Word: nostra
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...protection and began to sing for his life. Last week the word was out that the underworld has put a $100,000 price on Valachi's head. But Valachi, now 60, has already told his story - a bizarre account of a blood stained crime syndicate, fondly dubbed Cosa Nostra (Our Thing...
...Terror. Cosa Nostra is run like a feudal state at war. Its "soldiers," the everyday thugs, are organized into "regimas" and led by "lieutenants." The regimas, in turn, are organized into "families" and bossed by twelve '"capos" (heads), each representing a geographic area, who make up Cosa Nostra's grand council, and to gether are the final arbiters of the syndicate's affairs. Chief among them is convicted Narcotics Racketeer Vito Genovese. From Leavenworth Penitentiary, Genovese still communicates his decisions to the mob through ex-cons or in codes sent by letter or visitors...
...Cosa Nostra is inflexible. Only those who boast Italian parentage may take the oath. Anyone who "goes wrong" (informs) is condemned to death and must be "hit" (murdered). The assignment to carry out the death sentence is a "contract." The contracts are awarded to other members who, unlike the highly paid assassins of Murder, Inc., carry them out without pay to demonstrate their loyalty...
...Maria of Josquin des Pres was considerably better. Elliot Forbes blended the voices with a skill that made Josquin's simple lines shimmer with restrained feeling. When florid melodies did appear, as on the tricky words Nostra Glorificatio, their rhythm and diction were superb...
Columbia's John Vaio, 21, delivered the first Class Day valedictory in Latin on Morningside Heights since circa 1900. Thundering like Cicero himself, Vaio declaimed that "ita mater nostra imperitiam iuventutis dispulit atque ignoratiam" (Columbia "has driven away the inexperience of youth"), and once he slipped orotundly into Greek, extolling Columbia's pressure àperńs els áxpov ixéσoa.i ("to reach the summit of excellence"). Slender, pale Classicist Vaio, who finds that world affairs, science and business "do not amuse" him, graduated with a higher average than anyone since 1952, won a summa...