The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be

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The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. 

                                                                                         Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Today’s thought by me for you;

Make sure you’re not being ungrateful. It will only wear you down and destroy your happy spirit. Be grateful instead.  Being grateful is far better for your soul and mind because it inspires all that’s good in the universe. 

THE BEAT POETS

Beat poetry evolved during the 1940s in both New York City and on the west coast, although San Francisco became the heart of the movement in the early 1950s. The end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and culture. A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets https://www.poets.org/poetsorg

Wulf Zendik

Wulf Zendik (born Lawrence E. Wulfing, in El Paso, Texas, October 7, 1920 – June 12, 1999) was an American writer, environmentalist, and bohemian. He was the author of the novel A Quest Among The Bewildered, and has been described as an "undiscovered Beat."

Larry Wulfing, a.k.a. Wulf, founded the community, Zendik (also known as Zendik Arts Farm), located in Florida, Southern California, Texas, North Carolina, and West Virginia at various times, with his wife/partner Carol Merson, a.k.a. Arol Wulf. After Zendik's death, Zendik Farm continued Zendik's philosophy by promoting the arts and an environmentally sound lifestyle.

In 2006, the community had a show, Zendik News, on public-access television Channel 75 in Baltimore, MD. Zendik Farm members were known for their sales of T-shirts and bumper stickers saying "Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution." The community has since disbanded, with the property being sold.

Don’t Go!

Ho Chang rests his rifle across a branch and focuses its sights on the American infantryman. Ho Chang is fourteen years old. He is a guerrilla fighter, a skilled assassin, a sniper. Concealed high in a tree — a tree that a short time ago he climbed in play — he reaches and methodically plucks a leaf from his line of fire. Killing is his single remaining pleasure.…

~ Don’t Go ~

Ho Chang is a fanatic. He became a fanatic six months earlier while watching his mother, father, and beloved sister run screaming from the pyre of curling flame and smoke that had been their home. He watched his loved ones, each a wild torch, stumbling crazily through the village and finally sprawling laying in the dust, eyeless hairless black smoking hulks that twitched and emitted sounds not human. In the terrible racking sobbing agony of his grief the boy knelt beside the charred remains of his family and pleaded that he too might die… Their hut had been struck by an American bomb….

~ Don’t Go ~

The American infantryman, Private Eugene Roberts, is in his first day of combat. Always a peaceful boy and raised in the quiet suburbs of Los Angeles, Private Roberts had never been involved in physical conflict until today. Today he has killed three people. A few hours earlier his squad was fired on from a dense thicket by a number of the enemy. The boy beside him suddenly stopped and turned, a puzzled expression on his face and a small red oozing hole in his forehead….

~ Don’t Go ~

Private Roberts, in a blurred rage of revenge, followed his combat training. Running, zigzagging, firing from the hip, he charged the thicket with his squad. A flurry of shouts, of confusion and violent hand-to-hand combat resulted in Private Roberts shooting two uniformed boys and pulling his bayonet from deep in the breast of a third, a slim uniformed enemy — a girl enemy, a girl younger than he. Their eyes had locked… His in young blue-irised horror… hers in brown graceful long-lashed acceptance that glazed to death while he watched and whimpered…..

~ Don’t Go ~

Alone now, lost from his squad, wandering aimlessly, he slogs through the lonely landscape. Dazed, oblivious, mumbling to himself, his mind has returned home… To Los Angeles, to the suburban high school he last year graduated from, to sixteen-year-old Donna who still attends the school — Donna who promised to wait, who writes long chatty lonesome letters on wide-ruled notebook paper. School days together, surfing together, high together, their clear eyes close staring inquisitive innocent learning one another, touching one another, loving one another in gentle tentative passion…..

~ Don’t Go ~

There’s others who wait: his younger brother who brags of a big brother hero in uniform. His father, veteran of an earlier war, proud of his fighting son. His mother, who successfully impersonalizes the war news and insures Eugene’s safety by prayer… perhaps a medal, perhaps a purple heart, a slight, romantic wound. His car waits parked in their suburban yard, and his surfboard — the board he decorated and glassed himself––waits stored in the garage rafters. Sometimes Mrs. Roberts goes to the garage and stands a moment looking up at the board…..

~ Don’t Go ~

Private Roberts’ head looms large, circle-framed in Ho Chang’s telescopic sights. The boy feels grim satisfaction at the imminent destruction of another American. He pauses… Deciding against a quick death, he lowers his sights on the enemy figure and slowly, skillfully squeezes the trigger… The rifle jumps, kicks solidly against his shoulder and a single violent crack of sound shatters the insect-buzzing bird-calling tropical day… The immediate absolute silence that follows hangs still and ominous on the warm heavy air….

~ Don’t Go ~

The hate-altered hollownose bullet makes a small smoldering hole in Private Roberts’ tunic, enters his side below the ribs and above the hip bone. Expanding rapidly it plows a deep hole through the abdomen. Private Roberts throws up his hands, and as a wind-up toy soldier whose spring has burst, staggers crazily wildly awkwardly. He does not fall. Stunned by the bullet’s slamming impact he fails to understand what has happened… But immediately the numbness begins to change to pain, a trail of dull pain across his belly. He looks down and in confused stupor unbelts his tunic….

~ Don’t Go ~

He stands there swaying in shock and bewildered comprehension while with fear fumbling fingers he tries to unbutton the shirt. Sweat pours over his face and his lips move trembling. The real pain hits him then. Its white hot sear is terrible. He rips frantically at the red seeping cloth — buttons fly — the shirt opens… He sees the wound from which his entrails now bulge, a wound that now sluggishly disgorges long grotesque ropes of mangled gut, of yellow dismembered quivering glands, of blue ruptured spurting arteries, of red severed nerve jumping muscles — a hanging mutilated mass of brown leaking intestine that dangles and splashes to the ground…..

~ Don’t Go ~

Private Roberts begins shaking his head in unbelieving protest. He mumbles, “No… No… Oh, God… No…” Swaying, crying, still moving his head in denial he clumsily grasps the mangled mess of maimed entrails and begins to stuff them back into himself. For a few seconds he plays the hopeless game. His legs begin to shake violently, to jump uncontrollably. They buckle….

~ Don’t Go ~

Still striving to hold his intestines within himself, Private Roberts slowly sinks to his knees. He kneels there, and his blood bleeds a clear crimson stain. He understands then the futility — dimly understands his death, as head bowed, he watches his weakened hands fall away and the bulging intestines emerge, go floating out like bright hued tentacles reaching across the void….

~ Don’t Go ~

Private Roberts’ face contorts with the last flashing emotions of his quick young life. No glory, no thoughts of country, no audience, no movie-soldier brave clenched-cigarette wisecracking death, no patriotic slogans in his fading mind. He sobs his last now, nods in final acceptance and as thousands and thousands of dying boy soldiers before him, he piteously asks for that woman who bore him and who eased each childhood pain — quietly softly he whispers, “Mom… Mother… I…” And upon the sunlit surface of a far distant native land only a red smear remains… Nineteen years of clean young promise gone. Shot to hell….

~ Don’t Go ~

Acid in the Wind

Won’t count the things I’ve tasted

How far I’ve been wasted

seeking my own Self

Acid blowing flowing in the wind—

cross the wide mountain  sky

What will a man do

to clear the mind and eye

What alchemy will he try

How much will he stake

What will he take

to See what’s True

Acid blowing flowing in the wind—

thru a tall knowing pine

Ancient and divine, this sacred tree of eternal design

I kneel to its wind-swept glory

Yes, far from my weary city story—

I seek the weave of Cozmic interlace to slow my mad mortal pace

And mountain summer rain, thru green willing branches,

weeps gentle tears upon my face

And the wind whispers “Thou art rush and strain…

we, the wind and rain and great knowing tree, are free.”

And there in humble prayer before an all- knowing shrine,

this tall knowing pine, I sing, in holy asking,

“Ancient one of the wind and rain, ease my pain…

I seek to end this mad pace of my mortal chase…

You were once young, as I—teach me now,

teach me how to live, and die, ever free, ever high.”

And the wind thru green giving branches whispers,

“Tell this glory into thy weary city story:::

To rush is sin… forsake the race… thou canst win…

Life itself is the only grace.”

Acid blowing flowing cross the wide mountain sky

acid…… acid

blowing flowing in the wind

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University.

He is the author of No Time to Say Goodbye: Memoirs of a Life in Foster Care and Short Stories from a Small Town. He is also the author of numerous non-fiction on the history of organized crime including the ground break biography of bootlegger Roger Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and "Guns and Glamour: A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."

His non-fiction crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist, American Mafia and other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic Playfest for his work The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction work, Karma Finds Franny Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of 2008.

His play, Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play.

Contact John:

MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM

JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM

In 1962, six year old John Tuohy, his two brothers and two sisters entered Connecticut’s foster care system and were promptly split apart. Over the next ten years, John would live in more than ten foster homes, group homes and state schools, from his native Waterbury to Ansonia, New Haven, West Haven, Deep River and Hartford. In the end, a decade later, the state returned him to the same home and the same parents they had taken him from. As tragic as is funny compelling story will make you cry and laugh as you journey with this child to overcome the obstacles of the foster care system and find his dreams.

http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/0692361294/

http://amemoirofalifeinfostercare.blogspot.com/

http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/

By Dr. Wm. Anthony Connolly

This incredible memoir, No Time to Say Goodbye, tells of entertaining angels, dancing with devils, and of the abandoned children many viewed simply as raining manna from some lesser god.

The young and unfortunate lives of the Tuohy bruins—sometimes Irish, sometimes Jewish, often Catholic, rambunctious, but all imbued with Lion’s hearts—told here with brutal honesty leavened with humor and laudable introspective forgiveness. The memoir will have you falling to your knees thanking that benevolent Irish cop in the sky, your lucky stars, or hugging the oxygen out of your own kids the fate foisted upon Johnny and his siblings does not and did not befall your own brood. John William Tuohy, a nationally-recognized authority on organized crime and Irish levity, is your trusted guide through the weeds the decades of neglect ensnared he and his brothers and sisters, all suffering for the impersonal and often mercenary taint of the foster care system. Theirs, and Tuohy’s, story is not at all figures of speech as this review might suggest, but all too real and all too sad, and maddening. I wanted to scream. I wanted to get into a time machine, go back and adopt every last one of them. I was angry. I was captivated. The requisite damning verities of foster care are all here, regretfully, but what sets this story above others is its beating heart, even a bruised and broken one, still willing to forgive and understand, and continue to aid its walking wounded. I cannot recommend this book enough.

AMAZON REVIEWS

By jackieh on October 13, 2015

After reading about John's deeply personal and painful past, I just wanted to hug the child within him......and hug all the children who were thrown into the state's foster system....it is an amazing read.......

By Jane Pogoda on October 9, 2015

I truly enjoyed reading his memoir. I also grew up in Ansonia and had no idea conditions such as these existed. The saving grace is knowing the author made it out and survived the system. Just knowing he was able to have a family of his own made me happy. I attended the same grammar school and was happy that his experience there was not negative. I had a wonderful experience in that school. I wish that I could have been there for him when he was at the school since we were there at probably at the same time.

By Sue on September 27, 2015

Hi - just finished your novel "No time to say goodbye" - what a powerful read!!! - I bought it for my 90 year old mom who is an avid reader and lived in the valley all her life-she loved it also along with my sister- we are all born and raised in the valley- i.e. Derby and Ansonia

By David A. Wright on September 7, 2015

I enjoyed this book. I grew up in Ansonia CT and went to the Assumption School. Also reconized all the places he was talking about and some of the families.

By Robert G Manley on September 7, 2015

This is a wonderfully written book. It is heart wrenchingly sad at times and the next minute hilariously funny. I attribute that to the intelligence and wit of the author who combines the humor and pathos of his Irish catholic background and horrendous "foster kid" experience. He captures each character perfectly and the reader can easily visualize the individuals the author has to deal with on daily basis. Having lived part of my life in the parochial school system and having lived as a child in the same neighborhood as the author, I was vividly brought back to my childhood .Most importantly, it shows the strength of the soul and how just a little compassion can be so important to a lost child.

By LNA on July 9, 2015

John Tuohy writes with compelling honesty, and warmth. I grew up in Ansonia, CT myself, so it makes it even more real. He brings me immediately back there with his narrative, while he wounds my soul, as I realize I had no idea of the suffering of some of the children around me. His story is a must read, of courage and great spirit in the face of impoverishment, sorrow, and adult neglect. I could go on and on, but just get the book. If you're like me, you'll soon be reading it out loud to any person in the room who will listen. Many can suffer and overcome as they go through it, but few can find the words that take us through the story. John is a gifted writer to be able to do that.

By Barbara Pietruszka on June 29, 2015

I am from Connecticut so I was very familiar with many locations described in the book especially Ansonia where I lived. I totally enjoyed the book and would like to know more about the author. I recommend the book to everyone

By Joanne B. on June 28, 2015

What an emotional rollercoaster. I laughed. I cried. Once you start reading it's hard to stop. I was torn between wanting to gulp it up and read over and over each quote that started the chapter. I couldn't help but feel part of the Tuohy clan. I wanted to scream in their defense. It's truly hard to believe the challenges that foster children face. I can only pray that this story may touch even one person facing this life. It's an inspiring read. That will linger long after you finish it. This is a wonderfully written memoir that immediately pulls you in to the lives of the Tuohy family.

By Paul Day on June 15, 2015

Great reading. Life in foster care told from a very rare point of view.

By Jackie Malkes on June 5, 2015

This book is definitely a must for social workers working with children specifically. This is an excellent memoir which identifies the trails of foster children in the 1960s in the United States. The memoir captures stories of joy as well as nail biting terror, as the family is at times torn apart but finds each other later and finds solace in the experiences of one another. The stories capture the love siblings have for one another as well as the protection they have for one another in even the worst of circumstances. On the flip side, one of the most touching stories to me was when a Nun at the school helped him to read-- truly an example of how a positive person really helped to shape the author in times when circumstances at home were challenging and treacherous. I found the book to be a page turner and at times show how even in the hardest of circumstances there was a need to live and survive and make the best of any moment. The memoir is eye-opening and helped to shed light and make me feel proud of the volunteer work I take part in with disadvantaged children. Riveting....Must read....memory lane on steroids....Catholic school banter, blue color towns...Lawrence Welk on Sundays night's.

By Eileen on June 4, 2015

From ' No time to say Goodbye 'and authors John W. Touhys Gangster novels, his style never waivers...humorous to sadness to candidly realistic situations all his writings leaves the reader in awe......longing for more.

By karen pojakene on June 1, 2015

This book is a must-read for anyone who administers to the foster care program in any state. This is not a "fell through the cracks" life story, but rather a memoir of a life guided by strength and faith and a hard determination to survive. it is heartening to know that the "sewer" that life can become to steal our personal peace can be fought and our peace can be restored, scarred, but restored.

By Michelle Black on

A captivating, shocking, and deeply moving memoir, No Time to Say Goodbye is a true page turner. John shares the story of his childhood, from the struggles of living in poverty to being in the foster care system and simply trying to survive. You will be cheering for him all the way, as he never loses his will to thrive even in the darkest and bleakest of circumstances. This memoir is a very truthful and unapologetic glimpse into the way in which some of our most vulnerable citizens have been treated in the past and are still being treated today. It is truly eye-opening, and hopefully will inspire many people to take action in protection of vulnerable children.

