As stated in my book, Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire, “On June 5, 1995, a grand jury in New York County returned a sweeping 114-count indictment--Number 561495--detailing charges of arson, assault, bribery, grand larceny, enterprise corruption, coercion, and antitrust crimes against seventeen individuals, four trade associations, and twenty- three companies:” (Cowan, Rick, page 319) . The book concludes with the arrest and trials of many gangsters including Alphonse Malangone, Frank Giovinco, Joseph Francolino and many more. The undercover cop who was in the business for five years, testified against all of them. Most plead guilty, looking for a lesser sentence, and large fines were paid, both personal and from their companies. All tried are convicted and arrested after the trial.
This book is still valuable today as it provides a true account of one of the most important mafia take downs in history. Three of the New York families are still operating today, it provides an insight into how the families operate. The theme is to take opportunities because if Rick had intervened he wouldn’t have been able to go undercover because they would know he was a cop. He took the opportunity to go undercover and take down these gangsters. Note: For a summary of the book, read the previous post
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In my book Takedown: The Fall of the American Mafia, an undercover NYPD cop, Rick Cowan, comes to Chambers Paper Company, to get a statement from owner, Sal Benedetto. While Rick is there, a competitor, Raymond Ramos, comes and threatens Sal, for taking his stop. Sal introduces Rick as Dan Benedetto, his first cousin, as to not bring the cops into the situation. Rick talks to his supervisor, and they agree an undercover operation in this mafia- dominated business, could bring a lot of mobsters down. The book follows through Dan’s perspective dealing with the mobsters as he “steals stops”, participates in their rigged bidding, and records them in their own clubs. At one point his cover is almost blown by Sal’s brother, but he manages to recover. Rick goes through this stressful investigation, while having a newborn at home and he must keep it from his wife. During the trial many mobsters were arrested and charged with things like racketeering and rigged bids.
While the mafia is still active today, it is not the power it once was. The members still partake in any illegal activity with an opportunity to make money. Things like drug trafficking, smuggling and loan sharking. Recently, two mobsters in New York pleaded guilty to peddling oxycodone, which they threatened a doctor to get. The mafia is still about the money and the family. For a novel study in my English class, I am reading Takedown: the Fall of the American Mafia. This book is an account of an NYPD cop undercover in the Mafia at the time of the takedown in the 1990’s. Residents of New York get their trash hauled for free, by the Department of Sanitation. While businesses have to pay private companies to haul their trash, there was a loophole. Businesses on residential blocks were able to get their trash hauled for free. In 1956 the city closed the loophole, and as stated in the book “Overnight, more than fifty thousand businesses were up for grabs.”
This event connects into my book because it starts with a cop, Rick Cowan, arriving at Sal Benedetto’s trash hauling company to get a statement from Sal. One of his trash trucks was firebombed. During the time Rick is there, another owner of a trash company, Raymond Ramos, comes and threatens Sal. Saying One Wall Street, a large bank, is his stop. Raymond Ramos works for Phil Barretti, a well known mobster. Ramos greatly overcharges his stops by triple the price. Sal offered a better deal and had a contract with the building. Though this law came to light before this book, this fight was a result of it. The Mafia jumped in, taking any chance to make money in their area. Further along in the chapter, Rick ends up with an undercover position as Dan Benedetto, Sal’s cousin. This book is a great insight into the Mafia and the life of an undercover cop. Due to the fact that it is a cop’s account, it is a very accurate story. During this investigation, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, the Oklahoma City Bombing occurred and Bill Clinton was re-elected. Introduction
Pollution is a large issue in the world today. The many gases factories release into the atmosphere are hurting our environment. Whether the effects of the pollution are visible or not they affect our air supply and the health of many. Wake County received a grade of “D” for ozone pollution. While the grade went up from a “F” to a “D” the air quality is still poor. Adding to the air pollution there are excessive amounts of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides emissions in the air surrounding Wake County. There is also large amounts of pollution in our soil and water here in Wake County. Many water treatment plants dump over their allotment of wastewater and chemicals into water sources. While there are fines going along with these violations, they have not stopped the violations from continuing. Many creeks in Wake County have so much pollution and runoff in them, that it is not safe to eat the fish from them. According to a document we read it said that “The level of PCBs in Crabtree Creek, Brier Creek, Walnut Creek and the parts of the Neuse River in Wake County are so high that you should not eat the fish.” Sorg, Lisa. 2014. Many people need to be made aware of pollution and its effects upon the environment. Though we cannot make large improvements, we can still help the cause. By cleaning up trash and debris in parks and rivers, we can better