April Book of the Month Deal: Cultures of Darkness by Bryan D. Palmer

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Book of the Month from MR Press! Cultures of Darkness Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression by Bryan D. Palmer get 35% off this title when you enter the coupon code DARKNESS2013 at checkout! When we first published this erudite and absorbing book, Publishers Weekly raved, calling it an "enthralling and important trans-historical study" carried out through "in-depth, far-ranging scholarship with a broad political vision" and presented in an "accessible and highly entertaining writing style." They continued: "Palmer’s canvas is huge…it ranges from an analysis of early modern witch culture (which he connects to the later development of Puritanism) to the emergence of 19th-century semisecret fraternal orders such as the Oddfellows, the vibrant 20th-century gay male cultures of drag and sadomasochism, and the emergence of a U.S. jazz and blues culture…yet he manages to bring these diverse topics together in a cohesive and astute analysis. Integrating unusual details and artful nuances (from the specifics of 18th-century pirate executions to the links between the Rosenberg trial and the novels of Micky Spillane), Palmer creates a multilayered but seamless portrait of four centuries of Western culture." Writing in Against the Current, Leo Panitch called Cultures of Darkness "a truly breathtaking book, whose richness of interpretation as well as documentation is nothing short of remarkable." And Choice praised it as "an unusual work of historical scholarship, a highly readable yet deeply learned history." Take advantage of our special Book of the Month deal and order your copy today! Peasants, religious heretics, witches, pirates, runaway slaves, prostitutes and pornographers, frequenters of taverns and fraternal society lodge rooms, revolutionaries, blues and jazz musicians, beats, and contemporary youth gangs: those who defied authority, choosing to live dangerously outside the defining cultural dominions of early insurgent and, later, dominant capitalism are what Bryan D. Palmer calls people of the night. Constructing a rich tapestry of example and experience spanning eight centuries, Palmer’s fascinating account details lives of exclusion and challenge, as the night travels of the transgressors clash repeatedly with the powerful conventions of their times. Nights of liberation and exhilarating desire are at the heart of this study but so, too, are the dangers cloaked in darkness. Palmer reveals those hidden spaces where darkness concealed acts of brutalizing terror or alternately provided refuge, solace, or freedom. Using the night as metaphor and unifying theme Palmer takes an unflinching look at those dissident or oppositional cultures and movements and shows how they were fueled and shaped by the rise and transformation of capitalism. 620 Pages | $28 order online use coupon code DARKNESS2013 for 35% off!

Icelandic MP visits US to raise awareness of Bradley Manning

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Icelandic official who helped reveal Collateral Murder, nominate Bradley for Nobel Peace Prize, visits US Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, who helped WikiLeaks produce Collateral Murder and nominated Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize, is visiting the U.S. this weekend to help raise awareness ahead of Bradley's court martial. April 5 is the third anniversary of the release of the Collateral Murder video that exposed the murder of innocent civilians and two Reuters journalists. April 5, 2013, is the third anniversary of the release of Collateral Murder, the world-famous video that documented the murder of innocent civilians and journalists by a US Apache gunship in Iraq. On this day, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir will visit the United States to raise awareness about Bradley Manning and rally support ahead of his June 3 trial. Jonsdottir helped WikiLeaks edit the video, and now sits on the Bradley Manning Support Network’s Advisory Board. Despite fears that the U.S. government will try to silence WikiLeaks collaborators, she is visiting New York City this month, and plans to return for more events around the country in June. On Friday, April 5, beginning at 5:30 PM ET at Judson Memorial Church (55 Washington Square South), Birgitta will display stills from Collateral Murder, and she’ll project the video, as well as a five-minute documentary, “Providence”, featuring Bradley’s voice. Then at 8:00 PM ET, she’ll join a panel discussion with FDL journalist Kevin Gosztola, WikiLeaks researcher Alexa O’Brien, and media critic Peter Hart, moderated by Sam Seder. The event will be live-streamed at BradleyManning.org. Funds raised at the event will go toward Bradley Manning’s defense. In a powerful statement last month, Bradley said he was appalled by U.S. Apache gunners in the video, particularly by how they begged for the wounded to pick up weapons to justify shooting them. He compared the gunmen to children “torturing ants with a magnifying glass.” He also explained why he released the video to WikiLeaks: I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crewmembers. I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response in the media and general public who observed the aerial weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as troubled—if not more troubled—than me by what they saw. The release of the video in 2010 allowed the American public to engage in widespread debates concerning U.S. conduct in Iraq, and how U.S. gunners violated international law by killing innocent journalists, civilians and rescue workers. Its release turned international attention to some of the ugliest realities of the Iraq war, and began an important discussion about how to hold the U.S. military accountable. Read more ...