By Kimberly on May 24, 2015

I found myself in tears while reading this book. John William Tuohy writes quite movingly about the world he grew up in; a world in which I had hoped did not exist within the foster care system. This book is at times funny, raw, compelling, heartbreaking and disturbing. I found myself rooting for John as he tries to escape from an incredibly difficult life. You will too!

By Geoffrey A. Childs on May 20, 2015

I found this book to be a compelling story of life in the Ct foster care system. at times disturbing and at others inspirational ,The author goes into great detail in this gritty memoir of His early life being abandoned into the states system and his subsequent escape from it. Every once in a while a book or even an article in a newspaper comes along that bears witness to an injustice or even something that's just plain wrong. This chronicle of the foster care system is such a book and should be required reading for any aspiring social workers.

HERE'S MY LATEST BOOKS.....

This is a book of short stories taken from the things I saw and heard in my childhood in the factory town of Ansonia in southwestern Connecticut.

Most of these stories, or as true as I recall them because I witnessed these events many years ago through the eyes of child and are retold to you now with the pen and hindsight of an older man. The only exception is the story Beat Time which is based on the disappearance of Beat poet Lew Welch. Decades before I knew who Welch was, I was told that he had made his from California to New Haven, Connecticut, where was an alcoholic living in a mission. The notion fascinated me and I filed it away but never forgot it.     

The collected stories are loosely modeled around Joyce’s novel, Dubliners (I also borrowed from the novels character and place names. Ivy Day, my character in “Local Orphan is Hero” is also the name of chapter in Dubliners, etc.) and like Joyce I wanted to write about my people, the people I knew as a child, the working class in small town America and I wanted to give a complete view of them as well. As a result the stories are about the divorced, Gays, black people, the working poor, the middle class, the lost and the found, the contented and the discontented.

Conversely many of the stories in this book are about starting life over again as a result of suicide (The Hanging Party, Small Town Tragedy, Beat Time) or from a near death experience (Anna Bell Lee and the Charge of the Light Brigade, A Brief Summer) and natural occurring death. (The Best Laid Plans, The Winter Years, Balanced and Serene)

With the exception of Jesus Loves Shaqunda, in each story there is a rebirth from the death. (Shaqunda is reported as having died of pneumonia in The Winter Years)

Sal, the desperate and depressed divorcee in Things Change, changes his life in Lunch Hour when asks the waitress for a date and she accepts. (Which we learn in Closing Time, the last story in the book) In The Arranged Time, Thisby is given the option of change and whether she takes it or, we don’t know. The death of Greta’s husband in A Matter of Time has led her to the diner and into the waiting arms of the outgoing and loveable Gabe.

Although the book is based on three sets of time (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and the diner is opened in the early morning and closed at night, time stands still inside the Diner. The hour on the big clock on the wall never changes time and much like my memories of that place, everything remains the same.

http://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-Small-William-Tuohy/dp/1517270456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444164878&sr=1-1&keywords=short+stories+from+a+small+town

The Valley Lives

By Marion Marchetto, author of The Bridgewater Chronicles on October 15, 2015

Short Stores from a Small Town is set in The Valley (known to outsiders as The Lower Naugatuck Valley) in Connecticut. While the short stories are contemporary they provide insight into the timeless qualities of an Industrial Era community and the values and morals of the people who live there. Some are first or second generation Americans, some are transplants, yet each takes on the mantle of Valleyite and wears it proudly. It isn't easy for an author to take the reader on a journey down memory lane and involve the reader in the life stories of a group of seemingly unrelated characters. I say seemingly because by book's end the reader will realize that he/she has done more than meet a group of loosely related characters.

We meet all of the characters during a one-day time period as each of them finds their way to the Valley Diner on a rainy autumn day. From our first meeting with Angel, the educationally challenged man who opens and closes the diner, to our farewell for the day to the young waitress whose smile hides her despair we meet a cross section of the Valley population. Rich, poor, ambitious, and not so ambitious, each life proves that there is more to it beneath the surface. And the one thing that binds these lives together is The Valley itself. Not so much a place (or a memory) but an almost palpable living thing that becomes a part of its inhabitants.

Let me be the first the congratulate author John William Tuohy on a job well done. He has evoked the heart of The Valley and in doing so brought to life the fabric that Valleyites wear as a mantle of pride. While set in a specific region of the country, the stories that unfold within the pages of this slim volume are similar to those that live in many a small town from coast to coast.

By Sandra Mendyk

Just read "Short Stories from a Small Town," and couldn't put it down! Like Mr. Tuohy's other books I read, they keep your interest, especially if you're from a small town and can relate to the lives of the people he writes about. I recommend this book for anyone interested in human interest stories. His characters all have a central place where the stories take place--a diner--and come from different walks of life and wrestle with different problems of everyday life. Enjoyable and thoughtful.

I loved how the author wrote about "his people"

By kathee

A touching thoughtful book. I loved how the author wrote about "his people", the people he knew as a child from his town. It is based on sets of time in the local diner, breakfast , lunch and dinner, but time stands still ... Highly recommend !

WONDERFUL book, I loved it!

By John M. Cribbins

What wonderful stories...I just loved this book.... It is great how it is written following, breakfast, lunch, dinner, at a diner. Great characters.... I just loved it....

The art and joy of cinematography

Strangers on a train

MISH MOSH..........................................

Mish Mash: noun \ˈmish-ˌmash, -ˌmäsh\ A : hodgepodge, jumble “The painting was just a mishmash of colors and abstract shapes as far as we could tell”. Origin Middle English & Yiddish; Middle English mysse masche, perhaps reduplication of mash mash; Yiddish mish-mash, perhaps reduplication of mishn to mix. First Known Use: 15th century

A man sweeping the hyper-inflated pengő banknotes away from the streets after the introduction of the new forint in August 1946, Hungary

Archaeologist Howard Carter examining the sarcophagus of King Tut within minutes of its opening 

MUSIC FOR THE SOUL

Gerry Mulligan

AND NOW, A BEATLES BREAK 

DON'T YOU WANT TO SEE THE ENTIRE WORLD?

 I DO

Heidelberg, Germany

Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia (by n.miloradovic)

Himalayan Sunset 12 - Almost Gone by Clara & James 

Gudvangen, Norway

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Hain Bridge, Budapest (by Luís Henrique Boucault)

ROGER TOUHY, THE LAST GANGSTER

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

JFK's pardons and the mob; Prohibition, Chicago's crime cadres and the staged kidnapping of "`Jake the Barber'" Factor, "the black sheep brother of the cosmetics king, Max Factor"; lifetime sentences, attempted jail busts and the perseverance of "a rumpled private detective and an eccentric lawyer" John W. Tuohy showcases all these and more sensational and shady happenings in When Capone's Mob Murdered Roger Touhy: The Strange Case of Touhy, Jake the Barber and the Kidnapping that Never Happened. The author started investigating Touhy's 1959 murder by Capone's gang in 1975 for an undergrad assignment. He traces the frame-job whereby Touhy was accused of the kidnapping, his decades in jail, his memoirs, his retrial and release and, finally, his murder, 28 days after regaining his freedom. Sixteen pages of photos.

From Library Journal

Roger Touhy, one of the "terrible Touhys" and leader of a bootlegging racket that challenged Capone's mob in Prohibition Chicago, had a lot to answer for, but the crime that put him behind bars was, ironically, one he didn't commit: the alleged kidnapping of Jake Factor, half-brother of Max Factor and international swindler. Author Tuohy (apparently no relation), a former staff investigator for the National Center for the Study of Organized Crime, briefly traces the history of the Touhys and the Capone mob, then describes Factor's plan to have himself kidnapped, putting Touhy behind bars and keeping himself from being deported. This miscarriage of justice lasted 17 years and ended in Touhy's parole and murder by the Capone mob 28 days later. Factor was never deported. The author spent 26 years researching this story, and he can't bear to waste a word of it. Though slim, the book still seems padded, with irrelevant detail muddying the main story. Touhy is a hard man to feel sorry for, but the author does his best. Sure to be popular in the Chicago area and with the many fans of mob history, this is suitable for larger public libraries and regional collections. Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH

BOOK REVIEW

     John William Tuohy, one of the most prolific crime writers in America, has penned a tragic, but fascinating story of Roger Touhy and John Factor. It's a tale born out of poverty and violence, a story of ambition gone wrong and deception on an enormous, almost unfathomable, scale. However, this is also a story of triumph of determination to survive, of a lifelong struggle for dignity and redemption of the spirit.

     The story starts with John "Jake the Barber" Factor. The product of the turn of the century European ethnic slums of Chicago's west side, Jake's brother, Max Factor, would go on to create an international cosmetic empire.

     In 1926, Factor, grubstaked in a partnership with the great New York criminal genius, Arnold Rothstien, and Chicago's Al Capone, John Factor set up a stock scam in England that fleeced thousands of investors, including members of the royal family, out of $8 million dollars, an incredible sum of money in 1926.

     After the scam fell apart, Factor fled to France, where he formed another syndicate of con artists, who broke the bank at Monte Carlo by rigging the tables.

     Eventually, Factor fled to the safety of Capone's Chicago but the highest powers in the Empire demanded his arrest. However, Factor fought extradition all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but he had a weak case and deportation was inevitable. Just 24 hours before the court was to decide his fate, Factor paid to have himself kidnapped and his case was postponed. He reappeared in Chicago several days later, and, at the syndicates' urging, accused gangster Roger Touhy of the kidnapping.

     Roger "The Terrible" Touhy was the youngest son of an honest Chicago cop. Although born in the Valley, a teeming Irish slum, the family moved to rural Des Plains, Illinois while Roger was still a boy. Touhy's five older brothers stayed behind in the valley and soon flew under the leadership of "Terrible Tommy" O'Connor. By 1933, three of them would be shot dead in various disputes with the mob and one, Tommy, would lose the use of his legs by syndicate machine guns. Secure in the still rural suburbs of Cook County, Roger Touhy graduated as class valedictorian of his Catholic school. Afterwards, he briefly worked as an organizer for the Telegraph and Telecommunications Workers Union after being blacklisted by Western Union for his minor pro-labor activities.

     Touhy entered the Navy in the first world war and served two years, teaching Morse code to Officers at Harvard University.

     After the war, he rode the rails out west where he earned a living as a railroad telegraph operator and eventually made a small but respectable fortune as an oil well speculator.

     Returning to Chicago in 1924, Touhy married his childhood sweetheart, regrouped with his brothers and formed a partnership with a corrupt ward heeler named Matt Kolb, and, in 1925, he started a suburban bootlegging and slot machine operation in northwestern Cook County. Left out of the endless beer wars that plagued the gangs inside Chicago, Touhy's operation flourished. By 1926, his slot machine operations alone grossed over $1,000,000.00 a year, at a time when a gallon of gas cost eight cents.

     They were unusual gangsters. When the Klu Klux Klan, then at the height of its power, threatened the life of a priest who had befriended the gang, Tommy Touhy, Roger's older brother, the real "Terrible Touhy," broke into the Klan's national headquarters, stole its membership roles, and, despite an offer of $25,000 to return them, delivered the list to the priest who published the names in several Catholic newspapers the following day.

     Once, Touhy unthinkingly released several thousand gallons of putrid sour mash in to the Des Plains River one day before the city was to reenact its discovery by canoe-riding Jesuits a hundred years before. After a dressing down by the towns people Touhy spent $10,000.00 on perfume and doused the river with it, saving the day.

     They were inventive too. When the Chicago police levied a 50% protection tax on Touhy's beer, Touhy bought a fleet of Esso gasoline delivery trucks, kept the Esso logo on the vehicles, and delivered his booze to his speakeasies that way.

     In 1930, when Capone invaded the labor rackets, the union bosses, mostly Irish and completely corrupt, turned to the Touhy organization for protection. The intermittent gun battles between the Touhys and the Capone mob over control of beer routes which had been fought on the empty, back roads of rural Cook County, was now brought into the city where street battles extracted an awesome toll on both sides. The Chicago Tribune estimated the casualties to be one hundred dead in less then 12 months.

     By the winter of 1933, remarkably, Touhy was winning the war in large part because joining him in the struggle against the mob was Chicago's very corrupt, newly elected mayor Anthony "Ten percent Tony" Cermak, who was as much a gangster as he was an elected official.

     Cermak threw the entire weight of his office and the whole Chicago police force behind Touhy's forces. Eventually, two of Cermak's police bodyguards arrested Frank Nitti, the syndicate's boss, and, for a price, shot him six times. Nitti lived. As a result, two months later Nitti's gunmen caught up with Cermak at a political rally in Florida.

     Using previously overlooked Secret Service reports, this book proves, for the first time, that the mob stalked Cermak and used a hardened felon to kill him. The true story behind the mob's 1933 murder of Anton Cermak, will changes histories understanding of organized crimes forever. The fascinating thing about this killing is its eerie similarity to the Kennedy assassination in Dallas thirty years later, made even more macabre by the fact that several of the names associated with the Cermak killing were later aligned with the Kennedy killing.

     For many decades, it was whispered that the mob had executed Cermak for his role in the Touhy-syndicate war of 1931-33, but there was never proof. The official story is that a loner named Giuseppe Zangara, an out-of-work, Sicilian born drifter with communist leanings, traveled to Florida in the winter of 1933 and fired several shots at President Franklin Roosevelt. He missed the President, but killed Chicago's Mayor Anton Cermak instead. However, using long lost documents, Tuohy is able to prove that Zangara was a convicted felon with long ties to mob Mafia and that he very much intended to murder Anton Cermak.

     With Cermak dead, Touhy was on his own against the mob. At the same time, the United States Postal Service was closing in on his gang for pulling off the largest mail heists in US history at that time. The cash was used to fund Touhy's war with the Capones.Then in June of 1933, John Factor en he reappeared, Factor accused Roger Touhy of kidnapping him. After two sensational trials, Touhy was convicted of kidnapping John Factor and sentenced to 99 years in prison and Factor, after a series of complicated legal maneuvers, and using the mob's influence, was allowed to remain in the United States as a witness for the prosecution, however, he was still a wanted felon in England.

     By 1942 Roger Touhy had been in prison for nine years, his once vast fortune was gone. Roger's family was gone as well. At his request, his wife Clara had moved to Florida with their two sons in 1934. However, with the help of Touhy's remaining sister, the family retained a rumpled private detective, actually a down-and-out, a very shady and disbarred mob lawyer named Morrie Green.

     Disheveled of not, Green was a highly competent investigator and was able to piece together and prove the conspiracy that landed Touhy in jail. However, no court would hear the case, and by the fall of 1942, Touhy had exhausted every legal avenue open to him.Desperate, Touhy hatched a daring daylight breakout over the thirty foot walls of Stateville prison.The sensational escape ended three months later in a dramatic and bloody shootout between the convicts and the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover.

     Less then three months after Touhy was captured, Fox Studios hired producer Brian Foy to churn out a mob financed docudrama film on the escape entitled, "Roger Touhy, The Last Gangster." The executive producer on the film was Johnny Roselli, the hood who later introduced Judy Campbell to Frank Sinatra. Touhy sued Fox and eventually won his case and the film was withdrawn from circulation. In 1962, Columbia pictures and John Houston tried to produce a remake of the film, but were scared off the project.

     While Touhy was on the run from prison, John Factor was convicted for m ail fraud and was sentenced and served ten years at hard labor. Factor's take from the scam was $10,000,000.00 in cash.

     Released in 1949, Factor took control of the Stardust Hotel Casino in 1955, then the largest operation on the Vegas strip. The casino's true owners, of course, were Chicago mob bosses Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo, Murray Humpreys and Sam Giancana. From 1955 to 1963, the length of Factor's tenure at the casino, the US Justice Department estimated that the Chicago outfit skimmed between forty-eight to 200 million dollars from the Stardust alone.

