André Bamberski

By Marilyn Z. Tomlins

In the early hours of the morning little happens in the town of Mulhouse.

Mulhouse, of slightly over 110,000 inhabitants, is geographically in eastern France, in the region of Alsace, but it is often said by skeptical French that the Mulhousiens and the Mulhousiennes, as the inhabitants are called, have German hearts. The reason is that Germany starts just a few miles east of Alsace, and indeed of Mulhouse, and the Germans have therefore annexed the region three times. The first annexation had been after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war (July 1870-May1871), the second, during World War 1 (1914-1918), and the third in World War Two, after France’s June 1940 capitulation to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army. This third annexation had lasted until the end of the war in May 1945. Since, Alsace has remained French.

David Letterman

by Don Fulsom

On September 9, 2009, David Letterman ambled out of his multi-million dollar lower Manhattan hideaway and plopped his lanky frame into a waiting limo for the short ride to the Ed Sullivan Theater. To Dave’s surprise, his chauffer handed the CBS TV star an envelope.

Treiber Police Photo

by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

Before the invention of television, head hunters rode on horseback into dusty towns and in their saddlebags were the wanted poster for the man they’d gone to find.

Today, a head hunter is a cop in a fast car with an earsplitting siren and a rotating red light, or he is cop in a helicopter equipped with infra-red camera equipment that turns night into day. And, today, because of 24/7 breaking news reports on television, the wanted poster has become obsolete because now we know the face of a man on the run like we know our own.

This has become the case with the man on the picture above – Jean-Pierre Treiber – on the run from prison where he was awaiting trial for the kidnap and murder of two young women.

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma April 19, 1995

by James Ottavio Castagnera

While the “War on Terror” typically is taken to designate the actions, foreign and domestic, directed at Al Qaeda and its allies (e.g., the Taliban), and although the attacks of September 11, 2001, were and remain unprecedented, America’s homegrown terrorists pose a far more serious threat to public safety and the commonwealth.  These native sons and daughters fall into three principal categories:

--Disgruntled individuals with an ax to grind.  They are exemplified by the government scientist who the FBI now believes perpetrated the Anthrax attacks, which followed close on the heals of 9/11, in 2001;

by Randy Radic

A few years ago, in 2004 to be exact, Rosalie Asher died.  Her eleventh-hour appeal to a California Supreme Court judge came within minutes of halting the wrongful execution of Caryl Chessman in 1960.  After her funeral, her niece Bonnie Fovinci was sorting through Rosalie’s office, making two piles of stuff.  One to save, and one to throw out.

She picked up a black vase from the shelf next to Rosalie’s desk.  Junk, she thought, preparing to toss it on the throw out pile.  Instead, she weighed it in her hands.  It was heavier than a vase needed to be.  Looking closely at it, she discovered it was metal.  And not really black, but more of a dark, smokey gray color.  There were some scratches on the base.  No, they were letters inscribed into the metal.  A name and two dates.