way in the public interest. Nor were the attacks on Mr Jefferies or Lord McAlpine worthy uses of free speech. Free speech is important, and it is sometimes important too to speak truth to power, but that is no defence in these cases. It is hard to detect in what way Mr Jefferies was a public figure, and Lord McAlpine has lived in retirement for many years. Rather, one suspects, both affairs were sensationalist journalism at its worst, and reflect badly on the British public, who love to see innocent people monstered in this way. We need to be kinder, and we need to repent.
One practical way forward to a better moral future is to stop buying tabloid newspapers, and stop watching the sort of television programmes that promote cruelty. Moreover we need to boycott the work of journalists and broadcasters who promote hatred and contempt for their fellow human beings, even the guilty.

Sunday, 25 November 2012

Two buddies go in search of Bob Dylan

By Bill Schechter and Larry Seidman

Bill Schechter

Larry gazes across Lake Superior in Duluth, Minn. Until he was six, Dylan lived just up the hill from this spot. Later, he would write of how the phantoms in the lake kindled his childhood imagination.

We grew up with Bob Dylan. Like many, we have been listening to his records for a half-century. As his musical path meandered, our theorizing, analyzing, and surmising only intensified. A recent film about him proclaimed “I’m Not Here,” so we decided to go find him on a road trip through a broad swath of our country’s landscape, history, and culture.
Eighteen days, 16 states, and 4,700 miles later, we definitely had found some footprints and lots of adventure. We can also confirm that buddy trips — in pursuit of any passion — can still happen in your 60s.
To be sure there were doubters. Our wives and grown kids never thought we would actually pursue our decades–long dream of searching for Dylan. After all, we’re big talkers. But like a pair of Ishmaels with a terrible case of the “hypos,” we decided the time had come to ship out in pursuit of our white whale.
We left Brookline on July 11. Our ramble had a serious purpose. We wanted to understand more deeply the man who has filled our minds with music. Whence Dylan’s genius? Why the incessant morphing? How did he seem to know what our generation was thinking and feeling before we did? Our research would proceed at speeds approaching 75 miles per hour, accompanied by every Dylan CD and definitive texts for the co-pilot to read aloud.

Not everything went according to plan. But bumps in the road were generally good for a laugh. For example, there was our covert photographing of a pink house in Woodstock, N.Y., that turned out not to be the band’s celebrated Big Pink. But we also had flashes of luck. We’ll never forget the realtor in Woodstock, into whose office we wandered for directions, who proceeded to regale us with stories about the Dylan he knew well (“He was haunted by an existential gloom . . .”).

Larry Seidman (left) and Bill Schechter prepare to set out from Brookline on a quest to find the roots of Bob Dylan and his music.

Bill Schechter for the Boston Globe

Larry Seidman (left) and Bill Schechter prepared to set out from Brookline on a quest to find the roots of Bob Dylan and his music.

We crossed the border into the unforgettable in Ashtabula, Ohio, where hunger drove us to the eight-table Hot Rocks Grille. There our trip became the talk of the diner after we met a family of musicians who turned out to be fellow Dylan fans. Though we had expected quizzical looks from sensible Midwesterners, their shared delight in our quest proved typical. We joked that we had finally found the only place with no known Dylan connection but were corrected by a fellow diner, who cited Dylan’s “You Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”: “I’ll look for you in old Honolulu, San Francisco, Ashtabula . . .” How could we have doubted our man was everywhere? We said our farewells, inspired by the power of music to bring people together.
After checking out some Dylanobilia at Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (he was inducted in 1988), we resumed our ascent to his native North Country through Chicago (he lived there in 1961) and Madison, Wis., (his secret rehearsal venue), finally crossing Lake Superior and entering the dramatic hillside environs of Duluth, Minn., where Dylan was born and spent his first six years. We visited every Dylan-related site, fastidiously searching for clues, but were more successful when we turned around to gaze into the vast lake at the end of his street and saw the swirling phantoms in its dark waters. Later we read an article in which Dylan credited the mysteries of the lake with churning his childhood imagination.
Our research continued in his hometown of Hibbing, Minn. The high school where he made his controversial talent show debut at a volume the principal found unacceptable. Check! The home where he huddled under nighttime blankets listening to his transistor radio. Check! The family store. The movie theater. The synagogue. The world’s largest pit mine, now open again in hopes of bringing Hibbing’s sad main street back from oblivion. We also met Debbie and Nick on a bench, two locals (her sister had gone to school with Dylan) who were happy to share their depressing views about the town. We couldn’t doubt the Mesabi Iron Range helped to shape Dylan’s sensibility. Debbie told us that Dylan was sensitive to the plight of mining families, but also dreamed of distant worlds.
We followed his trail to Dinkytown in Minneapolis, where the college dropout began performing in clubs, and then traveled south to Tennessee to explore his musical headwaters: blues-y Beale Street in Memphis, Elvis’s Graceland, and, later, Nashville. At that point, we knew we had to go the distance, down to the Mississippi Delta and Clarksdale, where the blues and R&B were born.
We recalled a photo at Memphis’s Civil Rights Museum of Dylan singing “Pawn in Their Game” at a 1963 civil rights rally in a Greenwood, Miss., field. We resolved to find that field and feel its historical vibration. A local policeman, swept up by the sincerity of our search, gave us a police car escort through town to someone familiar with the location. Sadly, farmer McGee had passed away and his field remains lost in an impossible tangle of roads. Call this one of our noble failures.
Then something remarkable occurred. After listening to an early Dylan song about the murder of Emmett Till, we looked up to find we had just crossed the Tallahatchie River where young Till’s body was thrown. We recovered from that shock only to find a right turn had put us on the Emmett Till Memorial Highway, and a short while later, on a dirt road in destitute Glendora. There we found ourselves staring at the spot where one of the murderer’s homes had stood. We left Mississippi, shaken by history, stopping only briefly in “Oxford Town” where a green, peaceful campus belied the rioting and deaths of a half-century ago when James Meredith integrated Ole Miss.
Driving up to Washington through the Civil War-drenched Shenandoah Valley — a conflict that also obsesses Dylan — we checked out General Robert E. Lee’s tomb and survived the silence of the Manassas Battlefield. Later, we stood on the very spot where Dylan and Joan Baez sang at the March on Washington before we headed to the demolished hotel site in Baltimore where Hattie Carroll died the lonesome death that Dylan memorialized.
The next day — our last — we walked the streets of New York’s Greenwich Village where Dylan’s star rose. We visited the sites of the old folk clubs, saving for last the apartment building on 116 West 4th St. where Dylan and his girlfriend Suze Rotolo lived from 1962-64. We dallied there, photographing the building, when a car backed up toward us. A man asked us what we were doing. We explained, sheepishly, that we had been searching for Dylan. The man told us he figured as much and that his son lived in the building — on the fourth floor, in Dylan’s old apartment.
Would he would let us in for a look around? The father, amused and interested, agreed to check. A few long minutes later, his son buzzed us in. Taking the stairs two at a time, we crossed over the threshold into Dylan’s tiny apartment, looking out the window at the back alley that Rotolo described in her 2008 memoir, “Freewheelin’ Times.” Our host, a fan himself, asked if we wanted to hear a Dylan song, and we descended into reverie — from the serendipitous to the sublime in just four flights. To our surprise, he said we were the first fanatics ever to ask to visit.
The trip was over. What of our questions? We had some “Thar she blows” moments, but won’t say more. Hitchhiker, the time has come to find your own passion – and road.
And Dylan? We finally found him just down the Pike at a September concert in Holyoke. Naturally, the astounding music left us with “No Direction Home.”

