Below is a variety of different illuminati card games that are in print.

Illuminati: Deluxe

Illuminati Deluxe is the classic card game brought to you by Steve Jackson. The object of the game is to take over the world by controlling illuminati societies such as, but not limited to: The Bavarian Illuminati, The Discordian Society, The UFOs, The Servants of Cthulu, The Bermuda Triangle, The Society of Assassins, The Network and The Gnomes of Zurich; keep in mind, some societies will only be available by purchasing separate expansion packs or stand-alone games.

As for gameplay, in Illuminati Deluxe players will trade, form alliances, and backstab each other in order to gain control of a world represented a group of cards such as: Secret Masters of Fandom, CIA, International Communist, etc. In order to win, players must complete the aim of the game; for example, building a power structure consisting of a given number of cards, or controlling at one card of each alignment; though, there are many other ways to win.

Illuminati: Crime Lords

Illuminati: Crime Lords is a stand-alone expansion brought to by Steve Jackson; in it, rival mobs compete with each other over control of the city in ruin. When starting out, you’ll control a few gangsters; however, with ambition you’ll be able to take over the entire world.

To do this, take control over bordellos, chop shops, and racketeering schemes to earn income. But don’t let the Feds or the police stop you. The game supports a total of 2-8 players that directly compete with each other in order to take control of the world.

As for the rules, there are none: players can cheat, steal, and do whatever it takes to the win the game. Think you have what it takes? Form alliances, break them, and win.

Illuminati: Mutual Assured Distraction

Illuminati: Mutual Assured Distraction is an expansion pack brought to you by Steve Jackson. In this version, you’re given a set of cards to help you, once again, take control over the world.

With this set of cards, you’ll have new tactics at your disposal; for example, use the media to propagate headlines that read about health care form and a collapsing financial system to control a docile population with fear.

Furthermore, this game set introduces “New World Cards” to your collection, which means that your cards will now affect all players and not just the one who put it down.

Illuminati: Bavarian Fire Drill

Illuminati: Bavarian Fire Drill is an expansion pack brought to you by Steve Jackson; in it, your goal is to take over the world using a variety of new cards that players have never seen before.

To win, players must control new groups like bloggers, reality television shows, and Intelligent Design. But beware; players will have new opponents to look out for such as the bird flu and bobble heads.

The expansion pack introduces a new type of card: artifacts. Some of which are magical, rendering their owners new abilities, while others are just technological. Either way, however, players will have new powers that they can use to take over the world. With cards like Hitler’s brain, the Spear of Longinus, and the Screaming Meme, player’s can cheat, steal, and do anything in their powers to wind.

It was a sweltering summer day in 1990 and more than 100 Asian gang members and their families were gathered at the Rosedale Memorial Park Cemetery in Linden, N.J to bury 21-year-old Vinh Vu, the No. 2 leader of the violent Born to Kill Gang (BTK).

Suddenly, three men approached wearing long coats covering the automatic weapons they were carrying. These men then did the unthinkable: they opened fire on the mourners and pandemonium broke loose. Frightened people ran in all direction, including the gang’s leader David Thai and 19-year old Vietnamese refugee Tinh Ngo, called Timmy by his cohorts. Over 100 rounds were fired into the crowd. Five mourners were wounded, but, shockingly, no one was killed.

Tinh, like most of the typically teenage gang members, had no family in America and he gravitated to the mostly-Vietnamese BTK gang for the same reason the other gang members did: he wanted a sense of family in a foreign land – people he could trust and converse with in his native language. Tinh never realized he would be drawn into a viper’s nest, where the 34-year old Thai would order his underlings to perform violent crimes (shakedowns, robberies and even murders) against other Asian immigrants – people who traditionally never reported crimes to the police.

Tinh did his first dirty deed when he participated in the holdup of a Chinese brothel in Chinatown. While Tinh didn’t enjoy the caper, it still gave him a sense of exhilaration, knowing that he now was “one of the gang.” As he committed robbery after robbery, Tinh gradually began to question whether this violent life was meant for him.