our environmental situation. The world is polluted and we can fix it, so lets all come together and make our world a cleaner and better place. The Issue The issue with pollution is affecting people worldwide. We specifically are the 142nd most polluted city in the nation. That might not seem like a huge problem, but considering the amount of cities in the United States, us being 142nd is pretty bad. The American Lung Association said that there were unhealthy levels of ozone pollution in the triangle. This is bad because it affects the air quality here, so people will be breathing in pollutants which can do severe damage to your lungs and airways. Things that cause our environment to get “sicker” are trash like plastics that get discarded poorly and float away into the air. Another thing that usually gets let go of are balloons that are filled with helium, which can hit something extremely hot or sharp, pop from compression and the remaining plastic float into bodies of water or just land on the ground and stay there for a very long amount of time, or the balloon becomes deflated and floating to the ground then to be eaten by an animal killing it by getting stuck in their throat or digestive tract. The reason I talk so much about plastics is because plastics can’t go away. See, plastics are made from a material that doesn’t naturally decompose, making the plastic object, whatever it may be, everlasting. Unless they are burned, which is also bad for the environment because while the plastic melts, it emits very strong and dangerous chemicals into the air, causing the air to slowly start to become unbreathable. This might be more of a minor problem, but it can still cause a great deal of slow, but sure destruction. The thing that I’m talking about is sediments. Some sediments are problems because they have a dangerous effect on things like water. For example Flint, Michigan has an ongoing problem with lead from old pipes contaminating the water that they use for sustenance. This is causing the people a lot of problems, like forcing most to move out of the vicinity of where the water flows to taps. “There have also been a lot of people who have been throwing trash into sewers making them completely filthy” City of Raleigh, 2017. Solution By picking up trash, we create a better and cleaner environment. We are also reducing air and water pollution, which saves wildlife and makes our parks look good as new. Also, ultimately we are reducing climate change and global warming, even if it's only by a little bit. Picking up litter is not the only way we can save the planet. There are many ways to reduce pollution. A really successful way to reduce pollution is to conserve energy. You can do this by turning off lights, computers, and other electronics. Another way to reduce air pollution is to use energy efficient light bulbs and other electric appliances. Another good way is to rely on solar power rather fossil fuels. It’s very good for the environment and it’s cheaper. Not only does doing all of that reduce air pollution, it helps wildlife. Over one hundred thousand sea mammals die each year because of water pollution, and those numbers are rising dramatically. We can help decline those numbers by cleaning up at your local beach, or cleaning up a lake. Even if you only clean up one small lake a little bit, it will really improve the aquatic life. To help out wildlife on the land, we can go around the local parks and look for any litter and dispose of it. Animals could eat it and get sick so this is really helping them out. Conclusion There are several ways that we can help our community, that will eventually clean our community and make it more desirable to live in. We personally can go and clean up a local park one day and pick up some trash. We can conserve energy by pledging to turn off lights at home, not leaving the water running and by taking some shorter showers. This helps us to not overuse water, and to keep our environment clean. By turning off lights you can conserve energy therefore not polluting the environment and requiring less pollution by energy providers. I also propose that we take some students out and pick up trash, or make the park really clean. This would eliminate some of the pollution that is in the park, and make it all clean. To help with this issue we propose the idea of going to a local park to clean up trash. We will go to a local park and clean up multiple bags of trash to make the park cleaner and more pleasant to look at and play in. Specifically at Laurel Hills park or Jaycee park, one with high foot traffic. To get all of the supplies we will buy some heavy duty lawn waste bags and several boxes of gloves to successfully and safely clean the park. We also will need several parents to volunteer to help being chaperones on the trip. The requirements of getting to volunteer are simple. Filling out some paperwork/permission forms to go to the parks, and some safety release forms, and release forms that the volunteers must fill out, but that is it. To get transportation we can go and get some money from the eighth grade fund, and or have each student bring in 5 dollars to pay for the bus. We would hope to do this on June sixth in the early afternoon or morning so the heat would not be too bad, and we can work easily into lunchtime. Some important info you may need and or want to know is that we already have someone willing to partner with us and help us to clean up the parks. They work for Raleigh Parks and Rec. and they have given us a lot of information on things we can do and are willing to partner with us. We may need some money from the eighth grade fund for this but that would be it, and it is a fairly simple project in terms of supplies. We only need trash bags, gloves and