NEW! Americans, Vote Kamala Harris and Come to the Aid of Your Country on November 3! Know Your History!

American HIstory, Elections, Politics, U.S. Constitution, United States history

I am not a pundit but an historian. History has three things to say about the election of 2024 in two days, on November 3:

  1. History tells us that Donald Trump’s actions as president show himself to have been the worst president in American history, as most historians have declared;
  2. If most American knew their history, which sadly they do not, they would know that all presidents except Trump were deeply involved in public service as public officials or military generals. Trump was the only businessman, out to serve himself.
  3. Trump is unworthy of the votes or the position of representative of the millions of Americans who want to preseve the Constitution, rather than overthrow it as he has promised to do.

Only one candidate in the race promises to uphold the Constitution and has the track record of serving in public office like all other 45 presidents before Trump. Trump is dangerous to the future of our constitutional republic. Vote Kamala Harris. The future of our nation depends on it. Such are the lessons of American history. Signed, an historian.

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NEW! My Experience Learning About Medicare

Audio narration, Uncategorized

Medicare is confusing– what an understatement. Two years out from retirement I decided to try to understand it, suspecting that it might take me that long.  I was not wrong!  Now that I am retired and am now on Medicare, I tell this slightly autobiographical tale of what I think I have learned about Medicare in hope that it will either be interesting to or helpful for others, whichever the case may be.

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NEW! The JFK “Single Bullet Theory” Explained in Under Three Minutes

HIST 2112, JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Politics, Warren Commission, Zapruder

Listen to this audio version of my Youtube video explaining the “Single Bullet Theory” of the JFK assassination, and WHY IT IS TRUE.  Many conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination discredit themselves by disputing this thrice-confirmed theory first revealed by the Warren Commission in 1964.

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NEW! Opening Pages of Jack Smith’s New Justice Department Filing Rebutting Trump Immunity Claims

American HIstory, Audio narration, U.S. Constitution

On October 2, 2024, Jack Smith’s rebuttal to Donald Trump’ claims to immunity in all aspects of his resistance to surrender power in 2020 and 2021 was released by Judge Tanya Chutkin.  This is an audio narration of the opening pages of that filing, now in the public domain. Read the entire filing at: (Click on the Link below this Block)

https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/73357920e3c8d739/8fc8bfd0-full.pdf

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NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates Chapter 6, “The New Nation,” from “The American Yawp,” a Free OER American History Textbook

American HIstory, Politics, Revolutions, U.S. Constitution, United States history

In many ways, I regard this as my best recording of a chapter from “The American Yawp” yet.  I have deleted nothing from the text edited by its editors, Joseph Locke and Ben Wright.  I have added passages of my own where I think additions were needed to clarify what the original authors were trying to say. I have also added passages that connect the era of “The New Nation” with the trials and tensions America is experiencing today.  For example I connect the majesty of America’s example in displaying the peaceful transition of power in the “revolution of 1800” which saw the Democratic-Republican Party receive power in 1800 from the Federalist Party without violence, and the more than 200 years of like examples to follow, with the disgrace of January 6, 2021, when President Donald Trump despoiled this legacy and broke that legacy so important not only to the United States but the whole world.  These allusions between past and present are mine, and they are also true.

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NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates the Sherlock Holmes Short Story, “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”

Audio narration, Conan Doyle, Holmes, Sherlock Holmes

Late in his authorial career, in the 1920s to be precise, Arthur Conan Doyle, who was then deeply immersed in beliefs of mysticism and seances, had occasion to pair his rational detective, Sherlock Holmes, with a case about vampires. Did Doyle change the hyper-rational Holmes to suit the author’s new beliefs? Listen and find out!