Try BostonGlobe.com today and get two weeks FREE.Bill Schechter is a retired high school history teacher who now volunteers in a Boston public school. Larry Seidman is a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. The full story of their road trip can be found on their blog at www.searchingforbob.wordpress.com.

Gove blasts the Rotherham Stasi; Downing Street gets into a muddle. Hmm…

By Damian ThompsonPoliticsLast updated: November 24th, 2012

Gove, dashing in Harry Palmer specs, talks robust common sense

Forgive me if I briefly slip into Hannanesque I-told-you-so mode, but in my column this morning I said Michael Gove leads from the front while David Cameron leads from behind.
And now this, from my colleague Patrick Sawer:

Mr Gove said: "Rotherham's reasons for denying this family the chance to foster are indefensible. The ideology behind their decision is actively harmful to children. We should not allow considerations of ethnic or cultural background to prevent children being placed with loving and stable families. We need more parents to foster, and many more to adopt.
"Any council which decides that supporting a mainstream UK political party disbars an individual from looking after children in care is sending a dreadful signal that will only decrease the number of loving homes available to children in need. I will be investigating just how this decision came to be made and what steps we need to take to deal with this situation."
The row took a further twist when No 10 was asked about statements David Cameron made during a radio interview in 2006, in which he described Ukip's members as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly". Downing Street said the Prime Minister had not intended people to understand that he thought all Ukip members were racists.

See what I mean?

Saturday, 24 November 2012

Michael Gove - Decision over UKIP couple fostering 'indefensible' ... ... Quite so, totally appalling says Gene

Michael Gove - Decision over UKIP couple fostering 'indefensible' ... Quite so, totally appalling says Gene

Joyce Thacker, Rotherham Borough Council: ''We had to seriously think about the long-term needs of the children''

Michael Gove has branded a decision by Rotherham council to remove three children from a foster couple because they belong to UKIP as "indefensible".

The education secretary said he would be investigating how the decision to remove the children came to be made.

The children - who are "not indigenous white British" - were removed by social workers who accused the unnamed couple of belonging to a "racist party".

The council said it was also launching an immediate inquiry.

The education secretary said the "wrong decision" was made "in the wrong way for the wrong reasons" and added the government would look at "what steps we need to take to deal with this situation".
'Dreadful signal'
Mr Gove added: "We should not allow considerations of ethnic or cultural background to prevent children being placed with loving and stable families.

"Any council which decides that supporting a mainstream UK political party disbars an individual from looking after children in care is sending a dreadful signal that will only decrease the number of loving homes available to children in need."

Councillor Paul Lakin, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families Services said: "Membership of a political party should not stop someone fostering children.

"The council takes it safeguarding responsibilities very seriously and always puts the needs of the children at the centre of that care.

"This was a decision taken by social services professionals and I have ordered an immediate investigation to establish the full facts of this decision."

Mr Lakin added he wanted the report on his desk by Monday morning.

The council's Strategic Director of Children and Young People's Services, Joyce Thacker, earlier defended her decision, saying it was influenced by UKIP's immigration policy.

UKIP immigration policy

An immediate five-year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement.
After the five year freeze, a strictly controlled, points-based system similar to Australia to be introduced.
An aspiration to ensure that future immigration does not exceed 50,000 people a year.
Regain control of UK borders by leaving the EU.
Repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ensure British benefits are only available to UK citizens or those who have lived here for at least five years.
End the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government

SOURCE: UKIP website

She said: "I have legal advice I have to follow for the placement of children and I was criticised before for not making sure their cultural and ethnic needs were met.

"If the party mantra is, for example, ending the active promotion of multiculturalism I have to think about that... I have to think of their longer-term needs.

Ms Thacker added she did not think UKIP were a racist party, but said they have "very clear" immigration policies which she could not ignore.
'Heads to roll'
The unnamed couple in their late 50s, who have been approved foster parents for seven years, were eight weeks into the placement when they were approached by social workers about their membership of the party.

The wife told the Daily Telegraph: "I was dumbfounded. Then my question to both of them was, 'What has UKIP got to do with having the children removed?'"

She said the social worker replied that UKIP have "racist policies" and the party wants immigrants "to be returned to their own countries".

UKIP's immigration policy states the party wants an "end [to] the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government", and urges Britain to leave the European Union (EU).

