He owes $14,000 in back rent, has $14 to his name, he’s been out of work for two years, his landlord is evicting him, he agrees he should be tossed. He’s got a rare book collection of 3,000 books worth, by his estimate, $1,000,000. What’s wrong with this picture?Irving Leif, 62, the Jersey City citizen whose story hit the Jersey papers the other day, we learn, is a graybeard trust-fund baby. Disbursements to him supplemented his income as Chief Information Officer for the state of New York’s Department of Banking.The chief missed, evidently, the info on banking and money.Anytime a...
Shooting History: Notorious 1963 Photo On Exhibit At Truman Library
One of the most famous shots (literally and figuratively) in the history of American photojournalism was snapped by a photographer who'd already blown one chance to capture a historic moment, and was sure it was about to happen again. That's just one of the fascinating stories behind the Pulitzer Prize winning photos on exhibit through January 24, 2010 at the Harry S.Truman Library and Museum.Robert H. Jackson, a 29-year-old photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, was assigned to cover the Friday, November 22, 1963 visit of President John F. Kennedy to the Texas city. According to a NBC news story,...
Cops Nab "Tome Raider" Two Years On the Lam
William Jacques, the notorious "Tome Raider," was arrested in Selby, North Yorkshire on Christmas Day 2009 after eluding the police for more than two years. He will appear at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court accused of stealing antique horticultural books from the Royal Horticultural Society's London library.The thirteen volumes are said to be worth about £50,000. It is alleged Jacques stole them by signing in to the library under the false name of Mr Santoro and then hiding them under his jacket. "Mr. Santoro" was a new alias; Jacques is also known by the nom de theft, David Fletcher.Jacques, 40,...
The Sex Lives of Civil War Soldiers
Johnny Reb and Billy Yank had a secret life, one that they and their families tried to hide from posterity and Ken Burns.They largely succeeded. Most men left no record of their sexual activities, or if they did, their survivors expurgated or expunged the record through destruction; the reality was a bit too seamy for pure sensibilities, legacies needed to be protected. Reports of wild times and venereal disease were not likely to be appreciated by descendants.Thus the Civil, our most holy, War, ennobled at the time and forevermore as a moral cause by both sides, has been stripped of...
Libraries Keep MLK’s Crucial Comic Book
The Comic Book That Changed A Nation."The comic book [is] the marijuana of the nursery, the bane of the bassinet, the horror of the home, the curse of the kids and a threat to the future."John Mason Brown. (American literary critic, 1900-1969)In December of 1957 a comic book was published that really did threaten the future--at least the future of American segregationists. Carefully preserved in the special collections of several academic libraries, such as The Smithsonian Institution, Morehouse College, and Stanford University, The Montgomery Story, a 14-page comic book is, credited with being one of the most influential teaching tools...