Leave Of Absence Request Form - New America College: Fill & Download for Free

I wouldn’t say strangest but these were very different compared to what I am used to in India.Water Fountains - People in the USA drinking water from fountains; when my wife told me that she noticed it in O’Hare airport I didn’t believe her for weeks till I saw with my own eyes.Edit: Since so many are asking about what’s wrong with the drinking water fountain in comments I am adding this to clarify.There is nothing wrong with drinking from the fountain and it is well maintained and hygienic as well. Just that I didn’t think drinking directly from the water source would be in practice in USA.As a note I didn’t know how to drink from it during the initial days; I thought there is a proximity sensor that would sense my presence and dispense the water. :-)2. Traffic - The absence of traffic in most suburbs and roads being virtually free when compared to India.3. Extremes in fitness - The average American is either extremely fit and exercises every day or overweight and trying or not trying to get the excess weight off.4. Reserved Parking - I was surprised that every parking lot has slots reserved for the differently abled; it’s a good thing though.5. Cost of Healthcare - Healthcare without insurance burns a hole in your pocket and even the premiums are expensive; it could range from $400 to $1000 per month depending on coverage level, types of benefits, etc6. Vast Empty Spaces - There are vast empty spaces along side highways, suburbs, villages and virtually everywhere.7. Parks/Play Areas - There are parks/play areas in every 2 or 3 miles and it includes playground/slides/swimming pools/ping pong tables/etc.8. Huge Parking Lots - Every mall/shopping centers have huge parking lots and nearly 50% of them are empty unless it is a very busy place. you don’t have to pay a dime in most places for parking.9. Lack of public transport - Public transport is practically non existent compared to India. There are very few buses in suburban areas and public transportation is aplenty only in huge cities like Chicago, New York, etc. Taxis are expensive and one typically pays $3 to $5 a mile in most places. Owning a car is a necessity rather than a comfort. Given below are some pics of the Chicago Union Station which is akin to Chennai Central/ Chatrapati Shivaji/etc in India.10. Limited Veggie options - You have to stick to McD, Burger King, Olive Garden, Subway, etc and few restaurants that offer veggie options during trips. There are just a couple or just a handful of options in most restaurants. In India the veggie food and cuisine changes even between two cities in the same state and there are thousands of cuisines/dishes that I am not even aware of; let alone taste. Also India has more restaurants that offer veggie rather than non veggie.Edit1: I am a veggie and travelled to just Buffalo, New York and Chicago (I live in Chicago suburbs). I didn't get any decent veggie options in a few minutes I took to search. There could be more veggie options if I had the time to explore. If you eat non veg then it's heaven and you will have a blast.Edit 2: Few have suggested me Find Vegan & Vegetarian Restaurants Near You - HappyCow to find veggie food near me; will definitely try that. Adding it to the answer so that fellow veggies are aware of it.11. Junk Food - Pizza/Burger/Fries/etc are available virtually everywhere and I am shocked to see this food being given to even Toddlers.12. Obsession with Soda - You see everyone carrying a cup of soda anywhere; malls/movies/restaurant/car/etc. Even toddlers consume lots of soda which is just sugar, carbonated water and flavour. Soda comes with 50% of the cup filled with ice unless you ask for soda without ice.13. Carrying coffee/soda to restrooms - Restrooms are among the filthiest places and I can’t imagine/understand why one would carry a cup of coffee/soda in to one. Ewww!!!14. Diapers and wipes in most restrooms - If you forgot the diaper/wipes for the baby and even if you need a quick replacement you can just check in the restrooms and you can get one if you pay $0.5 or $1. This is a very good thing in emergencies; you don’t have to run to a store to buy a diaper pack.15. Large Food Portions/Soda - Most food items come in large portions and we usually pack the leftover food and have it for the next breakfast/dinner. Soda also comes in huge sizes; AMC theatre has 40 oz cup for soda!!! The medium size is 32 oz and the small is 16 oz.16. Availability of Indian stuff - You are likely to get varieties of Indian vegetables, spices and other groceries in one place in many states in the USA rather than a market or departmental store in India.17. Availability of frozen Indian food - I got introduced to many Gujarati food items like Patra, Mathia, etc albeit frozen which I haven't even heard of when in India.18. Cool Water - Water from the fountain is really cool and one cannot drink more than two sips at a time unless used to it. Water in certain restaurants are also cool since they add ice to water and if you don't need it have to specifically ask for it.19. Cheaper Fruits - Fruits like Apple and strawberry are cheaper at peak seasons compared to India. A pound is sold for as low as $0.50 for apples and $0.33 for strawberries. Even if you convert it to INR then it's cheaper than in India; I guess because most of these are imported in to India.20. Strawberry/Apple picking - Anyone can pay a price and