Here's a book as much about the author and the author's family as it is about the murdered woman.
Janine Latus, a provocatively good writer, an expert at the understatement, tell story of her family and her sister Amy, who went missing in the spring of 2002 and was found dead. Amy died at the hands of her lover at the time, a n'er-do-well she met on the Internet.
Amy was mistreated and abused by this man she dared to love. She often phoned her sister Janine with the problems with this man and Janine counseled her.
Only as the reader continues along the reader discovers that Janine has male issues of her own and they are very shocking. To all the world and to her troubled sister, Janine looked to have it all. She was married to a doctor, did not want for material things, had a beautiful home and a happening career as a journalist.
Latus doesn't shock the reader with the snippets of her life with a very weird and perverted man, no matter what the outside world saw. Instead the reader is guided through her young life in a rollicking family headed by a real nut case for a father. Janine, and Amy's, father was a bit of a pervert, spanking his daughters until they were well into their teens, talking trash and saying things that a father should never say to his daughters. The reader moves on to Janine's adulthood, her struggle to complete her education, obtain a college and extended degree, her life in a ghetto.
In fact so much of the book is about Janine Latus that I was left wondering when the murdered woman would merit a mention. Which is not to say Janine's story was not a compelling one but potential readers should know that Amy 's story is but a small part of the story.
Janine's husband, to my shock, was a genuine asshole of the highest order. He monitored everything Janine put in her mouth, he weighed her every day, he pressured her into having two breast augmentations. The most humiliating of all was how he demanded that she wear very short skirts, tight tops, very high heels and other provocative attire in public. In fact the more stares of shock his wife got the more Janine's husband was delighted, even if in front of his children.
It took a while for Janine to gather the courage she needed to leave her abusive spouse even as she constantly counseled her beloved sister Amy to ditch the creep she was living with. An affluent life is not worth the cost of a human soul even if Janine's husband didn't murder her as Amy's former lover did.
I found myself wondering what the Latus family thought of this book. There was no attempt to disguise the characters. Latus' ex-husband the pervert, once a respected doctor, and still a respected doctor for all I know, is depicted as a pervert for all the world, his medical colleagues and his children, to read at will. Janine's father is also a weirdo. Janine's siblings have all turned out well, even her murdered sister Amy was successful at her career.
But the rock over the creeps is definitely turned over and what's underneath is really ugly.
Two Books reviews: “Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt and “Who Named the Knife” by Linda Spalding. One a study of murder and life in Savannah, Georgia, the other, also a true crime genre, is a lesson in just how silly liberals can get.
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”Who Named the Knife"by Linda Spalding
Here’s a twisted tale that began in 1978 going on with the latest update in 2009.
It’s a book as much about the author as it is about the subject.
It’s a book about justice and juries and court trials and two innocent males who met their death because two selfish young people went on a killing spree and murdered them for pretty much no reason.
Male in picture above is victim murdered in Hawaii, Larry Hasker, NOT William Acker as the text indicates. My mistake. Woman is Linda Acker.
Let’s begin with the author, Linda Spalding. Spalding was a juror on this case. Circumstances caused her to be late the morning the jury was charged with delivering the verdict against Maryann Acker and an alternate was put in her place. Spalding declares that she would have found Maryann innocent.
Only the jury legally qualified to vote on the verdict found Maryann Acker guilty and she was subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
Spalding then began on a life quest to try and free Maryann Acker from the Hawaiian prison for the crime Spalding sincerely believed the woman did not commit.
Maryann and William Acker were young newlyweds when they jointly went on a murder spree that had them robbing and murdering two young men. One was lured by Maryann from a bar in Hawaii to his home where both William and Maryann robbed him then drove him to a secluded roadside where one of the Ackers shot and murdered him. This duo later murdered a man in California, a fellow who stopped and picked them up when they were hitchhiking by the side of the road. While both the Ackers were convicted of murdering the California man, only William was charged with using a gun in the commission of a crime. For the Hawaiian murder, both William and Maryann were charged with using a gun.
Make no mistake, there is some question as to who pulled the trigger to kill these men. As is often the case, lesser charges were also filed against William and Maryann, one of which was the use of a gun in the commission of a felony. Maryann was not found guilty of the use of a gun in the murder of the California man but she was found guilty of murder. Just because she wasn’t found guilty of using a gun, Maryann Acker was very much found guilty in murder in the first degree for the murder in Hawaii. Since she was sentenced to life in Hawaii, the state of California hadn’t a chance to try Maryann but had she been released in Hawaii she would have had to face the judiciary in California.
The testimony of William Acker was all over the place, even to a point of perjury. For Acker testified in California that he shot and killed Lawrence Hasker in Hawaii. He recanted that statement in the 2009 re-trial, saying he lied under oath only to try and get his ex-wife out on parole.
William later testified in the Hawaiian trial that it was Maryann who pulled the trigger that killed Lawrence Hasker.
Odd. First, husbands are not normally required to testify against their wives. William so testified willingly. Second, it is asserted that William was hinted at a possible early release if he testified. The jurors in Hawaii, which included, at the time, the book’s author, did not know this, could not weigh the fact that William’s testimony might be tainted by that promise.
What was not disputed was the fact that both of this couple participated in the murder of two men, one in Hawaii and one in California.
Maryann, over the years in her Hawaiian prison, began to create a story that she was completely innocent, that it was her husband William who murdered those two men, that she had nothing to do with it, could not stop him, was totally unaware of it all.
If this writer’s opinion means anything to yon reader, and mileages do vary I get this, sweet little Maryann was knee deep in the murder of these two men. This book’s author, remember, was on the jury for this crime and due to a fluke, was not present to vote the “not guilty” she alleges she would have delivered. Which would have caused a hung jury because Maryann was, in fact, found guilty. Not once, yon reader, but TWICE. Could all of those 24 jurors who voted her guilty be dumbbell boobs with only author Linda Spalding having the brains to see the truth?
At the time of this book’s writing the additional trial had not been complete. As Maryann’s attorney was preparing for the retrial, the author was what I consider a stupid, misled, usually silly liberal, believer in the innocence of the guilty.
They’re everywhere, these people with teeny tiny little lives with nothing more going for them in their life than to embrace the innocence of some very guilty criminal type. They’ll get themselves so emotionally wrapped up in the jailed n’er do well, who is probably yukking it up over having so fooled this fool, that they visit them in jail, write them endlessly, there are stories of stupid lonely women up and marrying a murderer, remaining loyal to them until their release, only to themselves be murdered by the guy whose innocence they so believed.
Linda Spalding is a bit different in that she a)is smart enough to write a book and a very well-written one at that and b)was involved with the criminal she so adored in a more unusual manner by actually being a juror on her trial.
Beyond that, Spalding is a bit of a dim bulb. Dear Lord, does she really believe that Maryann and her young husband picked up not one, but TWO men, who both ended up very dead, without knowing a thing about how these men keep ending up dead all around her? Maryann and her husband thought they were Bonnie and Clyde and I got a bridge through some swampland to sell this author if she thinks this precious innocent she is wasting her life on knew nothing about the young men who died, both who made the horrible mistake of helping Maryann and her husband out.
Linda Spalding would do way better spending her time doing something for the very helpless, innocents who lost their life before having a chance to live it. Instead she throws away her time and money on the evil witch who murdered them in cold blood.
The book’s title is an allusion to testimony at the trial that alleged that Maryann carried a knife that had a name. Spalding said she felt, as a juror, that whoever named that knife was the guilty one.
Maryann Acker named that knife…”JUSTICE”….I have not a single doubt.
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9/21/11
As a follow-up to the above review, I chose this book as MY choice for my book club. I thought that perhaps it was just me who was silently muttering about this dingbat writing this book, how it was not only silly but downright pernicious to involve one's self in the release of this woman who took the lives of two young men, young men who should now be alive, likely married, probably raising a family.
The book club went ballistic as I gave my summary as to why I chose this book, my somewhat odd need to have my concerns made valid that this author was a crazy person without a meaningful life. One book club member called her "whiney". The other members shouted to the heavens that Linda Spalding felt so guilty about her little life that she adopted a ridiculous cause and that she was not a good writer to boot.