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NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates Chapter 13, “The Sectional Crisis,” from the Open Source History Textbook, “The American Yawp”

American HIstory, Audio narration, Civil War, Politics, United States history

In the course that covers the first half of American History, the chapter on the Sectional Crisis of the Union, also sometimes called “The Impending Crisis,” leading to the American Civil War, is the penultimate such chapter.  Next to the magisterial, Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the crisis written by the great historian David Potter, that one audio narrated by Eric Martin, this chapter from the Open Educational Source textbook, “The American Yawp,” narrated by me, Dr. Rick Reiman, surveys the crisis well in capturing succinctly its fateful highlights. Listen, learn and enjoy. An historian myself I have added a few sentences of my own to improve, I firmly believe, on the chapter’s effort to make the Sectional Crisis more understandable.

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One of the Great Essays in American History: Crevecoeur’s “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?

American HIstory, Audio narration, Revolutions

Hector St. John de Crevecouer, a French immigrant to American wrote this classic essay, “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?” in 1782, as American Independence from Britain loomed.  Was he correct in his descriptions of Americans then?  Do his descriptions accurately describe Americans today?  How was he wrong then, if he was, and how do his descriptions fail to characterize Americans today, if indeed they do?

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NEW! My Narration of Chapter 3, “British North America,” from the Open Source Textbook, “The American Yawp”

American HIstory, Revolutions, United States history

Join me, Dr. Rick Reiman, for my reading of the chapter on British North America, Chapter 3 to be precise, from The American Yawp, the celebrated Open Source textbook on the history of the United States and the lands that would become the American Nation.

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Audio Narration of Chapter Two, “Colliding Cultures,” From “The American Yawp,” Narrated by Dr. Rick Reiman

American HIstory, Audio narration, United States history

Here is my audio narration of “Colliding Cultures,” a history of European and English colonization of early colonial America, a clash of cultures indeed.  This is from the Open Source textbook, “The American Yawp,” free to anyone interested, as we all should be, in American history.

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NEW! “Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of The Naval Treaty:” An Audio Narration by Rick Reiman

Audio narration, Conan Doyle, Holmes, Sherlock Holmes

In this epic short story, Arthur Conan Doyle exceeds himself.  “The Naval Treaty” is the longest of all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes short stories.  It contains allusions to his other stories and many humorous asides as well as quite larger-than-life characters, some almost Dickensian in their strangeness.  Holmes has to sift his clues and there are almost too many for him to select the relevant from the superfluous. “Almost,” but not too many–not for Sherlock Holmes.

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NEW! An Audio Narration of “World War II,” Chapter 24 from the Free Cultural Resource, “The American Yawp” Textbook

American HIstory, Western Civilization II, World War II

World War II was a change agent in history like no other.  It can best be understood in pieces, barely grasped as a whole.  In this audio narration of Chapter 24 of The American Yawp, a U.S. History Textbook available as a free, modifiable educational resource, I narrate the American history piece.  The chapter sets it within the context of all other pieces.  I am that rare narrator who is also an historian.  I have taken the opportunity to make a few important corrections to the text, where I have perceived errors, and have added to it where I see important omissions.  I, too, offer the text free to my listeners, in the spirit of educating my fellow citizens and improving their lives. If you enjoy this recording, please let me know by emailing me a sentence or two to this effect at rreiman33@gmail.com.  I can track clicks and downloads but this is my only way of determining if anyone is actually listening.  Happy listening to all.

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NEW! Audio Narration of “The Great Depression” from the Free Open Educational Resource, “The American Yawp”

American HIstory, Audio narration, FDR, Politics, United States history

History Speaks again!  My audio narration of “The Great Depression,” chapter twenty-three from the blockbuster Open Resource textbook, The American Yawp, is now out. As an historian myself, I have enhanced this recording and narrative by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright with a few additions of my own, in keeping with the democratic principles of Open Educational Resources (OER), which this document is.  My contributions to this document, freely distributed as all OER are, are dedicated to the preservation of democracy in these United States, a dedication here that is mine and mine alone, not to be confused with the purposes of the authors of this textbook.  My hope and my contributions to this recording, including my edits and narration, represent a plea that all listeners vote for the Democratic nominee for President this November, to save our splendid Democracy. America… to thee, I sing.

