It doesn’t raise an eyebrow at all, Richard. The motorcade route was selected weeks after he was hired. There were over 1 million people living in Dallas County in 1963. I have no clue why you’d fancy in a burg that size there would be such a thing a ‘the usual motorcade route’. There are several boulevards which run more or less north-south through Downtown Dallas, Houston Street just one among them.

I think those of us who disagree with you understand what you’re trying to say, we just don’t agree that that’s what’s going on. I don’t think any of the things you find strange are at all strange and certainly not unusually strange. I think the idea of strangeness is manufactured ex post facto. There is nothing strange about Oswald getting a job in that particular building; there were plenty of other buildings that would have afforded Oswald and any other would-be assassin a good shot, buildings in Dallas that day or innumerable other buildings on many other days. There are plenty of people with the will to kill a president. Presidents have been killed many times, although of course all the elements have to come into place for the attempts to succeed. But they will, with some regularity, especially in the days when security wasn’t nearly as tight as it is today.

I also don’t think that “strangeness” is the reason behind the adoption of conspiracy theories for most people, except to the degree that almost all events are strange (as I’ve explained in previous comments here). I’ve already listed, both in the post and in comments in the thread, what psychological mechanisms I believe are operating instead to spark the need to believe in conspiracy theories around this and many other events.

Except there wasn’t anything strange about where he was employed or what Jack Ruby was doing that day.

If a lot of people in Dallas had wanted to shoot Oswald, none of them showed up. Maybe they didn’t know time and place of transfer. Or had business elsewhere. It LOOKS bad.

It’s the optics which are the point I’m trying to make. It looked bad , which is to say the official explanation looked disorganized and thus people wanted to find a pattern. Organization. Conspiracy theories result from that.

Oswald had held a number of jobs and had applied to a number of places, yet–cue cello in key of ominous–he had a friend who got him a shot at the Depository. Excuse the phrase.

If you don’t like my randomnity value, figure your own. As I say, they’re subject, frequently subject to the individual’s life experience. Explain why a commie nutcase with an urge to kill the president got The Job which allowed it. One chance in ten? Fifty? Most people will accept a one-in-ten value. But one in fifty? Or multiply it by the likelihood somebody will be running errands near the time and place of Oswald’s transfer and decides to shoot him despite the risk. That could be one over the adult population of Dallas which had or had access to a car.

There is also the idea that it is not meet a giant should be brought low by a pissant. A homeless man shot by another….. Somebody might wonder if the deceased had family and then…oops, there goes the phone.
See MLK. Another pissant assassin but….since it was a giant brought low, that does not satisfy. A conspiracy is needed to make all fit.

The alleged curse known as “20 Year USA Presidential Curse” (more properly “Curse of Tippecanoe” also known as “Tecumseh’s Curse” or the “20 Year Presidential Curse”) is a supposed pattern of death in office of Presidents of the United States elected in years that are divisible by 20, from William Henry Harrison (elected in 1840) through John F. Kennedy (1960). Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and was wounded by gunshot, but he survived. George W. Bush (2000) survived his terms in office, despite an assassination attempt (but some guessed that the “real president” should have been Albert Gore.

I highly recommend Sarah Vowell’s book, “Assassination Vacation.”
It’s a fun, interesting, detailed look at U.S. Presidential assassinations as Sarah (and I believe, a nephew) tour the country to relate the historical accounts of those events.

And, speaking of unbelievable Presidential assassination coincidences… You learn that it was very bad luck to be both a U.S. President and in the company of Robert Todd Lincoln!

Yes it is. We were excited to take our children to the spot when we were near while on a vacation but they were a little creeped out. It’s a bit unfortunate because it’s not really appropriate to return there for anniversary celebrations. I thought about surprising my wife with an anniversary trip there once, but I thought it would seem quite odd to passersby and tourists. We do keep several seeds from a live oak tree that is on that spot as a memento.

I just watched the Taps video. Sixth note in.
Unfortunate, and I feel bad for the bugler, but it can happen. My guess is either cold weather, nervousness, or a combination of both.

For folks who have practiced a brass instrument it’s somewhat second nature, but the facial muscle and lip vibration coordination required to play a note clearly are actually extremely precise. The slightest perturbation can cause a sour note. A cold mouthpiece. A slight tremble of his facial muscles due to nervousness or sorrow.

Part of what made Miles Davis stand out in the early part of his career was that he often held single notes for rather long periods of time. It’s harder to do that and sound good than playing short, fast notes. Also, the style of the day, Be-bop, involved short, fast runs and Davis’ slow, mellow, precise playing “the birth of the cool” made him unique.

Very naive and not very precise, but it’s those kinds of probabilities–which are really quite high, on the odds of will it rain tomorrow or not–which actually should be governing our intuitions.