And so it ends. I still sit and ponder that there are people out there like Spalding, tiny people with little logic, who think it is somehow noble to set the guilty free. A cop killer is going to meet the needle today and as always, there are many Linda Spaldings who have somehow convined themselves that the guilty man didn't heartlessly snuff out the life of a young cop who was trying to prevent an assault on a homeless man.
How can these people live with themselves?
Juries aren't perfect, we know that, but put a jury of average citizens up against a passel of self-serving politicians and I'm sure the juries would come up half again as honorable. And yet silly little people like Linda Spalding, who said, remind, at the beginning of this book, that had she been able to make it on time as a juror to murderer MaryAnn, she would have hung the jury.
Sheesh. Just sheesh.
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”Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt
Here’s a book as much about Savannah, Georgia as it is about the famous murder that happened there. For a young, handsome and virile Danny Hansford did end up dead, killed by a bullet shot from a gun held by his ersatz room-mate, Jim Williams.
Williams was a Savannah resident of cosmopolitan tastes and European culture. He purchased and fixed up those old Victorian type of homes that filled Savannah’s inner city streets. Williams was a beloved Savannah fixture whose annual Christmas party invites were cherished as any gilded treasure.
Williams was a homosexual. Danny Hansford was a heterosexual who sold his body for money to Williams or, at times, local fellows who hung out in Savannah’s sleazier districts for just such a purchase.
While the story of this book is true, much of it is fictionalized, based, on author assertion, gleanings of truth and Savannah folklore gathered from his research. The author was in pursuit of the story of the Hansford murder, spending many months actually living in Savannah, meeting the local characters, researching the facts of law.
Jim Williams claimed that he did shoot Danny Hansford but only in self-defense. Hansford was a loud lout of a guy. The classy home owned by Williams and shared with Hansford was often the scene of arguments and cussing by Hansford, as any one of Williams’ neighbors would attest. Williams claimed that Hansford was approached while he was sitting at his desk. Hansford had a gun in his hand and shot at the vulnerable Williams. The bullets shot by Hansford failed to hit Williams so he opened the desk drawer, grabbed a gun stored there, and shot Hansford dead before the angry young man could fire off another shot.
The book is full of colorful characters, rich with local lore, and saturated with the kooky, sophisticated traditions of Savannah. Jim Williams was tried three times by a very inept prosecutor. The author spent many hours with Williams as he endured the hung juries of two trials. Williams was nonplussed by being constantly under attack by the prosecutor, smug and secure his innocence would be affirmed.
For there were holes in Williams’ story, big ones. Danny Hansford had NO gunpowder residue on his dead hands, very unusual for someone who’d so recently shot a gun. The prosecutor’s theory was that Williams, out of a final rage and anger at this young man he so obviously loved, got a gun and finally shot him dead. The juries of Williams’ peers in Savannah, Georgia were not buying it. Whether this was because of their true belief in Williams’ innocence or due to Williams stature in Savannah’s gentile society is unknown.
Williams spent a fortune in defense attorneys though musing often to the author that he is as well served by the local voodoo witch doctor than the plethora of defense attorneys who hadn’t managed, through two trials, to get him a not-guilty verdict.
Williams did finally get a defense attorney that pleased him, this defense attorney finally finding one missed fact through the many trials that arguably poked a fatal hole in the prosecutor’s case.
This is a very well-written book. For sure it’s a peek into an intriguing part of America that eschews entry into a more modern world for living in a quaint past.
There are many colorful characters in the book which the author assures us might not exist on a one by one basis but as combined to one fictional name they very much existed in the Savannah he visited and studied.
It’s a great look into a justice system filled with flaws and as far away from justice as can be.
We’ve got a book review of a book that tells a most amazing story. It might be a tale of a famous world’s fair or it might be a shocking story of a serial killer. It mesmerizes, it teaches, it leaves the reader with so much to ponder. It’s “Devil in the White City”.
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”Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
It was a major effort to wrap my mind around the subject of this book. Which might be because the book had so many subjects the mind gets boggled.
The commonality in all of the topics covered in this book, written in 2003, is the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. This fair was called the White City but as the author amply illustrates, it was surrounded by the black of despair and horrible murder.
There were a bevy of famous people featured in this book. There were famous architects, including the designer of Central Park in New York as well as Jackson Park, the Chicago locale for Chicago’s world’s fair. The inventor of the Ferris wheel, George Ferris, built his first ride bearing his name at the Chicago World’s Fair. The Fair featured Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley and such luminaries as Thomas Edison and Theordor Dreiser were part of the Fair’s surround.
One of the major subjects of the book was a fellow named Henry Holmes. The author alternated the various book chapters amongst the subjects of the Fair.
Holmes was a serial murderer and his connection to the fair was more logistical than as in any part of its creation.
I found myself hurrying through the sometimes mind-numbing tales of the angst of creating the fair to come again to a chapter about the infamous Holmes. Because it’s difficult to believe that such a cold-blooded human being could have walked this earth, murdering woman and children so cavalierly that it chills one’s soul.
In fact, Holmes own a pharmacy and hotel near the Chicago fair. He specifically had a special room housing a kiln that could hold an extremely high heat. He also would, if in need of money, hire a surgeon to strip bodies of his victims of all skin and flesh and would sell the skeletons to medical schools.
The author acquaints the reader with several of Holmes known victims, which included his own child. There were many females who succumbed to Holmes’ infamous charm and eventually met their faint in his chamber of horrors.
Which is not to say that the story of the Chicago World’s Fair wasn’t compelling. There was the assassination of the Mayor, the state of the country’s economy, desultory, streets filled with homeless, despair.
The infamous fair itself was a most magnificent creation for its era, as the reader learns. The Midway was a walk of wonder and a pre-cursor of Midways of fairs across the fruited plains, no doubt.
The author ends the book with the story of Holmes and how he eventually was captured and met his own fate.
It’s a teaching book. This reader learned so much about this major American event that I’d never known of even with an education all the way through college.
I was left with a lot of questions but they were good questions, questions an author who did his or her job would want the reader to have. I pondered an endeavor that cost so much in terms of money but also human life during such a dark economic time in America. I pondered such a wanton murderer could operate so blatantly and not get caught for so many years. I pondered that the Chicago World’s Fair might well have been the birthplace of modern architecture, both in building and landscaping.
Book Rev-“A Thousand Chestnut Trees”-a novel about Korea.
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”One Thousand Chestnut Trees” (a novel of Korea) by Mira Stout
So I’m a bit fascinated by Korea in that I am confused as to why this tiny country is divided in half and why the northern half has to suffer so while the southern half explodes in a economic bomb of capitalism. Indeed a famous Internet picture gone viral depicts a view of the Korean peninsula shot from outer space, allegedly. The northern part of the peninsula shows few lights while the southern half is light-filled, very telling when contrasted between north and south.
One can almost hear the song and the shouts of busy vendors from the peninsula’s southern half with only the sound of bored crickets coming from its north.
Further, America once engaged in some kind of military action on the Korean peninsula, back even before I was born, and it ended up like Vietnam and probably like Afghanistan will, unresolved, more of the same, the country still divided.
“One Thousand Chestnut Trees” is fiction, written by Anna. Anna’s mother was born in Korea, her father was American.
The book was a choice of my book club so it’s not something I picked out, or would have picked out on my own. Still, I was quite delighted at the choice because, as stated above, I’ve had an intrigue with Korea for quite a while.
Kim Jong-Il, a real little basket case of human being, makes me wonder what this creep wants, as he allows his citizens to starve or forces them to serve in the military, while he watches endless porn films. He’s a puppet of the Communist Chinese, as I understand it, but I wonder why.
To my surprise, according to this book, Korea’s always been a country kind of dominated by other far eastern cultures, particularly the Japanese!
Stout is a very good writer, let me state up front. She was but a young thing when this book was published, in the late 90’s.
She does like to write about food but I took no offense.
"the BI BIM BAB was delicious, a steaming mound of moist rice topped with smoky morsels of marinated grilled beef, pickled vegetables, sweet cucumber slices, toasted sesame seeds, and red chili sauce, crowned with a glistening fried egg"
Above is but one example of Stout’s many descriptions of Korean food. It’s as if the reader will better understand the Korean culture the more she describes their food, their food stores, their gardens, their pantries.
