The three main characters in a murder-for-hire scheme are the mastermind, the hitman, and the target. Bit players include enablers, advisors, and hands-on accomplices. No category of crime features a wider variety, in terms of age, occupation, background and socio-economic class, than the murder-for-hire mastermind. One thing they have in common is the stupid belief they will get away with their homicides. They almost always get caught because their idiotic hitmen either leave evidence behind or can't keep their mouths shut. Dr. Mavoltuv Borkuhova &nbs ..read more

Is it Pear or Pair Flew or Flue Hare or Hair  or Do or Due? Is it Heal or Heel No or Know Steel or Steal or Toe or Tow? Is it Fair or Fare Sail or Sale Bear or Bare or Tail or Tale? Is it Poor or Pour Deer or Dear Fore or Four or Here or Hear? Is it Dye or Die  Beet or Beat High or Hi Feat or Feet? Is it Son or Sun Flea or Flee Nun or None or  Tee or Tea? Eye don't no Witch is Write Just pic won and Hope it's Wright ..read more

Crime takes a holiday ..read more

     It's football season again, and I know I speak for everybody in North America when I make the following statement: rah. Because to me football is more than just a game. It is a potential opportunity to see a live person lying on the ground with a bone sticking out of his leg, while the fans, to show their appreciation, perform "the wave."      And football breeds character. They are constantly scrubbing the locker rooms because of all the character that breeds in there. This results in men the caliber of famed Notre Dame player George Gipp, played by Ronald R ..read more

[New York City in 1930] was a mess. The city had more than eighty breadlines, and landlords were evicting New Yorkers from their homes by the tens of thousands. Some of these people took to living full time in Central Park, where chimmeyed shacks complete with beds and chairs were regular sights. Far from being a city which to find a job, New York had become a gathering place for the unemployed. Travis McDade, Thieves of Book Row, 2013 ..read more

In World War II and the Cold War, government agencies recognized how powerful comic books were and exploited the medium to sell the idea of America across the world. Although by 1954, legislators had become alarmed by the violent and sexual content of comics, and stepped in to force the industry to self-regulate. Other parts of the federal government saw potential in the medium's reach and appeal, and exploited it. The Writer's War Board and, later, agencies within the State Department found ways to use comic books to sway hearts and minds across the globe toward the objectives of the American ..read more

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) British academic, philosopher  ..read more

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature said this about the United States during the 1980s: "The media are so omnipresent in this country. We are fooled by myriads of generalizations and by floods of propaganda." Mr. Singer, in lamenting the decline of diversity of thought and nonconformity among writers and academics famously said, "Only small fish swim in schools." Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador, Book Row, 2003  ..read more

The university where I teach has a policy that grades ending in 8 or 9 receive a "+" designation (78 is a C+, 89 is a B+. etc.). A student received his final grade and was adamant that I let off the plus sign. I looked up the grade. The kid got a 58. I told him he had failed the course. "I know," he said. "But I earned an F+, not an F." "You want me to change this to an F+?" I asked. He said yes and left happy when I agreed. David Barman, Reader's Digest, September 2021 ..read more

     You'd be hard pushed to find a city more invested in books and literature than Dublin. Of course none other than James Joyce himself took a keen interest in crime and punishment--the 1803 execution of Robert Emmet for revolutionary activities, was just one famous trial whose details percolate through the narrative of Ulysses, while the Maamtrasna murders of 1882 which led to the execution of a peasant called Miles Joyce (wrongly convicted) is a significant theme in Finnegan's Wake. Joyce liked to attend trials. In 1889 he spent three days watching the trial in Dublin o ..read more