The party's leader Nigel Farage said he was "very upset and very angry" about the decision and called for "heads to roll" at the council.

He added: "This couple... have been fostering for many years and are very decent people. This was an awful shock to them, not to mention the upset for the children themselves."

He also accused the Labour-controlled council of bigotry towards his party.

Earlier, Labour leader Ed Miliband called for the council to urgently investigate the circumstances of the case.

He insisted: "Being a member of UKIP should not be a bar to adopting or fostering children.

"We need to find out the facts and the council urgently needs to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

"There are thousands of children who need to be looked after, who need fostering, we shouldn't have the situation where membership of a party like UKIP excludes you from doing that.

"We need loving homes for children across the country. That can come in different forms, it's not about what political party you are a member of," he concluded.

Friday, 23 November 2012

Pressure piles on church to vote again on female bishops ... oh yes, you lose the vote and then try to rig the result!

Equalities minister Maria Miller says CofE must reform and 'act quickly' to reflect majority

Maria Miller said the Church of England must make its own decision, but hoped it understood the 'strength of feeling' on female bishops. Photograph: David Jones/PA

[This has nothing to do with this silly woman Maria Miller
GENE]

Maria Miller, the culture secretary and minister for equalities, has urged the Church of England to review its internal democracy, describing it as not reflective of the overwhelming views of its members following its botched attempt to allow women to become bishops.
In her first official comments on the issue, which has plunged the established church into turmoil, Miller told the Guardian it was "extraordinary" and "very disappointing" that a vote on long-awaited legislation had failed despite the overwhelming approval of grassroots members.
In a direct criticism of the way in which the General Synod came to its decision to block women bishops she says: "If you're going to tackle the problem, I think the church needs to be answering some of the questions as to why their system works the way it does, and are they really happy that it's reflective of the views of their membership. But, as I say, it's important that the church tackles this."
She adds: "I think it's extraordinary that the church seems to have ended up in a situation where a vote that was taken doesn't seem to be reflective of the overwhelming view of the members of the church."
Her intervention came as the next archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, signalled his willingness to meet MPs and peers to discuss the crisis.
Miller, echoing previous comments by David Cameron, said it was up to the church to tackle its internal problems, urging it to examine the "procedures and processes" which, she said, led to a result which did not "reflect the majority will".
Although female bishops were approved by the majority of dioceses, bishops and clergy, they were rejected by the laity on Tuesday when put to a vote in the synod, the church's governing body.
There has been criticism that the laity in the synod does not reflect the true state of church feeling. The deanery synods of a diocese choose lay representatives to the General Synod – the church governing body – by formal election using the single transferable vote. Critics say these elections are marked by apathy.
Miller said: "Obviously, it's for the Church of England to run its own procedures and processes, but I hope that they have heard, loud and clear, the strength of feeling on this, and that it acts quickly."
A spokesman for Welby, the bishop of Durham, who is to take over from Rowan Williams as the archbishop of Canterbury next year, said on Friday that the bishop would be replying "in support" of a meeting with MPs and Lords to discuss ways of moving forward with the issue. The suggestion, made by Sir Tony Baldry, the Tory MP who speaks on behalf of the church in the House of Commons, came after David Cameron urged the church to "get with the programme", while insisting parliament had to "respect individual institutions … while giving them a sharp prod".
For some MPs, however, that is not enough. They have called on parliament to force the church to act by removing its exemption from equalities legislation or by calling into question the future of the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords.
The government wants the issue of women bishops to be revisited as quickly as possible, aware of how damaging a drawn-out battle could prove for the established church. This, however, could prove difficult. Church rules state that the legislation cannot be brought back in the same form before 2015, although an unlikely intervention by the so-called Group of Six – representatives of each of the three houses in the synod including the archbishops of Canterbury and York – could change that. Senior figures in the church will have an opportunity to discuss the issue at a meeting of the archbishops' council in Sheffield next week.
Many campaigners for female bishops say privately they are concerned that a rushed return of the legislation in a modified form could result in them having to vote on a measure that is more concessionary to their opponents and even more discriminatory. They would prefer to wait and work towards the introduction of an uncompromising single-clause measure.
"What a small minority has done is blow up the bridge to any compromise solution. The consecration of women into the episcopate has been moved from certainty to inevitability. There is now only one route which must be travelled to that outcome. That is the route which removes all discriminatory provisions from the life and ministry of the church," John Gladwin, vice-president of the women's ordination campaign group Watch and former bishop of Chelmsford, wrote on Friday. "The work of the leadership of our church will be marginalised unless that reality is faced. The fog has lifted. Now with clarity and commitment we must all work to this end."
Amid calls from some MPs for parliament to intervene in the crisis, the bishop of Gloucester, Michael Perham, added his voice to those openly questioning whether the church should retain its exemption from equalities legislation.
In a statement, the bishop, a leading liberal with links to the US Episcopal church, said the vote had "brought ridicule" on the church and meant that it needed to face up to issues such as whether its protection from equality law was "defensible".

Hell and the Enemy exist. Priests and bishops who don’t teach about them will probably wind up there.

Posted on 18 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Before anything else, let it be said that, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Cor 10:13)

Now…

The greatest accomplishment of the Enemy of our souls is to deceive people that the Enemy doesn’t exist … that there is no Hell … that people can’t go to Hell … that no one is in Hell, blah blah blah.

Let’s be clear about this. Catholics are obliged to believe in the existence of the Devil and of Hell. These are de fide doctrines taught by the Church without the possibility of error.

The Devil exists. Fallen angels hate you with a malice no human can imagine. They have an intellect that surpasses our mere human faculties in a way that we can’t fathom. They never tire. They are relentless. They are real. If you don’t believe in the existence of malicious fallen angels, you are in serious risk of joining them in Hell. This is no joke.