Well I thought it was okay and if that was the intent, it worked. As I read, Koreans do seem to spend a lot of time preparing their food. Korean homes have cellars filled with foodstuff, barrels of kimchee in every room, pickling is a cultural must and there must always be a great deal of spicy heat in Korean food.
As an aside, once in my rather restricted life, I actually went to a Korean restaurant. It was husband’s idea, he being a man that thinks you can’t possibly make food too spicy and Korean food is known far and wide for bringing tears with each hotly seasoned bite.
Of course they served us a little dish of kimchee. Kimchee is hotly spiced cabbage. Not sure what the Korean fascination with cabbage is but most cultures do tend to eat those foods that grow well in their climate. Cabbage is the sort of vegetable that likes a colder climate and Korea does have brutally cold winters.
Anyway, the one and only time I ate kimchee, well it was okay. The cabbage wasn’t shredded, as the Germans shred cabbage for sauerkraut. The kimchee we had consisted of little “wedges” of cabbage. Hey, I like cabbage but husband never met a vegetable he liked so was really taken aback.
As I recall is was quite fiery and while I’m glad I got a taste, I doubt I’d have any stocked in my fridge.
Just what a culture’s food preferences tell about that culture is unclear. Mexicans, for example, like spicy food. Far eastern cultures are known for their love of spicy food; Chinese, Thai, even Japanese, food is considered spicier than more Anglicized cultures eat.
Do cultures who love spicy food have more emotional people than the Norwegians and their lutefisk?
Does a culture than spends so much time in preparation of its food indicate a populace that is more oriented to hearth and home than fast-food America that loves to eat on the run?
Whatever the conclusion, the reader of “One Thousand Chestnut Trees” would very likely conclude that its author considers such cultural eating habits as telling as to the people of the culture, if for no other reason than Stout has food descriptions on every other page it seems.
Moving on beyond the food, this was a well-written book, a great story, revealing a glimpse of Korea beyond what they eat and how they prepare it.
The book begins with “Anna”’s mother telling the story of her childhood. They were a noble Korean family, hints of a royal lineage abound, whatever that means in Korea. Much of the book is taken up by the details of a life in a country under control of the Japanese.
I’ll stop now and note that Stout mentions North Korea and Kim Jong-Il infrequently. Most of the discussion of Korean history is about that country’s domination by the Japanese. There is a section toward the middle of the descriptive about the Korean war and the split up of the country.
Still and so, I was quite astounded that Korea was so dominated by the Japanese. In fact, Anna’s mother, as she tells her story, had to learn Japanese, attended schools taught by Japanese, lived in fear of the Japanese overlords.
I think of Korea as being quite far removed from Japan. Further, I find it hard to wrap my mind around the mild-mannered, ever-bowing Japanese people as being warlike and domineering. Of course there was once an emperor of Japan, who did order the bombing of America, quite a dumb thing to do. America dropped a couple of bombs and I suppose that’s when the era of the Japanese as conquerors and overlords ended.
At some point the Chinese got all involved with Korea and it’s not at all clear to me why. At some point, as we know by, if nothing else, the long-running TV series “MASH”, America got involved in Korean affairs.
Couple of things caused me thought as a result of reading this book. There must be something logistically positive about the location of Korea. It is a peninsula, this is well-known. If a country wanted to invade Asia it would seem that Korea would be a good launching point.
Second, Koreans are really a very peaceful bunch, maybe because they spend so much time preparing their food.
For while Anna, and her mother, tell the stories of their lives in Korea, they don’t dwell in great detail on this history and the politics of the region.
But that was not the intent of the book.
Anna is depicted as a half-Korean/half-American struggling to find her heritage and identity through a long visit to her mother’s homeland and a search for the one thousand chestnut trees planted by a relative as monument to the mansion of their land, its harmony, peace with nature, love of all Korea had to offer. Anna’s mother tells her story of an oppressed childhood, her survival of the Japanese oppression, her job at the American army base and eventual move to the United States.
While I tongue-in-cheek poke a bit of fun at all the food emphasis while pondering the meaning of this, I did conclude that the Koreans are a clannish lot, very polite, bending over to a dictator rather than fight. Beyond Kim Jong-Il and his forced conscripted army, Korea is not a people of soldiers. Americans would never have tolerated another culture’s takeover of its country, forcing all to learn their language and be taught by their teachers.
And yet I come away with respect for the deep love Koreans have for their country, how they kept their heritage tight in their hearts even as another culture stomped all over their daily lives. A reader grasps quite well that no matter how many armies should invade, there will always be a Korea and there will always be Koreans. No conqueror or invading army will ever erase their culture and their love of their land.
Stout is a gifted writer. This book is filled with jolting adjectives, descriptive words that surprise in the usage yet cause the reader to stop, if only for a millisecond, to ponder the oddity of some pairings. It’s a good writing technique, a sign of a writer not afraid to challenge the reader to consider for just another part of a second what is being expressed.
I’d recommend this book for anyone looking into an insight of Korea. It’s a good read, I hasten to add, but the desire to learn more about that mysterious peninsula of the far east is needed for complete enjoyment of this novel.
It was the last book written before his death, Michael Crichton’s “Pirate Latitudes” is full of action, color and a true history or pirates and Jamaica.
Pic of the Day ”Pirate Latitudes” by Michael Crichton
Let us begin with some interesting background. The manuscript for this book was allegedly found on Crichton’s computer AFTER his death. It’s not clear if the manuscript was complete because, as I figure, if it was surely he would have submitted it for publication. Crichton is a well known author of considerable acclaim and the manuscript would have been accepted for publication no doubt without any hesitation.
Next, I too consider Crichton a formidable and talented novelist. My first exposure to Crichton’s word was “The Andromeda Strain” and then there’s “Jurassic Park” and on to the long-running television series “ER”.
A major difference between a very successful writer like Crichton and the more mundane is good writers, those who are actually WRITING a book instead of a screenplay, write prose, not stage/movie dialogue.
“Pirate Latitudes” is not written for the big screen though research shows the rights to this book have been purchased by Spielberg and it will no doubt be a movie soon enough.
And what a movie it will be as it was quite a book.
The book is based loosely on some real people living in 17th century Jamaica. The story begins with a bit of background, the establishment of Jamaica as an English colony, the worldwide presence of Spanish galleons, on to a society that frowned on piracy and considered it a crime.
Yet when Captain Charles Hunter began his journey to capture a Spanish galleon from a nearby Spanish island fortress, he did so at the behest, and with the financing, of the Governor of Jamaica.
The story of the trip begins and it’s action-packed with every passing word. Hunter’s ship is first taken over by a Spanish warship. After escaping this horror, the crew arrives at the Spanish island fortress of Matanceros. The story then keeps the reader sitting at the edge of the seat as Hunter’s crew climbs mighty cliffs and suffers nature’s most horrific offerings to finally arrive at their destination.
The Spanish ship is plundered of its treasure but escape is a bit more than a quick jaunt away by Hunter’s ship.
Coral-filled coves must be negotiated, cannons must be jury-rigged and retrofitted, enemy ships must be commandeered and to add to it all, before the reader can even begin to relax, a giant monster of the sea, a Karaken, believed to be giant squid, attacks Hunter's ship.
Hunter finally makes it back to Jamaica but more surprises await. For the Governor of Jamaica has been removed and the governance of the island has been taken over by a nasty fellow. Hunter is surprised at how he is greeted upon his return, booty in tow.
A final heart-breaking betrayal begins the story’s finale as the reader still chews fingernails in torment.
There’s not much more need be said except the book is written by one of the best, it’s a real page-turner, it’s filled with drama, history, action and yes, there’s some romance.
We’ve got a book review of a book that’s nebulous as to weather it’s fiction or non-fiction. It’s True Crime, the story of a cabal of murder investigators of the highest merit. They solve the unsolved crimes of the era and they’re quite a group. It’s “The Murder Room” by Mike Capuzzo.
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================ ”The Murder Room” by Mike Capuzzo-
So okay, let me say right plain up front, that I loved this book. Add to my joy that it was a selection by my book club and who knew that someone would choose a book about True Crime, my favorite book genre nowadays?
Well hey, even to this day I don’t know if this book was fiction or non-fiction and frankly I don’t want to know. I did find a couple of obvious errors as to the “true” crimes covered in the book, which makes me suspicious.
