Kennedy Books

This is a wonderful book that can be helpful in many class levels of American History. I personally am using this book in my AP US History class. I find that all facts in the text are completely relavent to the topic being discussed. Bailey also has a way of putting in many little important tidbits and anecdotes that are very humorous and pertain to the subject matter. The book's layout is very well organized. This makes it easy to find any information. In the margins Bailey has put in may quotes from famous historical figures. These quotes always pertain the the subject being discussed and are very helpful when writing essays. The book also does a good job of including the inportance of different ethnic groups in the formation of America.

I read Amy's Eyes when I was in 4th grade and I loved it. It tells the story of an orphaned girl and her sailor doll, The Captain, who comes to life and goes to see. Amy misses him and pines away... and pines away... When the Captain returns for her he finds that she has turned into a doll with button eyes. He adopts the doll and takes her away on adventures at sea on a boat crewed by an assortment of characters including a large talking frog.

Amy's Eyes is a story that children and adults will both like. I have fond childhood memories and I recommend it.

If you're playing a game of word associations and say "Jordan" and "archaeology" to most people, the snap answer will come: "Petra". Beyond that, Jordan archaeologically is pretty much of a blank, even to those who are otherwise well-traveled and well-read. This book shows just how wrong that is. It covers, with equal diligence, every epoch of Jordan's diverse history: the neolithic ruins in Jordan's northeastern black basaltic desert; the spectacular remains of the Nabataean period; the Roman frontier forts and the elegant provincial town of Jarash; the Umayyad desert castles; the Crusader fortresses of Kerak and Shaubak; and finally the Hajj forts and the Hejaz railway constructed by the Ottomans.

There are introductory chapters presenting background information on the land itself, a quick overview of Jordan's history, and the origins and practice of aerial photography. There follow 14 historical chapters on the different periods of Jordan's history, with typically 15-20 images presented in each, along with explanatory text. Roughly half of the images are full-page in this oversized book (8.25" wide by 12" high). There are spectacular photos of memorable sites like the Roman forts Qasr Bshir and Qasr el-Hallabat, the Umayyad desert castle Qasr el-Kharaneh, and Petra's Khazneh tomb, but I was equally intrigued by the images of the desert "kites" - converging stone walls of enormous length used by early man to funnel gazelles into flower-shaped killing zones - and the wheel and jellyfish house foundations that remain from neolithic times. The photographs were taken at heights ranging from as little as 50-100 feet by helicopter, to 2,000 feet or more from fixed-wing aircraft. All are strikingly clear, revealing, and obviously carefully shot, so that the angle of the sun brings out all the surface detail of those sites where only the bare outline of walls remains. All images are in full color -- or, at least, as many colors as this predominantly dry landscape offers.

This book will be useful to professional and amateur scholars with a serious interest in the sites described, as well as to anyone who is planning a pleasure trip to Jordan and wants to know whether it would be worth their while to visit the Byzantine village of Umm el-Jimal, the Neolithic urban center of Jawa, or the Abbasid family's home village of Humayma. It should likewise be ordered by libraries that serve a patron base consisting of any of these groups.

And if your circumstances are such as to make it unlikely that you'll ever be able to get to Jordan, or to visit such remote sites as Jawa even if you do, then despair not - this book is the next best thing to being there.

Written and colorfully illustrated by Debi Kennedy, The Angry Monster Book is a fun and active book for children to discover a greater perspective and understanding of anger. With an interesting approach to the concept, The Angry Monster Book takes its young readers to introspective questioning and analysis for various aspects of emotional projection an control. Small but sturdy, The Angry Monster Book is very highly recommended reading for young children -- indeed, this is a book that should be given to them the moment they learn to read.