DECLARATION BY DICK GREGORY ON BEHALF OF LYNNE STEWART -sign the petition

 

DECLARATION BY DICK GREGORY — APRIL 4, 2013

I hereby declare on this day commemorating the life and sacrifice of my friend

and brother in struggle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that in the spirit of his

moral legacy, I demand the immediate release from prison of the legendary

lawyer Lynne Stewart, who devoted her entire professional life to the poor, the

oppressed and those targeted by the police and a vindictive State.

I further declare that from this day forth, I shall refuse all solid food until

Lynne Stewart is freed and receives medical treatment in the care of her family

and with physicians of her choice without which she will die.

There is no time to lose as cancer, which had been in remission, has

metastasized since her imprisonment. It has spread to her lymph nodes, her

shoulder and appears in her bones and in her lungs.

A criminal defense attorney in New York for over 30 years, Lynne Stewart’s

unwavering dedication as a selfless advocate was acknowledged by the

community as well as judges, prosecutors and the entire legal profession. Such

has been her reputation as a fearless lawyer, ready to challenge those in power,

that judges assigned her routinely to act for defendants whom no attorney was

willing to represent.

In 2002, Lynne Stewart was targeted by then-President George Bush and

Attorney General John Ashcroft for providing a vigorous defense of her client,

the blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. She was charged with

conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist activity after she exercised

both her and her client’s first amendment rights by presenting a press release

to a Reuters journalist. She did nothing more than other attorneys, such as her

co-counsel former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, have done on behalf of their

clients.

The reason for the prosecution and persecution of Lynne Stewart is evident to

us all. It was designed to intimidate the entire legal community so that few

would dare to defend political clients whom the State demonizes and none

would provide a vigorous defense. It also was designed to narrow the meaning

of our cherished first amendment right to free speech, which the people of this

country struggled to have added to the Constitution as the Bill of Rights.

The prosecution and imprisonment of Lynne Stewart is an ominous threat to

the freedom, rights and dignity of each and every American. It is the agenda of

a police state.

I ask you to join with me to demand freedom for Lynne Stewart. An

international campaign has been launched with a petition that supports her

application for compassionate release. Under the 1984 Sentencing Act, the

Bureau of Prisons can file a motion with the Court to reduce sentences “for

extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Life threatening illness is foremost

among these and Lynne Stewart meets every rational and humane criterion for

compassionate release.

Join with me, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pete Seeger and 6,000 other people

of conscience throughout the world who have signed this petition to compel the

Warden of the Federal Medical Center, Carswell and the Director of the Bureau

of Prisons to act. Act now. There is no time to lose.

The petition (below) can be found online at the Justice for Lynne Stewart

website: www.lynnestewart.org or at

www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-save-her-life-release-her-now-2

Contacts: Lil Gregory at 508.746.7427 to schedule interviews with Dick Gregory and

Ralph Schoenman at 707.552.9992 for follow up information on Dick Gregory and the

Campaign to Save the Life of Lynne Stewart.

PETITION TO FREE LYNNE STEWART: SAVE HER LIFE – RELEASE HER NOW!

Lynne Stewart has devoted her life to the oppressed – a constant advocate for the

countless many deprived in the United States of their freedom and their rights.

Unjustly charged and convicted for the “crime” of providing her client with a fearless

defense, the prosecution of Lynne Stewart is an assault upon the basic freedoms of us all.

After years of post-conviction freedom, her bail was revoked arbitrarily and her

imprisonment ordered, precluding surgery she had scheduled in a major New York hospital.

The sinister meaning of the relentless persecution of Lynne Stewart is unmistakably clear.

Given her age and precarious health, the ten-year sentence she is serving is a virtual death

sentence.

Since her imprisonment in the Federal Prison in Carswell, Texas her urgent need for

surgery was delayed 18 months – so long, that the operating physician pronounced the

condition as “the worst he had seen.”

Now, breast cancer, which had been in remission prior to her imprisonment, has reached

Stage Four. It has appeared in her lymph nodes, on her shoulder, in her bones and her

lungs.

Her daughter, a physician, has sounded the alarm: “Under the best of circumstances,

Lynne would be in a battle of the most serious consequences with dangerous odds. With

cancer and cancer treatment, the complications can be as debilitating and as dangerous as

the cancer itself.”

In her current setting, where trips to physicians involve attempting to walk with 10 pounds

of shackles on her wrists and ankles, with connecting chains, Lynne Stewart has lacked

ready access to physicians and specialists under conditions compatible with medical

success.