     In 1956, while Factor and the outfit were growing rich off the Stardust, Roger Touhy hired a quirky, high strung, but highly effective lawyer named Robert B. Johnstone to take his case. A brilliant legal tactician, who worked incessantly on Touhy's freedom, Robert Johnstone managed to get Touhy's case heard before federal judge John P. Barnes, a refined magistrate filled with his own eccentricities. After two years of hearings, Barnes released a 1,500-page decision on Touhy's case, finding that Touhy was railroaded to prison in a conspiracy between the mob and the state attorney's office and that John Factor had kidnapped himself as a means to avoid extradition to England.

     Released from prison in 1959, Touhy wrote his life story "The Stolen Years" with legendary Chicago crime reporter, Ray Brennan. It was Brennan, as a young cub reporter, who broke the story of John Dillenger's sensational escape from Crown Point prison, supposedly with a bar of soap whittled to look like a pistol. It was also Brennan who brought about the end of Roger Touhy's mortal enemy, "Tubbo" Gilbert, the mob owned chief investigator for the Cook County state attorney's office, and who designed the frame-up that placed Touhy behind bars.

     Factor entered a suit against Roger Touhy, his book publishers and Ray Brennan, claiming it damaged his reputation as a "leading citizen of Nevada and a philanthropist."

     The teamsters, Factor's partners in the Stardust Casino, refused to ship the book and Chicago's bookstore owners were warned by Tony Accardo, in person, not to carry the book.

     Touhy and Johnstone fought back by drawing up the papers to enter a $300,000,000 lawsuit against John Factor, mob leaders Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo and Murray Humpreys as well as former Cook County state attorney Thomas Courtney and Tubbo Gilbert, his chief investigator, for wrongful imprisonment.

     The mob couldn't allow the suit to reach court, and considering Touhy's determination, Ray Brennan's nose for a good story and Bob Johnstone's legal talents, there was no doubt the case would make it to court. If the case went to court, John Factor, the outfit's figurehead at the lucrative Stardust Casino, could easily be tied in to illegal teamster loans. At the same time, the McClellan committee was looking into the ties between the teamsters, Las Vegas and organized crime and the raid at the mob conclave in New York state had awakened the FBI and brought them into the fight. So, Touhy's lawsuit was, in effect, his death sentence.

     Twenty-five days after his release from twenty-five years in prison, Roger Touhy was gunned down on a frigid December night on his sister's front door.

     Two years after Touhy's murder, in 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered his Justice Department to look into the highly suspect dealings of the Stardust Casino. Factor was still the owner on record, but had sold his interest in the casino portion of the hotel for a mere 7 million dollars. Then, in December of that year, the INS, working with the FBI on Bobby Kennedy's orders, informed Jake Factor that he was to be deported from the United States before the end of the month. Factor would be returned to England where he was still a wanted felon as a result of his 1928 stock scam. Just 48 hours before the deportation, Factor, John Kennedy's largest single personal political contributor, was granted a full and complete Presidential pardon which allowed him to stay in the United States.

     The story hints that Factor was more then probably an informant for the Internal Revenue Service, it also investigates the murky world of Presidential pardons, the last imperial power of the Executive branch. It's a sordid tale of abuse of privilege, the mob's best friend and perhaps it is time the American people reconsider the entire notion.

     The mob wasn't finished with Factor. Right after his pardon, Factor was involved in a vague, questionable financial plot to try and bail teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa out of his seemingly endless financial problems in Florida real estate. He was also involved with a questionable stock transaction with mobster Murray Humpreys. Factor spent the remaining twenty years of his life as a benefactor to California's Black ghettos. He tried, truly, to make amends for all of the suffering he had caused in his life. He spent millions of dollars building churches, gyms, parks and low cost housing in the poverty stricken ghettos. When he died, three United States Senators, the Mayor of Los Angles and several hundred poor Black waited in the rain to pay their last respects at Jake the Barber's funeral.

Interesting Information on A Little Known Case

By Bill Emblom

Author John Tuohy, who has a similar spelling of the last name to his subject Roger, but apparently no relation, has provided us with an interesting story of northwest Chicago beer baron Roger Touhy who was in competition with Al Capone during Capone's heyday. Touhy appeared to be winning the battle since Mayor Anton Cermak was deporting a number of Capone's cronies. However, the mob hit, according to the author, on Mayor Cermak in Miami, Florida, by Giuseppe Zangara following a speech by President-elect Roosevelt, put an end to the harrassment of Capone's cronies. The author details the staged "kidnapping" of Jake "the Barber" Factor who did this to avoid being deported to England and facing a prison sentence there for stock swindling, with Touhy having his rights violated and sent to prison for 25 years for the kidnapping that never happened. Factor and other Chicago mobsters were making a lot of money with the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas when they got word that Touhy was to be parolled and planned to write his life story. The mob, not wanting this, decided Touhy had to be eliminated. Touhy was murdered by hit men in 1959, 28 days after gaining his freedom. Jake Factor had also spent time in prison in the United States for a whiskey swindle involving 300 victims in 12 states. Two days before Factor was to be deported to England to face prison for the stock swindle President Kennedy granted Factor a full Presidential Pardon after Factor's contribution to the Bay of Pigs fund. President Kennedy, the author notes, issued 472 pardons (about half questionable) more than any president before or since.

There are a number of books on Capone and the Chicago mob. This book takes a look at an overlooked beer baron from that time period, Roger Touhy. It is a very worthwhile read and one that will hold your interest.

GREAT BOOK FROM CHICAGO AND ERA WAS MY DAD'S,TRUE TO STORY

Very good book. Hard to put down

Bymistakesweremadeon

Eight long years locked up for a kidnapping that was in fact a hoax, in autumn 1942, Roger Touhy & his gang of cons busted out of Stateville, the infamous "roundhouse" prison, southwest of Chicago Illinois. On the lam 2 months he was, when J Edgar & his agents sniffed him out in a run down 6-flat tenement on the city's far north lakefront. "Terrible Roger" had celebrated Christmas morning on the outside - just like all square Johns & Janes - but by New Year's Eve, was back in the bighouse.

Touhy's arrest hideout holds special interest to me because I grew up less than a mile away from it. Though I never knew so til 1975 when his bio was included in hard-boiled crime chronicler Jay Robert Nash's, Badmen & Bloodletters, a phone book sized encyclopedia of crooks & killers. Touhy's hard scrabble charisma stood out among 200 years' worth of sociopathic Americana Nash had alphabetized, and gotten a pulphouse publisher to print up for him.

I read Nash's outlaw dictionary as a teen, and found Touhy's Prohibition era David vs Goliath battles with ultimate gangster kingpin, Al Capone quite alluring, in an anti-hero sorta way. Years later I learned Touhy had written a memoir, and reading his The Stolen Years only reinforced my image of an underdog speakeasy beer baron - slash suburban family man - outwitting the stone cold killer who masterminded the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Like most autobiographies tho, Touhy's book painted him the good guy. Just an everyday gent caught up in events, and he sold his story well. Had I been a saloonkeeper back then I could picture myself buying his sales pitch - and liking the guy too. I sure bought into his tale, which in hindsight criminal scribe Nash had too, because both writers portray Touhy - though admittedly a crook - as never "really" hurting anybody. Only doing what any down-to-earth bootlegger running a million dollar/year criminal enterprise would have.

What Capone's Mob Murdered Roger Touhy author John Tuohy does tho is, provide a more objective version of events, balancing out Touhy's white wash ... 'er ... make that subjectively ... remembered telling of his life & times. Author Tuohy's account of gangster Touhy's account forced me - grown up now - to re-account for my own original take on the story.

As a kid back then, Touhy seemed almost a Robin Hood- ish hood - if you'll pardon a very lame pun. Forty years on tho re-considering the evidence, I think a persuasive - if not iron-clad convincing - case can be made for his conviction in the kidnapping of swindler scumbag Jake the Barber Factor. At least as far as conspiracy to do so goes, anyways. (Please excuse the crude redundancy there but Factor's stench truly was that of the dog s*** one steps in on those unfortunate occasions one does.)

Touhy's memoir painted himself as almost an innocent bystander at his own life's events. But he was a very smart & savvy guy - no dummy by a long shot. And I kinda do believe now, to not have known his own henchmen were in on Factor's ploy to stave off deportation and imprisonment, Touhy would have had to be as naive a Prohibition crime boss - and make no mistake he was one - as I was as a teenage kid reading Nash's thug-opedia,

On the other hand, the guy was the father of two sons and it's repulsive to consider he would have taken part in loathsomeness the crime of kidnapping was - even if the abducted victim was an adult and as repulsively loathsome as widows & orphans conman, Jake Factor.

This book's target audience is crime buffs no doubt, but it's an interesting read just the same; and includes anecdotes and insights I had not known of before. Unfortunately too, one that knocks a hero of mine down a peg or two - or more like ten.

Circa 1960, President Kennedy pardoned Jake the Barber, a fact that reading of almost made me puke. Then again JFK and the Chicago Mob did make for some strange bedfellowery every now & again. I'll always admire WWII US Navy commander Kennedy's astonishing (word chosen carefully) bravery following his PT boat's sinking, but him signing that document - effectively wiping Factor's s*** stain clean - as payback for campaign contributions Factor made to him, was REALLY nauseating to read.

Come to think of it tho, the terms "criminal douchedog" & "any political candidate" are pretty much interchangeable.

Anyways tho ... rest in peace Rog, & I raise a toast - of virtual bootleg ale - in your honor: "Turns out you weren't the hard-luck mug I'd thought you were, but what the hell, at least you had style." And guts to meet your inevitable end with more grace than a gangster should.

Post Note: Author Tuohy's re-examination of the evidence in the Roger Touhy case does include some heroes - guys & women - who attempted to find the truth of what did happen. Reading about people like that IS rewarding. They showed true courage - and decency - in a world reeking of corruption & deceit. So, here's to the lawyer who took on a lost cause; the private detective who dug up buried facts; and most of all, Touhy's wife & sister who stood by his side all those years.

Crime don't pay, kids

Very good organized crime book. A rather obscure gangster story which makes it fresh to read. I do not like these minimum word requirements for a review. (There, I have met my minimum)

Chicago Gangster History At It's Best

ByJ. CROSBYon

As a 4th generation Chicagoan, I just loved this book. Growing up in the 1950's and 60's I heard the name "Terrible Touhy's" mentioned many times. Roger was thought of as a great man, and seems to have been held in high esteem among the old timer Chicagoans.

That said, I thought this book to be nothing but interesting and well written. (It inspired me to find a copy of Roger's "Stolen Years" bio.) I do recommend this book to other folks interested in prohibition/depression era Chicago crime research. It is a must have for your library of Gangsters literature from that era. Chock full of information and the reader is transported back in time.

I'd like to know just what is "The Valley" area today in Chicago. I still live in the Windy City and would like to see if anything remains from the early days of the 20th century.

A good writer and a good book! I will buy some more of Mr. Tuohy's work.

Great story, great read

ByBookreaderon

A complex tale of gangsters, political kickback, mob wars and corrupt politicians told with wit and humor at a good pace. Highly recommend this book.

One of the best books I've read in a long time....

If you're into mafioso, read this! I loved it. Bought a copy for my brother to read for his birthday--good stuff.

CYBERDATE

An award winning full length play.

"Cyberdate.Com is the story of six ordinary people in search of romance, friendship and love and find it in very extraordinary ways. Based on the real life experiences of the authors misadventures with on line dating, Cyber date is a bittersweet story that will make you laugh, cry and want to fall in love again."   Ellis McKay  

Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play. The play was also given a full reading at The Frederick Playhouse in Maryland in March of 2007.

GUNS AND GLAMOUR

Capone. Torrio. Ricca. Giancana and Accardo. The giant legends of organized crime that led the largest, wealthiest, most powerful, and near completely documented organized crime syndicate in the world. At the height of its power, the Chicago mobs influence extended from Lake Shore Drive to the beaches of Havana, the neon lights of Vegas and the heroin drenched back alleys of Hanoi. The years 1900 through 1959 are largely considered the Golden Age for the Chicago mob. The end came with the accession of Sam “Momo” Giancana to the criminal throne that Big Jim Colosimo had founded. Flashy, arrogant and dangerous, Giancana’s rise to the leadership of the Chicago Mob was paralleled by the federal government’s assault on organized crime. By 1980, the Chicago mob has lost control of the organized labor on a national basis and given up Las Vegas Las Vegas. Virtually every significant Mafia Boss in the country was in jail or under indictment and Sam Giancana was shot dead by his own men. The so-called Golden Age of Chicago Mob had ended. Between 1900 and 1959, fifty-nine years, only seven Bosses led the Chicago Mob. Between 1963 and 2000, thirty-seven years, there were more than nine Bosses in rapid succession. All except one of them…the indomitable Tony Accardo…died in jail or under federal and state indictment. While the Chicago Mob still wields considerable criminal, financial, and political influence, it is a mere shadow of what it once was. With increased pressure from far reaching RICO laws, the constant surveillance of a well-informed and effective federal organized crime task force and increased competition from equally ruthless and ambitious new ethnic mobs, there is little chance it will ever reemerge as the awesome power it once was.

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: I heard a lot about Chicago mafia and I think it very interesting theme and I read few books but those books were so hard to read (!): small font, a lot of slangs, hard spelling words! But John Tuohy's book not like that!!! It's easy to read(and I'm not saying it written poor or anything), what I mean is for the person who doesn't know much about the mafia world this book is really helps to understand all the details, I would say to see the whole picture!!! This book is really interesting and helpful!

It also has a lot of photographs which makes the book even better!

I wish there would be more writers like John Tuohy who makes the books more interesting and cognitive!

Amazon review: Mr. Tuohy, has out done himself with this prized piece of literary work! Since I'm a Chicagoan, born and raised for 40 years, some of them on the very same streets where some of the Outfit's associates and higher-ups lived, and after the first few pages I'm hooked. His writing style to me is very easy to digest, and his photos are spectacular, either due to it's rarity or the person being photo, alot of these Outfit bosses/hitman didn't like to be photographed, and believe me, they made sure that you knew it. To take the Chicago Outfit and write about the ups and downs the Organization went through during this 100 year time frame is an amazing feat. You get some real good stories, written without an agenda, just to get the information out to the public. A brilliant topic which was handled with care and dignity by Mr.Tuohy, as I'm finding out is the case in ALL OF HIS BOOKS, be they organized crime or based on something else. Get if a try, you'll end up buying more than the one book, betcha you can't read just one!!!

An interesting book about the history of the Chicago mob. It highlights the legends of the Chicago mob in the 1900s. Any fan of the Chicago mob should add this to their collection.

The Mob and the Kennedy Assassination: Jack Ruby. Testimony by Mobsters Lewis McWillie, Joseph Campisi and Irwin Weiner (The Mob Files) Kindle Edition

From the Inside Flap

The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the shooting of Alabama Governor George Wallace. The Committee investigated until 1978 and issued its final report, and ruled that Kennedy was very likely assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. However, the Committee noted that it believed that the conspiracy did not include the governments of the Soviet Union or Cuba.

 The Committee also stated it did not believe the conspiracy was organized by any organized crime group, nor any anti-Castro group, but that it could not rule out individual members of any of those groups acting together.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations suffered from being conducted mostly in secret, and then issued a public report with much of its evidence sealed for 50 years under Congressional rules.

