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Most Wanted Man…
The Mickey Cohen of Boston, James “Whitey” Bulger, 81, legendary fugitive mobster, has just been apprehended – after more than 15 years on the lam & an international manhunt. Whitey surrendered at his rent-controlled apartment, 3 blocks from the Pacific, in pricey, pristine Santa Monica, a star-studded beachside community in Los Angeles. Offering $2 million bounty, the FBI had just began running TV ads about him, but not in the LA market! In the apartment, his digs since 1996, authorities found inside the walls more than $800,000 cash, 30 guns, assorted knives and forged documents. Whitey’s story, like the story of L.A.’s own brazen and outrageous underworld boss Mickey Cohen (which may be read in my forthcoming book, MICKEY COHEN: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF L.A.’S NOTORIOUS MOBSTER, coming May 1, 2012) is amazing. While Whitey ruled Beantown for a generation, his brother politician BILLY BULGER– with whom he shared a very close and well known relationship – was one of the most powerful figures in Massachusetts politics (Kennedys and John Kerry kissed his ass!!!)
Whitey is infamous not only for his murderous ways, prominent brother, but also for being a top FBI informant -while having a personal FBI agent on payroll. The 2006 film, The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese, was a prosaic (with changed names) version of his story, but is worth seeing for the performance of incomparable Jack Nicholson as the Whitey-ish mobster. Many non-fiction books have been written, but the one I love is The Brothers Bulger by Howie Carr. An outstanding read, you get the true story of both the mobster and his equally fascinating brother!
May 21, 2011…
The Rapture is coming on Sat…What to wear? It always matters what you’re wearing…but particularly on the day when your signature look will be for all eternity! If a Christian group is right, we’ll soon be sashaying down that runway in the sky for the pearly gates — or to the fires of hell. But don’t worry about Rex and Frosty: In NY,compassionate atheists vow to rescue pets if their owners ascend on “Judgement Day.”
From The Mad Men Era…
Built in 1971, the Japanese reactors that are tragically melting down, as well as 23 others in the US, are designs from the sixties! From GE, they were dubbed the Mark I, and marketed as less expensive and easy to build. From the same era, the Westinghouse/Bechtel-built reactor, beachside at San Onofre, may seem a world away, in the heavily populated provinces, but it is only 64 miles from the border of the city of Los Angeles. Built to withstand only a 7.0 quake, a 30-foot seawall has been erected to protect against tsunamis.
L.A. TIMES, today: “Fukushima’s #3 reactor…uses plutonium fuel, which poses a special health risk even in small quantities if fallout from that reactor were to reach US shores.”
As we await the fallout that will reach So Cal Friday, there are so many talking heads spouting answers, but no models; no one can really say how much radioactivity will reach the US – and for how long. All I can think of is the classic 1959 movie, On The Beach. Stream it and weep!
Update:The San Onofre reactor in Orange County, California has been shut down.
Mind-Manipulation Is Illegal…
but it apparently didn’t stop a 3-star Army general from planning to perpetrate psychological mind bending (psy-ops) on U.S. Senators, including John McCain and Al Franken, in an attempt to keep them compliant in funding the war in Afghanistan. The same Rolling Stone writer, Michael Hastings, who broke the story that got the head of the Afghan campaign, General Stanley McChrystal, fired several months ago, has now revealed this devious plot.
This may sound surreal — but unfortunately no dirty tricks surprise me…anywhere.
UPDATE, JUNE 2013: MICHAEL HASTINGS IS NOW DEAD! KILLED INSTANTLY IN A FIERY LATE NIGHT, HIGH-SPEED CRASH IN THE HANCOCK PARK NEIGHBORHOOD OF HOLLYWOOD.