Hell is real. In Hell, the damned suffer the pain of sense and the pain of loss (hint: unending pain is a key feature of your eternity in Hell). We can choose to separate ourselves from God and go to Hell by sinning, by resisting grace, by failing to repent, by failing to do what we ought, by presuming that we are automatically saved. If, when you die – and you will die – you are not in the state of grace, if, when you die – and it is going to happen to you – you are not living the friendship of God, you will go to Hell. Once you are there, that’s it. There is no hope of ever changing your lot. There is no changing your mind. There is no possibility of leaving even after a million billion years.

If you don’t believe in Hell, you will probably wind up there. And if you chose that fate, it would be better for you had you never been born (cf Matthew 26:24).

STOP. Spend a moment to examine your conscience.

NOW. Try to imagine what goes through the mind of the damned soul during his first 30 seconds in Hell.

I remind you of these harsh realities because I don’t want to go to Hell.

Priests and bishops who don’t teach about Hell will probably wind up there.

It is my job to keep as many of you as possible out of Hell.

I will therefore tell you about Hell and then echo St. Augustine, who told his flock “Nolo salvus esse sine vobis! … I don’t want to be saved without you!” (s. 17.2)

We must be clear about the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. Sure, we must also talk about heaven and goodness and joy and kitties and sunshine and birthday cakes. Let’s get this Hell and Devil thing straightened out because it’s been neglected for far too long.

We must also work to revive the Sacrament of Penance, which was instituted by Christ as the ordinary way our sins would be forgiven.

Going to confession, making a sincere confession of all your mortal sins in kind and number, can keep you out of Hell. Got that?

GO TO CONFESSION.

What a victory for the demons of Hell it has been to run down the Sacrament of Penance until it is barely thought of in some parishes.

Fathers, if you are parish priests and have the obligation to hear confessions, hearing confessions can help to keep you out of Hell. If you are parish priests and you don’t hear confessions or you won’t teach about confession, you will probably go to Hell. Just try to deny it. Just. Try.

The puritans who scuppered female bishops revel in our criticism of them

Conservative evangelicals cannot be argued with. The more we say they're wrong, the more convinced they become they're right

[That's because they are right you prat

GENE]

REV GILES FRASER

The caricature of puritans as life-denying fun-sponges is an overused trope that seems to describe someone from another century. But they are alive and well today.

There was this lad at school who got bullied all the time. When he wasn't being bullied he was being ignored. He was thin, quiet and spotty. It says something that I cannot even remember his name. But at some point he got picked up by the Christian Union. They made him feel like he belonged and gave him a club to be a part of. And from then on, he began to wear the slightly superior look of someone who thinks he knows something that other people don't know. Being an outsider became a badge of pride. He was now a Christian. And, in a way, the more ridiculous and unpopular the things he believed the better.

For his beliefs became a sort of barrier against the cruelty of the world. So the more people said his views were stupid, the more he felt the need for the protection they afforded him. His six impossible things before breakfast were a Maginot line against a world of hurt. Which is why he could never give them up or subject them to any sort of critical scrutiny.

Actually, I have made this person up. But I am trying to paint a picture of the mentality of conservative evangelicals, the people who have recently scuppered the female bishop legislation, without invoking the standard caricature of these modern-day puritans as life-denying fun-sponges obsessed with being right and with other people not having sex. Not that this latter image is all that far from the truth. The problem is that from Marlowe, Shakespeare and Johnson all they way through to Blackadder (and that brilliant episode where his rich puritan relatives come round to fulminate against fornication and inadvertently chomp on a penis-shaped turnip), this has become an overused trope that describes someone who seems to have stepped out of the Tardis from another century. The thing is, they are alive and well in the 21st century.

And the more we laugh at puritans, the more it confirms their worldview. Indeed, they have a text from St John's gospel that seems to cover precisely this: "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world. That is why the world hates you." In other words, the more hated you are, the more right you are. It's one up from Millwall football club's chant: "No one likes us, we don't care." Which is why the opprobrium that is currently being poured upon conservative evangelicals for voting against women bishops will make no difference whatsoever. It confirms them in feeling right.

Moreover, the fact that they have put a spanner in the works for everyone else is something they experience as some sort of secret pleasure. For the essence of the puritan mindset is revenge – as Nietzsche accurately described it, the revenge of the bullied who are subconsciously getting back at those who once made their life a misery. As the comedy puritan Malvolio rages at the end of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you."

So what can be done? Argument is pretty useless. Conservative religious people are generally locked in a self-referencing worldview where truth is about strict internal coherence rather than any reaching out to reality. That's why they treat the Bible like some vast jigsaw – its truth residing in a complex process of making the pieces fit together and not with the picture it creates.

So rather than laugh at them or argue with them, the best thing is probably ignore them. These modern-day puritans will always be with us. The problem is that the church needs a three-quarters synod majority to bring in women bishops and this gives them a controlling stake, holding the rest to ransom. The answer is simple. Reform synod and go round them.

What if JFK had survived his assassination?

By Scott Bomboy | National Constitution Center – Thu, Nov 22, 2012

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas. Almost as prevalent as theories about his assassination are theories about what would have happened to three major historical events if JFK had been alive in 1964.

kennedy in white house

President Kennedy with Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara.

It was 49 years ago today that Kennedy was killed on Dealey Plaza. His accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, died at the hands of Jack Ruby several days later.

Since then, many theories have sprung up about the assassination, who was involved, and why Kennedy was killed.

Among historians and some authors, there has been detailed debate and discussion about what would have happened in the event that Kennedy wasn’t killed in November 1963.
The three main topics of debate have been the outcome of the 1964 presidential election; the escalation of the Vietnam War; and the finality of the historic Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts.
All three of those items were in process when Kennedy died when he visited Texas as part of the run-up to the 1964 presidential campaign.
Kennedy was committed to running again in 1964 and based on the theories among historians, he had a good chance of winning.
His popularity rating was at 58 percent right before the assassination, just after he served 1,000 days in office. That number was higher than similar ratings for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, five presidents who won re-election bids.
The presumptive presidential nominee for the Republicans in late 1963 was Senator Barry Goldwater. He was friends with Kennedy and briefly dropped out of race after Kennedy’s death, only to re-enter it to oppose a man he disliked, Lyndon Johnson.
Kennedy and Goldwater had reportedly agreed to debate, while Johnson had no interest in debating Goldwater.