In 1992, Congress passed legislation to collect and open up all the evidence relating to Kennedy's death, and created the Assassination Records Review Board to further that goal.

General conclusions

In particular, the various investigations performed by the U.S. government were faulted for insufficient consideration of the possibility of a conspiracy in each case. The Committee in its report also made recommendations for legislative and administrative improvements, including making some assassinations Federal crimes.

The Chief Counsel of the Committee later changed his views that the CIA was being cooperative and forthcoming with the investigation when he learned that the CIA's special liaison to the Committee researchers, George Joannides, was actually involved with some of the organizations that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved with in the months leading up to the assassination, including an anti-Castro group, the DRE, which was linked to the CIA, where the liaison, Joannides, worked in 1963.

 Chief Counsel Blakey later stated that Joannides, instead, should have been interviewed by the Committee, rather than serving as a gatekeeper to the CIA's evidence and files regarding the assassination. He further disregarded and suspected all the CIA's statements and representations to the Committee, accusing it of obstruction of justice.

Conclusions regarding the Kennedy assassination

The HSCA concluded in its 1979 report that:

 1.Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at Kennedy. The second and third shots he fired struck the President. The third shot Oswald fired successfully killed the President.

 2.Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that at least two gunmen fired at the President. Other scientific evidence does not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President. Scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy allegations.

 3.The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy. The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.

 The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

4. Agencies and departments of the U.S. Government performed with varying degrees of competency in the fulfilment of their duties. President John F. Kennedy did not receive adequate protection. A thorough and reliable investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination was conducted. The investigation into the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination was inadequate. The conclusions of the investigations were arrived at in good faith, but presented in a fashion that was too definitive.

 

The Committee further concluded that it was probable that:

 Four shots were fired. The third shot came from a second assassin located on the grassy knoll, but missed. They concluded that it missed due to the lack of physical evidence of an actual bullet, of course this investigation took place almost sixteen years after the crime.

 The HSCA agreed with the single bullet theory, but concluded that it occurred at a time point during the assassination that differed from any of the several time points the Warren Commission theorized it occurred.

The Department of Justice, FBI, CIA, and the Warren Commission were all criticized for not revealing to the Warren Commission information available in 1964, and the Secret Service was deemed deficient in their protection of the President.

The HSCA made several accusations of deficiency against the FBI and CIA.

The accusations encompassed organizational failures, miscommunication, and a desire to keep certain parts of their operations secret. Furthermore, the Warren Commission expected these agencies to be forthcoming with any information that would aid their investigation. But the FBI and CIA only saw it as their duty to respond to specific requests for information from the commission. However, the HSCA found the FBI and CIA were deficient in performing even that limited role.

In 2003, Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel for the Committee, issued a statement on the Central Intelligence Agency:

...I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known. Significantly, the Warren Commission's conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth. We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp.

The Kefauver Organized Crime Hearings. Abridged.

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: Senator Kefauver is a great person! The committee did a amazingly great job investigating organized crime in different cities, the same as the author did putting it all together in one book!!It was really interesting to read this record! I felt like I was there in a court room! Seriously, very impressive!

Amazon review: It's great that we have such a great historical document in print! Senator Kefauver and the committee investigate Organized Crime all over the country: Miami, NY, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Kansas city, etc. This record 
has many interviews with mafia leaders. Rare and great photographs! It's one of the best criminal books I ever read! I would highly recommend it to anyone!

The Connecticut Irish

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: This book is not a history of the Irish in Connecticut so much as it is a history of people of Irish decent of the great State of Connecticut, but in that, it does a very good job reporting the facts and being wholly inclusive. It has presents dome very wonderful photographs and fives a brief but disturbing picture of the Anti-Irish movement in the New England states.

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: "Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in photos, Crime Boss Tony Accardo" was a welcomed addition to my book collection. For one thing, not much is written about ,"the Big Tuna", Tony Accardo; the Chicago Outfit's "man of many talents", let alone any photos. This book gives the reader a chance to gain some knowledge on the amazing Outfit boss/consigliere, that might not otherwise be available.

For me, it was a must for my collection; not to give too much away, but there are photos and personal information about the life and times of Anthony "JB" Accardo; from his days hanging around the "Circus Cafe" with "Tough" Tony Capezio, John "Screwey" Moore and "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, to catching "the Big Guy's",attention, "Snorky" who then had him sitting in the lobby of his hotels with a Thompson Sub-Machine Gun on guard duty!

Things just kept getting better for the capable "Joe Batters"!!

Mob Testimony: Joe Pistone, Michael Scars DiLeonardo, Angelo Lonardo and others: The court testimony of FBI New York Undercover Agent Joe Pistone

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: What I loved about this book is that even though its mostly testimony before government investigative inquires, you can sense the hood attitudes and their arrogance. This is the real mob talking about everyday life as a gangster. Good stuff

Amazon review: This is the story of gangland told in the federal testimony of the hoodlum who decided to talk about life in the underworld. Although some Chicago gangsters are included in the text and photos (Lots of photos here) the concentration is on the New York mob.

An Illustrated Chronological History of the Chicago Mob. Time Line. 1837-2000 K

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: Love the pictures in the book, some of them I've not seen before. This is a good outline for what one needs to know about the rise and fall of what was once a mighty underworld mob.

Amazon review: Pretty good outline in photos and text of the Chicago Outfit from start to what is basically its finish, the last year of the 20th century.

EMERSON

Amazon review: I purchased this book for my daughter who loves Emerson. The quotes are organized in categories and are easy to find and read. The book includes the most memorable quotes of Emerson and my daughter loves it.

Amazon review: This is really enjoyable to read and I like how it is done and you can look up all sorts of things. I have shared some of Emerson's quotes from this book on my website right from this book, giving him credit.

Amazon review: Made me hungry for more!!

Amazon review: It's a keeper!

The New England Mafia.

Amazon review: Good book about the New England mafia with some nice rare pictures

Amazon review: Coming from RI - The book was great

Amazon review: This held my interest, read it in two sittings, quite late at night. Most of the main characters were familiar to me, being a born and bred New Englander, got a kick out of some of the descriptions. A good easy read with lots of history and Mafia insight.

Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobsters in Photos Paperback – December 20, 2011

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: This is a funny book, okay a little bloody in places but believe it or not, the recipes are actually pretty good and there are several good stories about mobsters and meals. The mob stories are mixed with authentic Italian recipes and other Outfit anecdotes and all of it makes for fun reading and actually some pretty good cooking.(Including the meat sauce recipe from the prison scene in "Gooodfellas") Most of the recipes are very simple fare, quick to make and include classic dishes like Shrimp Scampi, a simple Tomato Sauce, Veal Piccata, Asparagus with Prosciutto, Baked Stuffed Clams, Veal Chops Milanese, Caponata and Lobster. The book has about 50 something photos of dead mobsters followed by a recipe. The bloody scenes aside, this book would make compliment most cooking libraries and will works especially well for the novice cook.

Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photos: The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Paperback – December 7, 2011

by Shadrach Bond

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: A detailed photographic account of the murders that shocked the underworld, the St. Valentine's Day massacre. The author tells the story of what happened and how it happened on that fateful day for the Northside gang and demonstrates with photos. Good book.

Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photographs. Dutch Schultz. Paperback – May 4, 2012

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: Dutch Schultz continues to capture and fascinate and his story, including his last words, are detailed here with dozens of photographs from Schultz early days in crime until the bitter end.

Amazon review: Dutch Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer) was the problem child of organized crime in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket. The book gives a quick but accurate account of the Dutchman's rise and his battle in two tax evasions trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey. It covers his murder, probably on the orders of fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. In an effort to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, which they declined. After Schultz disobeyed the Commission and attempted to carry out the hit, they ordered his assassination in 1935. The book has a very fine series of photographs. Good reading at a fair price.

Shooting the mob. Organized crime in photos. Dead Mobsters, Gangsters and Hoods.

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: This book covers the full gamut of gangsters with many excellent photos. The story accompanying each slain hoodlum varies from a few pages to one or two lines. The book suffers from atrocious editing of the text. Words are frequently mispelled or missing, sentences often end half way through only to resume as a new sentence and paragraphs sometimes end midsentence. There are also no sources for anything. If not for this, the book would have received five stars.

Amazon review: There is no shortage of corpses in this book. Its page after page of dead hoodlums from the underworld with a passage on how they got that way and by whom. Gory but I must say, fascinating as the violence of the underworld so often is. The book is a guilty pleasure.

The Salerno Report. The Mafia and the Murder of President John F. Kennedy: The report by Mafia expert Ralph Salerno Consultant to the Select Committee on Assassinations

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: A must read for anyone studying the Kennedy assassination. Among the many conspiracy theories is the possible involvement of Mafia. As we all know there are no definite conclusions, and history may never resolve the issue, but this report is engaging and captive reading.

Amazon review: The Salerno Report is far more accurate than the Warren Report

Amazon review: Evidence mounted in a certain direction. The truth is still discoverable, and this ghastly event in our history deserves still more examination. This book contributes to the eventual revelation of what really happened.

Baby Boomers Guide to the Beatles Songs of the Sixties

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: There are more intense books that go into supposed motivation and recording techniques and equipment, but this is a lovely work that illuminates the songs and the stories behind them without being overbearing in doing so. I really enjoyed it - bought several copies to give as gifts. Well done!

Rosenthal murder case

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

"The old Metropole. The old Metropole," brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily. "Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him

outside. 'all right,' says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair. "'Let the bastards in here if they want you, Rosy, but don't you, so help me, move outside this room.' "It was four o'clock in the morning then, and if we'd of raised the blinds we'd of seen daylight."

"Did he go?" I asked innocently.

'Sure he went." Mr. Wolfshiem's nose flashed at me indignantly. "He turned around in the door and says: 'Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!' Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away."

"Four of them were electrocuted,"

I said, remembering. "Five, with Becker"

The Great Gatsby

Amazon review: The Becker-Rosenthal trial was a 1912 trial for the murder of Herman Rosenthal by Charles Becker and members of the Lenox Avenue Gang. The trial ran from October 7, 1912 to October 30, 1912 and restarted on May 2, 1914 to May 22, 1914. Other procedural events took place in 1915.

 In July 1912, Lieutenant Charles Becker was named in the New York World as one of three senior police officials involved in the case of Herman Rosenthal, a small time bookmaker who had complained to the press that his illegal casinos had been badly damaged by the greed of Becker and his associates. On July 16, two days after the story appeared, Rosenthal walked out of the Hotel Metropole at 147 West 43rd Street, just off Times Square. He was gunned down by a crew of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East Side, Manhattan. In the aftermath, Manhattan District Attorney Charles S. Whitman, who had made an appointment with Rosenthal before his death, made no secret of his belief that the gangsters had committed the murder at Charles Becker's behest.

 At first, John J. Reisler, also known as "John the barber," told the police that he'd seen "Bridgey" Webber running away from the crime scene directly following the killing. He recanted under duress from gangsters the next week, and was charged with perjury.

 The investigation was covered on the front page of the New York Times for months. It was so complex that the NYPD recalled thirty retired detectives to help investigate; they were said "to know most of the gangsters."

One of these old-timers, Detective Upton, formerly of the NYPD "Italian Squad," was instrumental in the July 25, 1912, arrest of "Dago" Frank Cirofici, one of the suspected killers. He and his companion, Regina Gorden (formerly known as "Rose Harris"), were "so stupefied by opium that they offered no objection to their arrests," according to the New York Times.

Joe Petrosino

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Review: Any book about Joe Petrosino can't be all bad. Far too little attention is paid to Petrosino these days. The foolish Public remembers names of scumbags like Capone, Gotti, Valachi, Tony Soprano, etc. Far too few people remember New York Cop Joe Petrosino. In a time when Italians were segregated, harassed by Cops and treated as second class citizens, Petrosino arose as the first Italian anti-gangster Cop. Then, as now, gangsters claimed they were the victims of prejudice, discrimination and profiling. Petrosino rose above his times to become a Pioneer in anti-Mafia police work. Tough as nails, un-corruptible, and utterly fearless, Petrosino was assassinated by the Mafia in their usual cowardly style.

Review: This book is a welcome bit of scholarship on the great Petrosino. Tuohy's book does contain an, apparent, misprint. There is a lone word, without authority, regarding Petrosino being "corrupt," perhaps a reference to his tough police tactics. Corruption, however, implies a personal power or profit motive. Tuohy provides no evidence or argument of any such motive or activity on Petrosino's part. On the contrary, the only evidence is that Petrosino was a good, honest Cop. Petrosino is a role model for young and old alike, oppressed immigrants,

Review: I have several books from The Mob Files Series and I have really enjoyed reading them. The Joe Petrosino story is definitely one worth reading. He had an interesting life working against the mafia. I enjoyed seeing the pictures in the book and they helped bring the story to life.

TODAY'S ALLEGED MOB GUY

Leo Vincent Brothers 

Lingle Killing: Jake Lingle came from a moderately successful Jewish working class family in the valley, an Irish slum near the Loop. He managed to graduate from the Calhoun elementary school, otherwise he was ill prepared to work as for the Chicago Tribune newspaper at $65 a week, a respectable salary for a working reporter in 1933. Lingle was a "Legman"-- the street person who gathered the news and called it in to the city editor's room, where the stories were written by professional news writers. Yet on his modest income Lingle had a chauffeured limo that whisked him across town, he spent $1000 a day on the horse races and wore a diamond studded belt given to him by Capone.

That gave his wealth was the fact that Lingle was a liaison between the Capone organization and police commissioner William P. Russel.    Russel and Lingle had known each other since their childhood days in the Valley. Later, after Lingle was dead and the facts of their relationship came to light, Russell resigned his position.

Through Lingle's connection with the commissioner and the higher ups in the police department, Lingle was able to pass on information to the Capone's and others willing to pay, as to what speakeasies were going to be raided, what brothels were marked to be shut down and so forth. Lingle also spied on Bugs Moran and his North Siders for Capone.

Friend of the commission or not, it still didn't explain the way Lingle lived his life or the money he spent. None of that made sense until it was learned that Lingle owed Capone $100,000 in bad gambling debts and he tried to pay it off by extortion against both Moran and Capone by using his influence to barter gambling and limited liqueur licenses, essential to both hoodlums' operations.

 "I fix the price of beer in this town," Lingle said, and he may have been right in a fool's sort of way.

 One of the hundreds of rumors going around the city at that time was that Lingle had been given $50,000 to keep a racetrack open and had kept the money and as a result the track was closed.    

Another story involved the Sheridan Club, owned and operated by Weiss and Moran, and which had been closed for eighteen months after the St. Valentine's Day murders. Moran tried to muster help to reopen the track with no luck until Julian "Potatoes" Kaufman approached Jake Lingle and asked him to use his contacts to get the Moran’s track reopened. Lingle said he would help for 50% of the profits, Moran refused and the club remained closed.

Moran turned to Boss John McLaughlin for advice. McLaughlin, a criminal mastermind and freelancer who occasionally worked with the Touhy organization on burglaries, hated Lingle and had once threatened to kill the newsman when he refused to intercede in obtaining police and Capone's permission to open a gambling house. It was McLaughlin's advice that Moran go to the State's Attorney’s office with the information he had on Lingle but Moran decided against it.

fter Lingle was murdered, it was assumed that Capone ordered Lingle killed because the reporter was blackmailing Capone and several of his under bosses so he could pay off his gambling debts. Supposedly Lingle had gone to Capone and promised that for a set price he would see to it that no more of Capone's speakeasies were shut down. The Capone’s refused and Lingle threatened to have one of Capone's speakeasies shut down every day until Lingle got his price.

