Volume 266 | No. 5

Mon, Nov 22

2003—AP reports on JFK conspiracy theories, including one saying he orchestrated his own assassination. 2000—Two dozen well-dressed hooligans, many on the GOP’s payroll, intimidate Miami election officials into shutting down a Presidential recount. 1975—U.S.S. John F. Kennedy and U.S.S. Belknap collide in the night near Sicily. A two-hour fire aboard the Belknap stops 30 feet short of the nuclear weapons magazine. 1963—In Paris, a CIA man hands a lethal pen to a Cuban for use on Fidel Castro, at the behest of Bobby Kennedy. 1963—In Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy is assassinated; at whose bidding is a matter of dispute. 1963—Don B. Reynolds’ testimony …

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Sun, Nov 21

2016—The Guardian reports that D. Trump’s grandfather was refused re-entry to Germany in 1905 because he had dodged military service. 1974—The Freedom of Information Act passes over Gerry Ford’s veto. 1973—Chief of Staff Al Haig ascribes an 18½ minute gap on an audio tape to “sinister forces.” 1970—Fifty-six Green Berets raid the Son Tay POW camp 23 miles west of Hanoi, which had been evacuated three weeks earlier. 1967—Commies in the ’Nam are “unable to mount a major offensive,” says Westy, 71 days before Tet. “The end begins to come into view.” 1964—The FBI sends a blackmail letter to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., urging …

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The PUC’s Heartless Order

By Donald M. Kreis, Consumer Advocate at the New Hampshire Office of the Consumer Advocate At the heart of last Friday’s astonishing, destructive, and radical order from the Public Utilities Commission is a gaping hole. But before leaping into that hole, let’s start with wisdom from media critic and New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. Because, let’s face it, even though I hung up my reporter’s spurs 28 years ago when I graduated from law school, this column is journalism, at least kinda sorta. Rosen urges journalists to reframe what they do, at least when covering politics and public policy, so as to get …

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It’s a Big Universe Out There

by W.D. Ehrhart In December 1985, I made my first postwar trip back to Vietnam. I had gone there in 1967 as an 18-year-old Marine, which had turned out to be a very bad idea and a life-changing experience. Eighteen years later, I wanted to see and experience the country of Vietnam, not the Vietnam War. It turned out to be both a humbling and a healing trip. Very early on, my interpreter, a young man old enough to remember the war but not old enough to have fought in it, asked me if I had been wounded. When I said I had, and then …

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The Worst and the Weirdest

Except for a few Amazonian tribes, all of us Earthians have by now been introduced to the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A movie franchise making that much money becomes culturally unavoidable. Those celluloid shenanigans may be safely ignored, of course. At least, so we presume. If only we cold say that about the RCU—the Republican Criminal Universe. True, the nation’s plunge into competitive weirdness does seem to roughly coincide with the release of Iron Man in 2008. We suspect, though, that other events that year may have had a more disruptive effect. For example, the presidential election was won by a Black man. If …

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