Word: octopus
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Harvard is the largest property owner and the biggest employer in the city--a fact O'Connell says can contribute to the "myth" that Harvard is a real estate and business octopus, growing and making deals at the expense of Cambridge's citizens and small property owners...
...Hollywood as the Godfather, Wasserman, 77, has run MCA for 44 years. When he joined the Music Corporation of America, as it was then known, at age 22, it was a talent agency specializing in booking bands into nightclubs. As it grew, MCA picked up the nickname the Octopus for controlling more than half the top stars in the business, including Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Stewart and Bette Davis. Wasserman became MCA's top agent. As president of the company in 1949, Wasserman began producing television shows. In 1962 he bought Decca Records, which owned Universal Pictures, and dropped...
...OCTOPUS...
Italians call the Sicilian Mafia "the Octopus," and justly so. As investigative reporter Claire Sterling shows, its tentacles have branched from Palermo over the past 30 years to get a global stranglehold on the $100 billion heroin market -- and a major stake in the new cocaine trade. With billions in profits to launder annually, the Sicilian Mafia also ranks as the world's most profitable multinational, showing a return of 1,600% on its investment...
...Octopus opens with a slapstick scene in New York City's Palace restaurant. A Sicilian Mafioso is trying to pass off stolen "Tiepido" and "Van Go" paintings and "Stradinoff" violins to an undercover agent with a recorder sewn into the crotch of his shorts. It was 1977, and the detective didn't know that he was talking to a key player in a drug network newly launched by the Sicilians...