Arabic Tales Book 1 is a great little book and the stories are great. I remember when some of these stories first appeared year ago in Kuwait This Month and always felt that they should be available in book form. Paul Kennedy has a very engaging way of writing and the illustrations, which I never saw before, are superb. I'm glad I bought my copy and I'm looking forward to getting Book 2 also as soon as it is published. It's definitely a great piece for the Young and the curious under the age of 100..:)

Aristophanes was a ribald playwright whose raucous plays were brilliantly brought to life by Alfred Corn, RHW Dillard, XJ Kennedy, and Campbell McGrath. In the first play of the series of four plays, Wasps, satirizes the jury-for-pay system, prevalent in Athens during the war with Sparta. Athens was populated with older men, veterans of the wars with Persia, and were particularly noted for the severity of their judgments. In the play, Philocleon is being kept prisoner in his own home by his son, Bdelycleon, in an attempt to prevent the father from going to the courthouse to pronounce sentence on a criminal before even hearing the evidence. Bdelycleon uses a clever argument to convince his father to stay home and serve as judge and jury over household matters. His first case was trying the pet dog for stealing food and not sharing it with the cat.

Lysistrata is a hilarious play about Athenian women who team up with the women of Sparta and Thebes to force the men to make peace. Written during the Peloponnesian War, Aristophanes, like his play, Peace, takes a strong anti-war stance (...) .

In Frogs, Aristophanes hits upon the theme of a lack of good playwrights in Athens. Written after the death of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, the hero of the comedy, Dionysus (god of arts, among other things) wants to bring back Euripides from Hades. He pretends to be Hercules (who had gone to Hades to capture Cerberus, the guard dog of Hades) and runs into all kinds of trouble. He eventually referees a crazy debate between Euripides and Aescylus, to determine who the best playwright is.

Finally, in The Sexual Congress, we have an uproarious comedy about the women of Athens disguising themselves as men and stocking the General Assembly. Praxagora, as the leader of the women, proposes that the affairs of the city be turned over to the women. The women won the day and instituted a utopian society not to different from Plato's Republic, but this one went way overboard. Written after the war with Sparta, Athens was beset with corruption and low morale at the time.

The four plays in Aristophanes, 2 span the gamut from Old Comedy to New Comedy. The former was characterized by vulgar and slapstick humor with a Chorus used to interact with the audience. As comedy evolved the Chorus played less a role and there was a softening of the ribald humor so characteristic of Old Comedy.

To make the plays more readable and understandable without losing any of the humor of the plays the translators often made references to Twentieth Century phrases instead of the original Greek phrases. This might be annoying to the scholar but makes these plays eminently enjoyable to the general reader.

...Ask What You Can Do For Your Country: The Memory And Legacy Of John F. Kennedy by Dan B. Fleming, Jr. is an informed and erudite tribute to one of America's most beloved and deeply mourned presidents. Based on interviews with people across the U.S.A. and the world, ...Ask What You Can Do For Your Country gathers reactions to the shock of JFK's assassination; vignettes of personal reflection; anecdotes about JFK, and much more. A moving tribute and testimony to a great elected leader, ...Ask What You Can Do For Your Country is a strongly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library American History, Political Science, and Biographical Studies collections.

Let's examine the LENGTHS to which many rabid JFK conspiracy theorists will go in their crazy attempts at allowing Lee Harvey Oswald to get away with the two murders he so obviously committed on 11/22/63.....

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1.) Eyewitness Howard Brennan sees Lee Harvey Oswald shoot at President John F. Kennedy with a rifle. Plus: Brennan provided a decent "Oswald-like" description in his 11/22/63 affidavit....and this wouldn't even take into account the 12:44 PM APB description put out by J. Herbert Sawyer of the Dallas Police just minutes after the shooting.

So you can toss out that 12:44 description if you want to think it WASN'T provided by Howard Brennan. That STILL leaves Brennan's 11/22 affidavit, which says:

"He was a white man in his early 30s, slender, nice looking, and would weigh about 165 to 175 pounds."


THE KOOK RESPONSE ("KR"): Brennan is totally unreliable. .... Or: His eyesight sucks. ... He was coerced into identifying Oswald. ... He wasn't even looking up at the sixth floor at the time of the last shot. ... He described the wrong clothing. ... He couldn't possibly have seen Oswald well enough to give a positive I.D. through a half-open window (DVP interjection: even though Brennan did positively identify two of the black men situated just one floor below the sniper).


2.) Lee Oswald's very own rifle is found on the 6th Floor of the TSBD just 52 minutes after JFK's assassination.


KR: That rifle probably was "planted" there by dastardly, unknown, unseen conspirators of some ilk. .... Or: It wasn't really Oswald's rifle up on the 6th Floor at all. Instead, a Mauser rifle was found.