The closeness of an election between Kennedy and Goldwater would have been decided by two big issues looming over the year of 1964: civil rights and Vietnam.

On taped recordings made in the White House just before his death, Kennedy told advisers he expected a tough re-election campaign because of his support of civil rights.

President Kennedy had introduced his historic Civil Rights Act in June 1963. It was stalled in Congress when Kennedy died.

The Civil Rights Act faced fierce opposition in Congress, mostly from southern Democrats. Kennedy rejected an attempt to substitute a bill that would allow segregation at public facilities to continue.
After his death, President Johnson told the nation that passing the Civil Rights Act would be the best way to honor Kennedy’s legacy, but it took until July 1964 for Johnson and his allies to get the act approved.
If Kennedy had lived, the debate over the Civil Rights Act would have occurred during an election year—or maybe not.
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One theory is that Kennedy would have waited until after the 1964 election, with the hope of having more leverage in Congress to pass the act. The combination of Kennedy and Johnson would have tackled the bill, which would have been a protracted battle.
In reality, President Johnson was able to get the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 and Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 using his mandate from a landslide election, Kennedy’s legacy, and his considerable powers of persuasion in Congress.
The same audio tapes from November 19, 1963, also show Kennedy’s concerns about the crisis in Vietnam as he quizzes two aides who had returned from Asia.
“On the one hand, you get the military saying the war is going better, and on the other hand, you get the political [opinion] with its deterioration . . . I’d like to have an explanation what the reason is for the difference,” Kennedy asked.

The president’s brother, Robert Kennedy, did an audio interview for the Kennedy Library in April 1964 that recounted the thinking about Vietnam at the time of the president’s death: that Vietnam couldn’t fall to the Communists.

“He had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam,” Robert Kennedy said about his brother. The reason was the Domino theory, “Just the loss of all of Southeast Asia if you lost Vietnam. I think everybody was quite clear that the rest of Southeast Asia would fall,” Kennedy said.

Just three weeks before President Kennedy’s death, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem was killed in a military coup indirectly supported by the United States.

In August 1963, Kennedy said in another taped conversation that Congress would be mad if it found out about a proposed coup in Vietnam, but Congress would “be madder if Vietnam goes down the drain.”

The situation rapidly deteriorated in Vietnam in the year after Kennedy’s death and in August 1964, Congress approved by a near unanimous vote the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Johnson the ability to commit massive amounts of U.S. troops without a war declaration.

In 2009, filmmaker and visiting Brown scholar Koji Masutani took on the subject of Kennedy and Vietnam in Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived. The film was based on a book and considerable research on the subject by academics at Brown and the University of Toronto, who looked at large amounts of data and transcripts from the Kennedy administration.

Masutani and the researchers concluded that Kennedy would have sought a more diplomatic solution than Johnson, who committed more troops to the Vietnam War in 1964, and that Kennedy wanted to be out of Vietnam entirely by 1966.

Their theory was that Kennedy had a pattern of behavior, established in his handling of crises like the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile situations, which usually had the president going against the advice of his military advisers to find a diplomatic solution.

Planning documents from November 20, 1963 show that the U.S. had hoped to have all military personnel out of Vietnam by the end of the 1965 calendar year, unless there were “justified” exceptions.

But the fallout from the Diem coup was unknown at the time of the Kennedy assassination, so how the president would have handled Vietnam during an election year remains a mystery.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

Thursday, 22 November 2012

David Cameron is bullying the Church over women bishops, just as he will do over gay marriage

David Cameron is bullying the Church over women bishops, just as he will do over gay marriage

Cristina Odone

Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. She has recently launched the website freefaith.com.

By Cristina OdonePoliticsLast updated: November 22nd, 2012

The vote on women bishops did not go Cameron's way

The Synod vote on women bishops has revealed David Cameron's contempt for the Church. The vote went against women – and Cameron railed against the Established Church. He used his position to vent his personal frustration at those who could not vote against what they believe is the sacred tradition of the Apostolic Succession. They were "sad" people, who'd made a bad choice, Cameron was clear.
This kind of passive-aggressive behaviour is the worst kind of bullying: making his opponents feel they are not the right-thinking people Dave approves of. Worryingly, the PM thinks it appropriate to weigh in to the Church's decision-making; he refuses to see the Anglican Communion as a separate and distinct sphere.
This is precisely what I fear he will do when he pushes through (in an accelerated, some may say reckless, fashion) the gay marriage legislation. Despite resistance from the Tory heartland, Cameron is determined to push the law through within weeks.
There are priests and vicars (not to mention rabbis and imams) who see gay sex as a sin; they will see celebrating gay marriage as a wrong. Cameron will override their concerns, and force them to celebrate the gay couples' union anyway. He will show the same kind of disrespect for them as he has shown for those against women bishops.
Cameron sends his children to a C of E primary. He claims to have a faith. Yet he obviously thinks he knows better than the Church he belongs to

The Wonderful Synod of Oz

Posted on 22 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There is an interesting piece in the ultra-liberal UK paper, The Guardian.