David Thai sent his underlings all over America to perform their mayhem. In late 1990, Thai directed a group of BTKs, including Tinh, to Doraville, Ga. to rob a Chinese curio shop owned by Odum Lin. Lin, not impressed with gangsters who barely shaved, resisted and was shot in the side of the head.

Miraculously, Lin survived but Tinh did not know the owner was still alive; he thought he was an accessary to murder. This senseless shooting sent Tinh over the top, and when he was arrested on a minor charge soon after, he was met by a group of investigators, both Federal and New York City law enforcement officers, who were trying to build a case against the Born to Kill Gang, and it’s leader David Thai specifically.

Tired of the gang life, Tinh easily flipped, and under the guidance of New York City Detective Bill Oldham, Special ATF Agent Dan Kumor, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad, he began wearing a wire during his meetings with Thai and other top BTK gang members.

In Born to Kill, T.J. English, a former New York City taxi driver and the author of another fine book – The Westies, gives us a vivid account of Tinh’s confidential activities which decimated the Born to Kill Gang. Tinh’s inside information was so accurate; Kumor and Oldham were even able to thwart several BTK robberies before they were able to occur.

At first, Tinh was terrified of wearing a wire. On one occasion, while Tinh sat in the living room of a safe house watching television with several other BTKs, another gang member noticed a red glow inside Tinh’s shirt. The glow was the battery light on his tape recorder which was taped to his chest.

Thinking he was now a dead man, Tinh rushed to the bathroom, removed the recorder, and then slinked back to the living room to await his fate. Amazingly, the other gang member were glued to the television set and barely noticed Tinh had left the room and returned. Tinh mumbled something about a bad beeper to the gang member who had noticed the red light; the gang member bought Tinh’s explanation, and Tinh was safe – for now.

After Thai tried to engage his gang in a robbery in concert with Italian mobsters from New Jersey, which was again prevented by Tinh’s inside knowledge of the impending event, Oldham, Kumor and Vinegrad decided it was too dangerous for Tinh to stay undercover. They pulled Tinh off the streets and began the prosecution of Thai and other top BTK operatives. This resulted in Thai being sentenced to life behind bars with no chance of parole.

There aren’t many games you can play in the office. For starters, office computers are often low to average spec, and, unless the computer is used specifically for graphic design or sound, there won’t be any dedicated graphics or sound cards in the computer. Then there’s the problem that any games you do play will quickly and easily be spotted by anyone walking past your PC.

The solution? Web-based, or browser-based games. There are many such games out there, and unfortunately many of them try to spruce up their own websites in an attempt to “look flashy” – this doesn’t help us office workers, as usually we will need something with a plain white background, next to no graphics, and plain text on-screen in order to be inconspicuous to anybody walking past our computer screens.

One such game out there that is played by many office workers without problem, and does not stand out, is Bushtarion. It’s free to play, with optional “fun extras” that players can purchase (entirely optional). Not only that, but there is a completely customisable “scheme editor”, to customise all the colours and layout of your game. You can browse other players’ schemes too. One of the more recent schemes I’ve noticed is called “Work”, which has an Excel spreadsheet as a background image – incredibly hard for any employee to notice you’re playing a game unless they sit right next to you and read the screen! It doesn’t use any Java or Flash etc. It can be played in any modern web browser without any special plug-ins or downloads.

There are many other web/browser based games out there of course that are text based, but they almost all include “spaceships” or “gangsters”, and for some reason all have brightly coloured backgrounds or pitch black backgrounds that would stand out a mile in any office environment.

So next time you have a few minutes to spare, have a browse through Google for “free online web game” or similar, or sign up to Bushtarion. Good luck with your Office escapades, and remember – try to do some actual work once in a while between ticks!

The Mafia is not an actual organization. It has no individual head. Instead, the term “Mafia” refers to the various Families or groups of gangsters involved in organized crime. Most of these Mafia Families can trace their heritage back to Italy, predominantly Sicily.

