In April 2003 the Pentagon created decks of playing cards featuring wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle. The Pentagon gave the cards to soldiers and we often saw the cards displayed on television, particularly after one of the wanted men were captured or killed.



Two years later, a state law officer in Polk County, Florida made his own deck of cards, each bearing information about a different local criminal case that had gone cold. He distributed the decks in the Polk… Continue

I’ve been a James Lee Burke fan for a number of years and always look forward to his next novel. Two of his books, “Heaven’s Prisoners” and “In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead”, have been made into movies. Heaven’s Prisoners, released in 1996, starred Alec Baldwin as Dave Robicheaux and featured a terrific supporting cast including Kelly Lynch, Mary Stuart Masterson, Eric Roberts and Teri Hatcher. I really enjoyed the movie and especially Baldwin’s performance.



So, I was… Continue

Minnesota has been in the national news recently because of two unrelated but atypical deaths. The first involves former professional wrestler, Verne Gagne. Gagne wrestled for the University of Minnesota and was an NCAA champion before he began wrestling professionally in 1949. The Twin Cites soon became the center of professional wrestling thanks to Gagne’s leadership of the American Wrestling Association.



Gagne now resides in a nursing home in Bloomington, Minnesota. He is accused… Continue