On the day they killed Lingle, his killers, dressed as Roman Catholic priests followed Lingle across town. As Lingle entered a subway tunnel, one of the two killers ran up from behind Lingle and fired a round off into the reporter's head just as Lingle walked into an underground pass at Randolf and Michigan, his face buried in the daily racing form. It was at rush hour and a dozen citizens were in or near the tunnel when Lingle was gunned down.

   The Lingle murder investigation dogged Chicago's gangland for the summer and fall.  The police demanded that Capone turn over the men who had killed Lingle but Capone refused saying instead that he would have his execution squad take out the killer, which would bring an end to the matter. Eventually Leo Brothers was arrested in connection with the crime. His trial began March 16, 1931, and ended on April 2, 1931, when he was convicted of murder and sentenced to eight years in prison.

On April 2, 1931, Brothers was sentenced to 14 years. He was paroled eight years later; the sentence was light because the jury believed he was taking the fall for someone else. 

DON’T WORRY-BE HAPPY

GOOD WORDS TO HAVE…………

Velleity \vuh-LEE-uh-tee\ 1 :the lowest degree of volition 2 : a slight wish or tendency : inclination. Velleity is a derivative of the New Latin noun velleitas, from the Latin verb velle, meaning "to wish or will." You might also wish to know that velle is the word that gave us voluntary (by way of Anglo-French voluntarie and Latin voluntarius) and volunteer (by way of French voluntaire). While both of those words might imply a wish to do something (specifically, to offer one's help) and the will to act upon it, the less common velleity typically refers to a wish or inclination that is so insignificant that a person feels little or no compulsion to act.

Jackleg: A: Characterized by unscrupulousness, dishonesty, or lack of professional standards. b:lacking skill or training : amateur. 2 : designed as a temporary expedient : makeshift.  Throughout its 165-year-old history in English, jackleg has most often been used as a term of contempt and deprecation, particularly in reference to lawyers and preachers. Its form echoes that of the similar blackleg, an older term for a cheating gambler or a worker opposed to union policies. Etymologists know that blackleg appeared over fifty years before jackleg, but they don't have any verifiable theories about the origin of either term.

I LOVE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS FROM FILM

Venice Beach, Los Angeles, 1980-83 — Garry Winogrand

WHY THE WORLD NEEDS EDITORS..........

Finland plans to give every citizen a basic income of 800 euros a month

Olivia Goldhill

December 05, 2015

 Finland plans to give a basic income to every adult

The Finnish government is currently drawing up plans to introduce a national basic income. A final proposal won’t be presented until November 2016, but if all goes to schedule, Finland will scrap all existing benefits and instead hand out €800 ($870) per month—toeveryone.

It sounds far-fetched, but it’s looking likely that Finland will carry through with the idea. Whereas several Dutch cities will introduce basic income next year and Switzerland is holding a referendum on the subject, there is strongest political and public support for the idea in Finland.

A poll commissioned by the government agency planning the proposal, the Finnish Social Insurance Institution or KELA, showed that 69% support (link in Finnish) a basic income plan. Prime minister Juha Sipilä is in favor of the idea and he’s backed by most of the major political parties. “For me, a basic income means simplifying the social security system,” he says.

But for those outside Finland, the plan raises two obvious questions: Why is this a good idea, and how will it work?

It may sound counterintuitive, but the proposal is meant to tackleunemployment. Finland’s unemployment rate is at a 15-year high, at 9.53% and a basic income would allow people to take on low-paying jobs without personal cost. At the moment, a temporary job results in lower welfare benefits, which can lead to an overall drop in income.

Previous experiments have shown that universal basic income can have a positive effect. Everyone in the Canadian town of Dauphin was given a stipend from 1974 to 1979, and though there was a drop in working hours, this was mainly because men spent more time in school and women took longer maternity leaves. Meanwhile, when thousands of unemployed people in Uganda were given unsupervised grants of twice their monthly income, working hours increased by 17% and earnings increased by 38%.

One of the major downsides, of course, is the cost of handing out money to so many people. Liisa Hyssälä, director general of KELA, has said that the plan will save the government millions. But, as Bloomberg calculated, giving €800 of basic income to the population of 5.4 million every month would cost €52.2 billion a year. Finland only plans to give the basic income to adults, not every citizen, but with around 4.9 million adults in Finland, this would still cost €46.7 billion per year. The government expects to have €49.1 billion in revenue in 2016.

Another serious consideration is that some people may be worse off under the plan. As the proposal hasn’t been published yet, it’s not yet known exactly who will lose out. But those who currently receive housing support or disability benefits could conceivably end up with less under national basic income, since the plan calls for scrapping existing benefits. And as national basic income would only give a monthly allowance to adults, a single mother of three could struggle to support herself compared to, for example, a neighbor with the same government support but no children and a part-time job.

Finally, the proposal raises the question of whether it’s really fair to give a relatively better off individual the same amount of welfare as someone who’s truly struggling. Finland’s constitution insists that all citizens must be equal, though, of course, equality can be interpreted in many different ways. So far, there’s no definitive answer as to whether national basic income will create a more or less equal society.

THE ART OF PULP

I'm a big big Fan of Butowski 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University.

He is the author of No Time to Say Goodbye: Memoirs of a Life in Foster Care and Short Stories from a Small Town. He is also the author of numerous non-fiction on the history of organized crime including the ground break biography of bootlegger Roger Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and "Guns and Glamour: A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."

His non-fiction crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist, American Mafia and other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic Playfest for his work The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction work, Karma Finds Franny Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of 2008.

His play, Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play.

Contact John:

MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM

JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM

HERE'S MY LATEST BOOKS.....

This is a book of short stories taken from the things I saw and heard in my childhood in the factory town of Ansonia in southwestern Connecticut.

Most of these stories, or as true as I recall them because I witnessed these events many years ago through the eyes of child and are retold to you now with the pen and hindsight of an older man. The only exception is the story Beat Time which is based on the disappearance of Beat poet Lew Welch. Decades before I knew who Welch was, I was told that he had made his from California to New Haven, Connecticut, where was an alcoholic living in a mission. The notion fascinated me and I filed it away but never forgot it.     

The collected stories are loosely modeled around Joyce’s novel, Dubliners (I also borrowed from the novels character and place names. Ivy Day, my character in “Local Orphan is Hero” is also the name of chapter in Dubliners, etc.) and like Joyce I wanted to write about my people, the people I knew as a child, the working class in small town America and I wanted to give a complete view of them as well. As a result the stories are about the divorced, Gays, black people, the working poor, the middle class, the lost and the found, the contented and the discontented.

Conversely many of the stories in this book are about starting life over again as a result of suicide (The Hanging Party, Small Town Tragedy, Beat Time) or from a near death experience (Anna Bell Lee and the Charge of the Light Brigade, A Brief Summer) and natural occurring death. (The Best Laid Plans, The Winter Years, Balanced and Serene)

With the exception of Jesus Loves Shaqunda, in each story there is a rebirth from the death. (Shaqunda is reported as having died of pneumonia in The Winter Years)

Sal, the desperate and depressed divorcee in Things Change, changes his life in Lunch Hour when asks the waitress for a date and she accepts. (Which we learn in Closing Time, the last story in the book) In The Arranged Time, Thisby is given the option of change and whether she takes it or, we don’t know. The death of Greta’s husband in A Matter of Time has led her to the diner and into the waiting arms of the outgoing and loveable Gabe.

Although the book is based on three sets of time (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and the diner is opened in the early morning and closed at night, time stands still inside the Diner. The hour on the big clock on the wall never changes time and much like my memories of that place, everything remains the same.

http://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-Small-William-Tuohy/dp/1517270456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444164878&sr=1-1&keywords=short+stories+from+a+small+town

The Valley Lives

By Marion Marchetto, author of The Bridgewater Chronicles on October 15, 2015

Short Stores from a Small Town is set in The Valley (known to outsiders as The Lower Naugatuck Valley) in Connecticut. While the short stories are contemporary they provide insight into the timeless qualities of an Industrial Era community and the values and morals of the people who live there. Some are first or second generation Americans, some are transplants, yet each takes on the mantle of Valleyite and wears it proudly. It isn't easy for an author to take the reader on a journey down memory lane and involve the reader in the life stories of a group of seemingly unrelated characters. I say seemingly because by book's end the reader will realize that he/she has done more than meet a group of loosely related characters.

We meet all of the characters during a one-day time period as each of them finds their way to the Valley Diner on a rainy autumn day. From our first meeting with Angel, the educationally challenged man who opens and closes the diner, to our farewell for the day to the young waitress whose smile hides her despair we meet a cross section of the Valley population. Rich, poor, ambitious, and not so ambitious, each life proves that there is more to it beneath the surface. And the one thing that binds these lives together is The Valley itself. Not so much a place (or a memory) but an almost palpable living thing that becomes a part of its inhabitants.

Let me be the first the congratulate author John William Tuohy on a job well done. He has evoked the heart of The Valley and in doing so brought to life the fabric that Valleyites wear as a mantle of pride. While set in a specific region of the country, the stories that unfold within the pages of this slim volume are similar to those that live in many a small town from coast to coast.

By Sandra Mendyk

Just read "Short Stories from a Small Town," and couldn't put it down! Like Mr. Tuohy's other books I read, they keep your interest, especially if you're from a small town and can relate to the lives of the people he writes about. I recommend this book for anyone interested in human interest stories. His characters all have a central place where the stories take place--a diner--and come from different walks of life and wrestle with different problems of everyday life. Enjoyable and thoughtful.

I loved how the author wrote about "his people"

By kathee

A touching thoughtful book. I loved how the author wrote about "his people", the people he knew as a child from his town. It is based on sets of time in the local diner, breakfast , lunch and dinner, but time stands still ... Highly recommend !

WONDERFUL book, I loved it!

By John M. Cribbins

What wonderful stories...I just loved this book.... It is great how it is written following, breakfast, lunch, dinner, at a diner. Great characters.... I just loved it....

                         Sculpture this and Sculpture that

Apollo and Daphne

Apollo and Daphne is a story from ancient Greek mythology, retold by Hellenistic and Roman authors in the form of an amorous vignette. Apollo, one of the most powerful gods and a great warrior, mocked the god of love Eros for his use of bow and arrow, saying, "What have you to do with warlike weapons? Leave them for hands worthy of them. Behold the conquest I have won by means of them over the vast serpent that stretched his poisonous body over acres of the plain! Be content with your light, child, and kindle up your flames, as you call them, where you will, but presume not to meddle with my weapons."

The insulted Eros then prepared two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. With the leaden shaft, to incite hatred, he shot the nymph Daphne and with the golden one, to incite love, he shot Apollo; both of them through the heart. Apollo was seized with love for the maiden Daphne and she, in turn, abhorred him. In fact, she spurned her many potential lovers, preferring instead woodland sports and exploring the forest. Her father, the river god Peneus, demanded that she get married and give him grandchildren. She, however, begged her father to let her remain unmarried.

Apollo continually followed her, begging her to stay, but the nymph continued her flight. They were evenly matched in the race until Eros intervened, helping Apollo gain upon Daphne. Seeing that Apollo was bound to catch her, she called upon her father, "Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger! Let me be free of this man from this moment forward!"

Peneus frightfully answered her plea, casting upon her an enchantment of great power. Daphne's arms transformed into branches as her hair became leaves; her skin then turning to bark. She stopped running as her feet became rooted to the ground and Apollo overcame her, embracing her branches. Yet, even the branches shrank away from him. Since Apollo could no longer take her as his wife, he vowed to tend her as his tree; to raid away all tempted beasts and creatures of the earth that intended to do her harm. He promised that her leaves would crown the heads of leaders and champions, decorate the weaponry of warriors, and never be claimed as another's for as long as her branches flourished. Apollo also used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to render her ever green. For this reason, the leaves of the Bay laurel tree have never known decay.

HERE'S PLEASANT POEM FOR YOU TO ENJOY................

For C.W.B.

BY Elizabeth Bishop

I.

Let us live in a lull of the long winter winds

Where the shy, silver-antlered reindeer go

On dainty hoofs with their white rabbit friends

Amidst the delicate flowering snow.

All of our thoughts will be fairer than doves.

We will live upon wedding-cake frosted with sleet.

We will build us a house from two red tablecloths

And wear scarlet mittens on both hands and feet.

II.

Let us live in the land of the whispering trees;

Alder and aspen and popular and birch;

Singing our prayers in a pale, sea-green breeze

With star-flower rosaries and moss blankets for church.

All of our dreams will be clearer than glass,

Clad in the water or sun as you wish,

We will watch the white feet of the young morning pass,

And dine upon honey and small shiny fish.

III.

Let us live where the twilight lives after dark,

In the deep drowsy blue, let us make a home.

Let us meet in the cool evening grass with a stork,

And a whistle of willow played by a gnome.

Half-asleep, half-awake, we shall hear, we shall know

The soft "Miserere" the wood-swallow tolls,

We will wander away where the wild raspberries grow,

And eat them for tea from two lily-white bowls.

Robert Frost, Family Man

Review: Lesley Lee Francis, ‘You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost’

BY: Micah Mattix

December 5, 2015 5:00 am

In a key scene in Lawrence Thompson’s almost entirely negative biography of Robert Frost, the poet and his wife, Elinor, are fighting in the kitchen when the poet goes upstairs to get their six-year-old daughter, Lesley. He points a revolver at himself and at his wife and tells Lesley to choose which parent she prefers because “Before morning, one of us will be dead.”

Thompson adds that the event, which Lesley recounted shortly after her father’s death in 1963, may have been a dream, but the anecdote fits Thompson’s narrative so well that it is regularly cited by those who want see in Frost a brooding misogynist and pathological egoist who cared little for his children’s well-being.

Jay Parini would call this account into question over 30 years later in his own biography of Frost. According to her brother Carol, Lesley, who had frequent nightmares as a child, “was dreaming, that the incident with the gun never happened.” Lesley’s own daughter, Lesley Lee Francis, tells him that “In all the years my mother and I talked about her father, there was never any mention of this scene … I don’t doubt that tensions did arise in the family and that Robert Frost was, at times, moody and difficult; but the idea that he would threaten Elinor with a gun is absurd, and the story runs against the whole tenor of the Derry years, which were quite idyllic.”

Now, in You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost, part memoir and part continued correction of the “monster myth,” as it has come to be called, Francis takes a closer look at her grandfather’s relationship with women and children. She only mentions the “revolver incident” once, but the thrust of the first part of the book is that those early years in Derry were indeed idyllic—if also difficult for a young family struggling to make ends meet.

The children (there were four of them by 1905) were schooled at home, and while Frost farmed and later taught at Pinkerton Academy, he was also heavily involved in their education, teaching them botany and astronomy, writing stories and poems for them, and responding to their writing.

Lesley’s journals show a healthy, active family in which the daily lives of parents and children were tightly interwoven. Not only did Frost ask his children to type clean copies of his poems, but as many as thirty of his early poems treated topics that his children also wrote about in their compositions. This suggests that these topics were part of a larger family conversation.

As Francis shows, family life was important to Frost’s work. While his poems are very much for adults and both playful and dark, which Francis too often ignores, she’s right to note the importance of children as characters in his work. Frost once remarked to Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren that he wanted to throw readers “back on their Mother Goose…with the play of ideas in it; how deep Mother Goose is.”