It can take weeks to see a medical provider in prison conditions. It can take weeks to report

physical changes and learn the results of treatment; and when held in the hospital, Lynne

has been shackled wrist and ankle to the bed.

This medieval “shackling” has little to do with any appropriate prison control. She is

obviously not an escape risk.

We demand abolition of this practice for all prisoners, let alone those facing surgery and the

urgent necessity of care and recovery.

It amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of human rights.

There is immediate remedy available for Lynne Stewart. Under the 1984 Sentencing Act,

after a prisoner request, the Bureau of Prisons can file a motion with the Court to reduce

sentences “for extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Life threatening illness is foremost

among these and Lynne Stewart meets every rational and humane criterion for

compassionate release.

To misconstrue the gravamen of this compassionate release by conditioning such upon

being at death’s door – released, if at all, solely to die – is a cruel mockery converting a

prison sentence, wholly undeserved, into a death sentence.

The New York Times, in an editorial (2/12), has excoriated the Bureau of Prisons for their

restrictive crippling of this program. In a 20-year period, the Bureau released a scant 492

persons – an average of 24 a year out of a population that exceeds 220,000.

We cry out against the bureaucratic murder of Lynne Stewart.

We demand Lynne Stewart’s immediate release to receive urgent medical care in a

supportive environment indispensable to the prospect of her survival and call upon the

Bureau of Prisons to act immediately.

If Lynne’s original sentence of 28 months had not been unreasonably, punitively increased

to 10 years, she would be home now — where her medical care would be by her choice

and where those who love her best would care for her. Her isolation from this loving care

would end.

Prevent this cruelty to Lynne Stewart whose lifelong commitment to justice is now a

struggle for her life.

Free Lynne Stewart Now!

Ralph Poynter and Family

###

JOIN BOSTON APRIL DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST

LETHAL AND SURVEILLANCE DRONES

The world is waking up to the Obama administration’s dangerous and illegal use of drones for expanding warfare by targeted assassinations, along with threats to our civil liberties and right to dissent by increasing drone surveillance by police agencies at home.

“April Days of Action”, a national campaign of counter-drone protests and teach-ins focused on drone bases, manufacturers and research and training centers, was called to alert the public and to challenge the escalating threat of drone warfare and spying.

Not only are lethal drones used in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, but the US is using drones in Iran, Syria, and Mali as preparation for possible military intervention and threatening North Korea with Nuclear war. We must stop these acts of war now!

NO KILLER DRONES!

NO SPY DRONES!

HANDS OFF KOREA, IRAN, SYRIA!

Boston plans include:

Sat., April 6, 1 -2:00 PM - DRONE "DEATH MARCH" AND VIGIL.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedon (WILPF) leads silent, single-file death march from Community Church, 565 Boylston Street, Copley Square to Park St. to join Committee for Peace and Human Rights weekly Park St. vigil 1-2:00 pm. Wear black and bring a white mask.

Sat., April 13, 1-3:00 PM – PARK ST. Rally, Die-In, March through downtown Boston. (To participate in die-in, contact Susan McLucas, susanbmcl@gmail.com, 617-776-6524.)

Sat., April 26-28 – Regional Anti-Drone Conference in Syracuse and mass protest at hancock Reaper drone air base. (For more information and to sign up for transportation, contact UJP.)

Sponsors (in formation): EASTERN MASS. ANTI-DRONE NETWORK, United for Justice with Peace, United National Antiwar Coalition, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Committee for Peace and Human Rights, Veterans For Peace – Smedley Butler Brigade, International Action Center, Boston May Day Committee

For further information on actions, to become a sponsor, or to join the anti-drone network, contact: Boston: United for Justice with Peace, info@justicewithpeace.org, 617-383-4857

National: http://www.knowdrones.com/ Syracuse: www.upstatedroneaction.org

Boston's International Workers Day 2013


BMDC International Workers Day Rally
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at Boston City Hall
Gather at 2PM - Rally at 2:30PM
(Court St. & Cambridge St.)
T stops Government Center (Blue line, Green line)

To download flyer click here. (Please print double-sided)

Other May Day events:

Revere - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pmbegin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Everett - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pm begin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Chelsea - @ City Hall - rally a 3:pm (wait for above feeder marches to arrive) will begin marching at 4:30 (to East Boston)
East Boston - @ Central Square - (welcome marchers) Rally at 5:pm

BMDC will join the rally in East Boston immediately following Boston City Hall rally

Supporters: ANSWER Coalition, Boston Anti Authoritarian Movement, Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Harvard No-Layoffs Campaign, Industrial Workers of the World, Latinos for Social Change, Mass Global Action, Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party of Boston, Socialist Workers Party, Student Labor Action Movement, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Worcester Immigrant Coalition, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Democracy Center - Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington United for Justice with Peace, International Socialist Organization, Community Church of Boston

Dear Veterans for Peace Boston - Smedley Butler and Sammie's Way,

On behalf of the Boston May Day Committee (BMDC), I thank you for your
dedicated commitment to social and economic justice. In particular, we
thank you and appreciate your active participation, contribution, hard
work and continuous support of the BMDC.