One of the biggest lies the church tells itself is that it doesn’t do politics. The General Synod of the Church of England is set up in the round so as to encourage the impression of consensual discussion amongst friends. [Note the criticism of the synodic government of the C of E. This liberal is saying that synodic government doesn't work. Heh heh.]
That, of course, is profoundly disingenuous. You don’t have to be an expert on the novels of Anthony Trollope to know that cathedral cloisters and church synods have long been a poisonous hotbed of plotting and resentment. [Hey wait! I thought it was only patriarchal hierarchy that was poisonous. But today we see that the C of E, with its voting and synods, is poisonous! Hmmm.]
Yet those who are seeking scapegoats for the current car crash over female bishops are now pointing to church lobby groups as having introduced an inappropriate element of secular political organisation into church life. If only we would pray more, or be more holy, then all this nasty political stuff would disappear and real peace would break out.
This is a ridiculous form of false consciousness. Those who are too theologically squeamish for overt political contestation simply push politics into the shadows. It then becomes a manipulative business of saying one thing (something that sounds nice and friendly) while meaning something else entirely.
For instance, it is now almost obligatory in the church for us to say publicly that we respect each other’s differences. We speak of opponents’ “deeply held convictions”, but few of us actually believe anything of the sort. What we say in private is utterly unprintable. But for the church, even to admit this is an honesty too far. [He's talking sense here. And liberal catholics better pay attention to this and get over the stupid illusion that synodic government of the Church and voting are pure and wonderful.]
Remember, the anti-politics lot say sweetly, Jesus said we ought to love our enemies. To which my response is to point out that he certainly didn’t say we ought not to have any.
So, let’s forget the theology and talk straightforward politics. What happened at the General Synod is that a dogmatic minority of biblical literalists and an even smaller minority of Roman Catholic wannabes – both of whom, for entirely different reasons, reject women as church leaders – have been appeased in the name of some twisted version of inclusion.
[...]

Okay, there is a lot more to this piece that is worth your attention. Read it there.

This is the point you need to take away.

catholic liberals want us to have synodic government. We are supposed to vote on things, doctrines are just “policies”, polled majority opinion reveals the sensus fidelium. That’s more “just”!

However, the C of E vote on women bishops shows that the synodic government just produced what liberals think is an “unjust” result.

When the vote goes your liberal way, it is sensus fidelium. When it goes against you, it is dirty politics!

Remember: If there is democracy and voting, then conservatives get to vote too… unless you suppress them with purely political tactics.

The Fishwrap‘s dream of governance by societal trend and voting and majority rule is totally bankrupt.

They might respond that human beings are flawed and some problems will creep in blah blah blah but synodic rule really is better, more just, than hierarchical rule in the long run.

We then have to ask: What possible evidence can you produce for that claim? The way the C of E works? The way the Orthodox do things? The “peaceful” councils of the early Church?

The piece in The Guardian, and the way the Fishwrap and The Tablet want things to be, reminds me of how just and peaceful liberals were in the seminary hell-hole I was in in these United States. If you were faithful to Church doctrine and didn’t dissemble or kept your head low to the ground, they made your life hell or threw you out. If you were against homosexual behavior and against women’s ordination, you were in danger of getting forced to go to a psychologist before getting thrown out or sent off for a “pastoral year”.

Liberals are soooo enlightened.

Today is the forty-ninth anniversary of the John F Kennedy assassination

Today is the forty-ninth anniversary of the John F Kennedy assassination

"He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights . . . . It's — it had to be some silly little Communist." — Jackie Kennedy, on hearing that a leftist had been arrested for her husband's murder.

It's the most controversial case in modern American history. Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill John Kennedy by himself, or did a conspiracy do it? And if a conspiracy did it, did the conspiracy include Oswald?
If you are like most Americans, you believe that a conspiracy killed Kennedy. And if you are like most Americans, you have heard a vast number of bogus factoids about the case. This web site is dedicated to debunking the mass of misinformation and disinformation surrounding the murder of JFK. If you are believer in Oswald as a lone gunman, you are likely to enjoy this web site, since most of that misinformation and disinformation has come from conspiracists. But if you are a sophisticated conspiracist, you likely understand that the mass of silly nonsense in conspiracy books and documentaries does no service to the cause of truth in the assassination, and simply buries the "case for conspiracy" under layers of bunk. Regardless of what you believe, several web sites, mostly conspiracy-oriented are worth checking out. And you may also want to check out my list of recommended books on the assassination. What sort of evidence is there?

Dealey Plaza

What about those witnesses? Didn't everyone hear shots from the Grassy Knoll? What about the Tague wounding? Who was the "Umbrella Man?" Was the rifle recovered really a Mauser? Does "acoustic evidence" show a shot from the Grassy Knoll? Were the Three Tramps suspicious? How could Kennedy's head go "back and to the left?"

The Single Bullet Theory

You've seen Kevin Costner give the conspiracy version of the Single Bullet theory. You know: Connally seated directly in front of Kennedy, at the same height, and facing straight ahead. Was that really what happened?

Lee Harvey Oswald

What sort of person was he? Did he really have "Top Secret" security clearance? Did he shoot at General Walker? Were there two Oswalds? If Oswald shot Kennedy, what was his motive? Was the man exhumed in 1981 really somebody besides Oswald?

Jim Garrison and New Orleans

Did Oswald really share an office with Guy Banister? Did Clay Shaw really use the alias "Clay Bertrand?" Why did Oliver Stone make a movie about the Shaw trial and not even mention Perry Raymond Russo? Did David Ferrie die a "mysterious death?" What about Jim Garrison and the Mafia?

Medical Evidence

Did the bullet that hit Kennedy in the back penetrate only an inch and fall out? Was Kennedy hit in the head by a bullet from in front? Are the autopsy photos and x-rays faked? Did all the doctors at Parkland Hospital believe that Kennedy was hit in the front of the neck, and if so, are their opinions decisive evidence that that is what happened? Was the back of Kennedy's head blown out? Are the autopsy photos faked?

Bogus Evidence

Did you know that all the evidence in this case proven to be forged has been on the conspiracy side? One key piece originated with the KGB! Did you know that the "mysterious deaths" are virtually all not so "mysterious" when you look at them closely? Do you trust authors like Mark Lane to tell you the truth about what witnesses said?

Jack Ruby

The "lone nut" theory of the assassination is really the "two lone nuts" theory. What sort of person was Jack Ruby? A mobster? An intelligence agent? A small-time hustler? The sort of volatile character who might really have shot Oswald out of righteous anger?