When Lesley went to Wellesley College, Frost’s letters to her show him to have been a patient, supportive, and occasionally worried father, particularly after she had failed to make the tennis team. He encourages her to spend her money wisely and tells her, though Francis does not mention this exchange, to “Keep your balance—that’s all. Your marks don’t matter.”

Many of these anecdotes of the Frosts’ early years were treated (some verbatim) in Francis’s earlier volume, Robert Frost: An Adventure in Poetry, 1900-1918. In You Come Too, however, she also looks at her father’s relationship with his wife and his eldest daughter, Lesley, after 1918 and his relationship with three women outside the family who played an important role in his life as a poet—Susan Hayes Ward, Harriet Monroe, and the poet Amy Lowell.

Susan Hayes Ward, literary editor of the New York Independent, published Frost’s “My Butterfly: An Elegy,” which started a correspondence and eventually friendship between the older Ward, her clergyman brother, and the younger Frosts. Ward was pivotal in encouraging the young poet. Frost’s correspondence with Monroe, the founder and editor of Poetry, and Lowell was at times good-naturedly combative on matters of prosody, yet it was through such interactions that Frost came to develop his ideas about what he called the “sound of sense,” which he first mentioned in a letter to John Bartlett while he was living in England.

In all of these relationships, Elinor was an equal party, frequently writing letters to both Monroe and Lowell, and participating in visits and discussions when she could, though obviously limited by the responsibilities of child-rearing. Frost loved Elinor, and Elinor was deeply committed to Frost’s poetry and willing to make whatever sacrifices were necessary for him to pursue it, even if she disliked the fame it brought. She was his first and most important critic—“the unspoken half of everything I ever wrote,” Frost once told his friends, “and both halves of many a thing.”

Elinor’s willingness to sacrifice a great deal for Frost’s art, however, came to vex Lesley. When Elinor died of a heart attack in Florida in 1938, Lesley believed it was caused by Frost’s insistence that the older couple occupy the upstairs so as not to be disturbed by the grandchildren running above them. In her anger, Lesley prevented her father from visiting his wife before she died.

Francis does not take sides in this dispute between her mother and grandfather, which is perhaps a tacit acknowledgement that Frost could be difficult and selfish as well as loving. Strong-willed but reserved, Elinor herself never expressed regret regarding her marriage to Frost or the other choices she had made.

You Come Too is a series of almost entirely positive memories, recounted in a conversational manner, with little interest in keeping to a predictable timeline. This may annoy some readers, but it does have a certain charm. The long sections on Lesley and Francis’s own schooling and professional lives are less interesting the further they stray from the poet’s own life or work.

Frost once remarked that it is best “not to have children remember you as having taught them anything in particular. May they remember you as an old friend.” Were he alive today, he would certainly be pleased to be remembered as such here.

Micah Mattix   

Micah Mattix is an assistant professor of literature at Houston Baptist University and a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and many other publications.

 A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

HERE'S SOME NICE ART FOR YOU TO LOOK AT....ENJOY!

Eastman Johnson. This rendition of “The Early Scholar,” likely Johnson’s initial oil sketch, is one of at least three versions of the composition.

What do you notice first when looking at this picture? The dark stove, its pipe, and the dull corner of the blackboard form a stark, two-dimensional, geometric motif that collapses the space of the left side of the scene. In contrast, the stepped series of student desks extends the right portion of the painting into an ambiguous distance. Pentimenti above and to the left of the benches—visible traces of previous work on the canvas—indicate that Johnson experimented with the compositional balance that the grouping provides.

In the center foreground is the young boy, the profile of his round face lost to the shadows. Far more suggestive is the long curve of his back as his body strains to fold inward—his feet raised and his pants pulling at the knee—in an effort to move his extremities as close to the stove as possible. Eastman Johnson, “The Early Scholar,” c. 1865, oil on academy board on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.157

The blue chairs II - Panayiotis Tetsis

Sonnet 90 by William Shakespeare

The poet is telling a young man not to postpone his desertion of him if that is what he intends; do it at once

Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after-loss:

Ah, do not, when my heart hath ‘scoped this sorrow,

Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

To linger out a purposed overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

When other petty griefs have done their spite

But in the onset come; so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune’s might,

And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.

                                               THE ART OF WAR............

Latin Word of the Day

Culpa: fault, blame

Example sentence:     Non est mea culpa.

Sentence meaning:    It is not my fault.

The view from our Orchestra Pit

(in case you ever wondered)

What really killed Oscar Wilde?

By STATESIDE STAFF •

115 years ago today, a great literary voice was silenced.

Oscar Wilde died November 30, 1900. He was only 46 years old.

Since then, it has been widely held that Wilde succumbed to the ravages of end-stage syphilis.

But some determined modern physicians have done some medical detective work and have developed a much different theory about what killed the great writer: an ear infection.

According to University of Michigan medical historian and PBS Newshour contributor Dr. Howard Markel, the syphilis theory originated with Wilde himself.

As an undergraduate at Oxford, Wilde sought the services of “a really well-known prostitute … named Old Jess,” Markel says. It was Wilde’s belief that he contracted syphilis that night. He was so concerned he had contracted the disease that before marrying Constance Lloyd, he underwent a medical examination, which declared him healthy.

Markel explains that at the time, the 1870s or so, they had no real understanding of what caused syphilis and no way to test for it other than through physical diagnosis.

“You could have the symptoms of syphilis and not have syphilis, there could have been other diseases. Or you could have no symptoms, because syphilis is a very sneaky disease with three main stages, and still be infected,” he says. “So that being cleared doesn’t really mean much pro or con.”

"There was no mention ever in his medical records of having any of the signs of syphilis."

Markel tells us there’s a lot of evidence stacked against Wilde’s self-diagnosis. First and foremost, neither his wife nor their two sons ever showed any symptoms of the disease.

Moreover, he says that Wilde never showed any of “the cardiovascular symptoms or the neurological symptoms” of late-stage syphilis.

Wilde was jailed for being a homosexual between 1895 and 1897. Throughout his time behind bars, Wilde was examined by physicians “at least seven times … and there was no mention ever in his medical records of having any of the signs of syphilis, whether it was neurosyphilis or any other form,” Markel says.

Those symptoms would be expected at this point in Wilde’s life, since he supposedly died of the disease only three years after his release.

Markel says Wilde did suffer from a chronic drainage from his ear, “probably a series of middle ear infections.” The condition came and went during his sentence, but came back with a vengeance in 1900.

Markel explains that the infection at that time had likely spread to Wilde’s mastoid bone, “right near the ear and right under the brain.”

“And that, particularly before antibiotics was a harbinger of bad things,” he says. “When it got to the mastoid bone you really had the risk of meningitis.”

Once the infection reaches and penetrates the meninges, the three membranes that protect the brain and spinal cord, it can cause meningoencephalitis, “and that is a terrible infection that kills you.”

According to Markel, it sounds like that’s what happened to Wilde. He describes Wilde’s last month as one filled with agony, punctuated by intense fevers, delirium, and doses of opiates and chloral hydrate, all of which fits the posthumous diagnosis.

But through it all, Markel says Wilde held on to his characteristic wit.

“Oscar Wilde was incredible. He is said to have said, ‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us must go.’ Sadly, it was Oscar Wilde who went first.”

- Ryan Grimes, Stateside

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE POP ART?

Museum of Contemporary Art execs hoping a new pop art show really pops

Lewis Lazare   ReporterChicago Business Journal

With their collective fingers crossed, executives at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago are hoping their upcoming exhibition "Pop Art Design" just might have some of the wide-ranging appeal of the MCA's 2014 blockbuster show"David Bowie Is."

The "David Bowie" show was a retrospective of the famed rock musician's life and career, focusing in particular on his creative persona. The Bowie show's appeal understandably crossed over from modern art aficionados to include a larger rock music fan base.

The new pop art show has no direct connection to the rock music industry, and according to an MCA spokeswoman, no music component in the exhibition.

But Pop Art Design does include works by some exceedingly well-known artists and furniture designers, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Charles Eames and Verner Panton, among others.

More important, the new Pop Art Show is all about an arts movement that seriously began in the 1960s and is memorable for being brash, colorful and playful. Those characteristics could certainly help whet the appetite of some who might be still deciding if Pop Art Design is for them.

The Pop Art Design show will include more than 150 pieces organized by MCA curator Michael Darling to create a series of vignettes about the pop art movement. The new show will include works first seen in a pop art exhibit organized by the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, supplemented with some significant pop art work from the MCA collection.

The Bowie show last year drew 193,000 visitors, by far the largest for any exhibit in the MCA's history. A spokeswoman for the MCA said today the museum will be happy if Pop Art Design attracts anywhere close to that total.

Pop Art Design opens to the public on Dec. 19 and runs through Mar. 27, 2016.

Peter Blake isn’t a pop artist — he’s a gentle realist

Plus: several masterpieces at Pallant House Gallery by another artist who’s hard to categorise, David Jones

Martin Gayford

Peter Blake: Portraits and People

Waddington Custot Galleries, until 30 January 2016

David Jones: Vision and Memory

Pallant House Gallery, until 21 February 2016

'Leslie and Clodagh Waddington' (1996) by Peter Blake

Painters and sculptors are highly averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if asked, Michelangelo would have indignantly repudiated the suggestion that he belonged to something called ‘the Renaissance’. Peter Blake is among the few I’ve met who owns up to being a member of a movement; he openly admits to being a pop artist. The odd thing about that candid declaration is that I’m not sure he really is one.

A delightful exhibition at the Waddington Custot Gallery presents Blake in several guises, including photorealist and fantasist, but — although one of the exhibits is an elaborate shrine in honour of Elvis Presley — ‘pop’ is not the term that comes to mind.

One reason why artists don’t like being classified is that the more those categories — baroque, impressionist — are examined, the more they fall apart. For example, Blake has genuinely ‘pop’ tastes in one sense: he is a fan of rock’n’roll — indeed famously created an album cover for the Beatles. But there is none of the irony of an Andy Warhol about his work, or the intellectual distance of Richard Hamilton. He comes across partly as a gentle realist, and partly as a romantic with a love of eccentric outsiders.

One half of the exhibition is made up of portraits, among them a fine one of Leslie Waddington, founder of the gallery, whose death was announced this week. Blake makes no secret of the fact that these are based on photographs, which he traces. Such a procedure has been common for centuries, but a superstitious feeling lingers that it is somehow ‘cheating’ to use a camera to help make a painting. But what Blake is doing is far more subtle than simply copying a photograph. His translation of the original image into paint is delicate and subtle — and sometimes requires an extraordinary amount of time.

Blake is renowned for continuing to exhibit certain pictures as ‘works in progress’ for decades (one in this exhibition was begun ‘c.1980’). If he can be very slow, however, Blake — now 83 — can also be surprisingly quick. Many of the exhibits in this show date from this year.

Among them is a series of new watercolours entitled ‘Tatooed Men & Women’ (see p33). They all have everyday faces, presumably derived again from photographs, but emblazoned on their skin is a whimsical phantasmagoria. One has a full crucifixion on his chest, plus the word ‘Mother’; a woman has portrayals of princes Harry and William across her naked breasts. These hark back to Blake’s long-standing love of fairground entertainers and what you might call contemporary folk art. So, too, does a series, still ‘in progress’, depicting fantastic wrestlers, each with a fighting pseudonym — ‘Considerate Boy’, ‘Princess Perfect’, written beneath their picture and a characteristic costume. Princess Perfect wears a crown to fight.

David Jones, subject of a retrospective exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, is also hard to place in any category. That’s about the only thing he has in common with Blake, except for origins on the south bank of the Thames. Blake hails from Dartford; Jones (1895–1974) was brought up in Brockley, the child of an Anglo-Italian mother and Welsh father.

The mixture in his life and work of medievalism, poetry, piety and modernism was perhaps — like some chemical compounds — inherently unstable. A poet and writer — T.S. Eliot described his book In Parenthesis, based on his experiences in the first world war, as a ‘work of genius’ — Jones was absorbed in a mental world of Arthurian legends and Celtic literature. At Camberwell School of Art he had absorbed the influences of Cézanne and later Picasso and Derain. In his 20s, he converted to Catholicism, and lived for a while in craft communities presided over by Eric Gill.

In Jones’s most dense images, such as ‘Aphrodite in Aulis’ (1940–1), there is a chaotic thicket of symbolic bric-à-brac in which you can make out a bulbous, naked goddess, soldiers from the first world war and fragments of Roman architecture. His wood engravings on religious themes, though more refined than Gill’s, still have a touch of art deco Romanesque about them.

Jones did much better when tethered to the real world by a subject such as a portrait or a landscape seen through a window (a favourite theme perhaps because Jones suffered from agoraphobia). Even then the results could be both muddy — as watercolour — and muddled; but when it came off the effect could be ecstatic.

In ‘Flora in Calyx-Light’ (1950) everything — not just glass but wood and stone — becomes translucent. Ostensibly this is a picture of three glass vessels filled with flowers on a tabletop in front of a window. But it’s simultaneously a mystic vision in which these solid objects appear to melt in front of your eyes.

This painting almost but not quite dissolves into a shimmering cobweb of fragments: leaves, tendrils, petals, reflections.

In a curious fashion this waywardly backward-looking man was completely of his time: ‘Flora in Calyx-Light’ is about the Holy Grail, but also close to Jackson Pollock. A teacher at Camberwell once announced, addressing the whole class, ‘You see, Jones leaves out everything — except the magic.’ That’s true of his masterpieces, and despite his inner complexities and contradictions there were quite a few of those.

The Observation and Appreciation of Architecture

 Stunning Midcentury Architecture In Minnesota You Haven't Seen Before

 People often don't recognize what they have in their own backyards, according to Larry Millett, author of Minnesota Modern, and that goes double for Midcentury architecture in Minnesota and the Twin Cities. According to the former St. Paul Pioneer Pressarchitecture critic, it's a style that played a dominant role in defining the look of the region's cities and suburbs, but the canon of great works goes well beyond big names such as Ralph Rapson, or world-renowned projects such as Marcel Breuer's Saint John's Abbey Church.

"The modernism of Minnesota was certainly more buttoned-down than what you'd find on California or the coasts," he says, "but it's all over the houses and churches of the region, the outstanding building types of its era."

While he was compiling buildings and stories for Minnesota Modern, which came out last month, Millett made sure to cover the entire range of building types and typologies, from the private homes to theaters, school and office buildings, to provide a look at how this universal style was given local context. While many high-profile architects such as Wright and Saarinen left a legacy of great projects in the area, local designers and firms, from Leonard Parker and Donald Haarstick to the prolific Thorshov and Cerny, added their own distinctive spins to the style between the postwar era and the mid '60s. The region also served as a center for daring religious architecture. At a time many considered buttoned-down, congregations across Minneapolis were commissioning inventive churches, according to Millett, "absolutely unlike anything you'd see elsewhere." These structures serve as some of the many arguments Minnesota Modernmakes advancing the notion that this region was a fertile ground for architectural creativity during an era of experimentation.

"I hope people will have an appreciation for the value for all this, because preservation is so important," he says. "Right now, it's hard to identify the main idea in contemporary architecture. During the modern era, people strove to create a new image and redesign old building types. There was a belief that architecture and design could build a better world. That was pretty fun."

The Elam House is an exceptionally large example of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian style. Its boldest feature is an upthrust roof that soars over a glass-walled living room. Photograph by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari

The June Halvorson Alworth House (Marcel Breuer, 1955) seems to leap off the hillside toward the lake. The lower-level family room, to the right, was added by the current owners, Neal and Iola Vanstrom. Photograph by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari)

With its grand portico, the Northwestern National Life Insurance Building in Minneapolis by Minoru Yamasaki has often been likened to a Greek temple. Completed in 1964, it hovers somewhere between authentic grandeur and high kitsch. Credit: Photograph by Pete Sieger.