The Mafia is broadly divided into 5 groups based on the region where they operate or where they originated from. All the major Mafia gangs are involved in criminal enterprises all over the world and have bases in many nations.

The five major groups are :-

1. The Sicilian Mafia – Originated from Sicily.

2. The Cammora Mafia – Originated from Naples.

3. The Calabrian Mafia – Originated from Italy’s Calabrian province.

4. Sacra Corona Unita Mafia – Relatively recent group operating in the Puglia region of Italy.

5. La Cosa Nostra – The American Mafia. They have their roots in Sicily and Italy.

There isn’t a clear naming conception when it comes to naming Mafia Families. Families were generally names after the town or province from where they arrived. However, the name sometimes changed to the name of their Don, specially if he was there since a long time and had tremendous power and influence. Some Families were even named for the city in which they operated.

Sicily had nearly 200 Mafia Families. Some of the most prominent are :- Greco Mafia family, Motisi Mafia family and Corleonesi Many emigrated to other regions, specially to the United States.

The United States have many families too. Some of the most prominent are ;-Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Buffalo crime family, Scarfo crime family, Los Angeles crime family ,etc.

When you buy baby clothes for boys there are a couple of things you need to think about. Of course you want to buy the coolest boy clothes you can find but you also need to think about being comfortable.

Toddler clothing for boys is a lot of fun to shop for. You see little boys walking around today like mini gangsters in hip hop outfits, stylish miniature preppies, and more. People like to dress their children as their mini-me’s. This is fun to do but it is important to remember that as cool as your toddler looks, if he is not comfortable he will be miserable.

Clothing is everything when it comes to keeping a toddler happy. Some people cannot figure out why their baby is crying all day long and they think they have tried everything. However, they don’t think it could be the button on the little pair of jeans they have rubbing on their tummy or a heavy itchy winter sweater. Some babies hate overhead sweaters. If a baby is uncomfortable he will cry until you fix the situation.

When you buy baby clothes for boys you should look at the comfortable factor. This is the most important thing. A cool looking baby with stylish clothes on doesn’t look so cool if he is crying. Clothes should be comfy. This means not too heavy materials. A leather jacket on a baby is a ridiculous idea and will hurt a baby’s back.

You can find toddler boy clothing that is trendy and comfortable. This usually includes cotton lightweight materials that allow a baby to breath. Long sleeves are usually too much for a baby because they are so active. However, in the winter months a long sleeve cotton shirt is usually fine.

It is fun to buy a few cool outfits for your newborn baby. Your boy won’t spend a lot of time all dressed up. However, you have to buy a couple of baby clothes for boys that are styling. You should be sure to have a hat if you plan on being outdoors. Your baby shouldn’t be in the sun. You might want to avoid shoes altogether because this could hurt your baby’s legs if they are too heavy.

Baby clothes for boys are a lot of fun to buy when you dress them up with the latest trends and styles. However, boy clothes are cool but you need to be practical and make sure the baby is comfortable. Style is not as important as being comfortable or you will have a very unhappy baby.

The proliferation of “knife crime” and street violence is a concern which is disturbing to everyone. The traumatic effects of such an event can be critically detrimental to both victim and perpetrator, though in perhaps different ways.

The perpetrator feels empowered by his action within that moment. He feels excited, vibrant, alive. But in the quiet times away from his peers, when he is alone with the images of blood and violence playing out in his mind. With perhaps the death of another human being or their severe injury stamped into his consciousness and credited to his psyche, the feeling may not be so glorious.

At least 37 people have been fatally stabbed and 62 overall, killed in London alone, since the beginning of the year. The local administration blames government cuts to police budgets. The Government blames a lack of available funds. The police blame the proliferation of gangs and drug dealers.

In truth it is quite probable that all of these things have a part to play, but is that really the whole story? Is it just a simple case of too may gangsters and not enough police or do we need to look a little deeper?