Oliver Stone's Movie "JFK"

We expect Hollywood movies to take some liberties with the historical record. But what do we think when Hollywood turns history on its head? Oliver Stone wants to overturn the verdict in the Clay Shaw trial. The jury found that District Attorney Jim Garrison had no case — so Stone invents a case on celluloid. Just how honest was Oliver Stone, Shaw's Hollywood prosecutor?

John Kennedy: Liberal Martyr?

For some in the conspiracy crowd, John Kennedy was a liberal saint, who was going to implement policies that would bring America into a new Utopia. So, of course, a threatened Power Elite had to kill him. Was Kennedy the kind of left liberal who threatened established interests? Was he a hero of Civil Rights? Had he decided to pull out of Vietnam? Historian Eric Paddon dissects these claims in a series of essays based on his posts on the Internet.

Assassination Logic

Some notions about logic, probability and statistics necessarily underlie all discussion of "conspiracy" or "lone assassin." Does the lone assassination theory involve too many implausible "coincidences?" Are there a suspicious number of "connections" between various figures in the case? Is the Single Bullet Theory highly "improbable?"

Assassination Witnesses

In writings about the assassination, as in real-world criminal justice, witness testimony looms large. But just how reliable are the witnesses? How many witnesses are just flat out telling tall tales? How often are apparently sober and reliable witnesses just flat wrong?

Did Oswald Have a Girlfriend in New Orleans?

A woman named Judyth Baker has come forward claiming to have been Oswald's adulterous lover in in summer of 1963, to have participated with him in a secret bioweapons program aimed at killing Castro, and to have inside knowledge of Oswald's "patsy" role in the assassination. It's a good story, and she got a chance to tell it on the History Channel in November 2003. But is it the truth?

The Assassination Context

What we think about the assassination is dependent on what we think about history, and about the behavior of government officials and bureaucrats. Was Kennedy a radical who threatened the status quo? Did top administration officials order a coverup of a conspiracy soon after the assassination? If the FBI and the CIA withhold documents, does this mean that they are protecting assassination conspirators?

Release the Documents!

This has long been the cry of the conspiracy theorists. Supposedly, the documents show that a conspiracy killed Kennedy. In fact, the government in the 1990s released a massive number of documents. The Assassination Records Review Board had a mandate to identify and oversee the release of documents in government hands, and in private hands.

Hear History Happen

Recording devices monitored the two radio channels used by the Dallas Police Department, and these recordings are a vivid "real time" account of the frenzy of activity that followed the shooting. Here are selected audio clips beginning a couple of minutes before the assassination and ending with the arrest of Oswald in the Texas Theatre.

Newsgroup

Do you want to ask for more information, or discuss or debate some of the issues raised here? The moderated newsgroup:
alt.assassination.jfk run by Peter Fokes and John McAdams, is the place to go — whether you are a "newbie" with questions to ask, or a researcher with some evidence you want to present to the research community.

Featured Articles

I don't necessarily agree with all the conclusions these authors have drawn, but everything here is a solid piece of work that deserves your attention. All are copyrighted, and all posted here with permission.

