The unanswered questions of history are the interests of this podcast, particularly those questions that have never been asked before our time, as well as those that have been the victims of mediated misunderstandings.
Here is an audio narration by Dr. Richard Reiman of this famous FDR speech.
“The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,” by Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, was one of two stories in the canon which was told not in the voice of Dr. John Watson but in third-person. Intended as the basis of a play, a one-act drama, it consists mainly of dialogue between two individuals at a time. Most … Continue reading NEW! “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,” A Sherlock Holmes Theatrical Drama →
Well, it has been quite an odyssey. Arthur Conan Doyle's classic episodes have been narrated by readers like Stephen Fry, for a cost; and by readers like your host, for free, in the spirit of the 18th century Enlightenment. This series has been other-directed–directed to others–without charge or fee. The hope is to spread cheer … Continue reading “NEW! “THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL,” The Final Episode of My Narrations of the Classic Sherlock Holmes Stories →
In this year of 2025, we celebrate the centennial of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I have recorded the first three chapters of the heartbreaking novel, and the latest chapter is out today! I have links to all three chapters below should you wish to listen to them in order. Perhaps you, too, admire … Continue reading NEW! Chapter Three of “The Great Gatsby,” Narrated by Rick Reiman! →
In 1922, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle capped his marvelous series of Sherlock Holmes story with an entry in the series to rival any of his best: “The Problem of Thor Bridge.” How fitting that Doyle's last great Holmes story may be the final Holmes story narrated by yours truly, Rick Reiman, for I am moving … Continue reading NEW! “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” by Arthur Conan Doyle: Doyle's Last Great Sherlock Holmes Tale →
Some readers, who are avid fans of the atmosphere of the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes tale, “The Adventure of Shoscomb Old Place,” may be disappointed with the hastily wrapped conclusion that Doyle sought fit to conclude the story. As a pastiche, a different ending concludes this audio narration of the tale. … Continue reading NEW! A New Sherlock Holmes Part-Pastiche: Doyle's “The Adventure of Shoscomb Old Place,” with a New Conclusion →
A hoped-for interview ahead with Gabra Zackman of audio narration fame is the news in today's show on the channel. We also look back on the perils of narrating Sherlock Holmes while “falling out” with Covid, as well as the advances in the art of audio narration thanks to the progress of time. Something different: … Continue reading NEW: News Ahead on the Audio Narration Front and the Production Process of the Sherlock Holmes' Clips →
What a whimsical tale Dr. Watson has to tell of Jabez Wilson and “The Red-Headed League!” Between the laughter and the mirth that Holmes teases out of the tale, there emerges a dastardly crime so cunning that only Holmes himself could solve it. John Clay, the “fourth smartest man in London,” according to Holmes, and … Continue reading NEW! Perhaps the Most Popular of all Sherlock Holmes Stories, “The Adventure of the Red-Headed League!” →
This is your narrator for this series, Dr. Rick Reiman. Americans know too little about the Early American Republic, the Republic of President Thomas Jefferson, leading to the War of 1812 and its aftermath, the Era of Good Feelings. In this overview of Chapter 7 from The American Yawp, I summarize its major themes. This … Continue reading NEW! An Abridged Overview of Chapter 7 from “The American Yawp” Textbook: “The Early Republic” →
Hello, everybody! Rick Reiman here, audio narrator for Audibly Speaking. On rare occasions, I re-record a short story in the Sherlock Holmes series written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Not that I think I did a bad job in my reading the first time around. But I am quite certain that I am doing better … Continue reading NEW! A New Recording of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” a Sherlock Holmes Classic →
The story of American history, the “American Yawp,” begins with this chapter, Indigenous America, spanning 10,000 years of history. There is nothing quite like it in history, as you will hear when you listen to it.