The Vidcoq society is a group of dedicated crime solvers that spring from all walks of criminal investigation genres.
Frank Bender is a sculptor, a man who “sees” victims, even if given only a partial skull from which to work. In the book, Bender is given credit for accurately picturing one of my more memorable true crime criminals, John List. Bender re-created List as he would look some 25 years after he committed his horrific crime.
List killed his mother, his wife and his two children, methodically and purposefully, one fine day. He then packed his bags and disappeared. According to the book, it was Bender who created the sculpture of how List would look so many years after his horrific murder spree.
Detective Richard Walter is an expert profiler, Bill Fleisher is a federal agent and serves as an organizer of many of the Vidcoq events. There are other members of the Vidcoq society but no one is permitted entry unless they come with an excellent reputation in their investigative field.
And these are real people, the VIDCOQ does exist.
Other famous crimes the VIDCOQ society allegedly investigated include Marie Noe, the woman who had eight babies of all ages die of SIDS. There’s also a famous Pennsylvania crime of a young boy called “the boy in the box” an obsession by most investigators of that era.
I did find what I consider one factual error by the author. In the book, Capuzzo mentions that Ted Bundy was supposed to have buried a victim’s head in his fireplace.
I frankly think I’ve read every word about Ted Bundy and never did I read such a thing. Ann Rule is considered the definitive expert on Bundy, having once worked with him and using Bundy’s murder spree as the launch of her true crime writing career. Ann Rule never mentioned this head found in Bundy’s fireplace.
So I’m not sure if all the detail in Capuzzo’s book is the stuff of non-fiction.
Capuzzo does a terrific job of telling the story of the VIDCOQ society, interspersing stories of the many cases they work to solve throughout the book. There is also a good spread of pictures of both the victims written about in the book and the vaunted members of the VIDCOQ society.
Capuzzo also writes extensively about the grand detectives of the VIDCOQ society, providing clues to what makes them tick.
It’s a good book, tightly written, action-packed, designed to keep the reader turning the pages.
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We've got a book review for Baseball Fans-George Will's "Men At Work". Yes the man's a Conservative Pundit but he knows a thing or two about baseball. Or a thousand, or a million, things or two.
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”Men At Work”-George Will
So who knew that George Will was such a baseball fan?
I do know that Will is a very good writer and has mostly Conservative political leanings. It wasn’t until my book club choice was Will’s book-“Men At Work”, that I discovered Will’s astounding insight and knowledge of baseball, both as a business and as a sport.
This is not a recent book, make no mistake, having been published in the early 80’s. And I’m no major baseball fan though I have been at times in my life. I am an Oriole’s fan, being from Baltimore and all that. I’ve never belonged to a book club before but think the idea is great, being an avid reader and a writer of sorts.
Thus all three things came together and I found myself sitting down and reading all sorts of statistics and minutiae about baseball that I never thought my mind could handle.
Actually, my mind couldn’t handle a lot of this book in that way I figger, George Will must live life operating strictly from the left hand side of his brain. The brain’s left side is the part that processes at the data and detail of life. Such as emotions spring from the brain’s right side.
Some facts about this book: Will evidently used Tony LaRussa and the Ripkin family for much of the source data. I deduce this based mostly on the fact that Will quotes these folks extensively throughout the book.
Will keeps the book categorized in terms of the Manager, the defense, the pitcher and the batter.
"To understand the primacy of defense, try this. Imagine that the rules of baseball were amended to require four outs to retire a side. What would happen? Scores would soar, games would go one and on and on. A 33% increase in the number of outs almost certainly would result in much more than a 33% increase in runs. But mediocre defense does just that: It gives the other team four-out innings.
The above quote is an example of how the “work” of baseball is affected by one of the four major “jobs” of the team.
Will’s pre-occupation with details, stats and outright minutiae is a bit much for the casual baseball fan. Such as myself.
In fact, since this was my book club’s monthly choice, we did chance to discuss, beyond the book, BASEBALL! The book club member who suggested the book had been a coach of several youth league baseball teams. I chanced to ask him, for whatever reason, just what is a knuckleball and how is it thrown. The former coach then stood up and illustrated the pitch and in a burst of enthusiasm, then showed how many other sorts of pitches are thrown, how to effectively field balls, on to other information that kept me mesmerized, unfortunately, way more than Will’s book.
In summary, Will’s “Men at Work” book was a great read. The casual baseball fan will probably skip through a lot of the detail; the more enthusiastic fan will revel in that same detail.
For I did finish the book thus do not think it detailed a more casual baseball fan into dropping the whole read. But I did skip through a lot of the verbiage, looking for, I think, just how a knuckleball is thrown and how to better field a ball.
That I learned in discussing Will’s book, rather than in the reading.
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Got a book review on the 60’s musical “HAIR”. Yes it’s a musical that defined a generation. This book, titled, appropriately, “Hair” by Eric Groce is chock full of history, pictures, lyrics and memories of this former ersatz hippie.
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HAIR by Eric Groce, with a foreword by co-creator of HAIR, James Rado
It was a totally "you hadda be there" era.
For the "Hair" generation, life was tough, changing, confusing.
One major aspect of that time that today's youth will likely never experience is the military draft. Being subject to forced conscription, and make no mistake, this is what it was, changes everything about how you live your life.
I was a young woman, newly married to my childhood sweetheart. We were both born on the exact same day (same year!) and this fact might seem more like serendipity than of major import but not so, read on.
We were the very first generation, born in 1950, subject to the infamous military lottery.
I wonder if today's youth could ever imagine such a thing, if this same youth could ever wrap their minds around a notion that by a mere spin of some wheel somewhere, you're life, or death, might be changed or determined by the spin.
June 26 came in like the top ten. My 19 year old husband was very likely to be drafted, to be sent to that hell called Vietnam, our lives would be uprooted and changed by a force in line with an earthquake of life.
He wanted to move to Canada. I was very conflicted. I loved my country; I for sure didn't want to leave it, probably forever.
It cost us our marriage, yes it did. We fought over what to do, we began to fight over everything. I refused to desert to Canada. He was ready to go right after reporting to the draft board.
I saw the play "Hair" the first time it came to DC. I was hooked.
Like I said, you hadda be there in the late 60's, when men were coming home in body bags after fighting a war America seemed determined not to win. Nobody even seemed to understand the purpose of that hellish war. Vietnam tore more than my marriage apart. It was tearing this country apart.
Hair is the story of a young man too conflicted about what to do about the draft. He belongs to a "tribe", a loose group of "hippies" of the era, all smoking dope, making love and not war, viewing a world that would send them off to a distant rice paddy to die for God only knew why, as a nasty place, polluted, not worthy of any allegiance.
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Of course the irony here is that even though through the years I'd seen the play Hair on every occasion that I could, even though I wore the long granny dresses of the era, hell yeah, I smoked dope and made lots of youthful love...today I would be considered by most a Conservative of the highest order.
Well hell, today I now know that the Vietnam war was being overseen by Democrats who never knew how to fight a war in any fashion save raising the white flag of surrender. In fact, at that time most of congress and the presidency was controlled by Democrats and any time you have bad times it's usually because a Democrat's in charge and hey, I know that now.
I also have had a child since that era of peace, now a grandchild. Pretty much nothing makes you grow up more than being responsible for another life. The hippie era was also the time of the birth control pill, the hayday of its introduction in fact. There were few young children around when the pot flowed and love was made.
It wasn't about children or futures or plans. It was about the now, feeling good today, taking some moments from such as jobs and ongoing education, chilling out. Most of us born during the baby boom spent a year, maybe two or three, being a hippie or some facsimile thereof. Then life went on.
So I picked up this colorful and very large book detailing how the rock musical Hair came to be. The book has the lyrics to all the Hair tunes, and I do know them all.
It was two hippie type of fellows, one Gerald Rado and James Ragni, who came up with the concept of Hair. The book chronicles the story of how backing was obtained for the show, how a theater was found for its first venue, how the musical travelled around the world and through the ages, its most recent revival in the twenty first century, 2010 in fact.
I learned some things about the show I did not know. Two fairly famous entertainers started out appearing in Hair, one the very uptight Diane Keaton, the other the black singer, Melba Moore.
Hair has been one of the longest running ongoing musicals ever. Today it's more of a historical story while I saw it, felt it, lived it, loved it, breathed it, cried it and screamed it right during the time the musical was satirizing/exposing/mocking.
