Why We Are Here: A #Townhall Special Presentation
SL-IRC Logo Gear: SL-IRC logo items www.cafeshops.com/slirc
Security: www.starlink-irc.org/security/
Webring: www.starlink-irc.org/webring.html
Guestbook: www.starlink-irc.org/guestbook.
Ombudspersons:  www.starlink-irc.org/slirc-org.html#Ombudsman

Please feel free to send in things you'd like to share with our community of chatters.

The ISP hosting our Yarmouth server is going out of the shell business in June.  This means that Yarmouth* will go permanently offline on or before that date. Please use one of our other servers:

MountVernon.WA.US.StarLink-IRC.org
WilliamsLake.BC.CA.StarLink-IRC.Org
Brookville.PA.US.StarLink-IRC.Org
Roswell.NM.US.StarLink-IRC.Org*  (Offline for upgrades)
Rochester.MI.US.StarLink-IRC.Org
Tampa.FL.US.StarLink-IRC.Org
Birmingham.WM.UK.StarLink-IRC.Org

If any of you would like to begin writing a column or if you have a topic you'd like to see addressed on a regular basis in our newsletter, please let me know!!

Finally, if you would like to let the entire subscriber list know about an upcoming event in your channel, share the artwork or an accomplishment of one of your chatters, or simply invite StarLink-IRC folk for a visit, please send a channel chatter submission in with NEWSLETTER in the subject line.

April 1 APRIL FOOL'S DAY
April 22 EARTH DAY
April 23 S. GEORGE'S DAY (UK)
April 24 First Day of Passover
April 25 ANZAC DAY (AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND)
April 29 HOLY FRIDAY (ORTHODOX)
April 29 ARBOR DAY

May 2  LABOR DAY (AUSTRALIA - QLD)
May 2  EARLY MAY BANK HOLIDAY (EIRE, UK)
May 8  MOTHER'S DAY
May 21 ARMED FORCES DAY
May 23 VICTORIA DAY (CANADA)
May 30 MEMORIAL DAY
May30  SPRING BREAK HOLIDAY (UK)s

wildchild

Published by Riverhead/Penguin Group
U.S. Hardcover first   ISBN: 1-57322-266-6  559 Pages: $28.95 Paperback: $16.00  Published April 2004
An excerpt… (from Blue Blood by Edward Conlon, copyright 2004 Edward Conlon, reprinted with media permission.):

"…The neighborhood was one where children had to walk through three different brands of crack vials in the lobbies, and most people, young and old, could tell the sound of gunshots from fireworks or a car backfiring: the hard, sharp crack, like a broomstick snapped cleanly in half. But because the shocks were somehow anticipated-you knew there would be bodies-the genuine surprise was how wholesome and ordinary many lives were there: the daily round of getting the kids ready for school and going to work, wondering if they'll get another year's wear out of their car or winter coat. Life in the projects can be just like it is in suburbia, except it takes place on busier streets and in smaller rooms. Sometimes it's better, in the way that city life, when it's good, is better than anywhere else. Once I went to the roof of a project and saw a hawk perched on the rail; always, you see the city in the near distance, its towers and spires studded with lights, both stately and slapdash, like the crazy geometry of rock crystal. There were many days when you felt sorry for people who worked inside.   And it was a revelation to see how many people in the South Bronx liked cops."

Edward Conlon went to Harvard,(most cops don't); he wrote "A Cop's Diary" under the pseudonym, Marcus Laffey, for "The New Yorker" and was in fact, a "blue blood" cop. His great grandfather, a crooked cop, was a Tammany Hall bagman; his uncle was a veteran NYPD officer and his father was an NYPD cop briefly before joining the FBI. The author started his police career in the late 1990s during the Guiliani era. "Blue Blood" starts with his trip through the police academy, goes through his rookie years patrolling the South Bronx projects, into his assignment to Narcotics and, ultimately, his promotion to Detective. He describes events from responding to a call about a dangerous house cat to his post-9/11 assignment of sifting through debris from the Twin Towers. Conlon weaves family and cop history with current day crime. His character descriptions add a lot - you almost know these people from his sensitive depictions. He captures the detail of the landscape, the ironies and rhythms of natural speech, the tragic and the marvelous, firsthand, day after day.

Conlon describes the horrific: a starving old woman who was terribly abused by her family so that they might keep receiving her Social Security check. He describes the hysterical: Conlon, gun holstered, with only a broom in hand pursued the psycho-cat through the tight confines of a project apartment. He describes the very grim: sifting through the debris of the World Trade Center at a foul-smelling Staten Island garbage dump, seeking identifying tags and/or human bones. His plentiful anecdotes are gross, frustrating, funny and sometimes hopeful and, often, very sad.

You get a good feel for the genuine collegiality of the police fraternity. Quirks and eccentricities characterizing relationships among a diverse group of men, women, blacks, whites and Hispanics of the NYPD are clearly presented. He does a good job of translating the jargon of cop talk and explaining the myriad bureaucratic procedures, rules and regulations that form, control and frustrate a cop. His writing is easy to understand and he is a craftsman at clearly describing the structure of a drug deal on the streets, (with look-outs, pitchers, phantom buyers) or explaining "calling in sick." Having a cold is not acceptable; having flu-like symptoms is acceptable.

Conlon exhibits his Irish gift for story-telling, mixing exposition with wit, descriptions with perceptive insight. His memoir is never really frightening, doesn't detail violence and is never gruesome. The book often points out the frustrations of failure but it is a positive narrative, written in a solid literary style that avoids bitterness, anger or accusation, yet presents reliable and exact diversities of the human condition.

This is the current-day world of cops, presented to us by a Harvard-educated writer who preferred being a cop. Most of the reviews I have read are positive; a few mention that there is too much information, too many details and too much history woven in. I rather enjoyed that part. I learned a lot about the Tammany Hall days and the history of the NYPD; I felt the bond between generations of a family dedicated to police work, albeit as honest or dishonest cops; I felt a great empathy for those whose paperwork and bureaucratic barriers impose frustrating boundaries. I personally enjoyed the book, even though I agree it is somewhat overloaded with characters, details and insight. I believe it is a true account of today's NYPD cops and acts as a double mirror for cops everywhere. This isn't a job that many would have but it seems that when one does embrace it, it is with a dogged determination and loyalty that you don't see in many careers. Mr. Conlon, in my opinion, has given us a good picture of the NYPD and by association, of police departments everywhere. He grapples with impossibly large subjects: urban crime, law enforcement, poverty, New York City and its notorious police department,(four times as large as the FBI), and he does so with integrity and compassion. He writes in a style not unlike Truman Capote or Norman Mailer, in my opinion, first-rate storytellers.

This book received recognition as New York Times Notable Non-fiction of 2004 and is a constant best seller. It gets my vote.