This year, as you have witnessed the administration continues to allow
attacks on workers regardless of their status, scandalous cuts to the
budget and escalations to current wars and provocative threats of new
foreign engagement.

It is crucial that we have a united People's voice to send a strong message.

Again, thank you for your support and contributions to ensure a successful International Workers Day rally.

Dorotea Manuela, for

Boston May Day Committee

Human Rights are non-negotiable, please sign online petition demanding
that USA sign the United Nations "Convention on the Protection of the
Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families". Please go to www.bostonmayday.org

La lucha continua!

***From The Brothers Under The Bridge Series- Ramblin’ Jack’s Ramble

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:

In the first installment of this series of sketches space provided courtesy of my old 1960s yellow brick road magical mystery tour merry prankster fellow traveler, Peter Paul Markin, I mentioned, in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to download into my iPod, that I had come across a song that stopped me in my tracks, Brothers Under The Bridge. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct East Bay Eye (Frisco town, California East Bay, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a Great Depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramp camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles, and created their own “society.”

The editor of the East Bay Eye, Owen Anderson, gave me that long ago assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy, since I had not been in the military during the Vietnam War period, were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and another down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me in on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.

After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A while back, after having no success in retrieving the old Eye archives, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from stories that I didn’t file because the Eye went under before I could round them into shape.

The ground rules of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to hear, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for foul language). I, like with the others in this current series, have reconstructed this story as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said.

Not every guy I interviewed, came across, swapped lies with, or just snatched some midnight phrase out of the air from was from hunger. Most were, yes, in one way or another but some, and the one I am recalling in this sketch from 1979 fits this description, had no real desire to advertise their own hunger but just wanted to get something off their chest about some lost buddy, or some event they had witnessed. I have presented enough of these sketches both back in the day and here to not make a generalization about what a guy might be hiding in the deep recesses of his mind.

Some wanted to give a blow by blow description of every firefight (and every hut torched) they were involved in, others wanted to blank out ‘Nam completely and talk of before or after times, or talk about the fate of some buddy, some ‘Nam buddy, who maybe made it back the “real world” but got catch up with stuff he couldn’t handle, or got caught up in some stuff himself that he couldn’t handle, couldn’t handle because his whole blessed life pointed the other way. Ramblin’ Jack’s’ (John Higgins) story fit that description, the couldn’t handle part. He just kind of drifted around the West Coast (after spending a minute back home in the East, back in Hullsville near Boston) after he got out of the service, got caught up with some wrong gees, drank too much liquor, and did a little time and landed in the“jungle,” the one they set up in Westminster after being herded out of Compton by the cops. I like to finish up these introductions by placing these sketches under a particular sign; no question Ramblin’s Jack’s sign was rambling, scrambling.
*************
Ramblin’Jack woke up with a splitting headache, a desert dry mouth and no dough in his pocket from his three day toot, no, his third three day toot so make it nine days, maybe ten as he was only counting toots in threes. (For the gentile drinker, for the after five drinker, the martini cocktail and then something else to go on to drinker, play with the kids maybe, or heaven forbid the non-drinker, the non- alcoholic drinker, a toot was strictly drinking from, say when the bars opened, workingmen’s bars, until three days later, or whenever you or she ran out of money, and then maybe cadge a fresh bottle somehow and room sip some more, okay). Ramblin’Jack, Jack, hell, John Higgins, had had more than his share of toots since he got back to the “real” world, back from “Nam the year before, that 1971 year before and had decided, or maybe drifted into deciding was better, that he would “hang loose” for a while as he gathered himself together to face the rest of his life. And so the toots, the toots between bouts of work down at the docks, down at the Oakland docks, down at the warehouses, where a friend, a ‘Nam friend, Bill Henry, through his father, some middle level union official, got him work as a B man (no need to discuss what that is here since Jack was officially only slumming until he found himself), were how he amused himself. But it was taking its toll.