St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Edina, designed by Ralph Rapson and completed in 1956, features a centralized worship space, with the congregation arrayed around the altar. Photograph by George Winterowd, College of Design Collection, Digital Content Library, University of Minnesota

IBM Building, Rochester, Minnesota, 1958, designed by Eero Saarinen. The two-toned, cobalt blue curtain walls were less than a half-inch thick, the thinnest ever up to that time. According to Millett, the modular structure is "one of the 

great midcentury palaces in Minnesota," but sadly, one that few people get to visit or truly experience. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Balthazar Korab Archive (LC-DIG-krb-00479).

Architect Donald Haarstick's two-story brick-and-steel home (St. Paul, 1955) stands behind a sinuous brick fence that sweeps around the house like a colorful ribbon and shelters a side terrace. Millett says it was incredibly well built, a "beast" of I-beams and concrete. Photograph by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari

The Experimental City project, proposed in the last '50s, conjured up many improbable ideas, including the dream of a vast, climate-controlled dome that would protect residents from Minnesota's climatic extremes. Credit: Minnesota Experimental City Authority Records, Minnesota Historical Society

Designed by Elizabeth and Winston Close, the Lippincott House—with its flat roof, unadorned walls, and ribbons of windows—introduced the international Style of Midcentury Modernism to Minnesota in 1938. Another early modernist icon, Frank Lloyd Wright's Willey House, is just across the street. Photograph by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari

The Terrace's multilevel lobby had the feel of an especially large and elegant midcentury home. Amenities included built-in seating, a fireplace, and plenty of ashtrays. Millett calls this movie theater, built in Robbinsdale in 1950, a "real knockout," but its irregular layout has challenged groups trying to preserve and repurpose the space, which closed down in 1999. Credit: Liebenberg and Kaplan Papers (N36), Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis

At dusk, the Richard and Dorothy Babcock House (Golden Valley, 1961) has a soft, inviting glow. The narrow windows on the brick-clad lower floor contrast with the much larger windows on the main level, which is sheathed in bleached redwood siding. (Credit: Photograph by Pete Sieger.)

                I LOVE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS FROM FILM

          New York subway commuters at rush hour, 1945, a photo by Stanley Kubrick

Lower Manhattan skyline at night, seen from Staten Island Ferry or Governor’s Island 1938 

AND HERE'S SOME ANIMALS FOR YOU................... 

 

BLOGLAPEDIA’S BLOGS

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture for the blog of it

http://architecturefortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

THE ARTS

Art for the Blog of It

http://artfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

Art for the Pop of it

http://artforthepopofit.blogspot.com/

Photography for the blog of it

http://photographyfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

Music for the Blog of it

http://musicfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

Sculpture this and Sculpture that

http://sculpturethisandsculpturethat.blogspot.com/

The art of War (Propaganda art through the ages)

http://theartofwarcleverhuh.blogspot.com/

Album Art (Photographic arts)

http://albumartsocheesyitsgood.blogspot.com/

Pulp Fiction Trash (The art of Pulp Fiction covers)

http://pulpfictiontrash.blogspot.com/

Admit it, you want to Read this Book (The art of Pulp Fiction covers)

http://goaheadadmitityouwanttoread.blogspot.com/

FILM

The Godfather Trilogy BlogSpot

http://thegodfathertrilogyblogspot.blogspot.com/

On the Waterfront: The Making of a great American Film

http://onthewaterfrontthefilm.blogspot.com/

FOOD

Absolutely blogalicious

http://absolutelyblogalicious.blogspot.com/

The Wee Book of Irish Recipes (Book support site)

http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/

Good chowda (New England foods)

http://goodchowda.blogspot.com/

Old New England Recipes (Book support site)

http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com/

And I Love Clams (New England foods)

http://andiloveclams.blogspot.com/

In Praise of the Rhode Island Wiener (New England foods)

http://inpraiseoftherhodeislandwiener.blogspot.com/

Wicked Cool New England Recipes (New England foods)

http://whickedcoolnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

Old New England Recipes (New England foods)

http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

FOSTER CARE

Foster Care new and Updates

http://www.facebook.com/FosterCareNews

Aging out of the system

http://agingoutofthesystem.blogspot.com/

Murder, Death and Abuse in the Foster Care system

http://murderdeathandabuseinfostercare.blogspot.com/

Angel and Saints in the Foster Care System

http://angelsandsaintsinthefostercare.blogspot.com/

The Foster Children’s Blogs

http://fosterchildrensblog.blogspot.com/

Foster Care Legislation

http://fostercarelegislation.blogspot.com/

The Foster Children’s Bill of Right

http://thefosterchildrensbillofrights.blogspot.com/

Foster Kids own Story

http://fosterkidsownstory.blogspot.com/

The Adventures of Foster Kid.

http://theadventuresoffosterkid.blogspot.com/

HEALTH

Me vs. Diabetes (Diabetes education site)

http://mevsdiabetes-bloglapedia.blogspot.com/

HISTORY

The Quotable Helen Keller

http://thequotablehelenkeller.blogspot.com/

Teddy Roosevelt's Letters to his children (Book support site)

http://teddyrooseveltsletterstohischildren.blogspot.com/

The Quotable Machiavelli (Book support site)

http://thequotablemachiavelli.blogspot.com/

HUMOR

Whatever you do, don't laugh

http://whateveryoudodontlaugh.blogspot.com/

The Quotable Grouch Marx

http://thequotablegrouchmarx.blogspot.com/

IRISH-AMERICANA

A Big Blog of Irish Literature

http://abigblogofirishliterature.blogspot.com/

The Wee Blog of Irish Jokes (Book support blog)

http://theweeblogofirishjokes.blogspot.com/

The Wee Blog of Irish Recipes

http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/

The Irish American Gangster

http://irishamericangangsters.blogspot.com

The Irish in their Own Words

http://theirishintheirownwords.blogspot.com/

When Washington Was Irish

http://whenwashingtonwasirish.blogspot.com/

The Wee Book of Irish Recipes (Book support site)

http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/

LITERATURE

Following Fitzgerald

http://followingfitzgerald.blogspot.com/

Shakespeare

http://shakespeareinamericanenglish.blogspot.com/

The Blogable Robert Frost

http://theblogablerobertfrost.blogspot.com/

Charles Dickens

http://charlesdickensfan.blogspot.com/

The Beat Poets of the Forever Generation

http://thebeatspoetsoftheforevergenera.blogspot.com/

Holden Caulfield Blog Spot

http://holdencaulfieldblogspot.blogspot.com/

The Quotable Oscar Wilde

http://thequotableoscarwilde.blogspot.com/

NEW ENGLAND BLOGS

The Quotable Thoreau

http://thequotablethenrydavidthoreau.blogspot.com/

Old New England Recipes

http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

Wicked Cool New England Recipes

http://whickedcoolnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

Emerson

http://emersonsaidit.blogspot.com/

The New England Mafia

http://thenewenglandmafia.blogspot.com/

And I Love Clams

http://andiloveclams.blogspot.com/

In Praise of the Rhode Island Wiener

http://inpraiseoftherhodeislandwiener.blogspot.com/

Watch Hill

http://watchhillwesterly.blogspot.com/

York Beach

http://yorkbeachfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

The Connecticut History Blog

http://connecticuthistory.blogspot.com/

The Connecticut Irish

http://theconnecticutirish.blogspot.com/

Good chowda

http://goodchowda.blogspot.com/

NOSTALGIA

God, How I hated the 70s

http://godhowihatedthe70s.blogspot.com/

Child of the Sixties Forever

http://childofthesixtiesforeverandever.blogspot.com/

The Kennedy’s in the 60’s

http://thekennedysinthe60s.blogspot.com/

Music of the Sixties Forever

http://musicofthesixtiesforever.blogspot.com/

Elvis and Nixon at the White House (Book support site)

http://elvisandnixonatthewhitehouse.blogspot.com/

Beatles Fan Forever

http://beatlesfanforever.blogspot.com/

Year One, 1955

http://yearone1955.blogspot.com/

Robert Kennedy in His Own Words

http://rfkinhisownwords.blogspot.com/

The 1980s were fun

http://the1980swereokayactually.blogspot.com/

The 1990s. The last decade.

http://1990sthelastdecade.blogspot.com/

ORGANIZED CRIME

The Russian Mafia

http://russianmafiagangster.blogspot.com/

The American Jewish Gangster

http://theamericanjewishgangster.blogspot.com/

The Mob in Hollywood

http://themobinhollywood.blogspot.com/

We Only Kill Each Other

http://weonlykilleachother.blogspot.com/

Early Gangsters of New York City

http://earlygangstersofnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/

Al Capone: Biography of a self-made Man

http://alcaponethebiographyofaselfmademan.blogspot.com/

The Life and World of Al Capone

http://thelifeandworldofalcapone.blogspot.com/

The Salerno Report

http://salernoreportmafiaandurderjohnkennedy.blogspot.com/

Guns and Glamour

http://gunsandglamourthechicagomobahistory.blogspot.com/

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

http://thesaintvalentinesdaymassacre.blogspot.com/

Mob Testimony

http://mobtestimony.blogspot.com/

Recipes we would Die For

http://recipeswewoulddiefor.blogspot.com/

The Prohibition in Pictures

http://theprohibitioninpictures.blogspot.com/

The Mob in Pictures

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The Mob in Vegas

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The Irish American Gangster

http://irishamericangangsters.blogspot.com

Roger Touhy Gangster

http://rogertouhygangsters.blogspot.com/

Chicago’s Mob Bosses

http://chicagosmobbossesfromaccardoto.blogspot.com/

Chicago Gang Land: It Happened Here

http://chicagoganglandithappenedhere.blogspot.com/

Whacked: One Hundred years of Murder in Gangland

http://whackedonehundredyearsmurderand.blogspot.com/

The Mob Across America

http://themobacrossamerica.blogspot.com/

Mob Cops, Lawyers and Front Men

http://mobcopslawyersandinformantsand.blogspot.com/

Shooting the Mob: Dutch Schultz

http://shootingthemobdutchschultz.blogspot.com/

Bugsy& His Flamingo: The Testimony of Virginia Hill

http://bugsyandvirginiahill.blogspot.com/

After Valachi. Hearings before the US Senate on Organized Crime

http://aftervalachi.blogspot.com/

Mob Buster: Report of Special Agent Virgil Peterson to the Kefauver Committee (Book support site)

http://virgilpetersonmobbuster.blogspot.com/

The US Government’s Timeline of Organized Crime (Book support site)

http://timelineoforganizedcrime.blogspot.com/

The Kefauver Organized Crime Hearings (Book support site)

http://thekefauverorganizedcrimehearings.blogspot.com/

Joe Valachi's testimony on the Mafia (Book support site)

http://joevalachistestimonyonthemafia.blogspot.com/

Mobsters in the News

http://mobstersinthenews.blogspot.com/

Shooting the Mob: Dead Mobsters (Book support site)

http://deadmobsters.blogspot.com/

The Stolen Years Full Text (Roger Touhy)

http://thestolenyearsfulltext.blogspot.com/

Mobsters in Black and White

http://mobstersinblackandwhite.blogspot.com/

Mafia Gangsters, Wiseguys and Goodfellas

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Whacked: One Hundred Years of Murder and Mayhem in the Chicago Mob (Book support site)

http://whackedonehundredyearsmurderand.blogspot.com/

Gangland Gaslight: The Killing of Rosy Rosenthal (Book support site)

http://ganglandgaslightrosyrosenthal.blogspot.com/

The Best of the Mob Files Series (Book support site)

http://thebestofthemobfilesseries.blogspot.com/

PHILOSOPHY

It’s All Greek Mythology to me

http://itsallgreekmythologytome.blogspot.com/

PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologically Relevant

http://psychologicallyrelevant.blogspot.com/

SNOBBERY

The Rarifieid Tribe

http://therarifiedtribe.blogspot.com/

Perfect Behavior

http://perfectbehavior.blogspot.com/

TRAVEL

The Upscale Traveler

http://theupscaletraveler.blogspot.com/

TRIVIA

The Mish Mosh Blog

http://theupscaletraveler.blogspot.com/

WASHINGTON DC

DC Behind the Monuments

http://dcbehindthemonuments.blogspot.com/

Washington Oddities

http://washingtonoddities.blogspot.com/

When Washington Was Irish

http://whenwashingtonwasirish.blogspot.com/

FROM LLR BOOKS. COM

Litchfield Literary Books. A really small company run by writers.

AMERICAN HISTORY

The Day Nixon Met Elvis

Paperback 46 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Day-Nixon-Met-elvis/

Theodore Roosevelt: Letters to his Children. 1903-1918

Paperback 194 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Theodore-Roosevelt-Letters-Children-1903-1918/dp/

THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND CIVILIZATIONS

The Works of Horace

Paperback 174 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Works-Horace-Richard-Willoughby/

The Quotable Greeks

Paperback 234 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Greeks-Richard-W-Willoughby

The Quotable Epictetus

Paperback 142 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Epictetus-Golden-Sayings

Quo Vadis: A narrative of the time of Nero

Paperback 420 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quo-Vadis-Narrative-Time-Nero

CHILDRENS BOOKS

The Porchless Pumpkin: A Halloween Story for Children

A Halloween play for young children. By consent of the author, this play may be performed, at no charge, by educational institutions, neighborhood organizations and other not-for-profit-organizations.

A fun story with a moral

“I believe that Denny O'Day is an American treasure and this little book proves it. Jack is a pumpkin who happens to be very small, by pumpkins standards and as a result he goes unbought in the pumpkin patch on Halloween eve, but at the last moment he is given his chance to prove that just because you're small doesn't mean you can't be brave. Here is the point that I found so wonderful, the book stresses that while size doesn't matter when it comes to courage...ITS OKAY TO BE SCARED....as well. I think children need to hear that, that's its okay to be unsure because life is a ongoing lesson isn't it?”

Paperback: 42 pages

http://www.amazon.com/OLANTERN-PORCHLESS-PUMPKIN-Halloween-Children

It's Not All Right to be a Foster Kid....no matter what they tell you: Tweet the books contents

Paperback 94 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Right-Foster-Kid-no-matter-what

From the Author

I spent my childhood, from age seven through seventeen, in foster care.  Over the course of those ten years, many decent, well-meaning, and concerned people told me, "It's okay to be foster kid."

In saying that, those very good people meant to encourage me, and I appreciated their kindness then, and all these many decades later, I still appreciate their good intentions. But as I was tossed around the foster care system, it began to dawn on me that they were wrong.  It was not all right to be a foster kid.

During my time in the system, I was bounced every eighteen months from three foster homes to an orphanage to a boy's school and to a group home before I left on my own accord at age seventeen.

In the course of my stay in foster care, I was severely beaten in two homes by my "care givers" and separated from my four siblings who were also in care, sometimes only blocks away from where I was living.

I left the system rather than to wait to age out, although the effects of leaving the system without any family, means, or safety net of any kind, were the same as if I had aged out. I lived in poverty for the first part of my life, dropped out of high school, and had continuous problems with the law.

 Today, almost nothing about foster care has changed.  Exactly what happened to me is happening to some other child, somewhere in America, right now.  The system, corrupt, bloated, and inefficient, goes on, unchanging and secretive.

