JFK Basically Has His Own Section of the Internet

So I just wasted 3 hours of my life watching film of JFK's assassination. That happened. I learned from it. It's pretty amazing what conspiracies people can create with the material at their disposal.

First of all I have to say that after reading and poking around, DeLillo's novel makes more sense than about 95% of theories out there.

The first one is my favorite. There is a theory on the internet that the driver of the motorcade shot the president. Literally that he turned around and shot him in the head, then drove off. That's somebody's explanation for the front facing shot and splatter of blood from the head. Like there are a lot of believers in this theory too. This is just a YouTube comment section from one video where Bill Greer (the driver of the motorcade) gave an interview:

autocollisionman        5 months ago

WILLIAM GREER WAS THE MURDERER



OooOoo OOooo         2 months ago

burn in hell Greer



Dr J                           4 months ago

PIECE OF SHIT LYING KILLER




Jacquelyn Diamond    1 year ago

This is the bastard who killed JFK, Bill Greer is a goddamned murderer!



 That's all fine and good, except for the fact that there are no frames in any films that I've seen (I have found 3 good films in my little search: Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore) that come close to condemning him. However it is clear that the driver did slow down after the first shot. Greer's explanation in an interview was that the first shot sounded like a backfire, but then he looked behind him and saw blood on Connelly and hit the gas. That story sounds plausible, but many think that even though Greer didn't shoot Kennedy, he and the rest of the secret service were in on the assassination. Like have you ever noticed how only one secret service man actually reacted quickly to the shots? Fishy...

This stuff is getting way too interesting I need to stop while I'm ahead. There's also the Grassy Knoll theory which is actually really complex and basically completely discounts Lee Harvey Oswald but is actually coherent and makes you think. To sum it up, there was a guy (James Files) hiding behind a picket fence on the grassy knoll. Files shot once and hit (the big headshot). He says he was aiming for the eye but someone else shot JFK first and he had already started reacting so he was harder to hit. Once he shot the president, Files bit the shell, put it on top of the picket fence, then proceeded to put his gun in a briefcase and calmly walk away with it. Files also said he knew who shot the police officer and it wasn't Oswald either. There are some major hints of FBI and CIA involvement in this theory as well.

Basically, nobody actually knows who shot JFK except the guy who actually shot him,... If the man in the car was ACTUALLY Kennedy that is.
  *cue X-Files theme*

Boy Do I Like Lions

Let's get right down to business. What business, you ask? How about OPTOMETRY. Actually, no. Not today. Today, we're talking about an issue which divides our very nation. An issue that pits classmates against classmates. No, this is not about a president, unless you count being the president of the Lions Club. That's right, we're talking about Billy freaking Pilgrim. Specifically, whether he or Kurt Vonnegut  is the true protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five. And really, it's all a matter of perspective.

First, you have to look at the definition of "protagonist". According to our dear pals at Google, the word protagonist can be defined in many different ways.

-the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

-an advocate or champion of a particular cause or idea.

"a strenuous protagonist of the new agricultural policy"

I don't know about you, but when I look at Billy Pilgrim, I don't consider him "leading" in any way. He kind of gets dragged along through his life without a care. If you take Vonnegut as a character in the first chapter (after all, it is a chapter and not a prologue), and you say that the rest of the story is a roundabout way of Vonnegut, the character in chapter one, telling his story of Dresden, then I think a strong case can be made advocating Vonnegut as the "leading character" in the novel. Sure, he doesn't appear as much in the novel as Billy, but should that disqualify him as a protagonist.

I also believe that if the latter definition is used, then Vonnegut, if not the protagonist of the novel, is clearly a protagonist for the themes that the novel is trying to represent. But maybe the answer isn't that simple. One could also argue that there isn't a traditional protagonist. There are no true heroes in this novel. There are some good people, there are some bad people, but for the most part, they're all just people. And maybe that's the point. It seems pretty clear in chapter one that Vonnegut didn't want anyone to be a hero in this novel because he didn't want to show support for any reason to go to war. He wanted the war to seem childish, and I think he accomplished that goal. 

The Legend of Gammie Harding

I figured since this book is really strange, why not make a blog post to match. I think that's a great idea. Let's delve right in, shall we?

So which 1 of the many intriguing topics in this book do we talk about first? We could take a quick swing at Jes Grew, but that's too obvious. We gotta dig deeper. I mean really dip. To places where your mother shielded your eyes from when you were a kid. You know what we're talking about. That's right, it's the Warren G. Harding presidency. Yup. I'm back at it again with more president talk. Now you might ask "Clark why are you writing about the Warren G. Harding presidency and not Jes Grew or Atonism or Osiris or something actually worth our time", but I say screw you it's a free country. Also I feel like since he was president during the era discussed in Mumbo Jumbo, he is a very relevant figure in the novel despite not playing the largest role. Anyways, now that I have the hecklers out of the way, let's get started.

