Deciding to nope [status]

Today’s destination was going to be Rockford, IL. But when we got there and looked around and met a few “locals,” well, we Nope’d right out of there. Now we know, for any future travel, to at least get up to Madison before calling it a day. Rockford is a casino town.

In this case, since I drove all day and S has been on his nocturnal schedule, he took over driving in the evening and we made it to Minneapolis. This is probably better for the cats anyway, since it gives them an extra day out of the car.

Overall, though, they’ve been fine in the car, basically just sleeping. It’s still amazing to me how quiet they are compared to Emma.

Anyway, time to sleep.

Black Mass [books]

One of the things I've been wanting to write about but have been too time-strapped to tackle:

Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal, a book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill

So, a friend of mine loaned this book to me, and since finishing it, I haven't had a chance to catch up with her and hear what she thinks about it. I also can't entirely remember why she loaned it to me, because it's kind of on an oddly specific topic.

In any case, it was both fascinating and horrifying to read, and also one of those books that leaves a person with more questions than when they started reading. One of the most obvious leftover questions is one that can be resolved with an internet search and Wikipedia, which will tell you more about Whitey Bulger's ultimate fate.

But that still leaves a hundred questions about exactly how the reporters who wrote the book, pieced together all of the information it contains, particularly given that to some extent they were relying on years of extremely spotty and inaccurate FBI reports.

Another aspect I found interesting is that although the book does include information about some of the killings that Bulger and his accomplice Flemming were responsible for, it kind of omits just how gruesome those killings were. I think it was also elsewhere that I read some comments/statements on how abhorrent much of the Boston Irish mafia actions were, in that they were basically all almost purely motivated by money. But also, it may very well be the case that there were aspects of the killings that were unknown at the time the book was written. I don't think many of the bodies were located until far later on.

I (think! I) am quite far removed from a life involved in betting rings and extortion, so in that regard the book was more abstractly fascinating/horrifying. I can kind of understand how people fall into those realms, except at the same time, I can't, because I just have a hard time believing in "easy money."

The friend who loaned it to me said, "I don't really need this back when you've finished reading it."

But the trouble is, I kind of feel the same about the book. So, what to do with it now? It's not exactly a great candidate for a Little Free Library, heh. The book was published in 2000, so it's also kind of dated, because of a number of events that took place after that point. But at the same time, it still holds its own because of all of the stories and information it contains.

And I have to believe in what the book describes, from the standpoint of why a person really should not ever believe/think that a government is always going to act in the public's best interest. (in case anyone out there is naive enough to think so, which I doubt!) But this is a particularly insidious example of how you really can't always trust the humans who are ostensibly carrying out work on the behalf of a country's citizens. And it's a story that played out across decades - not any sort of simple deception.

Anyway, if any of you have read the book, I'd definitely be interested in hearing what you thought about it. If you haven't read it, I'm not sure I would exactly recommend reading it? That, by itself, puts it into an odd category.