get in to fields to pick their own strawberries and apples. Such a thing doesn't happen in India and it has come to my notice that this is picking up steam in India as well. This helps farmers as well as consumers since it reduces cost of picking and transportation and let's consumers enjoy fresh fruits.Edit: Few have mentioned in comments that fruit picking has started in India too; happy to hear that. Hopefully I can pick some fruits when I return to India but it is not prevalent as in the USA.21. Easy to get Credit Card/Loan - It’s pretty easy to get credit cards/vehicle loans when you have a SSN. Just a month after being here one can get credit cards or loan but the interest rates will be higher and won’t get many 0% APR offers but that changes after a year or so. Too many credit card offers flood the mailbox. America is more of a spending economy and it seems to be reflected in credit cards/loans. In India it’s a nightmare if you have more than a couple of credit cards and you are on the look out for a loan; no.of. credit card accounts reduce your credit score adversely.22. Minimal Savings - Many Americans cannot manage expenses if they miss a paycheck because they already in to monthly payments due to credit cards/loans.The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans Living Paycheck to PaycheckMost Americans can't handle a $500 surprise bill23. Costly prepaid plans -It’s costly compared to India in that the prepaid plans require payment every month rather than giving a fixed talktime and validity for the money paid. In India you can pay 250 INR (about $4) and you will get talktime worth 250 INR (approx 1000 mins of calls) and validity of three to four months to use up the talktime. Data is separate you would need to shell out $2 to $5 depending on 2G/3G/4G/LTE and is valid for a month. I imagined these would be cheaper in USA since it’s a developed country.24. Costly Broadband - You need shell out anywhere between $25 and $50 per month for broadband and the speeds are high compared to India. But you are stuck with Comcast in most parts of the country and don’t have any options; not to mention their infamous customer service. :-)25. Pay bills online - Almost 99% of the bills could be paid online and it is free of charge in most banks.26. Signup bonus - Many banks offer sign up bonus between $50 and $300 for opening new checking accounts and credit cards; this is unheard of in India. they do offer some discounts and cashbacks but sign up bonus isn’t common.27. Low interest rates - Savings account get very less interest rates around 1% to 2% or even lesser; while it is around 5% to 6% in India.Savings Account: Compare & Open Savings Account Online28. Steep Discounts - Products like Macbook, iPhone get either discounts or gift cards ranging from $100 to $300 at third party retailers like BestBuy which is not the norm in India.29. Large number of phones sold by network carriers - Every one buys phones from carriers by way of contracts/paying in full/discounts, etc in loads. In India retailers are the ones that sell most numbers; carriers have a minimal share. Most phones are bought unlocked and paid in full; so many don’t buy expensive phones which they cannot afford to pay immediately.30. Timeliness - Everyone is on time for work/meetings/etc. They would arrive early rather than arrive late. If the agreed upon time is 10 AM then it is 10 AM; not 10:05 AM or 10:10 AM.31. Secure doors in apartments - Doors to apartment buildings are secured through security codes and cannot unlock without it. Package delivery teams also don’t have access to security codes and deliver at mailbox or apartment management office or place it near the door. Even the fire department personnel don’t have access to it; I had assisted them once when they couldn’t open the door to the apartment with the keys. :-)32. Fall Colors - There is no season that can be clearly termed as Autumn in India and the trees retain most of the leaves during the season and remain evergreen. In the USA you see enormous amounts of colors even while driving/walking in the streets.33. Need permission to burst crackers - You have to take permission from officials/communities to burst crackers whereas in India we take it for granted and burst as much as we can. All we do now is just burst some sparklers and get to temple to see the real fireworks. Fireworks are on display during July 4, New Year, etc but never the same as in India.34. Certain places have same names - For example there is a Geneva, IL - Official Website in Illinois which might confuse some who are aware of the popular Geneva - Wikipedia in Switzerland. There is a Prospect Heights, Illinois - Wikipedia in Illinois as well as one Prospect Heights, Brooklyn - Wikipedia in Brooklyn.35. USA is very big and vast - This can be illustrated with the fact that United States uses nine standard time zones. From east to west they are Atlantic Standard Time (AST), Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), Mountain Standard Time (MST), Pacific Standard Time (PST), Alaskan Standard Time (AKST), Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST), Samoa standard time (UTC-11) and Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10).Time Zone36. Roads are silent - No one honks unless a person blocks the way or does something dangerous/stupid on the road. It’s very silent except for the engine sound and cars passing by on most roads.37. Buying and driving car is