From: david@cats.ucsc.edu (David Wright)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: Re: Neuro-Muscular Reaction
Date: 12 Apr 92 01:32:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: darkstar.32702
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz


In article <11APR199215085754@zeus.tamu.edu> mst4298@zeus.tamu.edu (Mitchell S Todd) writes:
|david@cats.ucsc.edu (David Wright) writes...
|
|>I (David Wright) claim that the Kennedy's movement does not corrospond to the
|>definition of a muscular spasm as defined by the HSCA, Lattimer, and the Clark
|>Panel report. Such a definition requries:
|
|>1) An arching of the back

|       ...To begin with, JFK's clothing would make it difficult if not 
|	impossible, to see the arching of his back in the Z-film,

Good. A theory that cannot be disproven. I don't see any arching, it was
possible to see it.

|>2) A violent stiffening of the limbs
|
|	As I've explained before, you're extrapolating the exact *motions*
|	of a four-legged animal to a two legged animal. The real key is
|	the functional reactions.

You now say that the definition given by three professional bodies is not
correct, that there does not have to be a stiffening of the limbs.  It seems
clear you are using a definition that simply corrosponds to nearly any movement
whatsoever.  Evidence was just given by a poster concerning animals he shot and
the types of nerospasms he observed, or thought to observe. They are consistent
with the other definitions I have given, including the fact that the stiffening
or arching of limbs takes some amount of time and so forth. Your definition of
a neurospasm seems to be anything you might see on the Zapruder film.

|	body moves almost as a unit, rather than  the head moving back
|	and taking the body with it.

That is not the description of the motions given by a poster who claims he has a
good copy of the film.  He does not believe in a grassy knoll shooter, and 
does not take sides. Nor is this description of people who have seen the
original copies, and their observations are always that the head moves back and
to the left, and that the body slams into the rear of the car seat, that is the
body moves as well. There is, I think, a nearly universal consensus that this
is how the body moved.

|	6 	the stronger impulses on the left side of the body would
|		cause a stronger muscular reaction on the left side of
|		the body than on the right
|	7 	this would cause a torque on JFK's body
|	8 	since the net 'reflex' reaction is (in part) that of the back
|		muscles pulling back on the body, ie, the back arch,
|		this torque will result in JFK's body turning to the
|		left.

Having made fun of this theory before, I hesitate to do so again, yet it is so
outlandlish. First of all, Kenndy's left arm hardly moves at all, allthough his
right arm waves up and back. His arm does not extend outward.

Nor would your spinning top theory explain Kennedy's body moving back and to 
the left. Also, this top theory seems so absurd. Muscles don't simply contract,
some of them extend. There is nothing to indicate how the muscles of the neck
should perform, either to extend or contract. The back muscles of course
contract, as the back arches, but some of the back right muscles control the
left side of the head, and vice a versa, as the muscles wrap around the neck.
The whole thing seems so silly. I don't think any one has even tried giving an
explanation along the lines you are trying.

|	Now, I admit --as I already have-- that there is a good-sized
|	degree of randomness in the real-word version of this. However,
|	in general, this is what one could well expect in this situation. 
		
	
I really doubt that where you are hit in the brain causes differences in how
the neurospasm works. Note also that the brain stem was severed enough so that
Humes could lift the brain out without surgery. 

|>The neurospasm may not even depend on which side of the brain is hit.
|
|	It may not, but this is dependent on, among other things,
|	where the bullet hits, and where the ijuries are concentrated.

|>As for 2) Mitchell says only that one of Kennedy's arms extend, and does
|>not belive that limbs would stiffen, but only extend. But his arm does
|>not extend. Both limbs collapse, and his body behaves like a rag doll. I 
|>see no evidence
|
|	The extension --and I have pointed out it's not a full extension--
|	of the arm is clearly apparent in the Z-film. It's sort
|	of a floppy yet jerky motion backwards by the right arm (the
|	more obvious of the two). The limbs wont stiffen just because of 
|	the human biomechanics (as opposed to the mechanical properties
|	of a goat). 

It seems to me this could be the whole point, since we seem to agree on what
transpires on the film. His right arm, once fairly high near the shoulders has
dropped down. His left arm must also be quite low. When Kennedy is hit,
however, his right arm does not extend and stiffen, it simply is flown
backwards and opens up some. His left arm does not extend.   
-- 
   |^^^^^^|      _______________________________________________________
   |      |      |                                                     | 
   |      |      | "Be Prepared for Enormous Fustrations"              |
   | (o)(o)      O         --Kreps, A course in Micro theory, p. 352   | 
   @      _)    o|_____________________________________________________|  
    |  ____\ o o
    |     /   
   /     \                              All comments  are mine---(David Wright)