3.) Oswald's palmprint is found on his rifle the day of the assassination (per J.C. Day of the DPD):

"Your No. 637 is the right palm of Oswald." -- J.C. Day; To WC

That print was lifted off the gun barrel by Day himself before the rifle was turned over to the FBI on the night of 11/22/63.


KR: The palmprint was either "planted" there by the Feds or the DPD after Oswald was killed (with a print taken from Oswald in the morgue, no less). .... Or: The print was never really lifted off of the weapon by J.C. Day as he stated to the WC, meaning that Day (along with a cast of hundreds more), was part of a "Let's Frame LHO" plot.


4.) Bullet CE399 (fired from Oswald's Carcano rifle "to the exclusion of all other weapons") is found inside the very same hospital where both victims of the shooting were taken, proving beyond virtually every shred of a doubt that Oswald's gun fired that bullet into either Jack Kennedy's or John Connally's body on 11/22/63.


KR: CE399 was "planted" in the hospital by another of the faceless, nameless plotters who overtook Dallas that November day. No WAY that bullet could have been inside a victim on Nov. 22! And that "SBT" stuff is nonsense too (in case that's next on David's laundry list)!


5.) Bullet shells from Oswald's rifle ("to the exclusion" again) are found directly under the same window from where Oswald himself was seen firing a gun at JFK's car.


KR: Those shells were "planted" there by the DPD. Well, at least ONE of them was planted/faked anyway. (It's a PLANT FESTIVAL in Dallas, circa 1963!)


6.) An empty paper sack, generally matching the type Oswald was seen carrying to work on 11/22 by two witnesses, is found under the very same window in the Sniper's Nest from where Lee Oswald was seen firing a gun at JFK. The sack has two of Oswald's prints on it.


KR: That paper sack was "planted" there by the DPD. It's obvious! It wasn't even photographed by Studebaker or Day! So it COULDN'T have been there when the Nest was first discovered! To hell with those prints of LHO's on the bag! They're fake too. It's obvious. The cops planted the bag, then ran around and (somehow) got Oswald's palmprint and fingerprint and then "planted" the prints on the fake bag. It's kid stuff! (If you're a kook maybe.)


7.) Oswald is seen by multiple witnesses murdering policeman J.D. Tippit approx. 45 minutes after JFK was shot from right in front of Oswald's workplace (a location Oswald fled within three minutes of the JFK shooting, even though he had no permission to leave work that early).


KR: Oswald never shot Officer Tippit! A nicely-arranged "Oswald Double" killed Tippit. It's obvious, for God's sake! Oswald couldn't have even been there in time to plug Tippit! (Despite various re-constructions that show the trip was certainly a doable one by anybody whose legs weren't in casts.)


8.) Oswald's very own .38 revolver is determined to be the weapon that gunned down Tippit, via the four spent shells that littered the crime scene (shells that were ejected--by hand--from Oswald's revolver BY OSWALD HIMSELF, per multiple eyewitnesses to this post-shooting activity).


KR: Those bullet shells were "planted" by the DPD. It's obvious, you goof! An "automatic" weapon killed Tippit.


9.) Approximately a dozen witnesses in total identified Lee Harvey Oswald as either Tippit's LONE killer, or as the LONE MAN who fled the scene of the crime near 10th Street and Patton Avenue (with a gun in hand, dumping shells along the way).


KR: Those witnesses are all wrong! TWO guys did the Tippit job! Acquilla Clemons confirms this. Who are ya gonna believe -- Acquilla (who didn't even see the actual shooting as it was happening)? Or are ya gonna believe Davis, Davis, Scoggins, Markham, Tatum, Callaway, Benavides, Patterson, etc., etc.?


10.) Oswald tells one lie after another to the police after he was arrested in the Texas Theater (following a wild fight, in which Oswald attempts to kill more cops).

He lies when he tells police he has "never owned a rifle"; and he lies about the "curtain rod" tale he told Wesley Frazier; and he also lies like a cheap rug about many, many other things which connect him to the Tippit/Kennedy murders.

And Lee Harvey also lies when trying to establish his alibi for the JFK shooting ("I had lunch with Junior" {Jarman} in the lunchroom at the time JFK was shot, he told one police officer....even though "Junior" was photographed on the 5th Floor at 12:30 exactly).


