The Landis Claim: Paul Landis and the New “Magic Bullet” Myth in the JFK Assassination

JFK Assassination

In advance of the publication of Paul Landis’s new book on his memory as a Secret Service agent in the JFK detail on November 22, 1963, Landis has made a claim that has roiled the class of people interested in the controversies involving the JFK assassination.  In response to those parts of the claim that have been published (since the book itself will not come out until October) your host for this podcast, Rick Reiman, looks at the logical problems of the Landis claim, and why it should be considered little more than a myth and a mistaken memory.

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For Constitution Day 2023: An Abridged Audio Narration of the National Archives’ Public Domain Document, “Putting the Bill of Rights to the Test”

Constitution Day 2023

This is Dr. Rick Reiman, professor of History at South Georgia State College.  Here I narrate sections from the National Archives’ public domain publication, “Putting the Bill of Rights to the Test.”  I read sections on the application of the First and Fifth Amendments. Listeners are encouraged to download the complete publication on the National Archives web site. The complete publication contains questions and primary documents that will enhance your experience in listening to this podcast episode and learning more about the Constitution.

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The Georgia Indictment Against Donald Trump: An Abridged Audio Narration of the Indictment by D.A. Fani Willis, Fulton County, Georgia

Politics, Uncategorized

The Georgia Indictment against Donald J. Trump may be the first indictment against Trump to go to trial. It also may be the only trial of Trump to be televised, and televised live.  Unabridged audio narrations of the indictment are numerous online, but to my knowledge, this unabridged recording by your host, Rick Reiman, which still clocks in at nearly 75 minutes, is the only one that limits the attention to the charges against Trump and the narrative of the acts of which he is accused in the indictment.  For those with limited time, this may be the ideal narration to which to listen.  Of course, all listeners are encouraged to read or listen (or both) to the complete indictment, widely available online through a simple Google search.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Saving of the Democratic Way of Life: Fireside Chat of December 1940

FDR, World War II

In 1940, American democracy was gravely threatened as never before, and only the American people stood against it as a reliable line of defense.  Could we say the same today if American democracy were similarly threatened?  Here is an analysis of the famous “Arsenal of Democracy” speech, annotated by your host,  Rick Reiman

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New! Audio Narration of the Sherlock Holmes Short Story, “The Resident Patient,” by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

A Russian Count and his mysterious son make an appointment with a doctor to examine the Count for catalepsy.  Catalepsy being the doctor’s speciality, it makes sense.  But the resident patient who lives at the doctor’s office may have a lively, or is it deadly, interest in the Russian visitors, unbeknownst to the doctor. What could possibly go wrong?  Everything, unless Sherlock Holmes can penetrate the fog of crime in this short story by the inimitable Conan Doyle.

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NEW! An Audio Narration of Conan Doyle’s “The Stockbroker’s Clerk,” a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

Sherlock Holmes

Your audio narrator, Rick Reiman, takes you from London to the English Midlands, as we journey with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson and “the stockbroker’s clerk,” in quest of the solution to a mystery and a hideous crime.  Sherlock Holmes solves it only at the very end, and only with the aid of one of the criminals involved. See, or rather hear, if you can beat him to it.

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Reflection on “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and the Raiders of Memory in our MAGA Moment

Memory

Movies may entertain us, but they also reflect our innermost thoughts and feelings in the time in which we make and watch them. Here I, a Professor of History, reflect on how the themes in the new movie, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” whether consciously or unconsciously meant by its makers, possess undercurrents of meaning warning us to take into account how we remembered in the past, and how dangerously many of us remember today in this moment of the MAGA movement.

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NEW!! “The United States versus Donald J. Trump,” Federal Indictment of the Department of Justice, on Audio

American HIstory, Audio narration, U.S. Constitution

I narrate the watershed indictment, the first federal prosecution of a former President of the United States in American history. Every American should read this document to understand and appreciate the gravity of the crimes alleged to have been committed by Donald F. Trump. This is necessary because Trump’s defenders have been distorting the charges. Audio narrations of the indictment are available elsewhere. This one is narrated by an historian.

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NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates the Sherlock Holmes Story, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax,” by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

The odyssey is almost complete: Virtually the entire canon of Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle have now been recorded, available free to the public, by the work and from the voice of audio narrator Rick Reiman. You can also catch the classic Hound of the Baskervilles, either here on AudiblySpeaking (available at the podcast by that name on Apple Podcasts) or at Librivox.org. This is an other-directed public service worthy of the spirit of the eighteenth century Enlightenment. Here is “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax,” for your enjoyment.

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Sneak Preview of Sherlock Holmes in “The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter,” by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

Other than horse-racing, this is is the only Sherlock Holmes story featuring sports. In this case it is a missing football player, not a race horse, that confounds Holmes. Listen to this preview now. The complete audio narration will be released on June 1. Get the jump with this swift and breezy preview, now.

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Taking Stock: All of My Sherlock Holmes Short Story Narrations

Sherlock Holmes

My Sherlock Holmes short story audio narrations are reaching completion! Here is a compendium of all my audio recordings in this treasure chest of Arthur Conan Doyle stories, all free for the listening!