Toll-taking number one was that whether the docks were Jack’s life ambition or merely a way to pass the time while he adjusted to the real world he had taken too many days off and was very close (that ‘Nam friend’s father constantly defending him before the bosses close) to being put on indefinite suspension. Naturally dockworkers, fathers and sons, bent over backwards to help a veteran, more so when alcohol was involved since more than a few, fathers and sons, had had their own toot manias, their own toot dreams. But a new contract was coming up, the dock bosses were looking to unload as many B men as they could and were looking for any reason to cut down the manning crews, especially since cargo holds could be emptied a lot faster those days with fewer men and that was a simple fact of economic life on the West Coast docks (East Coast too but that was a different tradition). And see Jack had no other plan of action to fall back on so if he lost the job it was a big thing although he barely shrugged his shoulders when he was called on the carpet. (In fact immediately after the hearing he had gone out and gotten drunk although he did show up for work the next day but such things were, are dicey, dicey indeed).

Toll-taking number two was Leah, Leah Morris, his honey, his paramour, his, well, his woman, if anybody was asking. He had met her at a party one night over in Berkeley a couple of months after he had gotten back when he and some friends were asked by some anti-war activists interested in doing “G.I. anti-war work” to come over and relate their war experiences. He didn’t want to do it, wasn’t that keen about relating some of the horrific things that he had seen happen over there, and was not sure what was motivating these people to in 1971 suddenly become interested in guys that they didn’t pay too much attention to before (at least that is what he thought, although he never heard of, or believed, that they had spit on vets, or stuff like that, calling them “baby killers,” but were rather just indifferent to a soldier’s fate as long as they didn’t have to go) but one guy said that there was plenty of booze (he found out later when he got more involved that the booze angle was a calculated action by the activists assuming that dangling plentiful booze in front of ex-G.I.s would roll them over) and girls, friendly girls, so he went. He didn’t actually speak that night (although he did later) since the minute (well maybe not the minute) their eyes, his and Leah’s, met something happened. Not a spark or anything like that but something .

Funny too since Leah was then a graduate student in some arcane branch of mathematics, who had previously “dropped out” in various “summer of love” drug, sex and rock and roll experiments a few years before , got tired of the yellow bus road, and was looking to add a stable political commitment to her new found academic resume. He wasn’t. She, moreover, after they introduced themselves to each other asked if he cared for a joint. Ramblin’ Jack, ah, John Higgins, was strictly a drinking man, had been since his youth in Hullsville back East (outside of Boston, about twenty miles away) and had previously had very strong opinions about dope-heads and hippies although ‘Nam, or really post ‘Nam in California had mellowed that a bit (he would try drugs later with Leah but if pressed he would still call himself a drinking man, a rambling , gambling, ambling drinking man, okay). And that was the rub with Leah. No, not the dope versus drinking thing, or maybe just a little but those damn toots when he would be gone for three days and then show up at her door looking like hell (and smelling of another woman although he always denied that, and she having had her share of affairs, had cheated on previous lovers, did not press that issue) and in need of fumigation, or something.

See Leah, now that the crest of the 1960s wave was passed (when it actually crested was, and is, the subject of reams of doctoral dissertations and other comments which has snow-balled into a veritable cottage industry by baby-boomers with time on their hands and their acolytes) wanted to settle down, wanted to get married, wanted to have that nine to five thing that she never wanted before. And Jack, although he never put it in so many words just wanted to drink, or whatever a drink meant to him.

And that brings us to toll-taking number three, the real story behind those desert dry mouth mornings, those don’t care blues, that Leah fear (or better fear of Leah). Jack never said it, never said it out loud to anybody, not Leah, not‘Nam buddies (they had their own nightmare survivals to worry about), not the doctors over at the VA in Frisco that time but he had killed an innocent family, a family he knew was innocent, over in ’Nam one afternoon when Charlie Company was making a sweep through the villages up around Pleiku. And the reason that he knew they were innocent is because they were just sitting in their hooch having their noontime meal when his company came through. Jack heard something (anything, they were always hearing something) and he freaked, freaked thinking of another ambush and with an animal fear just started firing at that peaceful family. Sure he covered it up, said he saw half the North Vietnamese Army coming at him (as it turned out they were not within twenty miles of the place then and were in any case moving eastward away from the area ), and “thought” this crew was Charlie. The chain covered it up, case closed, sealed with seven seals. Except for one Ramblin’ Jack, John Higgins, every few nights he would dream, dream vividly about that afternoon, and when he did he needed, really needed, that booze, needed it bad.