The young member of the tribe, Claude Bukowski, decided to go to Vietnam. He didn't come back alive. The emotion poured through me, my young married self to a husband who too might not come back alive, who would not, as Claude did, honor his country's draft notice, who would desert to Canada. Without me.
Ah yes, Hair is in my blood, even today, even as a grandmother now living a quiet mousy semi-rural life.
In reading the book, I learned that
--the infamouse nude scene:
"found a law on the books that said nudity was legal if it was in a tableau, with no movement."
Yes, Hair had a nude scene and the actors did, in fact, come up behind a curtain and stand before the audience completely naked. Hey, I don't know why the nude scene but it sure got the musical a lot of attention.
Finally, I found this in the book--
"The opinion of the NY Times had an even more profound impact on a Broadway show's success in 1968 than it does today."
You got to smile. But the above is true. The NY Times has grown into a pretty predictable bore nowadays, and for sure has lost the power it once had.
Another example of how the times have changed since Hair came along and moved a generation.
=============== ”Chicken Soup for the Soul-Grandmothers”
So I got a story in this book, released just the day of this writing-3/22/11.
It’s a Chicken Soup for the Soul thing, the stuff to read at the beauty parlor, the doctor’s office. The writing is generally well done, the stories are true and more precious for their truth than the quality of the prose.
So Stacey and Clinton barge into an unsuspecting person’s life every week, give her a prepaid credit card with $5,000 on it, go through the “victim’s” wardrobe, critiquing and finally throwing all ugly/unfashionable items within into the trash.
Hey, makeover fashion shows are like that. For it only takes about fifteen minutes for the Big Reveal. The rest of an hour’s got to be filled with something.
But of course one must like fashion type shows to even get to a point of finding this show on the upper cable channels and I am one such person. These sorts of shows are the absolute best for multi-tasking cause almost half the time is taken up with silly commercials, another twenty minutes is filled with activity not requiring the sort of concentration that, say, and episode of “24” might require.
Sometimes I sit and read a book while watching these sort of fluff shows, raising my eyes to a passing concentration during those times when Clinton is earnestly explaining to a fashion disaster why a nice form-fitting cropped jacket with a loose flowing blouse would look much better than the garish thing with big pink polka dots the fashion victim might be currently sporting.
It’s not the stuff of serious but as I figure, I watch plenty of grave TV, including all Sunday political talk shows and Fox news most of the other time. At times I gotta give the ole brain a rest and these sorts of shows are just the ticket.
Although, I must state here, “What Not to Wear” can be a learning experience, I suggest softly.
Because name me someone who doesn’t care how they look, who wears ugly and un-matching without a proper thought applied, who declares that “comfortable is more important than fashion”…and I’ll show you a big slob bucket.
If what you wear had no affect on anything, why ever have a dress code? Why dress up for a job interview? Why ever comb your damn hair?
Like most everything else in life, it’s all a matter of degree.
For I’ll never be convinced that extremely pointed toed shoes as Stacey London prefers is a requirement for proper fashion and Clinton? Well right there you gotta wonder what’s with a guy getting all involved with how women dress. I’m just sayin’.
Stacey and Clinton stand proudly as their fashion student enters the room three different times, each time wearing a different stylish outfit. The made over fashion victim then stands before a full length mirror as Stacey and Clinton point out the wisdom of this blouse and the punch of that accessory.
The fashion victim then returns home to her friends and family who nominated her, wearing a smashing new outfit, sparkling and sophisticated accessories, sporting a new hairstyle with artfully applied makeup. She enters the room to a dramatic gasp of the people in her world.
There’s always a bit of pathos in these fashion victim’s lives, added because a)there are true stories that affect how we dress and b)it makes the show have a bit more gravitas. Often the fashion victim has successfully recovered from a cancer bout. Often they are busy Moms with almost no time to take care of themselves in terms of dress and fashion care. You’ve never seen so many females sob on a fashion show, insert smile here.
“What Not to Wear” is the crown jewel of fashion shows. Indeed both Stacey and Clinton have had spin-off types of shows and Stacey is shown in many commercials featuring fashion and/or fashion comfort.
It’s a good show, I quite enjoy it, and someday I have every intention of nominating my daughter for just such a fashion makeover.
Jeopardy’s Watson
Jeopardy Web site HERE
I am a devoted Jeopardy aficionado, not that I’m proud of this and not that I am all that good at it. I do track my running score and I average around 20 correct answers on the entire board. Remembering please that as a TV viewer I’m not subject to the quickness of the buzzer and I don’t deduct for incorrect answers I may give.
I’ve also, twice now, taken the online Jeopardy quiz and never heard a word from them.
Heh.
Still, husband and I have quite enjoyed the new competitor, Monsieur Watson.
It’s absolutely amazing how well Watson has done. Those IBM programmers had to put their hearts and soul into programming that thing.
Still, Watson’s made a couple of boo-boos that aptly illustrate his…eh…”non-humanness”.
First, what Watson DOES and for which he can’t be beat, is buzz that buzzer faster than human thumbs are able. Saw Ken Jennings on Fox one morning and he said that the human hand simply can’t buzz that thing as fast as Watson, even though, get this, Watson IS hooked up to some kind of thumb mechanism and uses the Jeopardy buzzer just like the human players.
My biggest Watson laugh came with the question “What are members of the same graduating group in school called?” Myself shouted out “alumnae” but that was wrong. Watson answers, get this…CHIC! The correct answer was CLASS. Get it? CLASSy people are often considered quite CHIC. Come on, smile here. A human being would never even consider guessing that the noun for all graduating members of a senior level in school as a CHIC. What the hell is a CHIC? The programmers need to teach Watson the difference between a noun and an adjective I’m thinking here.
Watson also got a bit confused and thought that Toronto was an American city. Also, when Watson got a Daily Double. Heh. Watson bet some kind of el strango amount like $1,239.58. Which is perfectly legal but humans tend to make things easier and bet rounder sorts of amounts.
Finally, the question was about a famous Olympic athlete and a major distinguishing physical feature. Ken Jennings managed to beat Watson to the buzzer and said “What is a missing leg?” This was a wrong answer. Watson buzzed in, heh, and its answer was “What is leg?”
I don’t know what Watson was thinking but Trebak chastised Watson as this was, one supposes, already guessed by Jennings.
I doubt we’ll ever have to worry about a phalanx of Watsons taking over the world. If they do, be prepared to have your children graduate in a CHIC and all money amounts from tips to lotteries will be calculated to 1/100th of a penny.
Book Reviews: "Chicken Soup for the Soul-Shaping the New You"-my own contribution inside and lovely email from a fan. "Changing the Conversation"-Gary Klaben teaches how to separate emotion from your pocketbook.
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"Chicken Soup for the Soul-Shaping the New You"-A Review from a Contributor
Subject: Hello
Hello Ms. Patricia,
I guess you are the one who wrote the wonderful story "Right in my backyard own," from the Chicken Soup for th Soul series, right? My heart was so touched and deeply moved for the most beautiful heart touching article I have ever read in my life. The story had a very positive impact on my life. It greatly warmed my heart and gently touched my soul. The author's writing style is very rich.
Best regards,
Hamza Balol
Saudi Arabia
I received the above via email and, frankly, I was flabbergasted.
I'd submitted my story of my morning backyard exercises to the famous "Chicken Soup for the Soul" anthology as a result of a request for our stories of personal unique methodologies to achieve, or maintain, a fit body.
Perfectly timed, the anthology hit the stores in late December. Wisely, the book's compilers did not try to make the Christmas gift rush. Gifts given with a theme of getting fit are hardly fun type of things to receive on a festive holiday that is probably the last time of year folks want to be thinking about such as exercise and diets.
However, aha, AFTER Christmas, such a book would be pulled off the shelves in droves by shoppers resolved to get fit for the New Year.
I received the above email a week after New Year's 2011, from Saudi Arabia, no less.
Well my story is a good one, my exercise method is quite original. I daresay the book's producers would not have accepted my contribution had not the shine of truth and simplicity been evident from the story and the words.
Well no, I would never suggest that my story would be anybody's most heartfelt story read in their lives. That thought boggles my mind.