easy - Buying a car is like buying a cycle in India. You can get loans from a bank for the car’s entire value (including registration, etc) and you needn’t a single penny upfront. All you need to do is sign the papers and pay the monthly dues. Driving is also easy since most follow traffic rules and most cars have automatic transmission and don’’t have to worry about shifting to the correct gear.38. Driving over Speed limit - Many drive over the speed limit; when I say over it doesn’t mean by 2–4 mph it’s usually above 10 mph. It’s a nightmare to change lanes in freeways in Illinois when adhering to the speed limit; you have to be above the speed limit to change lanes unless the freeway doesn’t have much traffic. Traffic tickets cost a lot but doesn’t seem to prevent many from driving over the limit.39. Gun Culture - This is always in the news and every weekend sees a dozen gunshots fired in/around Chicago wounding few and killing few. It’s really scary when you see the news and you remember you were at the same spot just a week ago.40. Cinemas - AMC offers tickets for $5 - $6 during Tuesdays and morning shows on weekends. The tickets are really cheap when you compare against a popcorn or fry costing $5 - $10. The movie experience is good nevertheless.41. Tipping Culture - Workers in restaurant/taxi/pizza delivery/etc business are usually underpaid and customers are expected to tip at least 15% to make up for low wages. It’s a necessity and not extra money like in India. If you don’t tip it’s considered as rude or that service was poor and some might even ask you why there was no tip.42. Free refills/discounts - Many restaurants offer free refills on their large size sodas for $0.25/$0.5 or for free. AMC theatres has a large cup which is reported to be 54 oz for soda and offers free refill as well; I am not sure if anyone refilled the large cup. Also you get free refill for the Large popcorn bags at AMC.AMC also offers discounts/rewards for members based on the money spent in AMC; its around 10% i.e., if you spend $50 you get back $5 that can be used for tickets/snacks/etc.Disclaimer: I am not endorsing AMC; just gave it as an example.43. Imperial System in practice - I was surprised to see weight specified in pounds and fluid in ounces; I thought these were done away with till I came here.44. Everyone is courteous and polite - Most people are courteous/polite and greet you in roads/malls/shops/etc which doesn’t happen in India. We usually greet only known persons in India; otherwise you get weird looks. But the courteousness/politeness seems to disappear when driving a car.45. World Cuisine - You can get any food ranging from Chinese to Mexican (I mean all types of food across the world) and if you eat non veg then you are in heaven. Cheese is of entirely different quality from that used in India. I fell in love with Pizza and Pasta and I am not sure if I can get Pizza/Pasta that tastes so good any where in India.46. Variety of Fruits - You get variety of fruits ranging from Apple (I don’t know how many varieties are there.. I have eaten Gala, Red Delicious,Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Braeburn, Empire, Golden Delicious, Jonathan, JonaGold, Fuji and there are many more I haven’t tried yet), Cherry, Strawberry, Durian, Mangosteen, Jackfruit, Mango, etc. I bought Durian once and will never eat it again; it’s gooey like beaten/heated Cheese and the smell is awful.45. Education cost - School education is virtually free; the few hundred dollars fee per year wouldn’t even be enough to maintain schools whereas in India I would have to spend few hundred dollars for a quarter in most schools. Cost of college education is ridiculously high and almost every student is in huge financial burden irrespective of the part time jobs.46. Drive in - I couldn’t imagine a drive in before I came to the USA. Drive in ATMs and fast food is convenient but don’t understand why many don’t sit down and have a quick bite rather than eating in the car. I am still used to it and usually park the car and walk in even if I need a coffee.47. Hot water in taps/baths - To get hot water all you need to do is open the tap. We are used to turning the heater ON and waiting for 5/10/any minutes for getting hot water for bath and other purposes.48. No water in the poo-poo area - Western toilets are widespread in India these days but they do have a tap/water source from which one can clean up and dry yourself with paper after the business but in the USA you have to get used to just the paper.49. Concept of City - City in India means a well developed/urbanized area that can sprawl up to thousands of square kilometers but in USA it would mean a small area running up to a maximum in hundreds of square miles.50. Relatively quiet and queue-less banks - Banks are often overcrowded and need to wait for at least an hour to make deposit money or do any other banking activity. There are numerous ATMs where you can make deposits as well but many prefer to make it in person in the branch. In comparison banks in USA are relatively empty most of the time and you can walk out within few minutes and no tokens needed for any activity; you just head to the counter.51. Bank account can be opened online - Sure there are online applications in India too but you need to visit the branch to submit the form and proofs, make the initial deposit and get the account activated. Even these can be done online in the USA from the comfort