So Warren G. Harding. The man of the hour. I'm pretty sure there's like 3 people I've known ever to talk about him. Those 3 people being me, Ishmael Reed, and whoever wrote the Wikipedia article for Warren G. Harding. But that's alright. He did some things. Apparently the G stands for "Gamaliel". So let's just call him Gammie. Anyways this Gammie guy was kind of up to no good, even though he didn't exactly know that he was. He was involved in numerous scandals, but was still greatly appreciated by the public before it all ended. 1 of the bigger scandals, and 1 which actually found its way into Mumbo Jumbo, is the "Ohio Gang" scandal. Basically what happened is that he got into office, and then appointed a bunch of his friends to all of these high up federal jobs. Some of them actually did what they were supposed to do, but a lot of them became very corrupt and Harding didn't exactly do anything to stop it. They're called the "Ohio Gang" because they became close with Harding while he was a Republican delegate for the state of Ohio.

These guys were responsible for ole Gammie's biggest scandal of his time: The Teapot Dome scandal. Now, despite this being a kind of dumb name for a scandal, this was a pretty big deal. It was named this because of where the scandal took place. Of course, it took place at the well known Teapot Dome Oil Fields. Now why were these oil fields named something as ridiculous as "Teapot Dome Oil Fields"? Well, there's a rock nearby called Teapot Rock. Why anybody would think this rock looks anything like a teapot is still a mystery to me, but i guess you had to be there.

Does this look like a teapot to you? Does it? Thought not. 

Anyway let's get back to the matter at hand. TEAPOT DOME. As I was saying, this thing was a big deal until Watergate came along and everyone forgot about it. So what happened was this: There was this guy called Albert Bacon Fall (cool name, pretty shite individual) who was appointed Secretary of the Interior by Gammie because they were pals, and he did some bad things. The Department of Interior had many jobs, 1 of them being to manage their oil reserves. The reserves were supposed to be kept so that when the navy needed some oil for their ships, they could get it without having to pay some billionaire huge amounts of cash all the time. But of course that's not what happened. Initially the Navy Department had control of the reserves but of course Mr. Bacon had other ideas and convinced his buddy Warren G. to hand over control to him via executive order. Once Bacon Fall had control, he leased the reserves to a private oil company called Sinclair Oil. This was technically legal, but everybody found it kinda strange that there was no competitive bidding for it, he just gave the company the lease. People also found it kinda odd that after this lease that should've just brought more money in for the government, old Bacon was starting to live a much wealthier lifestyle. So then some senator dude named Thomas J. Walsh called for an investigation, and found out that Bacon Fall had been bribed for the reservations, and had received over $400,000 from this private oil company. So of course they threw him in jail and that was that. And even though Harding didn't do anything wrong here, his reputation was screwed because that was 1 of the friends he put to power. And this "Ohio Gang" kept having little scandals like this for awhile, landing a bunch of them in jail, and causing some to even commit suicide. Don't you just love politics?

But all of these mistakes were thrown under the rug and forgotten on August 2, 1923, when Warren Gamaliel Harding died while still in office. All of a sudden journalists were saying incredible things about him and how he died for his country, and the people for the most part went along with it. So despite all of the problems with Harding's career, the public made him seem like an incredible dude at the end.

So there's a lil' history lesson for you. I hope you liked it. Maybe you learned something new. Also I just read an interview and apparently people were calling Ishmael Reed a prophet because he compared 1970s America with 1920s America and then Watergate broke out right after his book. Maybe that's a topic for another blog though. Is Ishmael Reed a prophet? Moses reincarnate? The world may never know. 

Coalhouse in the House

So I was just sitting around today and thinking "what's a good blog topic?" Nothing came to mind other than the one and only Coalhouse freaking Walker. Who else are you gonna make a post about? J.P. Morgan? Houdini? Mother's younger brother? Please. There is no one else in mmy mind that could come close to this dude. He's got so many things about him which I could use for writing a blog post. But then came the dilemma: what the hell do I have to say about Coalhouse Walker, ole C-dubs himself, that no one else has already talked about? And then it dawned on me.

What are two things that everyone is talking about right now, but not together? Well obviously the first answer is Coalhouse. If you aren't talking about him for at least an hour a day, you're not truly living. The other thing everyone's talking about has been discussed for a while, and unlike the legend of Coalhouse, will probably go away for a couple years after November. Of course I'm talking about the race for the president. Now, putting everything about these 2016 candidates aside, I want to ask you this question: Would Coalhouse Walker be a good president? Don't ask how I came up with this. I really don't know I just started writing.+

The answer's not actually that simple. Say that somehow 20th century Americans overlooked all racism for a day and voted for Coalhouse. What would he really do in the White House? Would his reign be peaceful or would he go to war? Would he become corrupt? Well there's one thing I know for sure about him: He will not back down from his beliefs, and at this time, perhaps that's a good thing. I don't know exactly what he'd do with the economy, but he's a resourceful man. He could probably come up with something. There's the whole thing with the terrorism, but even in that he was fighting for his principles and trying to keep his pride and dignity. The extent to which he took in fighting for his pride definitely went too far, but it does show his willingness to do whatever he can to stick up to his morals. Even earlier in the novel he showed his persistence when he was trying to court Sarah. He kept going until eventually she agreed to see him. This could show that were he in office, he won't stop until the job he wants to get done gets done. His foreign relations might get a little hostile, but hey, America.

Overall, I think that despite his craziness towards the end of his life presumably triggered by Sarah's death, CW has many qualities that it would take to be the president of the United States. He is very persistent and holds strong morals that he won't back down from. Though there would be some drawbacks, and he's definitely not the perfect candidate, I don't think he would have ruined the country. In some ways, he probably could've helped it. And these days, that's all it seems to take. 

#CoalhouseintheHouse