KR: We don't have any idea WHAT Oswald told the cops....because they never recorded his statements. Which HAS to mean he's innocent...because ALL the cops who said he was saying these lies cannot be trusted because...er...um...well, because I SAY THEY CAN'T BE TRUSTED. So there!

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Many additional things could easily be added to the above 10-item list. But I think you probably get the idea. That idea being: The conspiracy-loving kooks of the world just DO NOT WANT LEE HARVEY OSWALD TO BE GUILTY OF THESE 1963 MURDERS.

Simple as that. It's crazy (given the evidence saying they're dead wrong) -- but simple.

David Von Pein
February 2007

The seven-member "Warren Commission" panel (plus its staff), which was created by President Lyndon Johnson one week after the murder of President John F. Kennedy in late 1963, had an immense and difficult task thrown on its doorstep -- To review, probe, and investigate all aspects of JFK's assassination (plus two other killings as well -- those being the murders of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit and the accused Presidential assassin himself, Lee Harvey Oswald, the latter being gunned down by Jack Ruby just two days after JFK's death).

Many (or even most) people who express an opinion re. the matter seem to be of the belief that the Warren Commission panel did not arrive at anything resembling the 'truth' when it concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby "acted alone" when each of these men committed their respective murders in November of 1963. The conspiracy theorists feel that LBJ formed the "WC" for one express purpose and one only -- to back up and validate (by any means necessary) the pre-determined conclusion that Oswald was the lone killer of President Kennedy.

I completely disagree with such skepticism. The "CTer" accusations of "WC" wrong-doing and 'cover-up' in this case are unfounded, IMO.

Let's just step back from the 'Conspiracy-filled abyss' for a moment and check out just exactly what the Warren Commission members had staring them in their collective faces when it came to ascertaining the true facts in the JFK assassination -- regarding the much-scoffed-at "Single-Bullet Theory" ("SBT") specifically. ........

1.) A bullet wound of entrance in JFK's upper back.
2.) A bullet wound of (probable) exit in JFK's throat.
3.) A bullet wound of entrance in Governor Connally's back.
4.) ZERO bullets found in either victim.
5.) NO interior limousine damage where damage WOULD have been had a bullet exited JFK's throat and NOT hit Connally.
6.) One single bullet found at Parkland Hospital (near the Connally stretcher), which was positively proven to have been fired from Oswald's rifle; with this same bullet ('CE399') being scientifically linked to the fragments found in Connally's wrist (to a great degree of certainty that bullet was inside Governor Connally on 11/22/63).
7.) A filmed record of the shooting, via the "Zapruder Film", that (nearly) confirmed a SBT scenario. (Plus, via better-quality versions of the Z-Film in later years, additional validation of the SBT popped up -- the Connally involuntary reactions at Z224-Z228 approx.)

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Given the above laundry list of FACTS, I'm just curious to know what other possible conclusion the Warren Commission was supposed to come to regarding the wounding of JFK & JBC on 11-22-63?

A "Single Bullet" is the ONLY possible way this shooting (i.e. the non-head wounds) can be reconciled given the above list of known facts in the case. Unless you wish to believe the much more far-fetched idea of a vast 'conspiracy' that conveniently 'took care' of the many 'loose ends' mentioned above. A logical alternative, I ask? IMO -- no.

The Dallas Police Department and the Warren Commission had ONE lone suspect (Oswald); with no other leads guiding them toward ANY other possible suspect(s).

And this ONE suspect (Oswald) was, as of 12:32 PM on November 22, inside the building from where gunshots are KNOWN to have been fired (the Texas School Book Depository), the same building where Oswald's own rifle and his own (multiple) fingerprints on various objects were found to be located just shortly after the assassination.

And this ONE suspect (Oswald) was positively identified as the man seen firing a rifle at the motorcade from that very same building.

And the WC was also faced with the fact that no rifle bullets or bullet fragments or cartridge cases other than those linked to Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle were found anywhere in the bodies of the victims, the car, the hospital, or in the TSBD, or in Dealey Plaza.

Oswald was THE only suspect in the case; this is certainly true. .... Why? -- Because there were no other suspects to hunt down! None. How much shadow-chasing was supposed to have been done by the DPD and/or the WC before they realized they were, in fact, chasing phantom gunmen who never existed?