of your home; all you need is scanned copies of the proofs.52. Coffee/Comfortable seats in Banks- Most banks in USA have candy/coffee for the customers and the waiting seats are among the most comfy ones I have sat in. You can wait in those comfy seats while the banking officer gets ready for your request. India has seats too for waiting but nowhere near to these and its not possible when there are huge crowds.53. Double Fees for using other ATMs - One can do up to 4 transactions in a month at other bank ATMs for free in India whereas in USA you maybe charged by the bank that issued the card and also by the bank that owns the ATM.54. Different apparels in different seasons - Most regions in India are hot throughout the year and there isn’t a need to have different clothes by season; most dresses will do good throughout the year. Due to the extremes in weather in summer/winter different types of clothes are needed in the USA; I knew about this even before entering the USA but never imagined the scale of the new product launches during the different seasons.55. Dark Coffee/Tea - Most in the USA consume dark coffee/tea without adding cream/milk but this is unthinkable for an average Indian. The way coffee/tea is made is way different where in the milk is in abundance and then the coffee/tea is added for taste.I will keep adding as and when I remember…I had written an answer for a similar question; please refer link below for more details.Balaji Viswanathan's answer to What is it like to be an Indian living in a foreign country? Does it affect the way you live? Do you still carry on with Indian rituals? Is it difficult to be an Indian person in another country?

When you read the analysis as to why Oswald killed JFK you often hear very strange reasons given, such as:Oswald was jealous of Kennedy because he was a loser and Kennedy was a winner. This theory is incredibly divorced from reality. Oswald had tried to shoot a far right figure prior to shooting Kennedy. Oswald hated capitalism and also the far right. He called himself a Marxist, and he was a Marxist. He even briefly moved to the USSR and married a Russian wife.Oswald was insane—No, he wasn’t insane. And he wasn’t stupid. In fact, he had scored very high on an IQ test given when he was in the military. He had a hard life growing up, but he was far from stupid. He studied politics and wasn’t a lunatic. In fact, Oswald was evaluated by a psychiatrist in his youth:This 13 year old, well built, well nourished boy was remanded to Youth House for the first time on charge of truancy from school and of being beyond the control of his mother as far as school attendance is concerned. This is his first contact with the law.He is tense, withdrawn and evasive boy who dislikes intensely talking about himself and his feelings. He likes the give the impression that he doesn't care about others and rather likes to keep to himself so that he is not bothered and does not have to make the effort of communicating. It was difficult to penetrate the emotional wall behind which this boy hides and he provided us with sufficient clues, permitting us to see intense anxiety, shyness, feelings of awkwardness and insecurity as the main reasons for his withdrawal tendencies and solitary habits. Lee told us: "I don't want a friend and I don't like to talk to people." He describes himself as stubborn and according to his own saying likes to say "no." Strongly resistive and negativistic features were thus noticed but psychotic mental content was denied and no indication of psychotic mental changes was arrived at.Lee is a youngster with superior mental endowment functioning presently on the bright normal range of mental efficiency. His abstract thinking capacity and his vocabulary are well developed. No retardation in school subjects could be found in spite of his truancy from school. Lee limits his interests to reading magazines and looking at the television all day long. He dislikes to play with others or to face the learning situation in school. On the other hand he claims that he is "very poor" in all school subjects and would remedial help. The discrepancy between these claims and his actual attainment level show the low degree of self evaluation and self esteem at which this boy has arrived presently, mainly due to feelings general inadequacy and emotional discouragement.Lee is the product of a broken home as his father died before he was born. Two older brothers are presently in the United States Army while the mother supports herself and Lee as an insurance broker. This occupation makes it impossible for her to provide adequate supervision of Lee and to make him attend school regularly. Lee is intensely dissatisfied with his present way of living, but feels that the only way in which he can avoid feeling too unhappy is to deny to himself competition with other children or expressing his needs and wants. Lee claims that he can get very angry at his mother and occasionally has hit her, particularly when she returns home without having bought food for supper. On such occasions she leaves it to Lee to prepare some food with what he can find in the kitchen. He feels that his mother rejects him and really has never cared very much for him. He expressed the similar feeling with regard to his brothers who live pretty much on their own without showing any brotherly interest in him. Le has a vivid fantasy life, turning around the topics of omnipotence and power, through