Woman Condemned

  I sat down to read Mob Daughter by Karen Gravano with anticipation. I mean, who hasn’t heard of VH1’s Mob Wives? Even if that was possible (in my world it is not ), you have literally been living under a rock if you’ve never heard of Karen’s father Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, right hand man to the Dapper Don, Mafia boss, John Gotti. I’ve read every mafia book under the sun and this one followed suit- to a point.  I read Operation Family Secrets by Frank Calabrese Jr. and expected it to be similar since both were written by mob kids. I wasn’t disappointed. There are plenty of mob highlights explained from a growing girl’s perspective as well as tense conversations with ominous undertones; a veritable playground of mafia minutiae. Fun stuff. Here’s where it gets crazy. In Mob Daughter, Karen Gravano veers from the standard mob descriptions of homicide, clandestine meetings and dangerous deals. Instead I found myself feeling the repercussions of that life along wi...

BATON ROUGE, La.: Death row air conditioning rare in South - Politics Wires - MiamiHerald.com THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BATON ROUGE, La. --  Triple-digit heat indexes experienced by three convicted murderers suing officials at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola are similar to the conditions endured by inmates on Death Row in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. But condemned prisoners in Arkansas have air conditioning and Arkansas prison policy calls for summertime cell temperatures ranging from 74 to 78 degrees. "We started putting air conditioning in our older units in the late 1970s," said Shea Wilson, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Wilson said all state prisons in Arkansas now have air conditioning for all inmates. "I'm glad to know that at least one state recognizes the need to treat prisoners like human beings," said Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/19GrCSo) N...