Tuesday, October 15, 2024: TWOfer Tuesday - The "Shims" Edition

 

Next month will mark the 61st anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States.

The official narrative states that he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

The weapon Oswald supposedly used was a 20 year old Italian 6.5×52mm Carcano Model 38 long-barrelled rifle, with a telescopic sight, that he purchased via mail order.  

According to the Warren Report, (Testimony of William Waldman, Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, vol. 7, p. 368.) The 4-power telescope was made by Ordnance Optics, and had been attached to the rifle by a gunsmith at Klein's Sporting Goods, an American retailer, shortly before being sold as a single unit with the surplus rifle, to Oswald.

Again, according the Warren Report itself (Warren Commission Hearings: 3 WCH 440-5), The rifle couldn't be perfectly sighted using the scope without installing two metal shims (small metal plates), which were not present when the rifle arrived for testing, and were never found at the scene.  FBI Special Agent Robert A. Frazier testified that there was "a rather severe scrape" on the scope tube, and that the sight could have been bent or damaged. He was unable to determine when the defect occurred before the FBI received the rifle and scope on November 27, 1963.

The defect of the rifle’s scope, before it was corrected with the use of shims, caused shots fired from the weapon to land a few inches high and to the right of the target. The scope could not be properly aligned with the target because the sight reached the limit of its adjustment before reaching accurate alignment.

The shooting tests arranged by the Warren Commission with the expectation that they would prove that Oswald could have assassinated JFK with that carbine, ended up proving, on the contrary, that it was nearly impossible for Oswald (or anyone else) to have used the weapon to shoot Kennedy.

Conclusion text attributed to Wilkes, Donald E. Jr., "Lee Harvey Oswald, the Patsy" (2013). Popular Media. 180.

 

Anyway, here's a couple of songs with shim in the title. 

 

Thursday, September 13, 2012: Prince Fatty & Hollie Cook - And The Beat Goes On

Her father is Paul Cook, drummer for the Sex Pistols, her mother was in Culture Club and Boy George is her Godfather, then I'd say Hollie Cook has got a pretty strong musical pedigree.

And, when she's covering a stone cold classic by The Whispers, then I'd say "cool" is in the bag, baby.

Thank God the beat goes on

Monday, November 7, 2011: Prince - Raspberry Beret

It's COLOR Week!

All week long we'll be posting songs with colors in the title!




We are in an incredibly colorful time of the year, gentle reader. The leaves have recently been turning from green to a thousand Autumnal colors. We have just come out of the blood reds and pumpkin oranges of Halloween into the Festive Holiday Seasons where colorful decorations run throughout the stores, the trees, the houses. The skies may becoming grey with the onset of Winter (I mean, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, mind), but the world around us is becoming bright and full of light and magic.

So, as a companion to the season, CSOTD will be doing a full week of music about color.

Just so we're clear: songs with colors in the title.

Not the actual word "color". Therefore, songs like Colors by Ice-T or Color Him Father by The Winstons do not count.

Also, we won't have any songs with Black or White in the title.

Since White is the presence of all color, and Black is the absence of all color (in general, depending on which color theory you're using) those songs will have to be put aside for yet another theme week.

So, without further ado, here is one of the coolest cats around. Yes, he could have started our engines with his Little Red Corvette, or had us dancing in the Purple Rain, but I've always loved the easy, groovy vibe of this colorful song.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Artist Formally Known As The Artist Formally Known As Prince.

Kick us off, oh Purple One!