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Friday, September 10, 2004

"forgery" diversions and typewriter tales 

Bob Fertik at Democrats.com has a new blog: Bob Fertik.com. Registration is required to comment, which drives me nuts because me is not a joiner-upper type. But, nevertheless, you can still read the posts. Fertik's most recent entry titled The false forgery diversion is a good place to start. BF discusses subscripts and MS Word etc. BF also attempts to reproduce the CBS/Killian document using his own MSWord program. You can take a look at the results for yourself. One point noted by Fertik is the use of subscripts in the CBS/Killian letter. In some cases the subscript is smaller and raised. While at other points in the letter the subscript "th" is line level.

Me and my Olympia (pre-dating the corporate cabletv "news" crotch crickets and their "Alex Keaton" cheeky-boy sitcom Reagan Revolution wannabe sidekicks.)

As I noted in comments (earlier thread), I have an old Olympia manual typewriter. A great big heavy steel shelled anvil of a thing that was common in business offices and newspaper rooms years ago. Its circa 50's or 60's vintage. As a matter of fact it once lived on a desk at a newspaper. It sounds like this when you type with it: Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!... just like that. But, what is interesting here is that this particular industrial strenght beast has subscript keys. Including "th" - which is raised and underlined - as well as "1/2" and "1/4" subscript keys. It also has curlicue apostrophes - despite the claim noted by the Bu$hCo. goal-tenders at the Weekly Standard that such curlicue-like occurences were of rare occurence - and a little arrow-thingee key which allows you to perform a kind of crude maual kerning.

Bob Fertik notes that on some lines of the Killian letter the "th" is raised and in some cases at normal line level (for instance, "111th Fighter...."). Perhaps the typist simply used the usual "t", and "h" key to produce the "th" on some lines while resorting to the subscript key to produce the raised "th" on others. I dunno, but it's certainly possible, since both options would be available on an old typewriter such as the Olympia. What's more the type face on the old Olympia looks an awful lot like the typeface in those Killian letters. Curlicues and all. Did Olympia produce an electric typewriter later on which used a similar typeface as their older manual machines? Hell if I know.

Anyway, I don't know shit about the intricate personality traits of old typewriter models and typeface designs etc... and so forth... and my fingers are bleeding... all over my supple wimpy soft touch Micron computer keyboard... after violently poking at that old battle axe... so... I'll probably pass out at any moment. But, I thought I'd share that exciting typewriter adventure story with you anyway - oh..., i feeel weak... just go see what Bob Fetik has to say and uh, again, my fingers hurt... and I'm loosing (as well as losing) blood fast...Ooooo...mommy.......

*

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