Italian Stereotypes Aren’t Funny: So Why Does ‘Saturday Night Live’ Lean On Them So often?

 I loved Saturday Night Live (SNL) for years, but I’ve not watched the program for some time, because it is not funny, in my view, and because of their overwhelming and unfair political leftist lean. 

(For a bit of counterbalance visit The Babylon Bee | Your Trusted Source for Christian News Satire.)

I was glad to hear that SNL addressed New York Democratic Gov Cuomo’s mishandling and cover-up of the nursing home deaths, but, as I’m half-Italian and live in “Little Italy” in South Philadelphia, I was certainly not pleased to read about their cheap shots on his Italian heritage. 

Make fun of his political chicanery, sure, but his being Italian has nothing to do with the scandal. 

I guess these snowflake liberals can insult Italians with impunity, unlike other ethnic groups. (And like Nixon said famously, they don’t have Trump to kick around anymore). 

Rosario Iaconis offers a piece on this at the New York Daily News.      

George Kaufman famously averred that “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But what about SNL? 

In skewering Andrew Cuomo over his mishandling of the COVID-19 nursing-home controversy, Michael Che quipped: “New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who looks like all three Goodfellas at once, said he hopes to legalize marijuana next month. Cuomo is hoping marijuana will provide New Yorkers a safe, effective way to forget about the nursing-home stuff.” 

This is risible? Lambasting the governor for his policy failures is fair game, but perpetuating loathsome stereotypes is not. 

Yet anti-Italian tropes have long been a staple on a show that aspires to cutting-edge satire. 

In a Weekend Update segment that aired in March 2020, Colin Jost was startled that someone who sounds like Dr. Anthony Fauci would be so knowledgeable. According to the author of “A Very Punchable Face,” people with such an accent usually holler: “Yo, I’m gonna break your knee caps.” 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Italian stereotypes aren’t funny: So why does ‘Saturday Night Live’ lean on them so often? - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com) 

Legendary NYPD Detective Randy Jurgensen: Is It The 1970s All Over Again?

I’ve interviewed legendary former NYPD homicide detective Randy Jurgensen several times over the years. Along with Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, Randy Jurgensen went from investigating the “French Connection” major drug investigation to appearing in The French Connection, the great 1971 film about the famous case. (One of my favorite crime films, which was based on Robin Moore's true crime book).  

He was also, along with Sonny Grosso, his partner after Eddie Egan retired from the NYPD, a technical advisor to the film’s director, William Fredkin. That led to a second career not only as an actor on screen – he was one of the men who machine gunned James Caan’s character Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, and he portrayed a detective in another Fredkin film, Cruising, with Al Pacino – but also as a film producer. 

Randy Jurgensen also wrote an interesting true crime book called Circle of Six, which covered the controversial murder of an NYPD officer at a New York Mosque (The top photo shows Detective Jurgensen being struck with a brick outside of the Mosque).   

On January 30^th, Randy Jurgensen penned an interesting op-ed for the New York Daily News. 

As the Big Apple keeps limping like a gunshot victim in this new year — NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea, citing shootings still on the rise, this week asked, “What the hell is going on with the firearms in New York City?” — many of her long-time residents have a new appreciation for the ironic phrase, “Hindsight is 20/20.” 

Looking back, maybe we can have a clearer understanding of how things could have been better and more importantly, why they weren’t. 

Even in the absence of 20/20 vision, it is easy to see in the year gone by, and perhaps in the year that’s upon us, a striking resemblance to another era, a time where the city was edgy and dangerous, when blackouts and militias spurred rioting and looting, when gun violence and crime ticked up faster than the Dow Jones ticked down, when the police were treated like Public Enemy No. 1. 

While the actors have changed, the studio remains the same, and to me it feels an awful lot like a sequel of the Bad Old Days of the 1970s. Yes, I know the statistics are different; I’m talking about the feel on the ground, the feel of something slipping away. I lived through those years as a homicide detective, and to me, what we are going through is eerily similar. 

The number of murders in the city rose to 462 last year, up nearly 45% from 319 in 2019. The increase accompanied a rise in gun violence more intense than any seen in the previous 20 years, what Shea called “a 14-year-high” in shootings. The city recorded 1,531 shootings in 2020, 97% more than the 777 in 2019. 

The similarities don’t stop there. In the 1970s, we saw President Nixon drummed out of office; after the recent spectacle at the U.S. Capitol Building, President Trump has been impeached a second time. 