One day Ramblin’ Jack woke up, woke up in Leah’s bed, woke up after a bad dream, had a quick shot of whiskey, showered and walked out the door. Walked out leaving a short note telling Leah he was heading down to the high desert, was heading down Joshua Tree way to find himself…

***Out In The Film Noir Night- With The Film Adaptation Of Dashiell Hammett’sThe Maltese Falcon In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

My boss, Steve Sullivan, P.I. (which for those who have never needed such services stands for private investigator, what the snide of the world call gumshoes, private dicks, shamuses, peepers and worse, yah, those who have never needed those kinds of services can be snide but Steve for my money, as you will find out if you follow me while I give you the skinny on one such caper of his, is one of the best, one of the best in Frisco town, one of the best in the Golden state, one of the best around anywhere) had been in a fits and starts mood for the previous several months ever since he sent her over, the Wonderly dame I called her since that was the name that she gave when she knocked on our door and introduced herself, over to the big step-off for the murder of his partner P.I, (and my late boss too) Mike Andrews.

See he got so caught up in her web, Wonderly ‘s web okay, wanted, wanted more than I had ever seen him want to, to get caught up so much in her web that he left a few professional distance things behind and fell for her, fell for a client, a woman about as bad as a man can and still stay standing. So, yes, the past few months had been hell around the office, or even around the building he had such a grouch on. He had even stopped calling me Angel, his pet name for me his personal secretary and office manager and he had always called me Angel for the five years I have worked for him so you know he had it bad. It was worse after the jury found murder one, premeditated murder with malice and everything else they could think of, and she thus faced the big step- off even if she was a woman, a beautiful woman if an evil woman I will give that.

He kept muttering about how he could have played it differently, could have kept his mouth shut, muttering about what was Mike Andrews to him anyway except a chiseling two-bit partner whom he had to pick up after more times than he could count, about how they, he and the Wonderly dame, could have gone off to sunny Mexico and forgotten the past, stuff like that, if she had been straight with him, straight with him for one minute, for ten seconds, not normal Steve Sullivan talk or soft stuff if you knew him. And it got so I couldn’t mention her name around him, couldn’t mention from minute one, no, ten seconds, after she stepped into our office my woman’s intuition said that she was nothing but a tramp and man-trap ( I already granted that she was beautiful so I won’t say that again) or else he might have done me in, sent me to the great beyond and she might then have some friendly company for the big step-off.

Hey, I was there through most of it, helped around the edges while it was going on (mainly as a gofer and as a confidante to her as per Steve’s request, although she was organically incapacity of such confidences), tidied up some of the pieces after the fall (mainly holding his hand when he got depressed about her treatment by him) , and what I didn’t know about I got filled in by from my boyfriend who worked in the D.A.s office, and by the transcripts of the trial that Steve had me transcribe for her appeal (unbeknownst to her or the DAs office he paid for them himself through a third party. Keep that hush, please) so let me go through the paces here and you won’t be so in the dark about why Steve has been a mope about some fallen dame and why if you need such services as he provides he’s still your man.

About a year ago, yes, it was a year ago because the Germans had just run through France on the way to the Atlantic coast and I cried to think what would become of Paris now that the heathen Huns were there and it would never be the same as when Steve, Mike and I went there on a case, a big case, she came through the door and stood, stood proud as a peacock, asking for Mr. Andrews because she needed some detective help on a private matter. She gave the air of being a Mayfair swell, and she looked it, long, tall, slender figure as is the fashion these days (I was jealous of that figure, no question, but that did not distort my opinion of her really), a pillbox hat atop a well- coiffed head of long brown hair, blue eyes, and a dress not off the rack and a mink also not off the rack. And topped off by some delicious come hither gardenia perfume that cost some guy plenty, and probably got him very little for his generosity. So, yes, she had a certain look and a certain swagger like she was doing us a favor by showing up here. But as I told her that Mr. Andrews was not in but that Mr. Sullivan was I had a sense that something was wrong. No Mayfair swells needing some discrete detective work done showed up in our crumb-bum building , the Trimble Building, filled with repo men, dishonest insurances salesmen and failed doctors and dentists working on the shy, they had layers of help downtown, down on Market, to fill the bill. I thought for just a minute that she had probably looked up P.I.s in the telephone book and Mike’s name came up first. (Later after it was all over I wasn’t that far off on that surmise.) Also after looking a little closer at that fur, it hadn’t been cared for very well, hadn’t been put in storage when it should have been, and so that raised my suspicions a little, but I am only the hired help and so I showed her into Steve’s office.

