Just to gauge the speed of assimilation, I took a tally of marriages within my extended family. First, I counted myself – happily married to a lady half-Italian. We have one daughter who married a wonderful man who proudly claims to be “16% Italian,” the…
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Post Excerpts
Dethroning the King of Chicago
“Why does Chicago continue to embrace Al Capone?” asks Paul Dailing in an article in the Chicago Reader. Dailing describes Scarface as “a school-yard bully…and gimme film-role for dark-haired white actors who really want to chew some scenery.” Dailing continues: “Chicago…
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Good-bye Gunga Din
A new social force to be reckoned with is the South Asian, a term that includes Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi, among others. These folks are relatively new to these shores and show a keen business sense and high regard for education. Inexorably, they are wending their…
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The Agony of Napoli
Forget the newsreel images of elated Neapolitans welcoming American liberators in 1943. That reality lasted perhaps an hour or two ̶ the people of Naples were cheering through their tears. Worse was in store for them. My colleague Alfred Cardone and I viewed Naples ’44, a…
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Jerusalem: What Lies Beneath
Its name means Place of Peace but it has caused endless misery and chaos in the world. From the time King David wrested it from the indigenous Jebusites, through the religious wars known as the Crusades, to President Trump’s recent recognition of the city…
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