In the 70s, Gotham was hours from bankruptcy. Today, the city is struggling to balance its budget, waiting and waiting for federal help. Joe Biden won’t be Gerald Ford telling the city to drop dead, but it’s unlikely that any assistance the feds send can help us dig out of the deep hole we’re in.   

... The 70s inflicted such a wound on this city, it took more than 20 years to recover. It was said you were safer in Vietnam than in certain parts of the city at midnight. Public transportation was unsafe. Crime, homelessness and graffiti were through the roof and the city was four hours away from going broke. 

And how did the people that run the city respond? By laying off 5,000 cops and sitting idly by as its residents began to flee. Fun City became Fear City. 

Again, the numbers are different, but we’re at a new crossroads, with thousands wondering whether the wealthy and the middle class will leave, taking with them billions of dollars in tax revenue. 

Who is to blame? 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link: 

Is it the 1970s all over again? A retired cop says the crime stats may be different, but the vibe feels familiar - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

You can also read my Washington Times On Crime column on the late Sonny Grosso and Randy Jurgensen via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: The Real French Connection Cops: My Washington Times 'On Crime' Column On Legendary Detectives Sonny Grosso And Randy Jurgensen

Gangster Claims Accused Philly Mobster Was An Instrumental Player Despite His Insistence He’s Left It Behind

The New York Daily News reports on the racketeering trial of reputed Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime boss Joseph Merlino.

Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino’s courtroom claim that he gave up his role as Philly’s leading mob boss didn’t carry much weight with Wednesday’s witness.

John Rubeo, an admitted gangster who worked with the Genovese family, testified in Manhattan Federal Court that Merlino was always a major underworld player — despite his attorneys’ claims he’d left the game for good.

Federal authorities say that Merlino, 55, helped orchestrate a criminal enterprise that ran from Springfield, Mass. to South Florida.

The crime boss was arrested in August 2016 in a sweep that nabbed some four dozen alleged mobsters.

Merlino’s lawyers have sought to paint the reputed gangster as a man with a serious gambling problem who was only talking to Rubeo about borrowing cash.

After Merlino got out of federal lock up in 2011 — when he did time on different charges — he decamped to South Florida rather than return to Philadelphia, his lawyers said.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/gangster-claims-accused-philly-mobster-instrumental-player-article-1.3791363 

George Anastasia's 'Gotti's Rules': In New Book, Gambino Hit Man And Enforcer John Alite Say John Gotti Jr. Would Turn And Run When Things Got Tough

Sherryl Connelly at the New York Daily News offers a piece on mobster John Alite, the subject of veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia's new book Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia.

Not long after John Gotti went to prison in 1992, Gambino family hit man and enforcer John Alite plotted to murder his son. John Gotti Jr. survived, but Alite still seems to want him dead.

“Gotti’s Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia,” by George Anastasia, is Alite’s final revenge against Junior, an attempt to assassinate him in words.

Spilling family secrets to Anastasia is all Alite’s got left. He already tried to put Junior behind bars.

In 2009, Alite took the stand in the feds’ last attempt to nail Junior, this time on racketeering and murder conspiracy charges. Like the three trials that preceded it, this one ended with a hung jury.
But Alite, who has served time for a slew of crimes from two murders, eight shootings, home invasions and armed robberies, isn’t done with Junior.

In his book, Gotti comes across not just as a vicious criminal but as a coward who never really got how being a mobster worked.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/mob-enforcer-new-book-rips-john-gotti-jr-article-1.2073451

Philadelphia Sicko Gary Heidnik Inspired Role of Buffalo Bill In 'Silence Of The Lambs'

Mary Bovsun at the New York Daily News looks back at the Gary Heidnik case.

Among the most terrifying places in movie history is the pit from Silence of the Lambs, where serial killer Buffalo Bill imprisoned women before he murdered and skinned them.

Unbelievably horrific it may have seemed, but it was no figment of a writer’s imagination. The prison was drawn from life and a person whose crimes were front-page headlines shortly before Thomas Harris wrote the novel that would become the classic film.

On March 24, 1987, Philadelphia police received a cry for help from a drug-infested area of North Philadelphia that had been dubbed the O.K. Corral because of the frequency of street shootouts.
Josefina Rivera, a 25-year-old streetwalker, blurted out a nightmare tale of kidnapping, rape, murder and cannibalism.

