Inside the Horror Show

While perusing my bookshelf the other day, I came across Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano. Quickly, I realized I was remiss in not reviewing this book here and in my other venues. Gomorrah is a view from inside the horrow show that is organized crime in Naples Italy. Flipping through the book, the stories of heartbreak, violence, and extortion came back to mind. Too often, crime becomes mythology. Bosses are wise men, underlings are doing the best the can, morality twists in moronic convulsions. Saviano shows there is nothing glamorous or likable about organized criminals. They cheat, steal, and kill with wanton vigor, always on the lookout for the next opportunity to abuse the innocent.

Where Mr. Saviano excels most is in the intimate accounts of individuals caught up in the mayhem caused by organized crime. The tailors, the shop keepers, the truck drivers, regular people are the most frequent victims. However, these are more than tales of woe. They are explanations of exactly how things go wrong, how difficult they are to fix, how there are too few good guys doing the right thing.

The author ventured into this world himself; he did not simply read other reports or talk to a few retired policemen. For his trouble, Mr. Saviano lives under constant threat from the subject he eloquently exposes. Good luck to him. He’s going to need it.

Published in: on May 24, 2011 at 6:01 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Civil Air Patrol

While at my local small airport doing some writing, I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of pilots who work with the Civil Air Patrol. Here in the United States, the Civil Air Patrol is given the task of inland search and rescue. If a small plane goes down these volunteers head out to find it. They also patrol for other purposes such as firewatches and the like. Here’s a look at one of their planes, a Cessna 182.

Many of these volunteers are former military and commercial pilots, that is people with many years of experience and plenty of training. The guys that I met were among the most competent pilots I had the pleasure of speaking with in recent months. They were also friendly and willing to explain the details of their tasks, equipment, and approach to both. I learned a few good tips this day, all for the price of a handshake. A great deal if ever there was one.

Published in: on May 23, 2011 at 1:19 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Cruising in the Cirrus

Recently, I had the privilege of getting checked out in a different aircraft, namely the Cirrus G20. This is not your grandfather’s Cessna, but rather a completely different machine. In the first place, it is a composite airplane, made of fiberglass-like materials as opposed to aluminum. Secondly, this one is equipped with a “glass” avionics panel, meaning the instrumentation is presented on display screens as opposed to individual “gauges.” Take a look at the panel during my recent flight.

There’s plenty of eye candy there. The panel on the left is the primary flight display and gives the pilot all the essentials such as airspeed, altitude, heading, and so forth. On the right, is the multi-function display, through which can be accessed engine operational info, a moving map, and much, much more. It takes some practice to make the most of these panels, but once you are familiar, they prove invaluable in terms of situational awareness, ease of navigation, and generally enhance the flying experience. So, let’s take a look out the window.

You can see this is a low-wing aircraft. Beyond the leading edge, looking generally north, are the rolling green hills of Pennsylvania, which are quite nice to fly over during much of the year, especially in autumn. Naturally, I’m looking forward to continued improvement in my flying skills and stretching out my cross-country trips to new and farther destinations. The Cirrus makes that a more comfortable and enjoyable proposition.

Published in: on May 22, 2011 at 11:20 am  Leave a Comment  
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Hard Boiled and Hard Core

Box 21, by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, is a hard ball police work novel with a harsh look at the hard core of prostitution in Sweden. This novel begins in pieces, which over time are put together in ways one suspects but follows into the darkness. The reader meets two Lithuanian prostitutes sold as sex slaves, ostensibly to a pimp named Dimitri. Then there is an enforcer/killer for hire named Lang who is just out of prison. Inspector Ewert Grens and his partner Sven pivot between these characters as the action soon heats up. When one of the girls goes beserk and the police are called, the threads wind up tightly, in ways Grens would prefer the rest of the world never finds out. But Sven has more of a consience and pursues leads on his own initiative. In the mean time, there are a few dead end plot lines that could have been left out but do lend a bit of authentic confusion to the police work aspect of the story. This is the world of scum and their victims, hunters and hunted, the innocent and abused all writ intimately and without the gloss other stories use to polish over the depravity.

All in all, this is a bleak story, one with few redeeming messages. Right to the end, the reader will be looking for some light at the end of the tunnel. Warning: there isn’t much. Such is life as created by this team of authors. However, those readers who want a glimpse into the savage ways of human traficking will want to peer through this lense, if only to see how bad it can be and what happens when a person can’t take it anymore.

Published in: on May 14, 2011 at 1:33 pm  Leave a Comment  
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