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Wednesday 2 October 2013

My favourite photograph and the glacial creep of world evil

The other day the wife was looking at a thread on Reddit. She said, "have a look at these, it's a thread about people's favourite photographs".

Every single one was donkey porn.

Nevertheless, it gave me an idea for something I could potentially address you peasants about, because I was able to quite quickly think of a number of photographs that fit into that category for me.

Every single one is donkey porn.

In fact, they are not. I do not find donkeys particularly appealing sexually. Even really good-looking donkeys with great big gopping arseholes or big wangers or anything. However, a number of the photographs that I thought about instantly are probably just as unappealing to some people, if for slightly less bestial reasons. This is because, as you will all probably be aware, I have rather morbid tastes in things. Or rather, things that are rather morbid hold a particular fascination for me.

And so we come to perhaps my all-time favourite photograph. I think it is one of the most dramatic pictures ever taken, full of action and yet crystallising the last seconds of innocence on a day that changed the world forever. It was taken nearly 50 years ago by Associated Press photographer Ike Altgens in Dallas. It was 12.30 p.m. on Friday 22nd November 1963.

(Click it, it will go bigger)

It mesmerises me. There's an awful lot going on, yet at the same time it is so still. In four seconds time, the President of the United States will be dead. And yet here is the moment just before that, frozen for all time. Some people clearly realise there is something untoward going on, others are still wrapped up in the excitement of seeing Kennedy in the flesh. Every single person in this photograph is about to have the most dramatic story of their lives to tell forever.

As with the majority of the pieces of documentary evidence concerned with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, over the past half-century this photograph has variously been used to definitively establish every single possible argument and theory, particularly those which are diametrically opposed to one another.

From my point of view (as a sane man), I think it very clearly proves that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin from his window on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. All the people concerned with safety surrounding the caravan are looking over their shoulder to that location, having obviously just heard a sharp sound. In the Presidential limousine itself, we are clearly able to see Kennedy and Governor John F. Connolly have both been hit by Oswald's second shot, the one which conspiracy theorists term "the magic bullet".

My particular favourite conspiracy theory surrounding this photograph in particular is The Man In The Doorway. If you look almost immediately behind Kennedy in the limousine, you can see a gaggle of people stood in the entrance to the Texas School Book Depository, probably mostly on their lunch break and deciding to watch the parade. But some have claimed that one of their number is Lee Harvey Oswald, the Book Depository's most famous ever employee, thus establishing his status as the ultimate patsy for the most brazen conspiracy ever perpetrated.


There he is, look!


Could this be the world's most infamous political assassin, making a dramatic last-gasp bid for a not guilty plea? Or is it, as many other researchers have argued, another employee of the Texas School Book Depository? It would certainly seem to make sense, especially as Oswald was otherwise occupied at the time elsewhere in the building. Furthermore, the man in the doorway doesn't half resemble one of Oswald's colleagues, Bill Lovelady:


Compared to the more angular features of Oswald, it does make a compelling case:


However, the beauty of all these conspiracy theories is that they are born out of an inability to find absolutely definitive proof, so everyone can continue to idly speculate for as long as they like. What do you think? Lovelady or Oswald? Let's have another look:


Oh hold on, it can't be, surely? IT IS!


We've seen this face before:


It's Cher, from the front cover of the single Walking In Memphis, the worst ever rendition of the worst song ever written! Thus definitively establishing the link between the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and World Evil.

No room for conspiracy theories there.

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