which he tries to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations. He did not enjoy being together with other children and when we asked him whether he prefers the company of boys to [that] of girls he answered "I dislike everybody." His occupational goal is to join the Army. His mother was interviewed by the Youth House social worker and is described by her as a "defensive, rigid, self-involved, and intellectually alert woman who finds it exceedingly difficult to understand Lee's personality and his withdrawing behavior. She does not understand that Lee's withdrawal is a form of violent but silent protest against his neglect by her and represents his reaction to a complete absence of any real family life. She seemed to be interested enough in the welfare of this boy to be willing to seek guidance and help as regards her own difficulties and her management of Lee.["]Neurological examination remained essentially negative with the exception of slightly impaired hearing in the left ear, resulting from a mastoidectomy in 1946. History of convulsions and accidental injuries to the skull was denied. Family history is negative for mental [?] disease.SUMMARY FOR PROBATION OFFICER'S REPORT:This 13 year old well built boy has superior mental resources and functions only slightly below his capacity level in spite of chronic truancy from school which brought him into Youth House. No finding of neurological impairment or psychotic mental changes could be made. Lee has to be diagnosed as "personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive - aggressive tendencies." Lee has to be seen as an emotionally, quite disturbed youngster who suffers under the impact of really existing emotional isolation and deprivation, lack of affection, absence of family life and rejection by a self involved and conflicted mother. Although Lee denies that he is in need of any other form of help other than "remedial" one, we gained the definite impression that Lee can be reached through contact with an understanding and very patient psychotherapist and if he could be drawn at the same time into group psychotherapy. We arrive therefore at the recommendation that he should be placed on probation under the condition that he seek help and guidance through contact with a child guidance clinic, where he should be treated preferably by a male psychiatrist who could substitute, to a certain degree at least, for the lack of a father figure. At the same time, his mother should be urged to seek psychotherapeutic guidance through contact with a family agency. If this plan does not work out favorably and Lee cannot cooperate in this treatment plan on an out-patient's basis, removal from the home and placement could be resorted to at a later date, but it is our definite impression that treatment on probation should be tried out before the stricter and therefore possibly more harmful placement approach is applied to the case of this boy. The Big Brother Movement could be undoubtedly of tremendous value in this case and Lee should be urged to join the organized group activities of his community, such as provided by the PAL or YMCA of his neighborhood.[1]Oswald received rifle training in the U.S. militaryOswald with his wife in Minsk, USSRWas he set up by the CIA? I don’t know. It appears that he acted alone to kill Kennedy. After the shooting the Russians were horrified because they feared they would be blamed, so they gave their classified info on the shooting from the KGB to the Americans. Interviews with Castro give no hint of him knowing. The federal government won’t release the important files, so that is an indication of something controversial, but nobody knows what it is. Interestingly, there is some indication that the CIA undercover operative George H.W. Bush was in town and knew something, but I don’t think he was part of it.[2]The most plausible explanation is that he hated Kennedy because Kennedy had approved of the Bay of Pigs, caused the Cuban Missile Crisis, and had approved the beginning stages of attack on communists in Vietnam. Any Marxist would absolutely fucking hate Kennedy (I do). He likely feared Kennedy would plan another attack on Cuba, and Oswald wanted to move to Cuba but had been rejected. Perhaps he hoped they would give him asylum.Some other facts about Oswald:1. He served in the Marines — where his nickname was “Osvaldovich”Oswald took an early interest in socialism after picking up a leaflet about the coming execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who had been convicted of spying for Russia. “I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature,” Oswald wrote in his diary. “I had to dig for my books in the back of dusty shelves of libraries.”Despite his socialist leanings, Oswald enlisted in the Marines and in 1957 was stationed in Atsugi, Japan. While there, he earned the nickname “Osvaldovich.” As his fellow Marine, Owen Dejanovich, explained to FRONTLINE:If you complained about, “Oh, we’ve got to go on a march this morning” or “We’ve got to do this this morning,” scrub barracks or whatever we had to do, if you were complaining about it, he would — he would say that that was the capitalist form of government making us do these things. Karl Marx and his form of government would alleviate that.2. Oswald attempted suicide in RussiaIn 1959, Oswald travelled to Moscow in hopes of becoming a Soviet citizen. “I want citizenship because I am a communist and a worker,” he wrote