There are over a hundred other stories of very non-professional folks like myself contained in this book and they've all got good stories. Somewhere in the book there is contained the perfect method to achieve fitness, whether for the handicapped, for the very busy, for those with no resolve...if it's YOUR problem, the solution is somewhere between the covers of this book.
Also, well my own story is in there and read the above, the writing is very rich.
"Changing the Conversation-Transformational Steps to Financial and Family Well Being"-Gary Klaben"-Better Read When Young.
Gary Klaben is a financial guru who advises people on how to handle their wealth. He is very conservative, a graduate of West Point, he is very conservative.
There is nothing in this book that is new to me. But then I am 60 years old.
Thus throughout my reading I kept exclaiming, in my innermost mind, that it would be great if: a)my 34 year old daughter were to read this or, barring that, b)that my granddaughter begin the read when she becomes a young adolescent.
Which is not to say, I must caution, that the lessons, examples, experiences as given by the author would be for naught for a person struggling with life's journey even if well in to their 40's or 50's. As we age, not to state the obvious, we are always going through ages we haven't experienced before.
Loss of a spouse, changing a job, becoming a grandparent, retiring...these are all things we go through as we grow older. Since it is new to us, Gary Klaben effectively covers it in this well-written, conservative and exemplary piece of non-fiction.
The bigger caution would be for any potential reader to think that this book is all about money. How we handle our finances is a major force in the book, for sure. What author Klaben does well is tie in our emotional reactions to how we handle our money. Which all, as is illustrated in many chapters, come together is some fashion, possibly good, possibly bad, depending on whether our mind rules or our heart rules.
I sure would love for this book to be required reading for young people, perhaps around Middle School, High school, even a college freshmen.
It's a lesson for a happy life and if don't get this sort of teaching as we go through life's educational journey, I must ask, why not?
Book Review "The Great Deluge" by David Brinkley. Took me two months to read this book. Bus as a Hurricane Katrina aficionado I had to do it.
The book made me realize the REAL reason the aftermath of Katrina was so chaotic. AND it changed my mind on how George W. Bush handled it all.
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”The Great Deluge”, by Douglas Brinkley
It took me almost two months to read this book. Number one, I started over the busy Christmas 2010 holiday season and of course was pulled away from it quite often. Number two, I am a bit of a Hurricane Katrina aficionado and I really did want to read the entire tome carefully. Number three, TOME is definitely the correct word for the book is over 700 pages long.
In fact, I have an entire Blog devoted to Hurricane Katrina as, number one, I am fascinated by hurricanes being an east coaster and having lived through many of them and number two, if ever one natural event would effectively illustrate the weakness of a body politic run amok, is this hurricane and its horrific aftermath. At the end of this review I have links to my Hurricane Katrina Blog, all written and posted AS the hurricane was happening.
Finally, after reading this book and what with my close attention to the events, I have determined what was the BIGGEST and most DAMAGING problem in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I kept my Hurricane Katrina blog for the benefit of my granddaughter, who was but three years old at the time of the storm. I want her to have the benefit of a true life journal of events before the liberals re-write history.
Let us begin with some big kudos to Douglas Brinkley for writing a wonderful well-documented book. Brinkley is viewed by man conservative types like myself as a bit of a liberal and prone to coloring his historical books with a slightly leftoid bent.
“The Great Deluge” is no different, for Brinkley did tend to play up some elements of the story while playing down others. This is the prerogative of a writer some might say but it’s no mind. Brinkley mostly got it right, he footnoted all of his information and rarely inserted his editorial into the story. But he did from time to time. Fortunately I knew enough of the story to even out the keel.
Something Brinkley also did, to my own surprise, is convince me of some things that before I read this book I’d never have admitted. Such as I now slightly agree that George Dubya Bush could have done a better job in handling this storm, a notion I’d have spit at before reading the book. Which is not to say that the President of the United States ever should be getting in all deep and dirty with a local disaster such as a hurricane. That’s the job of the locals, I said this before reading the book, I still say if after reading the book, I’ll say it to the day I die.
But Hurricane Katrina was more, so much more, than just your average hurricane.
Brinkley positively excoriated New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and as well he should have. Louisiana Governor Blanco doesn’t fare much better in Brinkley’s eyes and she too was a boobaloob. President Bush is way down on the list of political figures deserving a lambaste but after reading the book I’d have to suggest that Bush too should have handled things better.
Brinkley begins from the beginning of the storm, leading up to the date of the storm and a couple of terrible decisions made by local politicos that cost thousands of lives.
Local Parish President, Aaron Broussard decided to remove all operators of the huge pumps that pump storm overflow from the “bowl” that includes the lower ninth ward of New Orleans. This was a move that caused major property damage and loss of life.
"It was also...illogical to evacuate essential personnel to a site 110 miles away. That was the case with the pump operators, who ended up in the town of Mount Hermon, near the Mississippi line. ...it took them hours to return to Jefferson Parish ...and assume their posts. During those nine hours, thousands of homes in Lakeview and Metairie that might have remained dry were destroyed."
NO Mayor Ray Nagin decided against forcing mandatory evacuations. This was another mistake that cost many lives. Nagin, as well as Governor Blanco, didn’t want to be responsible for the cost of getting buses and bussing these people out. The SuperDome was opened as a place to go for refuge from the storm should the citizens in the lower 9th ward require, but if they didn’t want to leave they wouldn’t have to.
A picture of hundreds of school buses sitting, unused, in many feet of water is an image that will forever encapsulate this very bad decision.
After the storm, Brinkley tells the story of many of the survivors, in their own words. The scene at the SuperDome and later, the Convention Center, isn’t pretty, but it was never as bad as the frothing media made it out to be.
Citizens of New Orleans were left to languish in the oppressive heat, often without water or food, in the SuperDome, in the Convention Center, on the Interstate I-10 off ramp, often for four to five days. The reader is shocked that a country that is over in Thailand after a huge tsunami within a day, pulling survivors out of the havoc, or in Haiti within hours of a major earthquake….the USA left its own citizens to languish desperately on roof tops, to suffer, to thirst, to hunger, without medical care, without, as so many New Orleaneans left in the flooded bowl after the storm had to think, a soul in the world caring whether they lived or died.
Meanwhile, FEMA head Brown didn’t have a clue where to begin and Director of Homeland Security Chertoff demanded that fellow Americans traveling to help the citizens of Louisiana take “diversity” classes first, as any good bureaucrat would demand.
Governor Blanco moaned, wrongly, about the National Guard:
Governor Blanco….re the National Guard…" 'Their first responsibility is to local disaster recovery efforts. We didn't have our Louisiana National Guard stateside.'
Yes, she did. Instead of setting up outside the New Orleans bowl, north of Hurrican Alley, like the U.S. Coast Guard did in Alexandria, the Louisians National Guard chose to set up at Jackson Barracks in the below=sea-level Lower Ninth Ward. The rest, as they say, was history."
I was fascinated in the reading. At times I wept at the tragedy, at times I cursed the stupidity.
At the end I was able to discern what the biggest problem with Hurricane Katrina was.
The hurricane itself was, really, naught but a hurricane. Yes hurricanes are horrific events but the Monday after Katrina hit the pubs of New Orleans were alive with celebrants. They’d dodged the “Big One”. The electricity was out, things were a bit wet, but the city was there, the Mardi Gras would go on the following year.
Then the levees broke. Then Lake Pontchartrain poured into the “bowl” that was New Orleans. Citizens climbed into their attics, then onto their roofs. Some looted the stores, others searched for lost pets and loved ones, many died.
President Bush kept abreast of what was going on with New Orleans. But he did make one major, major mistake and it will forever haunt him, his leadership, and cast a pall on his presidency.
For the BIGGEST problem of them all after Hurricane Katrina is what ultimately caused more confusion, death and chaos than anything else.
THERE WAS NO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION FOR MANY DAYS!
And THAT, yon reader, is what felled them all. President Bush cared about New Orleans. It’s just that he was getting bad reports from FEMA. FEMA was getting bad reports from the locals because they only spoke to the few national guards assigned to the Superdome. The New Orleans cops, shameful, shameful, almost all abandoned their posts. Mayor Nagin holed up at the Hyatt Regency, close to a mental breakdown. Governor Blanco chewed her fingernails and blamed the Iraq war for taking all the national guards out of her state.
