Thomas Graves

winner, winner

The whole point is that Oswald's writing (get it? -- another clever example for you), by writing "my losing" in that sentence, was displaying his excellent command of English grammar. Better than most college graduates in applying the grammar rule "The Gerund Takes The Possessive." D'oh. Only DVP answered it correctly, as far as I can tell (because Kirk keeps changing his answer). -- Tommy

Of course I'm right. -- Tommy Maybe you don't understand, though. "Me" is incorrect here. The grammar rule, informally put, is: The Gerund Takes The Possessive." Get it? Know what a gerund is? Is there a gerund in the sentence? Hint: Yes, there is.

You get a chicken dinner. -- Tommy

You're half right, IMHO. Most college graduates would have mistakenly said "You don't have to worry about me losing my American citizenship. -- Tommy

How am I hi-jacking a thread that invited me to ask JFK assassination-related trivia questions?

MY NEXT TRIVIA QUESTION FOR Y'ALL: What is it about this sentence that not only proves Oswald was a native English speaker, but that he spoke it (and wrote it, if you're willing to discount his numerous spelling and punctuation errors) better than most American college graduates? "You needn't worry about my losing American citizenship." -- Tommy

Way too easy. -- Tommy

Oh, you must mean the one from Fort Worth. LOL. Way too easy.

You mean the one in the background in this photo? -- Tommy

SECOND QUESTION: Who was the "Leninoff (phonetic), a Mexican KGB agent [photographed] with Castro," which photo Angleton voluntarily started talking about in his 1976 private "interview" by two Members of the Church Committee? Hint: "Leninoff (phonetic)" was short, blond-haired, thin-bodied, very thin-faced, and 35 years-old in 1963. http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1462&relPageId=81 -- Tommy

Thanks, Stephen (R.I.P.). Excellent post. Thanks for pointing out some of the mistakes Douglas Valentine made in his book The Strength of the Wolf. Ferrie's old buddy, Alvin Beaubouef, called me from out of the blue one day to tell me the rain and lightening storm they drove through on the way to Houston wasn't as severe as many researchers have claimed it was over the years (and as it was immortalized in Oliver Stone's film, JFK), and that because he was an excellent figure skater as a young man, he and Ferrie were considering opening an ice skating rink in New Orleans. -- Tommy

Larry, Kudos to you for setting Paul Trejo straight regarding his misinterpretations of Simpich's and your works in such a concise, logical, and civilized way. -- Tommy

"Again we are presented [by Chris] with a mention of CE 884 without any discussion of why the figures in that document cannot be trusted. It's still very cryptic, but, filling in the gaps, the full reasoning seems to go something like this: 1 - Tina Towner's film is 30 feet long, and contains 167 frames. 2 - The FBI's figures in CE 884 do not correspond to what we see on the film. 3 - This discrepancy means either that the extant film is inauthentic or that the data in CE 884 is wrong. 4 - We know that the FBI fiddled at least some of the figures in CE 884. 5 - Because at least some of the data in CE 884 was made up, there is no reason to assume that CE 884 provides an accurate reflection of what the FBI saw in any of the assassination films. 6 - Because the data in CE 884 is untrustworthy, it has nothing to tell us about the authenticity of any of the assassination films. Chris seems to have come around at last to the common-sense point of view that you can't use the unreliable data in CE 884 as evidence that any of the assassination films are in some way fake." ............................................................................................................ Excellent analysis, synthesis and summing up, Jeremy. One can't blame Chris for making it all so cryptic, though, because he must know that members who try to disprove that any given photograph or film was altered by the evil, evil CIA (et al.) are furiously jumped upon by Alterationists (especially those who also belong to the Harvey and Lee cult, not that it necessarily pertains to this thread at the moment), you know, like hot stinking "spaghetti" is jumped upon by flies. -- Tommy

Edited and bumped already because I think the observation alluded to in my "PPPS" is very significant and proves that Lee Harvey Oswald was not only a native English speaker, but a very good one, at that. It will be interesting to see if anyone here can spot the sophisticated little grammar issue it refers to (or, if you prefer, to which it refers). -- Tommy

Jim, Big deal. Punctuation mistakes and spelling errors. I see them practically every day on this forum! IMHO, the above letter was written by someone with an excellent command of English syntax, grammar, and vocabulary, but who sucked (even worse than I !) at spelling and punctuation. You and Armstrong (and the guy in the ivory tower at Yale who, having lived in Russia for the first 37 years of his life, was an "expert on Slavic Languages" but obviously quite weak in English) are all incompetent compared to me when it comes to evaluating not only Lee Harvey Oswald's ability to speak and write English, but whether or not he first learned Hungarian, then Russian, and then, finally, "a little bit of English". Nice try, though! -- Tommy PS After I corrected the above quoted sentence for spelling and punctuation, this is what it looks like: “Sorry to take so long to write. I thought something might have come up, but we’re still waiting.” Note Oswald's perfect use of syntax and grammar here. Please do look up those terms. You might actually learn something. PPS It's highly entertaining to me that it seems whenever I want to talk about Lee Harvey Oswald's excellent English syntax, grammar, and vocabulary, all you want to talk about is his "excellent" Russian, and when I want to talk about Lee Harvey Oswald's weak Russian, you want to talk about his "weak" English ... PPS I've just now noticed in his last (unfortunately un-punctuated) sentence how he correctly applies a sophisticated grammar rule which I (with my brilliant verbal intelligence - LOL) didn't learn until I'd taught English in the Czech Republic for seven years. Can you spot it? (Most college-educated Americans can't.) Hint: It has to to with gerunds. Look that grammatical term up, if necessary.

