The war in Northern Ireland is one of the longest-running and most intensive guerrilla insurgencies in the history of modern warfare. On one side, the forces of the British union. On the other, the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Beyond them, a network of supporters 3000 miles away in the United States.
“The notion that John Gotti — or any single mob figure — was some sort of omnipotent New York mafioso is ludicrous. The word 'Godfather' had a nice, Brando-esque ring, but the title itself is a fraud.”
“For nearly two weeks the Singer-Swapps — a family of fundamentalist Mormons — barricaded themselves in their cabin and, armed with an arsenal of handguns, rifles, and sawed-off shotguns, held off an army of county deputies and federal agents. On the 13th day, the standoff erupted into a gun battle that left one officer dead.”
“The macho man should be able to climb into a ring with a hangover and a bad stomach and win the title: he should be able to drink and whore all night and still work a typewriter the next day: and more than anything else, he must always be capable of an erection”
“For both black and white, there is a pride in the fact that Atlanta has long been an oasis of relative political enlightenment surrounded by the redneck mandates of the rest of the state”
“I was lucky to find a teacher, a guide — Rabbi Joseph Singer, 62, born in Poland to a family of rabbis, the 10th-generation descendent of Gershon Kitover, who was the brother-in-law of Baal Shem Tov, founder of the hasidic movement.”