What a pleasure it was for me to interview Laura Malvoyante about her insights into society's growing need for digital minimalism in the face of the addictiveness of tech. Technology is a voracious feeder on the limited and priceless commodity of time in our lives. At the same time, sometimes the antidote to this invasion … Continue reading NEW! My Interview with Laura Malvoyante, a YouTube Leader in the Digital Minimalism Movement →
Move over Charles Dickens! Stand aside, Scrooge! For a nineteenth century English Christmas tale without parallel, you cannot do better than Sherlock Holmes's conveying of the Christmas message in his discover and commutation of a felony, all to save a soul in the season of forgiveness of this time of year. My narration of this … Continue reading NEW! A Sherlock Holmes Christmas Story: “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” →
This opinion piece on Medicare Advantage concerns the “hard-sell” that private insurance companies make this time of year on behalf of “Medicare Advantage,” the private insurance alternative to Original Medicare. I record this podcast episode to warn seniors to do their homework, and ask the question, why are insurance companies so anxious to sell their … Continue reading NEW! Oh, Those Medicare Advantage TV Commercials (from One Not a Fan of Medicare Advantage)! →
In our post-truth world, ignorance about Medicare has reached avalanche proportions. The greatest and most secure health care system in the world is now suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the form of babbling malcontents whose ignorance of Medicare is only matched by their outrage at it. Just go to Facebook or … Continue reading NEW! Stupid, Idiotic Ideas about Medicare: Facebook Complaints About Medicare and their Ignorance →
Today, Sunday, November 10, 2023, I reflect on the events of Veterans Day Weekend 1963, when JFK and Oswald lived out their last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, November 10-12, 1963. We review what we know of those fateful days. Next, I talk about the events of Wednesday, November 13 through Friday, November 22, 1963, to … Continue reading NEW! 2024 Repeats the 1963 Calendar: JFK, Oswald and Veterans Day Weekend, From Sunday, November 10 to Tuesday, November 12 →
In this final episode about my opinions and experience with learning Medicare for retirement, I spread the word that many people are talking about: Medicare Advantage plans and Part D Prescription Drug plans are undergoing big changes, premium hikes and in some cases disappearing acts during this Annual Election Period between October 15 and December … Continue reading NEW! About the Part D Madness in Medicare this Annual Election Period for 2025 →
In this third part of my series on what I have learned, or thought I have learned, about Medicare I talk about some myths I have discovered about Medicare Advantage and Part B. While Medicare Advantage may be the right choice for some people, I cringe when I watch the commercials during this Annual Election … Continue reading Medicare Musings, Part Three: Myths about Medicare Advantage and Part B →
What in the world is Part D? My personal experience learning what I appreciated to find out about Medicare Part D coverage is the subject of this this brief podcast episode. Disclaimer: These are my opinions and what my impressions were. This is no substitute or necessarily as accurate as your doing your own research … Continue reading NEW! My Experience Learning about Medicare's Part D Prescription Drug Coverage →
I am not a pundit but an historian. History has three things to say about the election of 2024 in two days, on November 3: Only one candidate in the race promises to uphold the Constitution and has the track record of serving in public office like all other 45 presidents before Trump. Trump is … Continue reading NEW! Americans, Vote Kamala Harris and Come to the Aid of Your Country on November 3! Know Your History! →
Medicare is confusing– what an understatement. Two years out from retirement I decided to try to understand it, suspecting that it might take me that long. I was not wrong! Now that I am retired and am now on Medicare, I tell this slightly autobiographical tale of what I think I have learned about Medicare … Continue reading NEW! My Experience Learning About Medicare →
Listen to this audio version of my Youtube video explaining the “Single Bullet Theory” of the JFK assassination, and WHY IT IS TRUE. Many conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination discredit themselves by disputing this thrice-confirmed theory first revealed by the Warren Commission in 1964.
On October 2, 2024, Jack Smith's rebuttal to Donald Trump' claims to immunity in all aspects of his resistance to surrender power in 2020 and 2021 was released by Judge Tanya Chutkin. This is an audio narration of the opening pages of that filing, now in the public domain. Read the entire filing at: (Click … Continue reading NEW! Opening Pages of Jack Smith's New Justice Department Filing Rebutting Trump Immunity Claims →
In many ways, I regard this as my best recording of a chapter from “The American Yawp” yet. I have deleted nothing from the text edited by its editors, Joseph Locke and Ben Wright. I have added passages of my own where I think additions were needed to clarify what the original authors were trying … Continue reading NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates Chapter 6, “The New Nation,” from “The American Yawp,” a Free OER American History Textbook →
Late in his authorial career, in the 1920s to be precise, Arthur Conan Doyle, who was then deeply immersed in beliefs of mysticism and seances, had occasion to pair his rational detective, Sherlock Holmes, with a case about vampires. Did Doyle change the hyper-rational Holmes to suit the author's new beliefs? Listen and find out!