Watching a documentary on this issue recently, it struck me that the fifteen year old being interviewed who was the owner of a massive hunting knife with a serrated edge, clearly a murderous weapon, was neither a psychopathic killer nor harbored real murderous intent. His main reason for having such a weapon In his possession, was self protection. In other words, this potential murderer was a very frightened and very vulnerable juvenile.

A young individual, so scared by the effects of an economically stressed home environment and a school system with a main stream curriculum that while promoting education as a path to success, fails to address the real impact of discrimination and other unfair practices on the “ideal world” vision and innate sense of fair play, of the young and the innocent, that the certainty of “kill or be killed” jungle law, makes more sense and holds more value than the pursuit of educational success.

So what is left to this young person as a vision for their future? What is the likely end result of succeeding through education? After perhaps twenty years of formal education and preparation for life, the individual is faced with severely limited options for achieving an above the poverty level standard of living.

Very few twenty-five year olds or even thirty year olds after graduating and gaining five years of commercial experience can walk into a job where they command a salary of £30,000 or £40,000 a year, which is the level of income needed to maintain a healthy life, in many communities. It is more likely, that many will not get that job so, even as graduates, they are relegated to restaurants, bars and coffee shops.

With this picture in mind, the path of educational success, does not look so enticing. Add to this the level of discrimination and unfair treatment that is applied across certain groups of society such as BMEs or women and the picture becomes down right unattractive, even disagreeable.

Naturally the concept of enduring a 20 year indoctrination process, to secure a position of employment with which he can barely feed himself and cannot even buy a home, as well as the lack of expectation of being treated, or paid fairly is wholly unappealing. In fact by now it can be placed in the category of “why would I want to do that?” Is there some other way?

Any adolescent on the planet, can see that given the scenario presented they are about to enter a dark world of excruciating pain and suffering. A world that though defined by material wealth, affords the average, individual, adult, very few accessible options for acquiring any real financial security.

They can already appreciate that without money or a legitimated means of acquiring quite a lot of it on a regular basis, their existence is one which is overwhelmed with frightening unknowns, unanswerable questions, insecurities, uncertainties and real life dangers, giving rise to even greater fear, increased anxiety and crushing disillusionment.

What looms in their futuristic vision is not Olympian gold and glory, but needs un-met, poverty, prison and perdition.

They still have desires, nice car, nice house, nice clothes. They still have ambitions, beautiful wife, beautiful kids, beautiful life. How are they to achieve this without the hope of educational success or an expectation of fair treatment?

A very great question. So what is the answer? The answer is of course, “by any means necessary… “.

He started off as a simple dockworker, segued into bootlegging on a large scale, and was known and the “King of the Rum Runners.” Big Bill Dwyer made so much money, he was partners with known gangsters in several swanky New York City nightclubs. Dwyer also owned two professional hockey teams, including the New York Americans, and was owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers football team. However, in the end, when Big Bill Dwyer passed away, he died out of the limelight, and flat broke.

William Vincent Dwyer was born in 1883 in the Hells Kitchen area on the west side of New York City. Two gangs, the Hudson Dusters and the Gophers, ruled Hell’s Kitchen at the time, but Dwyer avoided joining both gangs, and instead took a job on the docks as a stevedore for the International Longshoremen’s Union (ILU).

While working on the docks, Dwyer started his own bookmaking operation. After the Volstead Act was enacted in 1919, banning the distribution of alcohol, with the money he made from bookmaking, Dwyer branched out into the bootlegging business. Dwyer purchased a fleet of steel-plated speedboats, each with a mounted machine gun, in case crooks tried to hijack a shipment. Dwyer also purchased several large rum-running ships, which were needed to offload the illegal hootch from whatever boat was supplying it.