in his request for citizenship. “I have lived in a decadent capitalist society where the workers are slaves.”When his request was denied, Oswald became despondent. “I am shocked!! My dreams!”, he wrote in his what he called his “historic” diary. “My fondes [sic] dreams are shattered … I decide to end it. Soak rist [sic] in cold water to numb the pain. Than slash my left wrist.”Oswald was found unconscious in his bathtub shortly after he finished his diary entry and then rushed to a local hospital. Days later, Russian officials changed course and allowed him to stay in the country.3. He once improvised the role of a killerIn 1960, Oswald moved to Minsk and became friends with a group of college students interested in learning English. One of the students, Ernst Titovets, made tape recordings of Oswald in order to study his southern accent. He had Oswald read passages from Shakespeare and Hemingway, as well as improvise mock dialogues.In one recording, Titovets interviewed Oswald, who was playing the part of a serial killer. In the exchange — which Titovets played for FRONTLINE in the below excerpt from Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? — Oswald is asked about his most recent killing.4. His alias was “Alek J. Hidell”By 1962, Oswald was back in the United States and working in a photo lab in downtown Dallas. Using the lab’s photo equipment, he began to forge a new identity, including a Selective Service card, in the name of “Alek J. Hidell.”Oswald went on to open a post office box, where he would have mail sent under both his birth name as well as his alias. Among the publications he received were The Worker, the newspaper of the American Communist Party, as well as The Militant, the paper of the Socialist Workers Party.Following the Kennedy assassination, the FBI would trace the purchase of a rifle found inside the Texas School Book Depository to an A. Hidell. However, when asked by the Dallas Police whether he had ever used the name, Oswald said no.According to author Priscilla McMillen, Oswald’s wife Marina once asked him if he chose the name “Hidell” because of its resemblance to “Fidel” (as in Castro). Oswald “was embarrassed to be caught out, and he told her to shut up,” McMillen told FRONTLINE.5. He was linked to an assassination attempt before JFKSeven months before the Kennedy assassination, Oswald allegedly fired into the home of an ultra-right wing Army general named Edwin Walker. The bullet, which missed Walker, was linked to Oswald’s ammunition after the Kennedy assassination.Gerald Posner, the author of Case Closed recounted what’s known about Oswald’s actions:Oswald had an entire book of operations for his Walker action, including photographs of Walker’s house, photographs of an area that he intended to stash the rifle, maps that he had drawn very carefully, statements of political purpose.In the end, he wanted this to be an important historical feat, and this was to be the documentation left behind. He viewed General Walker as an up-and-coming Adolf Hitler, and that he would be the hero who stopped him on his rise to power.6. His feelings about JFK were mixedAccording to an account published in The New York Times by Paul Gregory, a friend of Oswald’s, Lee and Marina kept a copy of Time magazine featuring John F. Kennedy as its Man of the Year prominently displayed in their home.“Lee liked Kennedy,” according to Priscilla McMillan, a friend of Oswald’s wife and the author of Marina & Lee. “He liked him in civil rights. He disliked him for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. … But insofar as he spoke about Kennedy, it was to praise him.”Investigative journalist Gerald Posner also told FRONTLINE that he did not believe Oswald held any hatred for Kennedy. “What he did hate was the system and what Kennedy stood for,” said Posner. “He despised America. He despised capitalism. When he eventually had the opportunity to strike against Kennedy, it was that symbol of the system that he was going after.”7. He once considered hijacking a plane to CubaAccording to McMillan, Oswald wanted to help train Castro’s army in Cuba, but because he could not secure a visa, he was forced to devise an alternative plan. As McMillan told FRONTLINE:Lee wanted to go to Cuba to help teach the Cuban army how to shoot. He decided the way to go was to skyjack an airplane. He told Marina that he would sit in the front row of the airplane cabin. She would sit in the back row with June. At a certain point, he would put a gun in the back of the pilot of the aircraft. She would stand up and keep the entire passenger contingent at bay with a pistol, and would speak to them. She would speak to the crowd and tell them to be quiet. Marina laughed at him, and said, “Well, but I don’t speak English. How am I going to explain to them?” Eventually she laughed him out of the skyjacking plan, and she begged him to find a legal way to get to Cuba. Then he thought of going through Mexico.8. Oswald told Dallas police that “Nobody’s going to shoot at me”The day he was killed by Jack Ruby, Oswald dismissed the idea that his life might be in danger. That’s according to James Leavelle, a former member of the Dallas police force who helped escort Oswald from his cell the morning of the shooting.