She told them she had just escaped from Gary Heidnik, who had kept her captive in his home since about November. Three women, Rivera said, were still tied up in the basement. Two others, she said, had died, one starved, one electrocuted.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/philly-sicko-death-dungeon-inspired-famous-movie-scene-article-1.1348191

Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Mafia Family And The Bloody Fall Of La Cosa Nostra

The New York Daily News offers an excerpt from a new book by Philip Leonetti, the former underboss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

Mafia Prince: Inside America’s Most Violent Mafia Family and the Bloody Fall of La Cosa Nostra,” is the book that came together after gangster and stone cold killer Philip Leonetti emerged from hiding to tell his story to Scott Burnstein and Christopher Graziano. Once the underboss to and the nephew of possibly the most vicious psychopath the mob has ever produced, the Philadelphia boss Nicky (Little Nicky) Scarfo, “Crazy Phil” turned and testified, sending dozens of mobsters to jail.

Now, years after leaving the federal witness protection program with a $500,000 bounty still on his head, he recalls a critical killing in 1978 from their salad days in Atlantic City, when the two murdered a mob associate that had offended Scarfo.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/book-excerpt-mafia-prince-america-violent-mafia-family-bloody-fall-la-cosa-nostra-article-1.1203881

You can also read a piece on Philip Leonetti by George Anastasia, the author of Blood and Honor and The Last Gangster, via the below link:

http://www.jerseymanmagazine.com/mobscene-leonetti.php

Chuck Yeager Breaks Sound Barrier Again, 65 years After Historic Flight

The New York Daily News offers an interesting piece on Chuck Yeager, a genuine American hero, who once again broke the sound barrier.

Sixty-five years after becoming the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager is still making noise.

The 89-year-old Yeager, who was featured in the movie "The Right Stuff," flew in the back seat Sunday of an F-15 Eagle as it broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert — the same area where he first achieved the feat in 1947 while flying an experimental rocket plane.

The F-15 carrying Yeager took off from Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas and broke the sound barrier at 10:24 a.m. Sunday, exactly 65 years to the minute the then-Air Force test pilot made history.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chuck-yeager-breaks-sound-barrier-article-1.1183654

Below is a Defense Department photo of General Yeager and Air Force Capt David Vincent's aircraft as it taxis in under water jets after landing on Nellis Air Force Base.

And below is an older photo of General Yeager:

Photographer Anton Kusters Captures Intimate Portraits Of yakuza, Japan's World Of Organized Crime

 

Christine Roberts at the New York Daily News reports on a Belgian photographer has taken some interesting photos of the Shineseikai yakuza crime organization.

A night in the streets of Tokyo's red light district. A morning at a covert training camp.
Those are just some of the dark scenes a Belgian-based photographer captured in the two years he spent following the Shinseikai, a family within the yakuza — Japan’s notoriously inaccessible world of organized crime.

Anton Kusters and his brother, Malik, became the first westerners invited into the criminal underworld in 2008, after 10 months of negotiations with the Shinseikai, who control Tokyo’s infamous red light district, Kabukicho.

"There was never a moment I wanted to call off the project," Kusters told the Daily News of the immense undertaking. "It was a rollercoaster ride."

You can read the rest of the story and view the photos via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/photographer-captures-intimate-portraits-yakuza-life-article-1.1174726

The World's Most Hilarious Mug Shots

 

Joanna Slome and Rosanne Salvatore at the New York Daily News collected a series of awful and ridiculous police mug shots, like the one above, that the police call "Dracula."

You can view the collection via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world-hilarious-mug-shots-gallery-1.14220 

The Bellboy Tolls For Thee: Ernest Hemingway Estate Announces Hotel Chain

Kate Sullivan at the New York Daily News reports on the announcement that Ernest Hemingway's estate has plans for a Hemingway hotel chain.

He loved Montana, Spain and the green hills of Africa. Soon, you, reader, will be able to share in Ernest Hemingway’s love of travel not only through reading his work but by paying for an expensive Papa-branded hotel room.

Hemingway’s estate recently announced that it intends to build a hotel brand based on the iconic author and his works. The chain, Hemingway Hotels and Resorts, cites his traveling and jet-setting lifestyle as the inspiration behind the concept, which hopes to infuse the surrounding landscape and character of the hotels’ locations into the physical architecture and layout of these lush resorts.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/04/the-bellboy-tolls-for-thee-ernest-hemingway-estate-announces-hotel-chain

Was A Cop Killer An FBI Informant?

Micah Morrison at the New York Daily News reports on the idea that the man who is suspected of killing NYPD Officer was an FBI informant.

Forty years ago this weekend, Police Office Phillip Cardillo was gunned down in Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam Mosque No. in Harlem. No one was ever convicted in the case. To the police rank and file, it is the greatest scandal in NYPD history — a story of murder, betrayal and coverup.