The minute she walked through the door I could see he was gone over her just like that, that gardenia perfume whiff, or that sexy swagger, or something in her air threw him off. But Steve is a guy who to someone like Miss Wonderly (by the way, if you read about the case a while back and you are wondering why I am still calling her Wonderly like I said before that is the name she gave us. Of course after her arrest it came out that her name was really O’Shea, Brigette O’Shea, so when I say Wonderly that is who I mean, okay) plays his cards very close to the vest in front of others, especially other women, and so if you had observed the scene from the window’s edge you would not have known that in that instant he was going to take the case no matter how crazy her story and that he was going to be sharing a pillow or two with her. She might have sensed that too and pitched her story accordingly. In any case after I sensed the mood of the room, that I was an unnecessary third party , I left to do some typing.

And what a story she told, a story that would have made a novelist lick his chops or a Hollywood re-write man drool, and told, before she was done, about six different ways. She played the old lost- younger- sister- unknowingly- needing- protection- from- an- older-sister- because- some- dead-beat guy- looking- to- live on- easy- street batted his eyes at her, at her and her dough. This guy, this Thursby guy, was a tough hombre, a guy so suspicious and worried about the other shoe falling on his schemes that he put newspaper around his bed so nobody would sneak up on him we found out later, and so Miss Wonderly needed some heavy help to even the score up and get the younger sister out of a jam, and back to some okie Podunk town and far away from big city grifters. So the lay was that someone, as it turned out fatefully for him, Mike, who came in while Steve and the Wonderly dame were doing their little tango, and being nothing but a skirt-chaser offered himself up as the heavy work guy to save the fair damsel. As you know if you read the papers then, or read about the trial, or just heard recently that Miss Wonderly’s appeal was turned down and she was on count-down, that Mike took three slugs from a rooty-toot-toot 44 face-down the night he was supposed to muscle Thursby into laying off that so-called younger sister. (Wonderly had a sister, a sister working some Hong Kong high-end whorehouse who hadn’t seen her sister in years, and didn’t want to.) This Thursby was killed that same night by other parties unknown at the time but Mike took the face-down fall strictly on Miss Wonderly’s account. Poor Mike.

This is where Steve really started to show his stuff though. Like I said Mike was a drain on the operation. ( I know that was true from the money end he was always cadging petty cash stuff for this and that ,mainly his women and their wanting habits. ) Moreover Steve had to pick up too many pieces and so, frankly, they did not get along toward the end. But this is where Steve was a pro. He figured that come hell or high water he had to avenge Mike’s death (little did he know, or suspect, then the source) if only for purely defensive purposes, for the good of the profession. So he turned into a bulldog to find out why wonderful Wonderly had hired them, what was her real game.

And so he put the squeeze on her not the way you or I would with a few generous slaps and maybe a couple of twists but by seducing her, by getting her on those pillows that he had in his eyes the first minute he saw her come through his door. She tumbled to him for her own reasons, and maybe too because, unlike some of the clowns she had worked with, or even Mike, rest his soul, Steve looked like he could, and could in fact, take a punch or slug for her, and because while Steve is not handsome, Hollywood handsome, he has a certain something, something primordial , that women (including me although he never gave me a tumble even at the beginning when I was all flirty eyes with him , and with Mike too) are drawn too. Steve’s problem was that he got to like the pillow talk even when things got dicey with her. But that was later, later when everything came apart. That first tumble night though she told him what was what, or part of what was what. (Steve complained to me then, and like I said even after he had sent her over, that if she just came out straight with her story, instead of in small half-truth pieces they could have worked something out. Yah, she had him hooked, hooked as bad as a woman can get her hooks into a man.)

It seemed that Miss Wonderly had been working in a run-of- the- mill Hong Kong whorehouse (not the one her sister worked in) and ran into a john,Thursby, who had a connection to some valuable jade jewelry that would fetch a pretty penny on the open market because of its rarity, and once she got her claws into him, he decided to cut her in for part of his share. The problem was that many parties, or at least one other serious party, had a line on the goods and was ready to move heaven and earth to get there first. Thursby got there first, although not directly. Since he was known around as a hard guy and a guy who liked jewels he had a confederate bring the goods stateside on a tramp steamer. That was why one and all, including a guy she called only Mister Big (who turned out to be a British national named Sydney Greenfield , or maybe Greenstreet) were now hard-faced in Frisco town. Since Thursby was dead, probably, no, surely, at the hands of Mister Big, and she had the information about the whereabouts of the jewels she needed help, and needed Steve to be her partner and they could run off to sunny Mexico with the vast profits once the material was sold. He bought that story, and bought into the partnership until it started to fall apart almost at once.