It could be a comedy if it weren’t so damn tragic.
Nobody had any kind of effective communication with anybody. Nobody knew what was going on. The citizens were unable to contact their family outside of Louisiana as the cell lines didn’t work. A few folks has satellite phones, but a very few and often they didn’t work.
It wasn’t until almost a week after the storm that the extent of the breeched levees, the sad state of the Convention Center where so many NO citizens went in their desperation for help, the dead hospital patients, the people stuck in roof tops or in attics….it was one of the biggest snafus in American history.
Brinkley describes President Bush as "remarkably incurious". This seems like a hurtful description. Throughout our history there’ve been hurricanes in many, many states. Hurricane Andrew dealt Florida one awful blow. I remember how Hurricane Agnes literally destroyed entire Maryland eastern shore islands in its path.
It was never the job of Presidents to be “remarkably curious” about hurricanes.
Beyond getting updates from Homeland Security, it’s never been the job of Presidents to get involved in hurricanes, local rescues, that sort of thing.
Hurricane Katrina was, to beg the wit here, the perfect storm.
The local politicos were simply too damn dumb to handle the job, from local parish president to New Orleans Mayor to Louisiana Governor. The city of New Orleans, carrying cause and effect back a few more steps, shouldn’t even be there, much less a heavily populated area such as the 9th ward, right in the center of a “bowl” just waiting for the lake to fill it to the top. The levees, Lord knows how well they were built. There are other cities on this planet, Amsterdam for one, that are below sea level. Levees and pumps, properly built without corruption and graft, keep them safe.
Surely some fault goes to the citizens of New Orleans themselves. Most of the residents of the city DID, in fact, evacuate, at the pleading of the local government. Those that didn’t, well they took a chance. To be fair, I’m not sure that having a lake pour unceremoniously into the town was something those that stayed behind considered. They were planning to ride out a hurricane and if it had stopped after the winds and rain, they likely would have done it handily.
The communication issue was the biggest problem AFTER the storm passed. Absolutely no one knew what was going on, where to go. Hospitals had patients but no one to help them evacuate. Citizens holed up in attics or on roof tops, no one even aware there was a problem.
Those running the show, the NO cops, FEMA, the local politicians…they didn’t know up from down.
At around day three after the storm, dawn began to break over American heads. Something was seriously wrong in New Orleans. It was at this point that the remarkably incurious president Bush should have taken over the reigns and gotten things done. With one phone call Bush could have stopped the nonsense of Chertoff and his “diversity” training of would-be rescuers. With another phone call Bush could have gotten the busses so desperately needed to bus those poor souls out of the hell they were living in.
The buck, as the saying goes, does stop somewhere. I don’t think for a minute that President Bush wished one bit of suffering on the citizens of New Orleans. It’s just that he, and those who were reporting to him, didn’t know what a hell the place had become. For sure Bush could have avoided that ridiculous pep rally thing where he shouted what a good job “Brownie” was doing at FEMA.
Brownie, and his merry band of bureaucratic minions were doing a lousy job. That poorly planned exercise in public relations didn’t help a damn thing.
a book review of Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue”, it’s a great book that the liberal critics hated as much as they hate her TLC program showcasing Alaska.
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D
I won’t say that this book was a “can’t put down” affair. I am a bit of a political junkee but you can take what I know about Alaska, put it up the behind of a flea, and it would still rattle around like a BB in a box car. Well now I know a bit more about Alaska. The bigger point is that an Alaskan would be more absorbed in at least the first half of this book than I was.
Which is not to say this is a boring book either, although I’d suggest it’s the sort of thing that would appeal mostly to someone involved with politics, even if only on a passing level.
My daughter is, well she’s my daughter, which means she gets some exposure to politics of a sort, although my jibber-jabbering might be but background noise to her. But she’s hardly a junkee on the matter and this book IS her book. She lent it to me. She did read it, almost to the end so she tells me. Daughter is a huge Palin fan and the book was a gift to her from her husband.
The last half of the book was the part that held me spellbound. For this is the part in which Palin tells of her experiences on the campaign trail with John McCain. It is the part that held my interest, as I scanned for names and brickbats.
As is her wont, Palin did NOT write one bad thing about John McCain. McCain was, ahem, not the most favored candidate by the GOP base out here in la-la land, his carefully crafted image as a “maverick” not appreciated except perhaps by the Democrats and the Blue Blood GOP Ruling Class. In fact, it was only the presence of Palin that the GOP base had any enthusiasm at all for the presidential election of 2008.
“I appreciated Reagan’s passion and conviction, and the way he so plainly articulated his love for our country. Like millions of others, I related to him personally-he was one of us. I liked him, and I liked the fact that he was never afraid to call it as he saw it.”
While I definitely consider myself a conservative of the highest order, I was never a big fan of Ronald Reagan. This was because during the term of Reagan’s presidency I was just coming down off of that silly high young people go through when they attend college, think they become super smart, and become dumb liberals.
Jimmy Carter, God Bless this worst president ever, so far worse than Obamer as I see it, changed a lot of that for me as such as long gas lines and 18% interest rates brought me back to reality. I still thought I was cool and hip, however, and while I voted for Reagan, I distrusted him in that manner of the young of my generation who mistrusted those over 30.
I wasn’t a big political junkee in that day although I did, insert smile here, attend Reagan’s inauguration. Now I chance to hear speech tidbits of Reagan and marvel at a Republican with enough courage and confidence to say the things he said. I understand why Reagan is so beloved by today’s conservatives, who feel as if they wander in the desert, lost and leaderless save for the likes of McCain and Karl Rove.
Palin makes a good case of her allegiance to Reagan throughout the book and by reading of the trials of her life, how she governed the city of Wasilla and the state of Alaska, the reader can tell that Palin believes in the principles of both fiscal and social conservatism and practices that belief.
“But lessons learned on the micro level still apply to the macro. Just as my family couldn’t fund every item on our wish list, and had to live within our means as well as save for the future, I felt we needed to do that for the state.”
Palin really did govern Alaska in a fiscally conservative manner. The quote above is really in the book, and if some day Palin should run, and win, for President, well we can sure use those very simple, and true, words to keep her in line right? I daresay you’ll not find anything like that in “Dreams of My Father”, just throwing it out there. Obama’s wife got a job making $300,000 a year at a Chicago hospital for doing nothing while Todd Palin had to work the North Slope in Alaska to feed his family.
It was Palin’s story of her campaign for Vice-President that was most interesting. She tells of the Couric interview, the treatment she and her family received by the McCain campaign staff. Whoever this fellow called Schmidt is, he’s a nasty dude.
We learn of wardrobes that she did NOT buy, library books she did NOT ban, ethics violations she did NOT make.
Finally Palin had to resign her governorship because the Obama administration’s pack of jackals filed ethics complaints against her with no merit. And while the Alaskan AG could use state funds to follow the puppet masters in the Democratic party, the Palins had to pay for Sarah’s defense out of their own funds.
It was the right thing to do.
Palin is not exactly coy about her future plans. Everyone, of course, wants to know if she intends to run for the Big Job. Palin never leaves out that possibility.
I think she is a classy lady who didn’t bite the McCain hand that fed her, who followed her own beliefs, who was beloved by Alaskan citizens at an 80% approval rating.
Read this book before the kick up to the 2012 campaign season folks. She’s not a rich Romney, a Gingrich has-been, a Jeb Bush not time yet if ever, a Huckabee aw shucks talk show host. She’s an up and comer and they’re going to throw everything at her.
Book Review of a gossipy gem by Dominick Dunne, "JUSTICE"...Crimes, Trials, and Punishments”. It’s a great read whether you’re a True Crime aficionado or not. Crimes and trials covered include his daughter’s murderer’s trial, OJ Simpson, Martha Bulow, the Menendez Brothers, a little known Delaware Blue Blood murder of Diana Hironaga from here in the swamps, Martha Moxley and others.
Pic of the Day
”JUSTICE” by Dominick Dunne
I found this book after a trip to Georgetown, Delaware’s brand new library which has become a huge waste of taxpayer money.
So what else is new under the sun?
Make no mistake Georgetown needed a new library as the old one was smaller than my house. But the thing they built is HUGE, way bigger than little Georgetown could possibly need. This is an age, may I remind, of electronic books.