On April 14, 1972, Cardillo and three other patrolmen were lured into an apparent ambush in Mosque No. 7 by a fake “officer in distress” call. In the ensuing melee, all four officers were badly beaten and Cardillo was shot. Top NYPD brass quickly ordered a full retreat from the mosque.

The result: no crime scene, no physical evidence, no witnesses.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/a-killer-fbi-informant-article-1.1061461?localLinksEnabled=false

Car Theft Prevention Tips: New Year's Day Most Popular Car Theft Day

 

Josh Max at the New York Daily News writes that according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau New Year's Day is the most popular day for car thieves to steal your car.

It takes less time for a professional thief to break into your car, start it up and drive away as it does for you to walk into Dunkin’ Donuts and pick up a coffee – less than two minutes in some cases. And don't presume your wheezing clunker's immune; the most stolen vehicle of 2011, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, was the 1994 Honda Accord.

To read the rest of the story and learn some car theft prevention tips go to the link below:

http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/year-day-popular-car-theft-day-national-insurance-crime-bureau-article-1.997886

U.S. Puts $10 Million Bounty Out For Al Qaeda Leader In Iraq

Joseph Straw at the New York Daily News reports that the U.S. has placed a whopping $10 million dollar bounty on the top Al Qaeda thug in Iraq.

The U.S. has slapped a $10 million bounty on the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri, A.K.A. Abu Du'a.

The State Department offered the reward Tuesday for information leading to Du'a, saying he has called the shots on dozens of terrorist attacks this year that killed more than 95 people.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/10/04/2011-10-04_us_puts_10_million_bounty_out_for_al_qaeda_leader_in_iraq_ibrahim_awwad_ibrahim_.html?r=news

Nucky Johnson Made An Empire Out Of Crime In Atlantic City

David J. Krajicek wrote an interesting piece for the New York Daily News about Nucky Johnson, the political boss of Atlantic City during prohibition.

The HBO series Boardwalk Empire is based on Nucky Johnson.

Nucky Johnson licked his chops the day the knuckleheads banned booze in America. It was a gift to Atlantic City, transforming it from Philadelphia's sandbox to "The World's Playground."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/08/14/2011-08-14_nuckys_empire_crime_king_of_atlantic_city.html

When Writers Were Real Men: Maybe Guys Aren't Reading Because Manliness is Absent From Literature

Brian McGackin wrote an interesting piece in The New York Daily News about the lack of "manliness" in today's literature and a lack of masculine writers like Ernest Hemingway.

You can read the piece via the below link;

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/06/06/2011-06-06_when_writers_were_real_men.html?page=0

Inside The Bin Laden Raid: How Navy SEALs Took Out Public Enemy No. 1 And How The Plan Nearly Failed

Helen Kennedy at The New York Daily News wrote an interesting piece about the bin Laden raid.

Dramatic new details about the 40-minute blitz against Osama Bin Laden - and how close it came to disaster - finally explain all the grim faces in the now-famous Situation Room photo.

The Associated Press reported extensive new details about the raid on the Al Qaeda leader's compound, revealing the operation was much more of a nailbiter than previously known.

You can read the rest of the newspaper story via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/05/17/2011-05-17_inside_the_bin_laden_raid_how_navy_seals_took_out_public_enemy_no_1_and_how_the_.html?page=0

Ayman Al-Zawahiri Could Replace Bin Laden On FBI's Most Wanted List

Aliyah Shahid at The New York Daily News wrote an interesting piece on al-Qaida's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and how he may replace the recently slain Osama bin Laden as the leader of the terrorist group, as well as replacing bin Laden on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

You can read the newspaper story via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/05/04/2011-05-04_osama_bin_laden_dead_ayman_alzawahiri_could_replace_him_as_alqaeda_chief_fbis_mo.html?r=news

I love the above Bill Bramhall cartoon that accompanied the newspaper story.

Former Bonanno Crime Family Boss Scheduled To Testify Against Successor

John Marzulli at The New York Daily News reports that former Bonanno Cosa Nostra crime family boss Joesph Massino will take the stand against his successor, Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano.

Massino (seen in the above FBI mugshot is the highest-ranking Cosa Nostra member to cooperate with the government.

You can read the newspaper story via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/the_mob/2011/04/09/2011-04-09_mafia_legends_turning_in_graves_as_exbonanno_boss_to_rat_out_successor_at_trial_.html 

You can also read how the FBI's forensic accounting brought down Massino via the below link:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2005/november/massino_110205