Word: partings
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Cosa Nostra's most profitable gambling operations was at one of the few places in the U.S. where most kinds of gambling are legal: Las Vegas. The Mob's technique there, known as "skimming," was as simple as larceny and as easy as shaking the money tree: a part of the cash profits from six LCN-controlled casinos was simply diverted before the figures were placed in the ledger books. How much cash was spirited away in this manner, eluding both state and federal taxes, no one can say precisely. After the Government became aware of mob influence and forced...
...favorite targets?or a nightclub, it buys coal or oil from one LCN affiliate, rents linen from another, ships garbage out through still another. Its entertainers, parking-lot attendants and even its hat check girls must always be approved by the Mob?and sometimes they must kick back part of what they take in. When the gangsters were big in Las Vegas, they sometimes used skimmed cash to supplement the fees paid to featured performers. The under-the-table funds went untaxed and left the compliant performer with an obligation. This was repayed by appearances elsewhere...
France, too, is tolerant of misbehavior by its leaders, but they must take place within the proper social milieu. During the recent French election, Presidential Candidate Georges Pompidou had to combat rumors that his lively wife had taken part in several wild parties tossed by the rich-hip pie jet setters of Saint-Tropez. Whether or not the charges were true, many Frenchmen were displeased, partly because Madame Pompidou had consorted with people who were not her kind - a social rather than a moral misstep. In Japan, where women are emerging from second-class citizenship, politicians are accustomed to entertaining...
...much purity begs to be tarnished. It is only human to want to tear down that which has been built up too far. Americans have borrowed their notion of statesmanship in large part from the Romans, who emphasized dignity and piety. Perhaps they should have taken some lessons from the Greeks as well, who knew better than to expect more than moderately good conduct from their leaders. A quest for perfection was hubris and ended in disaster...
...took so long to report the accident. His self-confessed "inexplicable" behavior in a moment of stress raises the issue of how he might act in a major crisis. The bizarre and ugly rumors that have arisen since Mary Jo's death are deplorable and, for the most part, almost certainly untrue. Innocent as Ted Kennedy might be in that respect, he can be faulted for not following Grover Cleveland's example: tell the whole truth. His carefully prepared and yet unsatisfying explanation leaves room for the suspicion that he was somehow trying to escape blame...