Something has gone wrong in a system that was originally a compassionate social policy built to improve lives but is now a definitive cause in ruining lives.  Due to gross negligence, mismanagement, apathy, and greed, mostly what the foster care system builds are dangerous consequences. Truly, foster care has become our epic national disgrace and a nightmare for those of us who have lived through it.

Yet there is a suspicion among some Americans that foster care costs too much, undermines the work ethic, and is at odds with a satisfying life.  Others see foster care as a part of the welfare system, as legal plunder of the public treasuries.

 None of that is true; in fact, all that sort of thinking does is to blame the victims.  There is not a single child in the system who wants to be there or asked to be there.  Foster kids are in foster care because they had nowhere else to go.  It's that simple.  And believe me, if those kids could get out of the system and be reunited with their parents and lead normal, healthy lives, they would. And if foster care is a sort of legal plunder of the public treasuries, it's not the kids in the system who are doing the plundering.

 We need to end this needless suffering.  We need to end it because it is morally and ethically wrong and because the generations to come will not judge us on the might of our armed forces or our technological advancements or on our fabulous wealth.

 Rather, they will judge us, I am certain, on our compassion for those who are friendless, on our decency to those who have nothing and on our efforts, successful or not, to make our nation and our world a better place.  And if we cannot accomplish those things in the short time allotted to us, then let them say of us "at least they tried."

You can change the tragedy of foster care and here's how to do it.  We have created this book so that almost all of it can be tweeted out by you to the world.  You have the power to improve the lives of those in our society who are least able to defend themselves.  All you need is the will to do it.

 If the American people, as good, decent and generous as they are, knew what was going on in foster care, in their name and with their money, they would stop it.  But, generally speaking, although the public has a vague notion that foster care is a mess, they don't have the complete picture. They are not aware of the human, economic and social cost that the mismanagement of the foster care system puts on our nation.

By tweeting the facts laid out in this work, you can help to change all of that.  You can make a difference.  You can change things for the better.

We can always change the future for a foster kid; to make it better ...you have the power to do that. Speak up (or tweet out) because it's your country.  Don't depend on the "The other guy" to speak up for these kids, because you are the other guy.

We cannot build a future for foster children, but we can build foster children for the future and the time to start that change is today.

No time to say Goodbye: Memoirs of a life in foster 

Paperbook 440 Books

http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir

  

BOOKS ABOUT FILM

On the Waterfront: The Making of a Great American Film

Paperback: 416 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Waterfront-Making-Great-American-Film/

BOOKS ABOUT GHOSTS AND THE SUPERNATUAL

Scotish Ghost Stories

Paperback 186 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Scottish-Ghost-Stories-Elliott-ODonell

HUMOR BOOKS

The Book of funny odd and interesting things people say

Paperback: 278 pages

http://www.amazon.com/book-funny-interesting-things-people

The Wee Book of Irish Jokes

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Series-Irish-Jokes-ebook

Perfect Behavior: A guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises

http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Behavior-Ladies-Gentlemen-Social

BOOKS ABOUT THE 1960s

You Don’t Need a Weatherman. Underground 1969

Paperback 122 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Weatherman-Notes-Weatherman-Underground-1969

Baby Boomers Guide to the Beatles Songs of the Sixties

Paperback

http://www.amazon.com/Boomers-Guide-Beatles-Songs-Sixties/

Baby Boomers Guide to Songs of the 1960s

http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Boomers-Guide-Songs-1960s

IRISH- AMERICANA

The Connecticut Irish

Paper back 140 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Irish-Catherine-F-Connolly

 The Wee Book of Irish Jokes

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Series-Irish-Jokes-ebook/

The Wee Book of Irish Recipes 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Wee-Book-Irish-Recipes/

 

 The Wee Book of the American-Irish Gangsters

  http://www.amazon.com/The-Wee-Book-Irish-American-Gangsters/

 The Wee book of Irish Blessings... 

http://www.amazon.com/Series-Blessing-Proverbs-Toasts-ebook/

The Wee Book of the American Irish in Their Own Words

http://www.amazon.com/Book-American-Irish-Their-Words/

Everything you need to know about St. Patrick

Paperback 26 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Need-About-Saint-Patrick

A Reading Book in Ancient Irish History

Paperback 147pages

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Book-Ancient-Irish-History

The Book of Things Irish

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Things-Irish-William-Tuohy/

Poets and Dreamer; Stories translated from the Irish

Paperback 158 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Poets-Dreamers-Stories-Translated-Irish/

The History of the Great Irish Famine: Abridged and Illustrated

Paperback 356 pages

http://www.amazon.com/History-Great-Irish-Famine-Illustrated/

BOOKS ABOUT NEW ENGLAND

The New England Mafia

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-England-Mafia-ebook/

Wicked Good New England Recipes

http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Good-New-England-Recipes/

The Connecticut Irish

Paper back 140 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Irish-Catherine-F-Connolly

The Twenty-Fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers

Paperback 64 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Fifth-Regiment-Connecticut-Volunteers-Rebellion

The Life of James Mars

Paperback 54 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Life-James-Mars-Slave-Connecticut

Stories of Colonial Connecticut

Paperback 116 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Colonial-Connnecticut-Caroline-Clifford

What they Say in Old New England

Paperback 194 pages

http://www.amazon.com/What-they-say-New-England/

BOOK ABOUT ORGANIZED CRIME

Chicago Organized Crime

Chicago-Mob-Bosses

http://www.amazon.com/Chicagos-Mob-Bosses-Accardo-ebook

The Mob Files: It Happened Here: Places of Note in Chicago gangland 1900-2000

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-1900-2000-ebook

An Illustrated Chronological History of the Chicago Mob. Time Line 1837-2000

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Chronological-History-Chicago-1837-2000/

Mob Buster: Report of Special Agent Virgil Peterson to the Kefauver Committee

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Buster-Peterson-Committee-ebook/

The Mob Files. Guns and Glamour: The Chicago Mob. A History. 1900-2000

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Guns-Glamour-ebook/

Shooting the Mob: Organized crime in photos. Crime Boss Tony Accardo

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-photos-Accardo/

Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photos: The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-Valentines-Massacre

The Life and World of Al Capone in Photos

http://www.amazon.com/Life-World-Al-Capone

AL CAPONE: The Biography of a Self-Made Man.: Revised from the 0riginal 1930 edition.Over 200 new photographs

Paperback: 340 pages

http://www.amazon.com/CAPONE-Biography-Self-Made-Over-photographs

Whacked. One Hundred Years Murder and Mayhem in the Chicago Outfit

Paperback: 172 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Whacked-Hundred-Murder-Mayhem-Chicago/

Las Vegas Organized Crime

The Mob in Vegas

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Vegas-ebook

Bugsy & His Flamingo: The Testimony of Virginia Hill

http://www.amazon.com/Bugsy-His-Flamingo-Testimony-Virginia/

Testimony by Mobsters Lewis McWillie, Joseph Campisi and Irwin Weiner (The Mob Files Series)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Assassination-Ruby-Testimony-ebook

Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime.

Paperback 264 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Rattling-Cup-Chicago-Crime-Abridged

The Life and Times of Terrible Tommy O’Connor.

Paperback 94 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Terrible-Tommy-OConnor

The Mob, Sam Giancana and the overthrow of the Black Policy Racket in Chicago

Paperback 200 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Giancana-ovethrow-Policy-Rackets-Chicago

When Capone’s Mob Murdered Roger Touhy. In Photos

Paperback 234 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Capones-Murdered-Roger-Touhy-photos

Organized Crime in Hollywood

The Mob in Hollywood

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Hollywood-ebook/

The Bioff Scandal

Paperback 54 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Bioff-Scandal-Shakedown-Hollywood-Studios

Organized Crime in New York

Joe Pistone’s war on the mafia

http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Petrosinos-War-Mafia-Files/

Mob Testimony: Joe Pistone, Michael Scars DiLeonardo, Angelo Lonardo and others

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Testimony-DiLeonardo-testimony-Undercover/

The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-York-Mafia-Origins

The New York Mob: The Bosses

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-York-Mob-Bosses/

Organized Crime 25 Years after Valachi. Hearings before the US Senate

http://www.amazon.com/Organized-Crime-Valachi-Hearings-ebook

Shooting the mob: Dutch Schultz

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-Photographs-Schultz

Gangland Gaslight: The Killing of Rosy Rosenthal. (Illustrated)

http://www.amazon.com/Gangland-Gaslight-Killing-Rosenthal-Illustrated/

Early Street Gangs and Gangsters of New York City

Paperback 382 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Early-Street-Gangs-Gangsters-York

THE RUSSIAN MOBS

The Russian Mafia in America

http://www.amazon.com/The-Russian-Mafia-America-ebook/

The Threat of Russian Organzied Crime

Paperback 192 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Threat-Russian-Organized-Crime-photographs-ebook

Organized Crime/General

Best of Mob Stories

http://www.amazon.com/Files-Series-Illustrated-Articles-Organized-Crime/

Best of Mob Stories Part 2

http://www.amazon.com/Series-Illustrated-Articles-Organized-ebook/

Illustrated-Book-Prohibition-Gangsters

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Prohibition-Gangsters-ebook

Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobsters in Photos

http://www.amazon.com/Recipes-For-Meals-Mobsters-Photos

More Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobs

http://www.amazon.com/More-Recipes-Meals-Mobsters-Photos

The New England Mafia

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-England-Mafia-ebook

Shooting the mob. Organized crime in photos. Dead Mobsters, Gangsters and Hoods.

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-mob-Organized-photos-Mobsters-Gangsters/

The Salerno Report: The Mafia and the Murder of President John F. Kennedy

http://www.amazon.com/The-Salerno-Report-President-ebook/

The Mob Files: Mob Wars. "We only kill each other"

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-Wars-other/

The Mob across America

http://www.amazon.com/The-Files-Across-America-ebook/

The US Government’s Time Line of Organzied Crime 1920-1987

http://www.amazon.com/GOVERNMENTS-ORGANIZED-1920-1987-Illustrated-ebook/

Early Street Gangs and Gangsters of New York City: 1800-1919. Illustrated

http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-1800-1919-Illustrated-Street-ebook/

The Mob Files: Mob Cops, Lawyers and Informants and Fronts

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-Informants-ebook/

Gangster Quotes: Mobsters in their own words. Illustrated

Paperback: 128 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-Quotes-Mobsters-words-Illustrated/

The Book of American-Jewish Gangsters: A Pictorial History.

Paperback: 436 pages

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-American-Jewish-Gangsters-Pictorial/

The Mob and the Kennedy Assassination

Paperback 414 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Kennedy-Assassination-Ruby-Testimony-Mobsters

BOOKS ABOUT THE OLD WEST

The Last Outlaw: The story of Cole Younger, by Himself

Paperback 152 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Outlaw-Story-Younger-Himself

BOOKS ON PHOTOGRAPHY

Chicago: A photographic essay.

 Paperback: 200 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Photographic-Essay-William-Thomas

STAGE PLAYS

Boomers on a train: A ten minute play

Paperback 22 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Boomers-train-ten-minute-Play-ebook

Four Short Plays

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Short-Plays-William-Tuohy

Four More Short Plays

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Short-Plays-William-Tuohy/

High and Goodbye: Everybody gets the Timothy Leary they deserve. A full length play

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/High-Goodbye-Everybody-Timothy-deserve

Cyberdate. An Everyday Love Story about Everyday People

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Cyberdate-Everyday-Story-People-ebook/

The Dutchman's Soliloquy: A one Act Play based on the factual last words of Gangster Dutch Schultz.

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Dutchmans-Soliloquy-factual-Gangster-Schultz/

Fishbowling on The Last Words of Dutch Schultz: Or William S. Burroughs intersects with Dutch Schultz

Print Length: 57 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Fishbowling-Last-Words-Dutch-Schultz-ebook/

American Shakespeare: August Wilson in his own words. A One Act Play

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/American-Shakespeare-August-Wilson-ebook

She Stoops to Conquer

http://www.amazon.com/She-Stoops-Conquer-Oliver-Goldsmith/

The Seven Deadly Sins of Gilligan’s Island: A ten minute play

Print Length: 14 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Deadly-Gilligans-Island-minute-ebook/

BOOKS ABOUT VIRGINIA

OUT OF CONTROL: An Informal History of the Fairfax County Police

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Informal-History-Fairfax-Police/

McLean Virginia. A short informal history

http://www.amazon.com/McLean-Virginia-Short-Informal-History/

THE QUOTABLE SERIES

The Quotable Emerson: Life lessons from the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Over 300 quotes

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Emerson-lessons-quotes

The Quotable John F. Kennedy

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-John-F-Kennedy/

The Quotable Oscar Wilde

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Oscar-Wilde-lessons/

The Quotable Machiavelli

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Machiavelli-Richard-Thayer/

The Quotable Confucius: Life Lesson from the Chinese Master

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Confucius-Lesson-Chinese/

The Quotable Henry David Thoreau

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Henry-Thoreau-Quotables-ebook

The Quotable Robert F. Kennedy

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Robert-F-Kennedy-Illustrated/

The Quotable Writer: Writers on the Writers Life

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Writer-Quotables-ebook

The words of Walt Whitman: An American Poet

Paperback: 162 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Words-Walt-Whitman-American-Poet

Gangster Quotes: Mobsters in their own words. Illustrated

Paperback: 128 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-Quotes-Mobsters-words-Illustrated/

The Quotable Popes

Paperback 66 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Popes-Maria-Conasenti

The Quotable Kahlil Gibran with Artwork from Kahlil Gibran

Paperback 52 pages

Kahlil Gibran, an artist, poet, and writer was born on January 6, 1883 n the north of modern-day Lebanon and in what was then part of Ottoman Empire. He had no formal schooling in Lebanon. In 1895, the family immigrated to the United States when Kahlil was a young man and settled in South Boston. Gibran enrolled in an art school and was soon a member of the avant-garde community and became especially close to Boston artist, photographer, and publisher Fred Holland Day who encouraged and supported Gibran’s creative projects. An accomplished artist in drawing and watercolor, Kahlil attended art school in Paris from 1908 to 1910, pursuing a symbolist and romantic style. He held his first art exhibition of his drawings in 1904 in Boston, at Day's studio. It was at this exhibition, that Gibran met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, who ten years his senior. The two formed an important friendship and love affair that lasted the rest of Gibran’s short life. Haskell influenced every aspect of Gibran’s personal life and career. She became his editor when he began to write and ushered his first book into publication in 1918, The Madman, a slim volume of aphorisms and parables written in biblical cadence somewhere between poetry and prose. Gibran died in New York City on April 10, 1931, at the age of 48 from cirrhosis of the liver and tuberculosis.

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Kahlil-Gibran-artwork/

The Quotable Dorothy Parker

Paperback 86 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Dorothy-Parker-Proxy-Algan/

The Quotable Machiavelli

Paperback 36 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Machiavelli-Richard-L-Thayer

The Quotable Greeks

Paperback 230 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Greeks-Richard-W-Willoughby

The Quotabe Oscar Wilde

Paperback 24 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Oscar-Wilde-lessons-words/

The Quotable Helen Keller

Paperback 66 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Helen-Keller-Richard-Willoughby

The Art of War: Sun Tzu

Paperback 60 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Confucius-Lesson-Chinese-Quotables-ebook

The Quotable Shakespeare

Paperback 54 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Shakespeare-Richard-W-Willoughby

The Quotable Gorucho Marx

Paperback 46 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Groucho-Marx-Devon-Alexander