Another person? Really, Bart? Question: Is it Calvery's skirt or your "other person" that can be seen at the very beginning of this clip, you know, before Pirouetting Man starts pirouetting counter-clockwise, and Calvery's skirt is most visible (with a dark-colored horizontal stripe or "pattern element" in it, btw)? -- Tommy

bumped Lee Harvey Oswald's English is better than most Americans

Yeah, almost as formidable and omnipresent as Putin's KGB (aka FSB aka KGB), and GRU are in Russia, our own elections, etc. Ever heard of Cozy Bear, Fancy Bear, Guccifer 2.0? How about the 1999 Russian Apartment Bombings? Do you think that must have been, like Putin said, a Chechen Terrorist deal? Or an evil, evil CIA "false-false flag" op to quasi-ostensibly blame on the .... Chechens ... but in such a way that the FSB would be implicated? LOL -- Tommy

edited and bumped PS 26.5 seconds is 76% longer than Bart Kamp's measly "15 seconds" PPS What, exactly, does Kamp purport to "show" regarding Calvery's skirt in the Darnell frame he posted? Did he photoshop some white over Calvery's grayish-toned (and with bit of a dark-colored horizontal stripe or 'pattern") skirt and / or choose a frame in which Pirouetting Man (trying to wave Baker up the steps) is blocking most if not all of Calvery's dress from the camera's view?

Thanks, Chris. I consider you far and away the best source for this kind of timing information. 26.5 seconds, huh? Still enough time for the scenario I outlined, above. IMHO -- Tommy PS I didn't know we could see Weigman running in Couch-Darnell. That's good to know.

Come on, guys. Baker's assignment was to ride his motorcycle (next to a "Camera Car," iirc) in the motorcade, and was photographed and filmed doing so. He claimed to have heard a shot (or shots) and seen a startled flock of pigeons leave the roof of the TSBD, and that's why, he claimed, he parked his bike where he did and then, after listening for a few seconds to a DPD broadcast on his bike's radio, ran into the TSBD. He claimed. He was not assigned to "traffic control." -- Tommy

Chris, I don't understand what you're saying here, so let me ask you a question if I may: About how many seconds after Z-313 did Couch and Darnell start filming the scene around the TSBD steps from their position in the Camera Car? Thanks, -- Tommy

Chris, On page 189 of the "Oswald Leaving TSBD?" thread you wrote: "The time it takes for Wiegman panning back to the TSBD after the 313 head shot, until the Hester sync = 21 seconds. Bell films Wiegman filming the Hesters. The sync point between Bell and Wiegman is Hester stepping up onto the Colonade. Bell continuously films afterwards for 1.3 seconds and picks up Wiegman starting to rise for his run down the knoll. Gerda’s dual-sync of Couch/Darnell shows both Wiegman and Baker in there respective runs. There is 3.5 seconds of missing footage from the Wiegman sequence. Take those 3.5 seconds and apply that to Wiegman after we see him start to rise in Bell and to Baker before we see him in Gerda’s dual-sync. Baker’s run to the curb equals 4 seconds. This total = approx 30 seconds. Does this mean that in Couch-Darnell, we see Marion Baker near the curb in front of the TSBD steps about 30 26.5 seconds after the last shot was fired? IMHO, thirty twenty-six point five seconds would have been plenty of time for all of the following to have happened: 1 ) tall, largish, black-blouse-and-black-headscarf-wearing Gloria Calvery and her dressed-in-white (including white headscarf) colleague run to, from their motorcade position down on Elm Street, that part of the "island" which is nearest the TSBD steps, 2 ) as they are running back to the sanctuary of their TSBD workplace, Calvery and her colleague encounter Shelley and Lovelady on said "island" (which makes sense because Shelley and Lovelady claimed in their 1st day statements that they "left the steps immediately to follow the limo"), 3 ) on the "island," Calvery quickly tells Shelley and / or Lovelady what she has just seen (i.e., the President's head being blown off practically in front of her), 4) Shelley, leaving Lovelady, Calvery and Calvery's colleague behind, scurries back across Elm Street Extension and into the TSBD to call his wife, 5 ) Lovelady walks / runs with Calvery and colleague back to the TSBD (steps) where he can a ) be near his soda pop, b ) wait for Shelley to come back outside onto the steps, c ) and have a slightly elevated view of the mad scene unfolding around him all at the same time, and 6 ) Calvery and colleague, still anxious to get to the safety of their TSBD office (and where telephones are), have now reached the steps with Lovelady (sans Shelley who is inside calling his wife) and all three are photographically "caught" by James Darnell as Calvery, being "pulled up" the steps by her colleague, is finishing her brief "talk" to Lovelady. -- Tommy

edited and bumped