Dwyer traveled to Canada, England, and the Caribbean to establish ties with those who sold him the liquor he needed to smuggle into the United States. Then Dwyer set up a system whereby his ships would meet the ships, that were supplying him the liquor, many miles out at sea. There the booze was transferred to Dwyer’s ships, then quickly transported to Dwyer’s speedboats, which were closer to the shore of New York City.

The speedboats were unloaded at the docks, which were protected by Local 791 of the ILU, of which Dwyer was a charter member. From the docks, the liquor was moved to several warehouses in the New York area. When the time was right, trucks filed with illegal alcohol, and protected by convoys of teamster members, transported the booze all over the country: with heavy shipments going to Florida, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and as far away as New Orleans.

Dwyer was able to smuggle large amounts of booze into New York City because he knew one simple fact: you had to bribe the police and the Coast Guard if you wanted to be successful in the bootlegging business. And that Dwyer did, handing over thousands of dollars to whomever needed to be greased.

Paying off New York City cops was easy. The cops who didn’t have their hands out for graft money were far and few between. However, Dwyer was especially skillful in recruiting Coast Guard members to look the other way, when his speedboats were entering New York waters.

Dwyer’s first contact was Coast Guard Petty Officer Olsen. Through Olsen, Dwyer met scores of Coast Guardsmen, “Guardies” he called them, who might be willing to take bribes. Dwyer would bring these Guardies into the bright lights of New York City, where he would feed them sumptuous meals, take them to Broadway shows, and even get them a swanky hotel room, occupied by the lady of their choice, whom Dwyer would pay for too. Once a Guardie took a bribe from Dwyer, he was informed that he could earn hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars more, if he could enlist other Guardies to help protect Dwyer’s shipments.

Soon, Dwyer was making so much money through bootlegging, he was considered the largest distributor of illegal alcohol in the entire United States of America. However, Dwyer had one huge problem, which he needed help in solving. Whenever one of his trucks left New York to distribute the booze to other parts of the country, they were vulnerable to being seized by the hundreds of hijackers who operated throughout the country. Dwyer knew to stop this from happening he had to take in partners – members of the Italian mobs, and the Jewish mobs. Since he was raking in millions in profits, Dwyer didn’t mind, and certainly could afford to share the wealth. The problem was, Dwyer considered himself no more than a businessman, and wasn’t a gangster himself. Dwyer needed someone in the underworld who could make the contacts Dwyer needed to continue to operate without fear of being hijacked.

Almost by accident, that person fell right into Dwyer’s lap. In 1924, two of Dwyer’s shipments were hijacked in upstate New York. Dwyer leaned on the cops on his payroll to find out who was responsible for the hijackings. Word soon came back to Dwyer that the perpetrator, who was arrested for the hijackings, was none other than Owney Madden, an Irishman himself, who grew up in Liverpool, England, before he emigrated to New York as a teenager. Madden was a vicious con nicknamed “The Killer” and had once ruled the murderous Gopher’s gang in Hell’s Kitchen.

Dwyer paid whomever needed to be paid to get the charges dropped against Madden, with the order, “Get me Owney Madden. I want to talk to him. I’ve got a business proposition we need to discuss.”

Madden got the word who his benefactor had been, and that a meeting with Dwyer was expected of him in return. The two men met at Dwyer’s office in the Loew’s State Building in Times Square. There is no recording, or transcript of this meeting, but T.J. English, in his masterpiece on Irish gangsters called Paddy Whacked, said the conversation between Madden and Dwyer might have gone something like this:

“You’ve got a problem,” Madden would have told Dwyer. “Gangsters have been picking off your trucks like sitting ducks and what are you going to do about it?”

“That’s why I called you here.”

“You gotta organize the shooters and the cherry-pickers, not to mention the bulls (cops) and the pols (politicians).”

“You’re right. I need the hijackings to stop. I need a place to make my own brew right here in the city. Protected by the Tiger and the coppers. And I need outlets – speakeasies, nightclubs, you name it.”

“You need a lot, my friend.

“Are you with me?”

“Give me one reason why.”

“I can make you rich.”