A recent TV special from the National Geographic channel featured enhancements of assassination films and an attempt to study the missed first shot that many researchers believe Oswald fired. From Max Holland's website, here is the technical report giving full details of the project.
The notion that Kennedy was killed because he intended to withdraw from Vietnam has become the conventional wisdom among conspiracists, and a recent treatment of that theory, James W. Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable, has drawn some attention. But unfortunately, the author not only distorts history, but unintentionally paints a very unflattering portrait of JFK. See our review of the book here.
Zombie assassins? The notion that "Manchurian candidate" assassins might be "programmed" to commit murder has been a recurring one. Most often invoked in the murder of Robert Kennedy, it has also surfaced in the JFK assassination. British author Mel Ayton explores this issue in his essay "Bogus Manchurian Candidate Theories."
A recent book by Abraham Bolden tells a most interesting story about the first black Secret Service agent who supposedly knew about conspiratorial goings-on in Chicago, and who was (he claims) framed, convicted and sent to jail on charges of corruption. The media have been rather credulous about his account, but in fact he was almost certainly guilty as charged. Indeed, when the House Select Committee examined his claims in the late 1970s, they found them to lack credibility. While the mainstream media is suitably skeptical when the conspiracy card is played, they suspend that skepticism when the race card is played.
Garrisonites are a rather peculiar and paranoid cult among conspiracy believers, and Joan Mellen's book A Farewell to Justice is the latest to defend District Attorney Jim Garrison, whose ill-conceived campaign to convict Clay Shaw of the JFK assassination was the subject of the movie "JFK." Yet, like the movie, Mellen has fallen into the trap of believing the most incredible sources and adopting the most outlandish theories in an attempt to vindicate the DA, as Patricia Lambert shows in this review of the book. In another essay, Dave Reitzes discusses Garrison's central, critical witness, a fellow named Perry Raymond Russo. Mellen accepts his testimony, which Reitzes shows was vastly unreliable. Finally, Lambert shows how Mellen blew off the testimony of a key reliable witness, one Dr. Frank Silva, when it conflicted with the Garrison version of events.
When a reputable historian publishes a JFK assassination book with a reputable academic press, it should be judicious in its use of sources and prudent in its judgments. But, alas, David Kaiser's book The Road to Dallas turns out to be just another conspiracy book, not too different from scores of others. Read a review by webmaster John McAdams on the e-zine Washington Decoded.
Nothing about the assassination is more important than the issue of when the shots in Dealey Plaza were fired. Pick your timing, and it may be consistent with or entirely debunk a single shooter in the Texas School Book Depository. A new essay by Kenneth R. Scearce supports a new theory about the timing that puts the first shot far earlier than anybody has heretofore theorized. Of course, this theory has generated controversy, so you might want to check out a reply from computer animation specialist Dale Myers.
Author David Talbot ought to the the sort of sober and serious person we would expect a member of the mainstream media to be on the assassination, but alas he isn't. Veteran journalist Don Bohning, who long reported on Talbot's prime suspects in the Miami Cuban community, finds Talbot's book Brothers to be pretty much another buff book, with credulous acceptance of suspect witnesses and a very selective use of the documentary record.
Mel Ayton has a new essay on Conspiracy Thinking and the John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Assassinations." Ayton believes that all conspiracy thinking has several common threads.
There has been a recent spate of new books and new theories about the assassination, including a German television documentary called "Rendezvous With Death" from Wilfried Huismann and Gus Russo and the book Ultimate Sacrifice by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann. Do we have any compelling new evidence or interpretations here, or is this just more unsupported conspiracy theorizing? A new essay by Mel Ayton critically examines the evidence.
"Rendezvous With Death", claims to have discovered compelling new evidence that Fidel Castro had John Kennedy killed, using Lee Oswald as hit man and patsy. It has received a mixed reception, at best. A new essay by David Lifton accepts, for the sake of argument, the data produced by the authors of "Rendezvous With Death" and points out that it could be interpreted in a way very different from what the documentary proposes.
The History Channel has a record of showing reasonably reliable documentaries on subjects like wars, Nazis, the history of popular culture and the like. But their record on the Kennedy assassination is abysmal. The series "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" has a record of touting the most implausible and bizarre theories. But they managed to reach a new low with an episode titled "The Guilty Men" which fingered Lyndon Johnson as the prime mover behind the assassination. In this article, journalist and historian Max Holland dissects the entire series, and especially the installment on LBJ. And veteran JFK researcher Dave Perry critiques the reliability of the supposed "evidence" in an article from his website. And one of the accused conspirators, Malcolm Liggett, sued The History Channel over the supposed "documentary" and received a settlement.
The "acoustic evidence" got a boost in 2001, when a scientist named D.B. Thomas published an article claiming to have corrected the statistical treatment in earlier studies and found clear evidence of a shot from the Grassy Knoll. However, a recent careful study of the timing on the events on the Dallas Police tape by Michael O'Dell shows that the "shots" happened too late to actually be shots. Thus the "acoustic evidence" was to acoustic science what cold fusion was to physics: an example of how even reputable scientists can jump to conclusions when faced with the possibility of an "explosive" discovery.
Of course there are all kinds of wild and woolly theories connecting Oswald to the CIA. But some responsible and sober researchers have argued that the Agency knew more about and had a more intense interest in Oswald than they have ever admitted. One such researcher is Jefferson Morley, world news editor of washingtonpost.com. His article "What Jane Roman Said" outlines the evidence.
Among conspiracy-oriented researchers, there is a deep gulf between the more moderate and sensible ones, and those who'll promote any bogus piece of "conspiracy evidence." Ulric Shannon is one of the former, and he explains in this essay why he thinks the "I'll believe anything that implies conspiracy" crowd is so harmful.
Researcher Bill Drenas debuted his essay "Car #10, Where Are You" on this web site in 1997. The current version has some minor factual corrections and much new material. Not pushing any conspiracy theory, but not a debunking exercise either, it's a very careful attempt to nail down Tippit's whereabouts — minute by minute — on the day he died.
A related essay from Drenas involves the Top Ten Record Shop. This classic Oak Cliff location was where Officer Tippit stopped shortly before he was shot. It's still in business, and you'll almost certainly want to visit when you are in Dallas.
Long-time researcher Gus Russo, author of the recently released book Live By the Sword has an interesting story to tell about his own personal commitment to the case, and his changing views about who killed JFK, and his changing views of John and Robert Kennedy, excerpted from his book.
Canadian Peter Whitmey is a conspiracy-oriented researcher who sometimes takes issue with conspiracy arguments and witnesses. His articles on this site deal with issues such as a possibly sinister conversation overheard in a Winnipeg airport, a little-known New Orleans figure named Clem H. Sehrt, an interesting connection between Oswald biographer Priscilla McMillan and a rather suspect New Orleans witness named Ron Lewis and the phone records of David Ferrie, accused plotter. Another essay outlines what Whitmey considers "Deception and Deceit" in the media in reporting the assassination. Finally, a long essay of his titled "Creating a Patsy" brings his research up to date as of the release of the Vincent Bugliosi book.
Gerald Posner and his book Case Closed have come under heavy attack from the community of conspiracy-oriented "researchers." In "Defending Posner" Michael Russ compares what the conspiracy buffs say Posner said to what Posner actually said. It seems buffs are no more accurate when attacking their enemies than when discussing the assassination.
Michael Beck was once a JFK "buff" -- a believer in a Kennedy assassination conspiracy. He now believes that Oswald did it all my himself. How did his beliefs change? This is his personal account of an intellectual odyssey.
Researcher David Perry has been "doing" the assassination for several years, and has seen a continual stream of "revelations" come and go. In his essay "A Few Good Men" he discusses publicity-seeking, and particularly the Loy Factor story.
Tony Marsh's essay "Circumstantial Evidence of a Head Shot From The Grassy Knoll" is now available online. Based on careful analysis of the movements of the occupants of the presidential limo, of the HSCA acoustic evidence, and of a "jiggle analysis" of the Zapruder film, it represents a bold and interesting attempt to put the evidence together in a compelling way. It was originally presented at the 1993 Third Decade Conference.
Just how many different people have been accused of being (or have confessed to being) either a shooter or an accomplice in Dealey Plaza? Researcher David Perry has compiled the most complete known list. His Rashomon to the Extreme! is that list. Of the 68 people on this list, at least one is guilty.
The essay, A Conspiracy Too Big by Fred Litwin asks about the credibility of any theory that holds that a conspiracy faked all the evidence that conspiracy theorists say is faked.
John Locke's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) outlines the evidence, from the perspective of a person who believes Oswald did it alone. A good briefing for someone who has only read conspiracy books, and wants the other side of the story.
A Bad Case of Deja Vu, another essay by John Locke, compares the O.J. Simpson defense to conspiracy thinking in the Kennedy assassination. Would the intellectual habits of the conspiracy buffs have let O.J. go free? Locke says "yes."

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