JFK: Man and Myth

I went to The Kennedy Library and Museum, in South Boston on Sunday to see Garrison Keillor. That event was unfortunately cancelled three weeks ago, even though I never got an email about it. But admission was free anyway, so we decided to do the tour.

There are always so many people from all over the world who come to the Library, it's really amazing.

The tour begins with a 17 minute documentary film, partially narrated by JFK himself. In the first scene,he's talking about the problem with mythology. But this whole documentary is based on the JFK Myth and you can clearly see from the first few minutes of the film that he owes a lot to mythology. The Kennedys as a family got their earliest and biggest breaks using the "fake it til you make it" philosophy.

Family patriarch Joseph P Kennedy is the man who is famous for saying "It's not what you are that counts, it's what people think you are."

I'm thinking about the ways the Kennedy Mythology affected their lives and the lives of the people around them. In the film, he claims his dad was a "strong authority figure" but anyone who knows about the Kennedys knows Joe Senior was a frequently absent philanderer who encouraged the children to run wild and that Rose was the actual authority figure. We also know that Jack's first book was a borderline plagiarized vanity production. He was a playboy who had a repuation for not applying himself academically until college. Joe Senior strongly encouraged the UK to appease Hitler, which contributed to WW2 starting, a war in which he ended up losing his eldest son, and it left his second eldest son with a lifelong physical disability. Jack himself wasn't an especially religious man, and yet he ended up a hero to millions of American Catholics. We still don't know why he was killed, but a person's theories about it tell you more about how they saw him than anything.

For whatever reason he was actually murdered, every theory is consistent on one thing- he was killed because his murderer didn't approve of the direction his presidency was headed in.

See, I don't think JFK planned on being a hero, or in changing the world with his administration. I think he just kept stumbling into situations where people needed a hero and expected him to play that role. And since he was a really good actor, he tried to live up to their expectations until he turned into the person they wanted him to be. You can see the difference in the many films available at the museum, which are arranged in chronological order so you can observe the changes in his focus. He starts out rather, as my sister put it, "obsessed with Communism"* and ended his life with a reputation as one of the most Pinko Liberal presidents we've ever had.

When asked how he found the courage to be a war hero, he said "I had to, they sank my boat." Above all else, Jack was pragmatic. He didn't set out to be anyone's hero, but when thrust into situations where something needed fixing, he couldn't not try to fix it. The violent racial discrimination of the 50s and 60s not only wasn't right, but to Jack, it also wasn't right because it made no sense, it was a stupid, silly, impractical way to run a country. He saw his job as president was to keep order and keep the country running efficiently by protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans. What was happening was illegal, and the president of the United States is not supposed to allow American citizens to openly flout the law by violating the constitutional rights of millions of other Americans like that.

Funnily enough, there were too many people in the country who did not regard it as a matter of logic versus non logic or The Law versus Not The Law. They heard "Kennedy says state schools recieving federal funds must, by law, admit everyone regardless of skin color and all American citizens must be allowed to vote regardless of skin color" and went absolutely NUTS. The more his enemies built him up into this Liberal Bogeyman, the more he wanted to live up to the heroic image his supporters had of him. So he becomes one of the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement just by attempting to do what any decent human being should've done in that position.

Because he did that, he inspired millions of people all over the world to think "JFK wouldn't stand by and let this happen, if he can do it, *I* can do it!" And they're still being inspired by him to make the world a better place, more than any president we've had since. Even Obama counts JFK as an inspiration. Of course, the person most inspired of all by JFK was Bobby Kennedy, who, as you know if you know anything about me, is my Political Hero. Bobby helped create and maintain the Jack Mythology, largely because he carried out all the practical aspects of it since people needed to like Jack and didn't need to like him. Bobby took it seriously, and all those other people started taking Bobby seriously, and all this amazing change came out of that. Not only in himself (he started his career working for Joseph McCarthy and ended up being accused of Communism himself) but the whole world is different now, from huge things like the Peace Corps, better conditions for the poor, and full rights for blacks and Hispanics, to little things like no more cigarrette ads on television.

Conservatives seem to look on the Kennedys with extreme dislike at best. During the previous election I heard neocons complaining with horror in their voices about "liberals like Ted Kennedy" , as if he were Abby Hoffman or something. I mean, how disgusting is that, that all you have to do to earn the scorn and horror of conservatives is to be someone who advocates basic humanity? But also, it shows how strong the Kennedy Mythology is, since his mere presence on this mortal plane bugs a certain class of person. It's not anything he's done, it's all the things people are afraid he *might* do, like his job, which is to make life better for the people he represents.



**it was an era when paranoia about Communism was everywhere because of the Cuban Revolution and no US president since then has successfully managed to avoid being bullied into denouncing our Marxist neighbors regardless of what monumentally stupid foreign policy it is to do so.

American Girls in The Valley Cemetary, Manchester, Easter Weekend

The Backstory: Samantha and Nellie are both orphans in 1906. Nellie's parents died of a disease when she was nine, and Samantha's parents died in a boating accident when she was a toddler.

Nellie's faux pearl rosary was provided by the awesome Doll Clothes Sew Beautiful. I can't remember who made Samantha's dress but it's also from Ebay. My sister provided the flowers, from an arrangement she was given while she was in the hospital.

Eating Out: The Bratzkeller

The Dinnerhorn/Bratzkeller is a restaurant on Route 1/Lafayette that is very popular and frequently hyped. So I wasn't really sure if it'd live up to the high expectations I felt I was supposed to have.

But you know, it did. The waitstaff was really nice and helpful. The Bratzkeller is a pub, but their private label sodas are just as good. And their pizza is...I think it lives up to its reputation, I ordered a ten inch onions and green peppers and I wish I had some more.

The decor is a bit "rich guy's gameroom if he liked English pubs" but not in a way that's really bothersome. I'd also wonder why they built next to the water but didn't arrange for better water views, but it's no big deal.

The prices seem reasonable, competitive with the type of restaurant it is.

A few Portsmouth pics from the fall

This poor tourist couple looks *exhausted*