The Assassination of John F Kennedy

This is a time of very important anniversaries in the history of the United States.  November 22, 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy http://www.jfklibrary.org/.  There has been a lot of media about this assassination, and I have watched it, remembering how sad I was for our nation.  I was in the 6th grade. I remember that we heard about this as the boys came back from the mid-afternoon break. The janitor had the radio on, and they heard the news and brought it back to us.

I remember watching  a lot of television: the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, the funeral cortege and the explanations of all the symbolism, the stories about the Kennedy children.

This was a very sad time for our country.  It is a hallmark of the United States government that instead of being thrown into chaos, although I am sure the players felt they were in chaos, the oath was administered to Lyndon B. Johnson and he became the next President of the United States.

To this day, there is controversy over whether Lee Harvey Oswald http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald was the lone assassin, or if he worked in conjunction with a conspiracy to assassinate the President.  I know that the Warren Commission http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1.html basically said that Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for the assassination.

I am reminded that a news commentator remarked that a whole generation of Americans will go through life thinking that there was a conspiracy, not based on history, but based on the Oliver Stone movie JFK http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102138/. 

There are many history, discovery and news media outlets that air stories that may be based in fact, but also have some questionable information in them.  Some are blatantly ficitonalized, or take "creative license" to make the story more interesting, more amenable to the time constraints of the media outlet,  but some try to stay true to the facts. But it is difficult to discern what is the reality of these media offerings.  Usually, I trust the stuff on PBS http://www.pbs.org/.  I used to try to believe the stuff on The History Channel https://www.google.com/search?q=The+History+Channel&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBF, but realize it is an entertainment outlet, not an educational venue, and I have been disillusioned by it.  But I still like it. I do not watch the Discovery Channel http://dsc.discovery.com/ or the National Geographic Channel http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/, so I will reserve judgement on those two outlets.  

But, there has been some interesting programming about the assassination of JFK, and it is an important reminder about this tragic time in the history of the United States.