Wreath placing at Kennedy's gravesite.

[No Elephants]

The wreath placing went as follows:


Already at the gravesite was a stand with a hook near the top. Someone put Presidents Obama and Clinton in the exact correct spot, a few steps forward of the gravesite and the stand. A member of the military walked over to them smartly, but smoothly, carrying another stand on which the wreath had already been hung and placed it before the four.

The Presidents and their wives placed then their hands on the wreath, as if preparing to lift the wreath off the stand and carry it to the gravesite. However, they did not lift it. Instead, the member of the military who had carried the wreath over to them, still holding the stand, began to back up toward the gravesite with small steps.

The Presidents and their wives, walking forward, followed him with a few small steps. Then, all five stopped when he got to the stand at the gravesite. He then took the wreath off the stand that he had been carrying and he placed it on the hook on the stand that was already at the gravesite. So, he was the one who did the actual placing of the wreath.

None of the five actually placed the wreath on the gravesite, though. The wreath just remained on the hook on the stand at about shoulder height, atop the gravesite. Is a wreath really too heavy for four people to lift off one hook, walk a few steps with and place on another hook?

For some reason that even I don't really understand, the phrase "all hat, no cattle," kept running through my head.



Meanwhile, what if we had not fought the Vietnam War?

That was the question asked by CNN today as they were discussing the ceremony. We were also told that we do the Kennedy family a disservice when we engage in conspiracy theories. (Probably make the baby Jesus cry, too.)

[Enthusiast]

1. CNN is as bad as Fox.

But I don't want to make the Baby Jesus cry.

[No Elephants]

2. It is as bad, maybe worse because Fox is not in the waiting room of my health center, in the waiting

room of the emergency room at Mass General hospital, in every airport, etc.

By turning their TVs to CNN (as places got in the habit of doing when Ted Turner still owned it), these places put whatever prestige they have on CNN, as though it were still authoritative.

Mass General, for one, has a lot of prestige in these parts. Other parts, too. (Among many other things, it was the model for the hospital in the Dr. Kildare series. And our St. Elizabeth was the model for Saint Elsewhere.)