After evaluating Oswald's known movements before and after 12:30 PM on November 22nd, the idea that Oswald was simply an unwitting 'Patsy' who was being framed for the assassination becomes a far less-palatable theory, IMO. ... Oswald's own gun is found on the 6th Floor of the TSBD and his fingerprints are all over the place WHERE THE ASSASSIN IS KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN.

Plus -- There's the Tippit murder (which is a killing that had multiple witnesses watching Oswald fatally shoot the police officer); plus the "paper bag" brought into the building which very closely resembled the empty bag found in the 'Sniper's Nest' which has LHO's prints on it; plus Oswald's 'curtain rod' lie; plus Oswald's unusual trip to Irving on November 21 (to obviously pick something up at Ruth Paine's home that he would be needing the following day at work; wonder what that 'something' might have been?); plus Oswald's constant lies after his arrest.

Does all of this add up to an unwitting and unknowing Patsy?

Also -- WHY in the world conspiracy theorists want to believe that the SBT wounds don't "line up" correctly is yet another CT-ism I have never understood. (I guess if the CTers say it often enough to each other, it becomes the 'CT Gospel' evidently.)

If you gaze upon the readily-available JFK autopsy photos, you can see for yourself that the AUTHENTICATED pictures of JFK after death show the back and neck wounds to be 'aligned' so that a single missile could most certainly have passed through his body at those given points of entry and exit from above and behind him (with the bullet moving in a slightly downward trajectory of about 17 degrees).

And as for JFK's head wound -- the verified autopsy photos re. that wound also confirm (as do multiple doctors who testified in front of the WC panel) that the head shot came from BEHIND the President, exiting out the front-right side of his head.

There is NO evidence anywhere in the official record of ANY bullets striking either victim in this case (JFK or JBC) OTHER than the two bullets that were proven to have been fired from the rifle found on the 6th Floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building -- which was a rifle that belonged to none other than a Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald.

If good ol' "Occam's Razor" ever applied to any single aspect of the JFK murder case, the SBT is it, IMO. For HOW could the CT 'alternative' possibly be LESS complicated and acceptable than the SBT.

Any "Conspiracy-related Alternative" to the SBT must include all of the following........

>> THREE disappearing bullets! (Three of 'em! Maybe even FOUR bullets, depending upon which crazy conspiracy theory is being considered; because some 'theorists' claim Connally was hit twice, instead of just once, which would then mean yet another (4th) disappearing missile in the case);
>> Wound locations that nicely align themselves into a "Single-Bullet Theory Ruse/Hoax/Dodge";
>> Two rifle bullets that just happen to not go all the way through John Kennedy's body for some reason -- was this just by 'accident'? Or via 'dum-dum' bullets? Or via 'dart' shot(s)? Or was it just merely a coincidence that TWO bullets which SHOULD have obviously been intended to KILL the President BOTH fail to go through soft flesh?);
>> Perfectly-'timed' three shots that make it LOOK to all of us "Lone-Nutters" that the two men are reacting simultaneously (via the Zapruder Film).

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The Warren Commission found "no credible evidence that a conspiracy existed, foreign or domestic" in the assassination of President Kennedy. And I, for one, cannot find any "credible" reason to dispute that conclusion either.

Rarely cited in bibliographies on the subject, this is quite simply the best kept secret of assassination literature. Mr. Newman addresses the motive for Oswald's killing JFK which was sorely lacking from the Warren Report. He looks at the leftist literature that Oswald was reading at the time of the assassination and how its portrayal of the Kennedy's repeated attempts to kill Castro via the CIA enraged Oswald.

The assassination of JFK was the act of depressed narcissist who had failed to gain entry into Cuba, and who committed a final political gesture via a murder-suicide. It is pretty clear by his behavior that Oswald did not expect to survive the event. It was his way of making the ultimate sacrifice for the ultimate cause -- the ideal Marxist state in the form of Castro's Cuba -- and, in so doing, making his much desired mark in history. He wanted to be part of the Castro revolution but couldn't, so he did the next best thing.

Read this book, but only after you have gotten your feet wet by reading the Warren Report, Belin's "November 22, 1963: You Are the Jury," and Posner's "Case Closed."