In the course that covers the first half of American History, the chapter on the Sectional Crisis of the Union, also sometimes called “The Impending Crisis,” leading to the American Civil War, is the penultimate such chapter. Next to the magisterial, Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the crisis written by the great historian David Potter, that … Continue reading NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates Chapter 13, “The Sectional Crisis,” from the Open Source History Textbook, “The American Yawp” →
No ordeal in American history changed America so much or so enduringly as the American Civil War. Listen as well as read of the odyssey and what it was all about, or just listen with this audio offering.
Hector St. John de Crevecouer, a French immigrant to American wrote this classic essay, “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?” in 1782, as American Independence from Britain loomed. Was he correct in his descriptions of Americans then? Do his descriptions accurately describe Americans today? How was he wrong then, if he was, and … Continue reading One of the Great Essays in American History: Crevecoeur's “What, Then, is this New Man, the American? →
Join me, Dr. Rick Reiman, for my reading of the chapter on British North America, Chapter 3 to be precise, from The American Yawp, the celebrated Open Source textbook on the history of the United States and the lands that would become the American Nation.
Here is my audio narration of “Colliding Cultures,” a history of European and English colonization of early colonial America, a clash of cultures indeed. This is from the Open Source textbook, “The American Yawp,” free to anyone interested, as we all should be, in American history.
In this epic short story, Arthur Conan Doyle exceeds himself. “The Naval Treaty” is the longest of all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories. It contains allusions to his other stories and many humorous asides as well as quite larger-than-life characters, some almost Dickensian in their strangeness. Holmes has to sift his clues and there … Continue reading NEW! “Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of The Naval Treaty:” An Audio Narration by Rick Reiman →
World War II was a change agent in history like no other. It can best be understood in pieces, barely grasped as a whole. In this audio narration of Chapter 24 of The American Yawp, a U.S. History Textbook available as a free, modifiable educational resource, I narrate the American history piece. The chapter sets … Continue reading NEW! An Audio Narration of “World War II,” Chapter 24 from the Free Cultural Resource, “The American Yawp” Textbook →
History Speaks again! My audio narration of “The Great Depression,” chapter twenty-three from the blockbuster Open Resource textbook, The American Yawp, is now out. As an historian myself, I have enhanced this recording and narrative by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright with a few additions of my own, in keeping with the democratic principles of Open Educational Resources … Continue reading NEW! Audio Narration of “The Great Depression” from the Free Open Educational Resource, “The American Yawp” →
History Speaks! My audio narration of “The Great Depression,” chapter twenty-three from the blockbuster Open Resource textbook, The American Yawp, is here. As an historian myself, I have enhanced this recording and narrative by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright with a few additions of my own, in keeping with the democratic principles of Open Educational … Continue reading NEW! My Audio Narration of Chapter 23, “The Great Depression,” from THE AMERICAN YAWP →
Motive. It is the thing that all juries want but do not need, in our system of justice, to determine guilt or innocence, The Warren Commission did not hazard a hypothesis on the question of Oswald's motive, seen singularly. But they did list a series of potential motives, seeded by his early life, and seen … Continue reading NEW! Chapter Seven of “The Warren Report:” Oswald's Early Life and the Question of Motive →
This chapter may be seen as the Big Enchilada of the Report. Did the Warren Commission provide a credible investigation of the possibility of conspiracy in the crime? The staff wracked its collective brains to see where any possible conspiracy might have emerged given the facts in the case. It also tracked down leads offered … Continue reading NEW! Summary of Chapter Six of “The Warren Report:” “Investigation Into Possible Conspiracy” →
Continuing our summary of The Warren Report investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we come to Chapter Five. The whole tenor of the investigation changed with the subject of this chapter. It concerned the events that led to the federalization of the investigation itself, the violation of Oswald's civil liberties in the … Continue reading NEW! CHAPTER FIVE of “The Warren Report:” Detention and Death of Oswald →
In Chapter Four we have an overview of the evidence against Oswald. Here I summarize the chapter.