“I put the handcuffs on him,” Leavelle told FRONTLINE, “and in the process of doing that, I more in jest kind of said, ‘Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they’re as good a shot as you are,’ meaning, of course, that they’d hit him and not me. And he kind of laughed and he said, ‘Oh, you’re being melodramatic,’ or something to that effect. ‘Nobody’s going to shoot at me.'”Minutes later, Oswald was dead.[3]EDIT:There is now a book written by top intelligence officer information which makes a plausible claim that Oswald was initially directed by Khruschev to kill Kennedy but the mission was called off. However, Oswald refused and went ahead with it anyway. This doesn’t change my answer all that much, in that I am claiming that Oswald was a committed Marxist who hated Kennedy for political reasons and wanted him dead.Lee Harvey Oswald ordered to kill JFK by Soviets, ex-CIA chief claimsFootnotes[1] Lee Harvey Oswald -- Psychiatrist's Assessment[2] https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580069-6.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3uicq7pgANlkyD-wuglqUQ2hdz1IZM1Swh2gQRofIv3n1GoriSGCddxh4[3] 8 Things You May Not Know About Lee Harvey Oswald

I was interviewed about gap years for the Washington Post this week. I believe a person who decides on a gap year should go into it with the intention of seeking out options that will challenge, surprise, educate and change him or her in some way.Below is the text from the article.**********************************************************************Want independent, well-adjusted kids who succeed in college, career and beyond? Parke Muth, a veteran college admissions consultant who spent nearly three decades in the University of Virginia’s admissions office, makes the argument that the best investment you can make in your kid’s college education might be to delay that education.Muth, who has worked with thousands of highly competitive high school students from around the globe, often encourages kids to take a gap year—a year off between high school and college—to travel, work, learn a new language or pursue independent study.This concept has its roots in Europe (particularly England) but has been steadily growing in popularity in the U.S.; and while there’s not a lot of hard data on how many students choose to take a gap year annually, organizations such as the American Gap Association cite private studies and student feedback to report on the rising trend—as well as on the myriad benefits—of taking a structured year off before entering the high-stakes world of higher education.But isn’t taking a gap year just a form of procrastination? A slacker’s path out of studying? Muth waves off my perception as outdated, explaining that it’s often quite the opposite. (He does say, however, that announcing that you’ll be taking a gap year can sometimes come off as being overly privileged, “like you can do anything you want and get your parents to pay for it.” So he suggests that kids leave any mention of it off their college applications and then request to defer their enrollment once they’ve been accepted.) Muth highlights instead how a gap year can address the problem plaguing so many colleges today where kids are unable to manage themselves, and parents are unable to let them.[How helicopter parents are ruining college kids]“Parents have been chauffeurs and secretaries for their kids all their lives, so kids tend to have a rough adjustment period when they head off to college,” he says. “But taking a gap year is the antidote to helicopter parenting.”“It’s an investment in the whole person,” Muth says, one that allows kids to develop the maturity, independence and self-reliance necessary to make the most of a college education. He speaks to the significant growth opportunities that a gap year can provide as well as the common freshman pitfalls it can help students sidestep. It can also give students the opportunity to take a step back to focus on their goals, leading to a stronger sense of direction once they’re back in the classroom.Well, when you put it like that! Isn’t this exactly what we’re striving to give our kids—a sense of their place in the world and how to appreciate it and make the most of it?“A gap year experience can also expose kids to the realities of the world that awaits them on the other side of college,” Muth continues, turning them into young adults who are more inclined to take their education seriously rather than as a “prepaid, four-year playland.” Plus, it gives kids a break from the intensive work—and parenting—that goes into completing high school and getting into college, making it less likely that kids will bottom out during their first year away from home.This is starting to sound all too uncomfortably familiar to me: While I eventually graduated with a GPA respectable enough to earn me a spot on the Dean’s List, I cringe remembering how flagrantly I allowed myself to tank academically my first year in college, missing classes because I had stayed up until 6 a.m. (not a typo!) or rationalizing my absence because the professor would never know if I wasn’t one of the faces in the 300-seat lecture hall. I won’t even begin to go into the generalized stupidity I engaged in once I finally moved out from underneath my parents’ watchful eyes. I spent the next three years scrambling to make up for that.This is a high cost not only academically for students like me, but also financially for parents who are shelling out an average of $23,410 for public schools or $46,272 for private schools each year, according to the College Board. The cost of supporting a student who’s taking a gap year is