The Adventure of the Six Napoleons

The Adventure of Black Peter

The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

The Adventure of the Red-Headed League

The Adventure of the Golden Pence-Nez

The Adventure of the Dancing Men

The Adventure of the Dying Detective

The Adventure of the Reigate Squires

The Adventure of the Abbey Grange

The Scandal of Bohemia

Silver Blaze

The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb

The Boscomb Valley Mystery

The Adventure of the Second Stain

The Adventure of the Yellow Face

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

The Man with the Twisted Lip

The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor

The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot

The Greek Interpreter

The Musgrave Ritual

The Adventure of the Three Students

The Five Orange Pips

The Final Problem

The Adventure of the Empty House

The Bruce-Partington Plans

The Adventure of the Gloria Scott

The Adventure of the Norwood Builder

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet

The Adventure of the Crooked Man

NEW! Audio narration of “The Adventures of the Six Napoleons,” a Sherlock Holmes Story by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

Inspector Lastrade of Scotland Yard informs Holmes that someone is robbing people’s houses of their busts of Napoleon and smashing them to bits in situ or a little distance away. What can be the meaning of this? Lastrade only really becomes interested when the affair is entangled in murder–the burglar knifed an Italian on his way out of a burgled house, and the dead man had a photo of the likely murdered in his pocket. Holmes continues to center his attention on the busts, not the dead man, a fact that Lastrade considers mad. As usual, Holmes is proven right in the denouement, a fact which can only be made clear by Holmes’s dazzlingly ingenious methods, as is revealed at the conclusion of the story.

The Adventure
of the Six Napoleons

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Audio Narration of the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes Short Story, “The Adventure of Black Peter”

Sherlock Holmes

Peter Carey, an English Sea Captain, with the reputation of being tyrannical and hard-hearted, is given the name “Black Peter” before he is killed by an unknown visitor to his home. Sherlock Holmes must help the novice detective, Stanley Hopkins, unravel the mystery of Peter Carey’s strange ending. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sprinkles clues to enable the reader the understand that Hopkins is too quick to close a case that only Sherlock Holmes can solve.

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Audio Narration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Short Story, “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”

Sherlock Holmes

“The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” was the last short story published in Conan Doyle’s first book-length collection of short stories, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892). It does not follow the usual pattern of opening with a brief Sherlock Holmes deduction that shows his brilliance, but focuses on Holmes’s tendency toward morose depression. Holmes complains to Watson that his clients are so dull that he is left to advice people on how to find lost lead pencils and ladies on how to secure such positions as governess. He shows Watson that he has really reached “Zero” with the case of Violet Hunter, who seeks advice on whether to become governess to Jephro Rucastle. The case turns out to be more diabolical and potentially deadly than even Holmes can imagine. Violet also turns out to be cut from the Sherlockian cloth as her own deductions and limitless curiosity plunges her into pathbreaking pages of discovery and drama. Watson even suspects that Holmes may fall in love with her. But the autistic detective remains a bachelor, and turns away from her in disinterest once she is no longer “at the center” of one of his cases. As for Holmes and Watson, they open the story criticizing each other like a tired married couple, and only grow united in purpose once Violet Hunter delivers them a mystery that brings the dynamic duo once together once more in pursuit of a game once again “afoot.”

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“What the Dickens” is “A Tale of Two Cities” All About? Hear the In’s and Out’s Here!

Tale of Two Cities

Here is my “take” on one of the most famous novels of all time, “A Tale of Two Cities,” by Charles Dickens. Why is it so great? What the dickens was Dickens up to when he wrote it? And what should be our takeaway today. Tune in here, and listen, learn and, most importantly, enjoy!

I have narrated the ENTIRE novel, for Librivox. Listen to the whole thing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS3QBeYzt6E&t=7932s

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Puzzle Pieces, Episode 2: The Warren Commission as History

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory

In this, our second episode of “Puzzle Pieces,” in which we examine a separate mystery in American history, we look at the weaknesses of the Warren Commission’s efforts in 1964. This first investigation of the JFK assassination suffered from mistakes of its own making and errors over which it had little if no control whatsoever. Weaknesses could sometimes later become strengths, as their obvious highlighting could be–and were–addressed in subsequent investigations. Here we have a photograph of the Commissioners themselves–who did very little of the leg work for the Commission. The unsung staff did most of the work, and may be credited with many of the Commission’s monumental, if unsung and forgotten, successes. Next time on “Puzzle Pieces,” we go over those successes–here on AudiblySpeaking.

The Warren Commission delivers its Report, September 1964

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Audio Narration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Short Story, “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”

Sherlock Holmes

Your host, Rick Reiman, narrates “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb,” by Arthur Conan Doyle. This is rather one of the more graphic of the Sherlock Holmes tales, not for the faint of heart. But it contains several of Holmes’s most ingenious deductions along the way. My narrations of the Holmes stories must be nearing an end, since there are few of them that I have not yet read and released on Audibly Speaking thus far. I hope that you enjoy it.

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Puzzle Pieces: How Historians Work, Episode 1: “Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Backyard Photographs in the JFK Assassination”

JFK Assassination, Uncategorized

This is your host on “Audibly Speaking,” Rick Reiman. Today, March 31, 2023, is the 60th anniversary of the taking of the famous backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald, holding the rifle he would later use to kill President Kennedy and the pistol he would use to murder Officer J.D. Tippit forty-five minutes after that awful act in American history. This is a classic case of how historians untangle facts from allegations, and how the facts in the JFK assassination are imagined away and replaced by the will-of-the-wisp of “What-Ifs.” Let this year, the 60th anniversary of that dark day be the year we start listening to most historians, rather then the inhabitants of “Dallas in Wonderland,” with their absurd conspiracy theories. Thanks for listening–and please share this with others if you like it!

Oswald in the back of his house on Neely Street in Oak Cliff, March 31, 1963. Picture taken by his wife, Marina Oswald.

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