See the Wonderly dame was not totally on the level on that story since she had been an operative of Mister Big’s in Hong Kong and she had set Thrusby up for a fall when they hit Frisco. Nice work on her part , from a purely professional angle, although strictly speaking she couldn’t be held for the Thursby murder and the D.A. never pressed the issue. So Wonderly figured that if she wanted to stay alive or at least to get her fingers on some dough she needed to parlay with Mister Big and try to sell him the jewels and be done with it. That is where Steve’s brawn came in. He was the intermediary for all these negotiations and took a few hits on the head before they, Mister Big and his confederates, saw reason. And things would have worked out for Wonderly and Steve if she hadn’t overplayed her hand.

See through a police pal on the homicide squad Steve found out that the gun that shot Mike to pieces was a 38, a woman’s gun really, and when Wonderly got tired of negotiating she pulled out that caliber gun on Mister Big to force the dough issue. Wrong move, totally wrong move. So Steve, wised up, wised up to the fact that only his Brigette could have shot Mike. Then he got on his high-horse, disarmed the lot, and called the police. Well not exactly called the police on all parties, just Mister Big and his confederates for starters. He still wasn’t sure on the dame, not sure if he could send her over. He begged her to tell him she had done the deed to Mike, had set him up for the big face down and shot him dead, but she refused to plead. Somehow she expected Steve to love her no matter what, why or where. He almost bit, almost got intoxicated by that perfume and pillow talk dream he had been fogged in by like some foolish schoolboy. He weighted the balance though, thought it could have his name on those bullets that warm Frisco night and it didn’t add up to anything healthy for him. He would always have to look over his shoulder when she was in the room, worse when she was not. She had to fall, and she did fall, fall to the stuff of dreams.

And Steve hadn’t been right since. Until this morning, this morning when Miss Sarah Miles came into the front office needing some private detective work done. And this Miss Miles made that Wonderly dame look like some cheap street whore. Steve had his door slightly ajar when she walked in so he could hear our conversation, and more importantly, see her. He called out, “See her in, Angel, see her in”…

***SAM ADAMS-MAN OF THE REVOLUTION

BOOK REVIEW

One of the seeming paradoxes of the American Revolution is that, unlike later revolutions, the issues in dispute, centrally the question of taxation without representation, appear from this distance to have been resolvable by essentially parliamentary means until very late in the conflict. This is reflected in the attitudes and political maneuverings of the members of the various colonial leaderships, Samuel Adams included. Unlike the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution there were apparently few conscious revolutionaries ready to take drastic action to gain independence until events forced their hands. Moreover, unlike those revolutions which were more or less predicted by substantial numbers of the people involved based on a whole series of social, political and economic factors the situation in America did not on the surface cry out for such a resolution. However, like those governments the various pre-revolutionary British governments and particularly the person of George III clung to their prerogatives beyond all reason. That is the unifying factor between all three revolutions.

That said, Samuel Adams, by hook or by crook, stands heads above the other colonial leaders in pressing the fight against the Crown to the end. He, unlike others in the various colonial leaderships, did not waiver when it became clear that nothing short of independence would resolve the conflict. From the time of the fight against the Stamp Act through the fight over the quartering of British troops in Boston to the ramifications of the Boston Massacre, the Townsend Acts, the Tea Party, the creation of the committees of correspondence to the call for the Continental Congress his name, thought and pen are linked to the struggles, particularly the struggles in Massachusetts, a pivotal locale of the colonial struggles. Moreover, again unlike other leaders, he was throughout the controversies connected with the plebian masses through the Sons of Liberty. Thus, without exaggeration he can truly be called a tribune of the people. That he has been placed on a lesser level in the pantheon of revolutionary heroes has more to do with how and who writes history than in the measure of the importance of his role in the Revolution.

One can make a strong argument that Adams’s organizational skills were critical to the successful union of the colonies into a unitary fighting force against the Crown. His committees of correspondence which he initiated in Massachusetts as a means for dispensing information, producing propaganda and cohering a collective leadership for that colony and which he was instrumental in expanding to the other colonies led to the Continental Congress and thereafter to its call for a Declaration of Independence. No he did not have a big role in the Declaration itself nor did he play a national role in the revolutionary struggle but one can clearly see his imprint on the thinking (and doing) of the times. The American Revolution was carried out by big men doing a big job. Sam Adams was a big man. If a closet Tory like his cousin John Adams has, due to recent biographical publicity, emerged as a bigger icon in the revolutionary galaxy then Sam Adams’s certainly needs to be reevaluated. Read more.