“Pal, you and me are two peas in a pod.”

And that was the start of the New York City Irish Mob, which would then unite with the Italian and Jewish mobs to control the bootlegging business throughout the United States of America. The grouping of the three ethnic mobs was known as the “Combine.”

With Dwyer’s millions, Madden oversaw the creation of the Phoenix Cereal Beverage Company, which was located on 26th Street and 10th Avenue, right in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, where both Madden and Dwyer had grown up. This red-brick building, which comprised the entire block, was originally the Clausen & Flanagan Brewery, which was created to produce and sell near-beer, which no true beer-drinker would ever let pass their lips. The beer produced at the Phoenix was called Madden’s No 1.

With Dwyer basically the money man behind the scenes, Madden became the architect who created and nurtured their empire. Madden brought in a former taxi business owner named Larry Fay as the front man for several high class establishments, that were needed to sell Madden No. 1, plus all the scotch, rum, vodka, Cognac and champagne that the Combine was smuggling into the city. One of these places was the El Fay at 107 West 54th Street.

The main attraction at the El Fay was Texas Guinan, a bawdy cabaret singer/comedienne, who was later copied by May West. To entice Guinan to work at the El Fay, Madden and Dwyer made Guinan a partner. Guinan was famous for her wisecracks, which she belted out between clacks from a clacker, or toots from a piercing whistle, while she was sitting on a tall stool in the main room. Guinan’s signature saying was “Hello Sucker,” which is how she greeted all the well-healed El Fay customers.

When a singer or a dancer finished their performance at the El Fey, Guinan would exhort the crowd to “Give the little lady a great big hand!”

One day, a prohibition agent, who couldn’t be bought by Madden or Dwyer, raided the El Fey. He marched over to Guinan, put his hand on her shoulder and said to his fellow agent, “Give the little lady a great big handcuff.”

Dwyer did what he did best, Guinan was released from prison, and the El Fey was soon hopping again, making everyone involved very rich indeed.

Madden and Dwyer also partnered with former bootlegger Sherman Billingsley at the very fashionable Stork Club on East 53rd Street. The two Irish gangsters spread their wings to the north part of Manhattan when they bought the Club De Luxe from former Heavyweight Boxing Champion Jack Johnson. They inserted Big Frenchy De Mange as their operating partner, and changed the name to the Cotton Club. At the Cotton Club, De Mange instituted a “Whites Only” admittance policy, despite the fact the waiters, dancers, and headline entertainers, like Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and the Nicholas Brothers, were all black.

Still, the Cotton Club was wildly successful with the big spenders from downtown, putting tons of cash into Dwyer and Madden’s pockets.

In 1925, Dwyer was arrested for attempting to bribe Coast Guard members during a sting operation headed by the Prohibition Bureau. Dwyer was sentenced to two years in prison, but he was released after 13 months for good behavior. With Dwyer in the can, Frank Costello took over Dwyer’s bootlegging business.

While he was in prison, a despondent Dwyer said to one of his cell mates. “I wish I had never seen a case of whiskey. I spent years in daily fear of my life, always expecting to be arrested, always dealing with crooks and double-crossers, and now look at me. My wife is heartbroken and I am worse than broke.”

As we shall see, that was not exactly the truth.

When Dwyer hit the streets again, he eased out of the bootlegging business, leaving the rum-running operation to Costello and Madden. To pass his time, Dwyer started investing in legitimate business, especially sports teams.

In 1926, boxing promoter Tex Rickard conned Dwyer into buying the Hamilton Tigers of the National Hockey League. Dwyer did so, and he moved his team into New York’s Madison Square Garden, and re-named them the New York Americans. As smart as Dwyer was in running the bootlegging business, he was just as dumb in running a hockey team. His pockets bursting with bootlegging cash, Dwyer’s strategy for winning was basically to over-pay everybody on his team. With the average hockey player making between $1500-$2000 a year, Dwyer gave Billy Burch a 3-year $25,000 contract. Shorty Green also got a huge raise, when Dwyer awarded him a $5000 a year contract.