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NEW! Chapter Seven of “The Warren Report:” Oswald’s Early Life and the Question of Motive

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Politics, Warren Commission, Zapruder

Motive.  It is the thing that all juries want but do not need, in our system of justice, to determine guilt or innocence, The Warren Commission did not hazard a hypothesis on the question of Oswald’s motive, seen singularly.  But they did list a series of potential motives, seeded by his early life, and seen by his comments and those of others, that might have played a part in the formation of motive.  Here I summarize this penultimate chapter in The Warren Report, and argue that there is much to praise and much to critique about the Commission’s handling of this critical phase of the life of the assassin.

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NEW! Summary of Chapter Six of “The Warren Report:” “Investigation Into Possible Conspiracy”

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, United States history, Warren Commission, Zapruder

This chapter may be seen as the Big Enchilada of the Report.  Did the Warren Commission provide a credible investigation of the possibility of conspiracy in the crime?  The staff wracked its collective brains to see where any possible conspiracy might have emerged given the facts in the case. It also tracked down leads offered by private citizens that seemed the least bit credible.  This chapter of more than 130 pages, the longest in the Report, is the fruit of their work.  One thing seems clear from this chapter and this podcast episode: Jack Ruby’s shooting of Oswald either was not premeditated or was reached just seconds before he rushed up to Oswald in the basement of the Dallas city jail and set countless conspiracy theories into motion.

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NEW! CHAPTER FIVE of “The Warren Report:” Detention and Death of Oswald

American HIstory, JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Warren Commission, Zapruder

Continuing our summary of The Warren Report investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we come to Chapter Five.  The whole tenor of the investigation changed with the subject of this chapter.  It concerned the events that led to the federalization of the investigation itself, the violation of Oswald’s civil liberties in the Dallas jail climaxing in the assassination of Oswald himself by Jack Ruby during the transfer of Oswald from one jail to another.  The events of this chapter transformed the assassination from something seemingly weird to something seemingly unbelievable. In this summary, host Rick Reiman discusses the oddities of a criminal justice cast of characters in Dallas more concerned with reputation and appearance than the requirements of law and truth.  Chapter Five reminds us that the assassination and Dallas’s part in it were shaped by the realities of time and place, a very different time and place than any we are familiar with today.

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A Question for Gerald Posner and Fred Litwin: Can Informed Speculation Equal Evidence?

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Politics, Warren Commission, Zapruder

A recent podcast episode by the excellent historians of the JFK assassination, Gerald Posner and Fred Litwin, prompted this podcast episode of mine. Given the need to speculate about so much that is important about the behavior of Oswald on November 21 (pre-assassination) and November 33 (post-assassination), is it possible to employ speculation as a technique for getting at the truth of why Oswald assassinated JFK, and what his post-assassination purposes might have been?  Can informed speculation ever rise to the level of good evidence?  And if so, what are the standards that such evidence must meet to achieve this state? Questions, questions, questions. I hope that Messers. Posner and/or Litwin respond to these questions, which are expanded upon in this episode of Audibly Speaking.

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NEW! Summary of “The Warren Report’s” CHAPTER THREE: “The Shots from the Texas School Book Depository”

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Politics, Warren Commission, Zapruder

It’s core findings remain untouched.  Its conclusions have stood the test of time. In this episode we see the tour de force that lies at the foundation of this seminal chapter in The Warren Report: Chapter Three.  While subsequent research has expanded on the insights we gain from this chapter, which distilled the most important work of the Warren Commission, nothing has seriously contradicted its fundamental conclusion. What has deteriorated is not the Warren Report conclusions. No, those have stood the test of time.  What has deteriorated is the American people’s ability to separate fact from fiction and to accept fact even when it is staring them in the face–as it is here.  Will Americans continue to follow the carnival barkers of conspiracist thinking?  Americans through “Their government,” as FDR would say, has, with the Warren Report, done them the favor of representing them well.  Will the Americans people in the age of Trump accept the truth or follow the carnival barkers?

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