Prohibition Madness

Throughout America cocktail parties sparkled defiantly through the dreaded first minutes of January 20, 1920. With morning would come the official start of Prohibition. It was easy, however, to keep the party going in Long Beach, California. Though Long Beach had been "dry" throughout most of its history, illegal liquor distribution throughout the city was already perfected by the time the 18th Amendment, banning the sale of most alcoholic beverages, became law. Already in place were underground booze operations, secretive speakeasies and bootlegging, the perfect staging ground for crime, corruption AND murder. READ ABOUT: Oil - The one discovery that made Long Beach different from the rest of 1920's and 30's America and would change the life of the city in many unforeseen ways. Good vs. Evil - Murders, gun battles, lawlessness ...the city was a battleground between the influences of good and evil. Involved in the battle was the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, rum runners, bootleggers, gangsters, and corrupt politicians. MEET: Hollywood celebrities William Desmond Taylor, Fatty Arbuckle and other well-known figures who ended up dead, or their careers ruined, because of rampant corruption and illicit booze. Gangsters such as Al Capone's henchman Ralph Sheldon, who gunned down Long Beach policeman William Waggoner, and got away with it. Bootleggers like Thomas Johnstone, murdered by his wife when he refused to give up his nefarious profession. Oil swindlers, many influenced by C.C. Julian and his Ponzi scheme that bilked thousands out of their life savings. Murderers such as Bluebeard Watson, who killed most of his 15 wives until one of them became suspicious. These are just a few of the individuals and matters discussed in this eye opening account of Long Beach and Southern California during the 1920's and 30's.

From R. Barri Flowers, award-winning criminologist and the bestselling author of Murder at the Pencil Factory, Murder Chronicles, Murder During the Chicago World’s Fair, Serial Killer Couples, and The Sex Slave Murders, comes the gripping historical true crime anthology, Jealous Rage: Stunning True Tales of Intimates, Passion, and Murder (Volume 1). Each chapter will chronicle a riveting, real life, age-old murder case involving jealousy, betrayal, and homicidal fury between spouses, lovers, and others caught in the fatal crossfire, and justice being served or not. Chapter 1: Murder of the U.S. Attorney: Congressman Sickles’ Crime of Passion in 1859 Chapter 2: Murder of the Doctor’s Wife: The 1867 Crimes of Bridget Durgan Chapter 3: Murder of the French Lover: The Killing of Madame Lassimonne in 1892 Chapter 4: Murderess on the Loose: The 1922 Hammer Wrath of Clara Phillips Chapter 5: Killer of Her Husband’s Secretary: The 1935 Love Triangle Ire of Etta Reisman Chapter 6: Murdered by the King of Western Swing: The Beating Death of Ella Mae Cooley in 1961 Chapter 7: Murder of the Horse Trainer’s Rival: The 1978 Bitter Breakup of Buddy Jacobson and the Model Chapter 8: Murder of a Star Quarterback in 2009: The Tragic Tale of Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi Bonus material includes two complete and captivating historical true crime shorts, The Amityville Massacre: The DeFeo Family's Nightmare, and Missing or Murdered: The Disappearance of Agnes Tufverson; as well as excerpts from the author’s bestselling books The Sex Slave Murders: The True Story of Serial Killers Gerald & Charlene Gallego; The Dreadful Acts of Jack the Ripper and Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes; Murder During the Chicago World's Fair: The Killing of Little Emma Werner; and Murders in the United States: Crimes, Killers, and Victims of the Twentieth Century.

From award-winning criminologist R. Barri Flowers and bestselling author of Murder During the Chicago World’s Fair, Murder of the Doctor’s Wife, Murder at the Pencil Factory, and The Pickaxe Killers, comes the gripping historical true crime short, Murderess on the Loose: The 1922 Hammer Wrath of Clara Phillips. On the evening of Wednesday, July 12, 1922, Los Angeles, California, was the scene of a shocking and deadly assault. The victim was an attractive twenty-one-year-old widow named Alberta Meadows. Her death came as the result of a vicious hammer and boulder attack on a twisting dirt road at the bottom of a hill in the subdivision of Montecito Heights on the city’s northeast side. The violent act was perpetrated by a romantic rival named Clara Phillips, who lured the unsuspecting victim to the unlikely crime scene. The twenty-three-year-old murderesses’ actions were spurred by jealous rage as Mrs. Meadows was the mistress of Clara’s husband, Armour Phillips, an oil stock salesman who was three years her senior. The heinous crime was witnessed by Peggy Caffee, a friend, who was too frightened to lift a finger to stop the attack. Afterward, Clara and Peggy fled the murder scene in the victim’s brand-new Ford automobile. Surprisingly, the killer’s husband Armour came to her aide in ditching the vehicle and fleeing Los Angeles by train, before self-preservation kicked in and he reconsidered his own actions after the fact, alerting authorities as to her whereabouts, leading to an arrest. Clara Phillips was given the moniker, “Tiger Woman,” by the overzealous L.A. press of the day after a police detective on the case suggested that Alberta Meadows looked like “she had been mauled by a tiger.” But Clara didn’t go away quietly, proving to be not only a cold-hearted killer, but a fabricator and masterful escape artist before justice for the victim finally had a chance to be served in what proved to be one the 20th century’s most disturbing acts of homicidal violence. Included are bonus excerpts of R. Barri Flowers’ bestselling historical true crime book, The Dreadful Acts of Jack the Ripper and Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes, and historical true crime shorts, The Pickaxe Killers, Murder at the Pencil Factory, Murder of the Doctor’s Wife, and Murder During the Chicago World’s Fair.

Alan J. Karcher takes a critical look at how and why the boundary lines of New Jersey's 566 municipalities were drawn, pointing to the irrationality of these excessive divisions.

Discourse is not just a means of expressing thought; it is also an autonomous body, an act through which we aim to achieve a certain effect. Modern linguistics proposes a broader definition of discourse, as a discrete and unique enunciative process, where the speaker or author makes language concrete through speech (in the Saussurian sense), and describes the various acts (oral, illocutionary, perlocutionary) that discourse performs. This book examines discourse, an object of analysis and criticism, from a wide range of perspectives. Among the concepts explored are the contributions of rhetoric in the art of discourse, the evolution of multiple approaches and the main methods of discourse analysis conducted by a variety of researchers. The book deepens our knowledge and understanding of discourse, a concept on which any research related to information and communication can be based.

Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world's leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration. But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation's carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.

The ultimate guide for bong-hitting movie buffs, with over 420 entries—plus contributions from Snoop Dogg, Cheech & Chong, Margaret Cho, and more. From the authors of Pot Culture, Reefer Movie Madness is the most extensive guide ever to movies for and about stoners, going well beyond Harold and Kumar and Pineapple Express. In addition to entries on more than 420 films, there are contributions and Q&As from actors, movie directors, musicians, and celebrities, including Jason Mraz, comedian Andy Milonakis, Snoop Dogg, Doug Benson, and Cheech & Chong. Reefer Movie Madness covers it all, from pot-fueled comedies and druggy dramas to sci-fi flicks and 1960s artifacts to documentaries, musicals, and blockbusters—including lots of photos, sidebars, and lists.

Can the social sciences explain the emergence of mental disorders in societies or in individuals? This book presents a critical look at sociological explanations of mental illnesses, making the case for their renewal.