Being an old crook at heart, Dwyer took an active part in running his team, even going so far as to try and rig the games. Dwyer paid off goal judges to rule his team had scored a goal if the puck just touched the goal line, instead of completely passing the goal line, which was the rule.

At a game in 1927 in Madison Square Garden, the goal judge, whom Dwyer had in his pocket, for some unknown reason started taunting Ottawa goalie Alex Connell. Connell responded by butt-ending his hockey stick into the goal judge’s nose. Dwyer became incensed at the Ottawa goalie’s actions (You don’t manhandle one of Dwyer’s employees), and Connell was told to leave town quickly after the game. A police detail took Connell to the train station, and protected him until the train was safely out of town. After the train left the station, a man asked Connell if he was the Ottawa goalie Alex Connell. Connell afraid for his life, told the stranger no. And, as a result, he lived to goalie other hockey games.

Bypassing a league rule that a person can’t own two hockey teams, in 1929, Dwyer, using ex-lightweight boxing champ Benny Leonard as his front man, purchased the NHL’s Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1930, Dwyer inserted his grubby fingers into the newly-formed National Football League too, by buying the Dayton Triangles for $2,500. Dwyer moved the team to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, and renamed them the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In three years, Dwyer, again overpaying all his players, began losing so much money, he sold the Brooklyn Dodgers to two former New York Giant Football players: Chris Cagle and John Simms, for $25,000. Even though he sold the team for 10 times more than he had paid, Dwyer estimated he still lost $30,000 in the three years he owned the team.

In 1934, having his fill of America sports teams (he still owned the New York Americans, but they were bleeding money), Dwyer bought the famed Tropical Park Horse Racing Track in Miami, Florida.

However, the roof fell in on Dwyer, when in 1935, he was indicted on a gambling charge. Dwyer beat that case, but then the government did to him what they did to Al Capone: they hit him with tax evasion charges. Those charges stuck, and Dwyer was stripped of all his assets, except the New York Americans, and a house in Belle Harbor, Queens. Almost penniless, Dwyer no longer had the money to keep the New York Americans afloat.

In 1937, the National Hockey League temporarily took control of the New York Americans. To show the NHL that he was financially solvent, Dwyer borrowed $20,000 from Red Dutton. However, instead of paying his team’s salaries, Dwyer decided to try to multiply his money in a craps game. That didn’t go over too well, when Dwyer busted out, and lost the entire twenty grand. Unable to pay his team, and unable to raise any more capital, the NHL booted Dwyer out permanently, and took final control of the New York Americans. Broke and despondent, Dwyer retired to his Belle Harbor home.

On December 10, 1943, Big Bill Dwyer, the “King of the Rum Runners” died at the age of 63. Dwyer was reportedly penniless at the time of his death, his only asset being the roof over his head.

[One Article in a series on Iconic Hat Styles]

Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Clark Kent and FDR. For most of the 20th Century, up until 1960 when John F. Kennedy took off his hat at his presidential inauguration, men were not considered dressed for work without a hat. In that century, the fedora was king (also known as a trilby in Europe) supplanting, in short order, the bowler and the top hat as well as all other styles for men. Although the style is mostly associated with men, the name “Fedora” comes from the heroine of French playwright Victorien Sardou’s drama presented in Paris in 1882. Fedora wore the hat style in the play that would become the hallmark of movie tough guys, Chicago gangsters, private eyes, newspaper reporters–in fact by the 1930s, virtually every man who put on a suit of cloths topped off with a fedora.

If you are reading this and your grandfather lived in either Europe or North America, chances are he wore a fedora. Today, the fedora is, hands down, the best selling men’s style (we’re talking full size hat-not ball caps and the like). The safari style, a fedora crown with a brim turned down in the front and the back, received a huge boost with the Indiana Jones movies where Indy’s hat was emblematic of the man. When we in the hat business engage our fantasy of men’s hats coming back in general fashion, we picture the fedora. The fedora was and can be again, everyman’s hat–the true successor to the bowler. Snap the brim and let your girlfriend know “Here’s looking at you kid.”

