Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

My whole point was that what we are seeing on Kennedy is certainly not a Thorburn position, but rather, it is a startle response. 

The Startle Response is also known as the startle reflex and the alarm reaction.

The alarm reaction is a completely natural, involuntary reaction to a stimulus such as a flash of light, a sudden threatening movement or loud noise. The startle reflex is considered to be innate, being found in newborn babies, in which case it is known as the Moro reflex.

The alarm reaction is brought about by the activation of the Sympathetic Nervous System, SNS, and still occurs even when the stimulus is anticipated and people are trying to stop their reaction, although the strength of the response can be modified.

Research has shown that the startle reaction takes place within milliseconds of the stimulus, in a way that is designed to protect the body from attack. Frank Pierce Jones (1951) showed that the reflex starts with the head which jerks as the neck muscles contract and the eye muscles tighten and blink. Then the response moves down into the torso which flinches; the shoulders raise and arms stiffen, the abdominal muscles contract and the chest flattens, then the knees flex - all this in around one second.  Alongside these external changes, breathing and blood pressure levels change and the heart rate accelerates. 

That's what we're seeing on Kennedy. 

He is freaking out. He is tightening up all his extensor muscles. He is not paralyzed; he is in a state of alarm. 

Thorburn's patient was not in a state of alarm; he was paralyzed, in all but 4 muscles.

Those 4 muscles were still working, so every time he twitched one of them, there was no way to reverse the effect. The opposing muscle wasn't operating so that he couldn't undo it. It was like a one-way ratchet. To reverse a contraction, you have to contract another muscle, which he couldn't do. So, over time, those 4 muscles shortened all the way. And then he was finished. They couldn't contract any more, and neither could they un-contract. That was it. Don't assume he is contracting anything there. He's not holding his arms in that position. It's just a position he wound up in after having all his muscles paralyzed except four.

But, to call these two responses the same response, as John Lattimer did....

is stupid, incredibly stupid. One man is in a panic while the other is either asleep or unconscious or nearly so. They couldn't be more different in their neuromuscular activity. 

But, Joseph Backes couldn't leave it alone. He thought this was a good thing to pick a fight about. He couldn't admit that Lattimer was wrong. Why? 

It's because the only thing Backes disputes is the story of the bus and cab rides, even though Oswald said he rode the bus and cab, and he even cited the cab fare: eighty-five cents. It's in the Fritz Notes, which are the most important piece of evidence to have surfaced in over 30 years of JFK assassination research. There is no doubt that Oswald rode the bus and cab. 

And there is also no doubt that Dr. John Lattimer was just a medical apologist who brazenly and stupidly made an association that is absolutely preposterous. He was a urologist, but you can be damn sure that no neurologist will ever endorse his stupid claim. And I have talked to some about it.