There has also been quite a bit of confusion over this new library, including an announcement by the county council that they do not have the funds to pay for the library operating costs such as electricity, heat and telephones.
In fact, as of this writing, the Georgetown library is CLOSED and no one seems to know why. It’s been closed for two weeks.
It’s how they do, folks, the politicos, they spend money not needed, money not there, money our children and grandchildren will have to repay.
When I visited the Georgetown, Delaware library and checked out this book “Justice” by Dominick Dunne, fully one full floor had not one single book in it.
Dominick Dunne is known by me mainly as a professional name-dropper, if there is such a thing. He’s part gossip-columnist, part investigative reporter, part journalist, part fiction writer.
What I did NOT know was that Dunne’s own daughter had been murdered by her very possessive, borderline insane boyfriend.
In this book, Dunne gives gossipy, intriguing insights on many famous crimes and trials, including his daughter’s murderer’s trial, OJ Simpson, Martha Bulow, the Menendez Brothers, a little known Delaware Blue Blood murder of Diana Hironaga from here in the swamps, Martha Moxley and others.
It’s good stuff. I was spellbound. Dunne has a gossipy way of writing and by me we’re all born with a bit of a gossipy snoop in us.
I thought I knew everything there was to know about the OJ trial. But Dunne tells the story of OJ’s maid, Rosa Lopez the perjuror, how she became engaged to a 28 year old ventriloquist from Baltimore named Mike Gabriel. Gabriel saw her testifying on TV, became smitten, followed her to El Salvador where she agreed to marry him.
They divorced. Gabriel’s old girlfriend took him back. Her name is Samantha, she acts in porn, she has recently filmed her first anal-sex scene, as Gabriel informed Dunne.
Isn’t that just the coolest tidbit? I love Anne Rule but she seldom gets this kind of stuff from her sources.
Here’s another Dunne scoop:
P aula Barbieri, signed for three million dollar book deal.
Barbieri was, if yon reader recalls, the woman OJ was dating when he killed his wife and Ron Goldman.
"The sounds of their lovemaking in Robert Kardashian's house on the night before Nicole's funeral, according to an inside source, woke up the household."
Imagine that. This smirky creep took two innocent lives and on the night before the funeral of his children’s mother, he’s making loud love to his girlfriend. I’m so glad they finally got this guy in jail.
He could have, just throwing it out there, went away quietly after being granted two free murders by nuts on that OJ jury, none of whom ever wrote a book by the way cause who would read such a thing ? Instead OJ tried every trick in the book to avoid paying restitution to Fred Goldman as lawfully ordered by a court. That stupid stunt with the gun in Las Vegas….well hey, OJ’s in jail and good.
This is a great book, folks. Well-written, mesmerizing, not the same-old rehashed details of crimes, but chock full of new inside info.
Dunne’s daughter should be alive, poor child. Instead she was murdered by a crazy man who managed to get just a few years behind bars and who threatened other women in his life with his insane jealous rage.
“Reasonable Doubt” by Steve Vogel is a book of my fave True Crime Genre. It’s hardly a recent publication but the story is compelling in that manner of crimes the more ordinary amongst us commit. Dave Handricks was a religious man, yet he brutally murdered his wife and three children.
Here’s the story of the crime and the trial. You’ll be transfixed.
Pic of the Day
”Reasonable Doubt” by Steve Vogel
David Hendricks was a very religious man. He was, in fact, a leader of his church, a little known sect that met in parishioner houses instead of any church.
Hendricks had a great marriage to his wife Susan, and they had three children, Becky, Grace and Benjy.
This book is the True Crime story of David Hendricks’ arrest, trial and defense for the horrific murder of his wife and small children, all bludgeoned to death with an axe, said weapon left on the bed of the bloodied and very dead children.
At times the narrative overwhelmed with the attention to crime minutiae. There were many chapters dedicated to the defense arguments as to how long it takes consumed food to be digested unrecognizable and why prosecutors got it all wrong with their claim that very identifiable mushrooms and pepperoni do not mean the eater was killed within hours of the meal.
Which is how it happened, so the prosecution alleged.
Susan Hendricks went out the night of the murders to attend a wedding shower. David minded the children, taking them to Chuck E. Cheese around 7:00 pm or so and just making the bookmobile to return some books at around 8:00 pm. The children ate, as would be expected, pizza at this famed pizza place.
David Hendricks left, he alleged, at around 10:30 pm for a business sales trip many miles away, a trip for which there had been no appointments made in advance for David to pitch his orthopedic device. David does not recall locking the sliding glass door leading into his house from his deck.
After David kissed and bade his family goodbye, the defense asserted that evidently some thieves entered through the unlocked sliding door, robbed the place as there were drawers obviously rifled through in their search for goods, then killed Susan Hendricks and all the Hendricks’ children. This with an axe from their own home.
At least as David Hendricks alleges because he was by the time of the murders many miles away without a clue that anything was amiss in his house until the next day when he repeatedly tried to phone his wife and could not get a response.
I don’t know or have I ever heard of Steve Vogel. This book was not recent by any stretch but it was right there on the shelf of my library and I hadn’t yet read it. Vogel did an okay job with the book but hey, he’s no Ann Rule.
Vogel provided some background of the defendant, for, make no mistake, David murdered his family because…what? He suddenly decides to make an out-of-town trip with no prior appointments made that any busy medicos would be prepared to see his pitch? He leaves his wife, already in bed so soon after returning from her wedding shower at 10:30 and all children sleeping soundly after a hectic night at Chuck E. Cheese and chasing the bookmobile all over town, and doesn’t insure the doors are locked, in fact he leaves the sliding door unlocked? Most astounding, the thieves who supposedly broke into this most ordinary of neighborhood homes to viciously murder an entire family, didn’t even bring their own weapons! They had to use the axe coincidentally found in the home. Not to mention valuable jewelry still left even after the staged rifling of various dressers and such.
The stomach contents of those children were a large part of the story. Because pepperoni and mushrooms were still identifiable as to what they were. Various scientists and medicos argued differently, but in order for a mushroom to still look like a mushroom when removed from the human stomach, death would likely have had to occur within two to three hours of consumption. Longer than that and the mushroom would look like the first part of its name…”mush”.
Those children were wantonly axed to death around ten pm that night, less than three hours since they’d eaten that pizza and before David Hendricks, by his own admission, left for his trip hundreds of miles away for his “sales” presentations.
Either somebody murdered those children before David left on his trip or somebody broke into his house and did the deed while David was still inside.
The story of why David killed his family is intriguing. Perhaps because Vogel is a male author, it comes off as a bit dried and boring in the book. Ann Rule would have done a much more intriguing and compelling job with the tale.
It was about sex, religion, lies and a need to be free while keeping some sense of respect with family, friends and other church members.
Aa the concluding chapter of the book, Vogel does his best job of the entire narrative. At the beginning of the book Vogel vows he will present just the facts with no preconceived notions.
Thus the reader is presented, fairly, with the arguments of the defense. Cold sales calls are quite common in the medical profession we learn. I think of my busy doctors and to-the-second appointments and think how unlikely this is.
As to such as stomach contents, the arguments raged. The author’s beginning vow to present all facts might have been a bad idea as after a bit I had to move on by all the experts testifying to how long a mushroom remains a mushroom after being digested.
Whatever the experts say, we’ve all been there and done that. Food does not always stay in the stomach like it should. Perhaps we’ve had too much to drink, perhaps a touch of food poisoning. My gut told me that if the mushroom as consumed by one of the Hendricks children still looked like a mushroom at the autopsy it probably wasn’t that long ago since it was eaten. But then I’m no highly-paid defense expert, just a woman whose thrown up a time or two in the past 60 years.
The testimony of the orthopedic models took a lot of space in the book but this wasn’t quite as boring as reading endlessly about stomach contents.
At the conclusion Vogel gives a very believable scenario as to how David Hendricks likely killed his wife and children. For there were some unexplained oddities about the crime, the most glaring being how on earth David could have engaged in such bloody carnage without leaving any blood in the drains in the house on any clothes found in the house or on his person.
The author gives a very believable reason for this as well.
It’s a book worth the read for True Crime Afficiandos. It lacks the soft feminine insight of an Ann Rule but hey, there is only ONE Ann Rule.