A recent podcast episode by the excellent historians of the JFK assassination, Gerald Posner and Fred Litwin, prompted this podcast episode of mine. Given the need to speculate about so much that is important about the behavior of Oswald on November 21 (pre-assassination) and November 33 (post-assassination), is it possible to employ speculation as a … Continue reading A Question for Gerald Posner and Fred Litwin: Can Informed Speculation Equal Evidence? →
It's core findings remain untouched. Its conclusions have stood the test of time. In this episode we see the tour de force that lies at the foundation of this seminal chapter in The Warren Report: Chapter Three. While subsequent research has expanded on the insights we gain from this chapter, which distilled the most important … Continue reading NEW! Summary of “The Warren Report's” CHAPTER THREE: “The Shots from the Texas School Book Depository” →
Today I summarize the Warren Report's Chapter Two, “The Assassination.” It is a chapter that promises much but really delivers less than meets the eye. Focusing on the details that form the background of the assassination, and continuing by trading in the shadowlands of lacunae about the event, chapter two is a mere overture to … Continue reading NEW! Warren Report Summary, CHAPTER TWO, “The Assassination” →
The Warren Commission's Warren Report, at 888 pages, is a long slog. For those for whom it is too long, I begin here a series of summaries of each of the chapters in the Report. Each chapter exhibits the strengths and weaknesses of the Commission's investigations. The Commission's faults can be exaggerated and it accomplishments … Continue reading NEW Series: Chapter Summaries of “The Warren Report:” Chapter 1, “Summary and Conclusions” →
We have an intermission episode in this series on the JFK assassination, with a personal view of the memories of the host on the assassination and why he was not taken in by conspiracy theories, in contrast to so many of his boomer cohorts along the way.
Today, Audibly Speaking reviews the magisterial book by famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. We revisit the things that make it unique and utterly unanswerable as a riposte to the crazy conspiracy theories that still pollute the writings about the 35th US President.
In this sidebar episode tracing the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald and we step back from the forest to examine the trees of the story. In this politically portentous year of 2024, learn what the conspiracy nonsense can do to help us save American democracy. And begin to learn why the strengths of the Warren … Continue reading Why is the JFK Assassination Still Relevant? And Why is the Warren Commission's Still Strong? Listen to One of My Best →
Why did Lee Harvey Oswald go east from his boarding house in the aftermath of the JFK assassination, only to go west before his fatal encounter with Police Officer J.D. Tippit on November 22, 1963? The only possible answer was that his plans must have changed, along with his destination, at least temporarily. Ironically, however, … Continue reading “Moving East to Go West: Oswald's Twisted Path Pre-Tippit” →
We have now arrived at the critical moments. What happened as the assassination occurred and what do we know of Oswald's behavior during these most important of minutes? It turns out we know a great deal–so much in fact that we can even infer what was going on in Oswald's mind on a minute by … Continue reading “Assassination and Escape: Oswald's Actions, 12:30 pm to 1:50 pm, November 22” →
How to help students understand the overwhelming evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald (and Oswald alone)? Given the power of the evidence, no help ought be needed! Perhaps a concise run-through will do the trick? Or a solemn and stately documentary? In a time when facts alone hold no sway, what is an historian to do? … Continue reading Evidence Against Oswald: 8:00 AM, November 21, to 12:30 PM CST, November 22 →
What was Lee Harvey Oswald up to in New Orleans between his failed assassination attempt against Retired General Edwin Walker in April 1963 and his trip to Mexico City in late September in pursuit of a visa to Communist Cuba? What was the mix of motives that drove Oswald in these critical months prior to … Continue reading Lee Harvey Oswald and Edwin Walker Redux: Resume Building and Plotting in New Orleans, April to October 1963 →
In this final part of the three-part podcast series, we look at Oswald's interior concerns in the days and hours before 12:30 pm CST on November 22, 1963. In so doing we elucidate the most elusive of questions, the question of motive.
In this three-part series, we go into the mind of the assassin and try to understand Oswald's motives. This helps us understand why conspiracy thinking about the assassination makes no sense. If you believe that Oswald lacked motive, ability or opportunity to shoot JFK, a conspiracy seems to be a necessary alternative. In fact none … Continue reading Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK Assassination: The Stories Not Told →
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