often significantly less, and when those students enter college the following year (and 90 percent do, according to a study conducted by Karl Haigler, author ofThe Gap-Year Advantage: Helping Your Child Benefit from Time Off Before or During College) they often do so “much hungrier to succeed and get off the treadmill,” as Muth puts it.Luckily for Izzy Siemon-Carome, a rising senior at Virginia Tech, she’ll never share my creeping sense of regret when she looks back on her own first year in school. “When I got to college, I was calmer and didn’t go through that adjustment period that my classmates did. I was excited to be there,” says Siemon-Carome, who took a gap year after graduating from Arlington’s H-B Woodlawn in 2011. The year gave her “a chance to breathe, to reflect on what I really wanted to do.” Namely, to start an outdoor education school, a decision inspired by the 78 days she spent back-country hiking and camping with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Mexico during her gap year. (She spent the balance of her year traveling South America with a program called Where There Be Dragons. “It took me out of my comfort zone, which is what I was looking for.”Siemon-Carome describes feeling burned out after 12 years in a classroom, but her parents agreed that if she applied and got accepted to college during her senior year of high school, she could defer her enrollment. “Knowing I was already accepted made it easier for me to enjoy my gap year,” she says.Muth agrees this is a smart plan, pointing out that it’s more difficult to get the college-application momentum going again once you’ve been out of school for a year. This is also what he counseled his own daughter, Grace, to do when she was graduating from high school in 2011: After being accepted to Page on u.va.’s elite Echols Scholars program, Grace deferred her enrollment and spent a year volunteering and traveling in Europe, Africa and India.As for the experience itself, Muth says that not only has it helped Grace get the most out of college, it’s also the “single most impactful growth experience” she’s had. “The ability to navigate foreign countries on her own, without parents or teachers to tell her what to do, was a skill she’d been building toward for years,” says Muth, but the true test of her grit and self-reliance came as she attempted to embark on the final leg of her gap year in India. “Grace was 18 years old, traveling in Africa by herself,” Muth recounts. “She went to board a plane that would take her to volunteer at Mother Teresa’s in India, and they wouldn’t let her on the plane because they said her inoculations weren’t up to date. So there she was, stranded in the middle of Africa with no one to take care of her or tell her what to do. She had to figure it out all on her own. That’s a tremendous skill to have,” says the proud dad.This all sounds like a magical learning experience, how a little loosening up of the apron strings can bring your child all the important life skills that you’ve been wishing for them. But when I try to visualize this for my own children—who are about to graduate from 4th and 6th grades and who still occasionally return from school without their lunchboxes—it’s nearly impossible for me to fast-forward my parenting to the point where I could conceive of sending either one of them off to a different continent by themselves. Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to raise kids who don’t ditch classes, who possess both the confidence and clear internal compass that points them decidedly in the right direction, but I can’t mentally bridge the gap between now, where they still need to be reminded to fold their laundry, and the scenario where they successfully figure out how to get themselves vaccinated in Africa.“Try sending them to sleepaway camp,” Muth advises when I voice this concern, acknowledging that there are small ways we can begin to empower our kids well before taking a gap year is even a possibility. “Send them off to live in a cabin with other people, hike out in the woods and learn how to make things work on their own. Sleepaway camp is where they form bonds, figure things out and find other like-minded souls. Parents think that if they send their kids to camp at Harvard, it’s going to look good on their transcript, but it’s not. Sometimes it’s better just to have a truly transformative experience.”So that’s where I stand, at the beginning of summer, Muth’s advice ringing in my ears as I try not to helicopter-parent my two boys into helplessness. I’ve spent the past year allowing them to fail gently in order to learn to rely on themselves, and this summer I’m giving both of them the freedom to try sleepaway camp—my younger one for the first time, my older one at a camp that includes things like white water rafting and backcountry camping, activities completely outside my comfort zone.But while I’m obsessively reminding them to check for ticks, I’ll remind myself that these are the small costs of building stronger, more resilient, more self-directed and independent citizens of the world. Maybe it’s time to recalibrate my mama-bear instincts so that all the protecting I think I’m doing right now doesn’t undo their ability to protect themselves down the road.Adrienne Wichard-Edds is a freelance writer who’s still catching up on 11 years of sleep deprivation. Follow her on Twitter at @WichardEdds.Want to help kids succeed in college? Let them take a gap year.