I recently watched the movie Shottas starring Kymani Marley, one of the musician children of the late great Bob Marley, Spragga Benz, Paul Campbell, Wyclef Jean and other Caribbean actors and entertainers. The movie is somewhat of a modern day Scarface in the sense that two childhood friends make it their mission to take over the Miami drug trade. Scarface is about Cubans and Shottas is about Jamaicans. Some of the scenes in the movie are similar to scenes in City of God, especially one of the early scenes where Biggs (Kymani Marley) and Wayne (Spragga Benz) are hanging around the older gangsters/ “badman dem”. Unlike City of God and Scarface, Shottas is not an award winning film, but it is a great movie for some reasons that only true fans can appreciate.

The soundtrack to the movie is great. There is some hip-hop in the movie, which is a reflection of the Jamaica of today, but the most of the music is reggae, true Jamaican music. Obviously, the movie stars Kymani Marley and its fair to say, Marley related songs dominate the film whether its Bob Marley or Kymani Marley. Definitely, a plus for the movie.

The language of the movie is top notch. Many of the scenes contain people speaking Jamaican Patois, especially when Spragga Benz is in the scene. This is one of the better Jamaican movies for someone looking to speak Jamaican. From a learning standpoint, the movie is worth its weight in gold.

The acting in the movie leaves something to be desired, but that is expected when mostly musicians are acting for the first time. The acting and storyline could be better, but it is still interesting.

Overall, this is a great movie for the person looking to speak Jamaican Patois, loves Reggae music or loves a good rise and fall film.

I definitely recommend this film.

Soon Come,

Ras Zuke

There is a movie called Analyze This starring Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal. What turns out to be quite a funny scene, actually starts with a panic attack. In this case, Robert DeNiro is a gangster talking to another cohort. He is having trouble dealing with the stresses of seeing one of his best friend’s killed, and it brings back memories of his own father’s death. He is secretly afraid that his son may have to witness his death, like he did his father. As he is sitting there speaking, DeNiro starts to clear his throat a few times, then tugs upon his collar. When asked what is wrong, he says he ‘feels funny’. He begins to sweat, and rock back and forth in his chair. He finally ends up with chest pain and complains he can’t feel his extremities. He is rushed to the emergency room by his bodyguards – thinking he is having a heart attack.

What he thought was a heart attack was nothing more than a panic attack. Now, what is funny about the scene is DeNiro’s thugs making sure the doctor writes down that he had a heart attack instead of a panic attack – mostly because DeNiro’s character wants to be sure other gangsters don’t find out about it. There are many symptoms of a panic attack that may make people believe they are either having a heart attack, or even dying! Things such as rapid heart beat, sweating and numbness or tingling sensations in the face, limbs or body can both be characteristic of panic and heart attacks.

Other such symptoms are shaking on the inside or visibly, chest pain, shortness of breath, choking sensations, dizziness or light-headedness, and chills or hot flashes. You can also feel unreal or dreamy, or even feeling outside yourself or as if you do not exist. There is most often a feeling of losing control or going crazy. Panic attacks have a tendency to go unchecked most times. Some people may begin to exhibit even worse problems, such as agoraphobia. This is a phobia of being in public places, or worse, being stuck somewhere in a crowd of people, and unable to escape. The best form of treatment for such phobias, is cognitive therapy. This means that some therapists believe that – in order to overcome your fears – you must face them little by little.

Panic attacks are not as funny as people may think they are – certainly not as funny to those who are stuck dealing with them. Some people may even have them as much as on a daily basis. When something takes over your life so much, then that quality of life deteriorates. Find the help to control it, before it controls you. After all, this problem is not just your problem. It is also the problem of your family, friends, and other people who love you. If you do not feel you are worth it, then perhaps they are!