possibly trash spikes but that is it. And finally our goals for this project are to collect ten bags total of trash and waste we find in the parks. We want to make a noticable difference in how the parks look and how they feel when you go. All we want to do in this project is to make the parks more enjoyable and nice to look at for all of the families that go there so that everyone gets a pleasurable experience, and wants to come back. We want at least 40 volunteers to go along to maximize our trash pick up and our expanse we can cover. We hope to make this a wonderful project and one that will succeed and make our community fun and clean once more. Works Cited Sorg, Lisa. “Polluted waterways in Raleigh, Statewide.” Indy Week. Feb. 19 2014. Jan. 23 2018. <https://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/polluted-waterways-in-raleigh/Content? oid=3855999>. Horton, Liz. “Report shows North Carolina air quality is unhealthy.” abc 11 EYEWITNESS NEWS. Apr. 21 2016. Jan. 23 2018. <http://abc11.com/weather/report-shows-north-carolina-air-quality-is-unhealthy /1301308/> “Wake County, NC Environmental Health statistics.” Health Grove. 2018. Jan. 23 2018. <http://environmental-health.healthgrove.com/l/2036/Wake-County-NC> “Protecting Streams from water pollution.” City of Raleigh. Nov. 17 2017. Jan. 23 2018. <https://www.raleighnc.gov/environment/content/PWksStormwater/Articles/ WaterPollution.html> “Air pollution: A Global Problem.” Research Applications Laboratory. Apr. 14 2016. Jan. 23 2018. <https://ral.ucar.edu/pressroom/features/air-pollution-a-global-problem> “What you can do about Pollution prevention.” P2 resources for concerned citizens. May. 17 2017. Jan. 23 2018. <https://www.epa.gov/p2/what-you-can-do-about-pollution- prevention> “Solutions” Clean Air Carolina. 2016. Jan. 23 2018. <https://cleanaircarolina.org/learn/solutions/> The number of homeless people in Wake County has increased by 8 percent in 2017. In the article “Wake County bucks North Carolina’s homelessness trend” from the News & Observer it states that homelessness has decreased in North Carolina, while increasing in Wake County. The unresolved issue about the need for affordable housing is also furthering the issue. Some aren’t too concerned for this increasing number, like Terry Allebaugh, the community impact coordinator for the N.C. Coalition to End Homelessness says the increase is due to better counting. If those involved are brushing away these statistics they can’t be trusted to solve the problem.
Some people just see these statistics as numbers, but they represent people, people who need help and that should be recognized. We should help these people because they are members of same community we are, benefiting the entirety of the area. As residents of the area we are all affected, due to the effects it will have on companies and people moving to the area influencing their decision. The amount of people on the streets could also affect tourism, with less income from tourism, the residents could have to pay more in taxes. To help resolve these issues, we could donate to homeless shelters or petition for affordable housing. Sources and other information: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article188670304.html http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article194435519.html Nine in ten Americans believe that it’s important to celebrate your birthday. A yearly celebration of being a year older, and having more knowledge. But, the fact that birthdays are a yearly event, I see it to be a lie. As each person is only born once, you actually only have one birthday. Therefore, I believe the yearly event that is that occurs on the day of one’s birth is completely unnecessary and useless. If it is to be celebrated, I think the event should be saved for larger milestones, like 50 or 100 years of life, unlike the yearly ordeal. Many people see a birthday celebration as a time to recognize the knowledge they’ve gained having lived another year of life, and to see that they’re a year older. They fail to realize that they continue to gain knowledge not because they are older, but due to the effort they’ve put in over the years. You don’t become wiser by just being old. Many people also fail to realize that they shouldn’t be celebrating the fact that they are older, as they are celebrating that they are one year closer to their death. Both of these factors are continuously increasing, therefore they shouldn’t be celebrated at set increments. I also see no sense in yourself being celebrated on your birthday. You accomplished nothing on that day in the past. If the day was to be celebrated at all, it should be the mother that is celebrated. Said woman managed to carry a child in her body for 9 months, and then eject it, and probably raise it for eighteen years.Taking care of another person for nearly nineteen years is quite a difficult task to take on, whether you planned to or not. Under certain circumstances, like if you very sick as an infant, the event could be celebrated in a “It’s been twenty years since I nearly died in the NICU” kind of way. But, you as a small child accomplished nothing upon said day. I believe that my opinion upon birthday is slightly biased due to the things that have happened to me and my family around my birthday. In 2016 around the days of my birthday, I lost my uncle and had to go to his memorial service the following day. I see that day to be a day of celebration in what should have been a time of mourning. Obviously, I’ve had some incidents coinciding with my birthday, that have changed my views upon the event. Birthdays still prove to be a useless tradition among the human race. Image Credits go to Google Images
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