# Whycome no JFK retrospectives? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 23, 2019, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850 "2019-11-23T01:38:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/1 "2019-11-23T01:38:38Z")
56 years ago today JFK was assassinated. But I have seen zero mentions of this anniversary anywhere in the media. Not on TV, not on-line…nada. They commemorate Garfield’s assassination, for Ghu’s sake! Why is everybody failing to mention this one? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/2 "2019-11-23T01:43:28Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > 56 years ago today JFK was assassinated. But I have seen zero mentions of this anniversary anywhere in the media. Not on TV, not on-line…nada. They commemorate Garfield’s assassination, for Ghu’s sake! Why is everybody failing to mention this one? The number of years doesn’t end with a “0” or a “5.” ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/3 "2019-11-23T02:17:16Z")
Impeachment is taking the hard news time. StG ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/4 "2019-11-23T02:27:15Z")
We’ve all forgotten where we were. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/5 "2019-11-23T03:06:51Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > 56 years ago today JFK was assassinated. But I have seen zero mentions of this anniversary anywhere in the media. Not on TV, not on-line…nada. They commemorate Garfield’s assassination, for Ghu’s sake! Why is everybody failing to mention this one? Well, see, I think this is actually just fine. The amount of attention Kennedy has gotten over the years is…weird, I think. A thread I started a few years ago: [John F. Kennedy's birthday?? Really?? - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=650246). the gist is that my nice little commercial calendar didn’t list Easter or Passover, but DID list…John F. Kennedy’s birthday. (The only other president so honored was Lincoln.) Completely bizarre. What percentage of the population actually remembers him at this point? I’m getting up toward 60, and I certainly don’t. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/6 "2019-11-23T03:27:56Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > … > What percentage of the population actually remembers him at this point? I’m getting up toward 60, and I certainly don’t. I think you have it. The vast majority of Americans today have no memory of JFK. [del]Many[/del] Most of the others mainly remember being let out of school early and all the grown-ups being sad. Not only does the Kennedy assassination not mean anything significant to young adults today, it didn’t mean anything to their parents, either. One of my earliest memories is asking my mother what being in “critical condition” meant. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/7 "2019-11-23T03:46:35Z")
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a commemoration of Garfield’s assassination. But, regardless, it’s been more than 50 years for JFK. No mention doesn’t really surprise me. It occurred several years before I was born, although today someone asked me the date today and I replied, “The 22nd, JFK Day.” (I wouldn’t have added that on if I had been thinking about it because it sounds morbid to my ear – it just came out that way) Every year on January 28 I expect to hear something about Challenger, but I haven’t for the last several I think, probably since 2016, the 30th. Just a function of the passage of time. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/8 "2019-11-23T03:50:08Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Well, see, I think this is actually just fine. The amount of attention Kennedy has gotten over the years is…weird, I think. Happy JFK Day! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/9 "2019-11-23T07:37:40Z")
Straight Dope is very inconsistent about remembering anniversaries. I remember reading about a couple years ago about the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation (Martin Luther and his 95 theses posted October 31, 1517): > **[The Reformation, 500 Years Later](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560298740/the-reformation-500-years-later)** > > Tuesday marks the anniversary of the Reformation, which began when German monk Martin Luther denounced Roman Catholicism. Most of the concerns he raised have been resolved, but divisive issues remain. But this wasn’t a big enough event to induce even one Straight Dope poster to start a thread on this 500th anniversary (I briefly considered doing so–but never got around to it). ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/10 "2019-11-23T14:43:57Z")
Now that the 50th has gone by, you won’t hear much about it until the 75th rolls around, at which point you will have a lot of reminiscing from 80 an 90 years olds about where they were when they heard about it (in my case, first grade). At the 100th, there will be a small note in the papers, ad that’s it. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/11 "2019-11-23T19:43:41Z")
The obvious: commemorating a past presidential assassination may stir ideas in modern brains. Can’t have that. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/12 "2019-11-24T04:29:26Z")
> [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](#): > > We’ve all forgotten where we were. I know where I was and what I was doing, but I don’t remember it, and here’s why: I was a 6-month-old fetus, and my mother was at the doctor’s office; he had just found my heartbeat when the nurse came in and told them what had happened. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whycome-no-jfk-retrospectives/843850/13 "2019-11-24T13:24:49Z")
The current political situations trumps all. A JFK remembrance story is good filler when you need filler. Not only don’t they need filler now, they can’t even keep up.