This is True®
by Randy Cassingham

Randy Cassingham's Honorary Unsubscribe Recognizes the Unknown, the Forgotten and the Obscure People who Had an Impact on Our Lives

Prentice Marshall

Despite being a Democrat, Marshall was appointed as a U.S. District judge in Chicago by Republican president Richard Nixon. He presided over a number of notable cases, cutting off federal funds to Chicago until then-Mayor Richard Daley desegregated the Chicago Police Dept. "As you walk down the street and see the various police officers serving the city, you will see women, African-American men and women, Hispanic men and women," said his former clerk, attorney Bob Stephenson. "That truly is the result of Judge Marshall and the way he handled that case." He died June 14 at his Florida home from cancer. He was 77.

From This is True for 13 June 2004

Suggestions for further reading:

A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of ...
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Editorial Review:
A Human Being Died That Night recounts an extraordinary dialogue. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist who grew up in a black South African township, reflects on her interviews with Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned death squads under apartheid. Gobodo-Madikizela met with de Kock in Pretoria's maximum-security prison, where he is serving a 212-year sentence for crimes against humanity. In profoundly arresting scenes, Gobodo-Madikizela conveys her struggle with contradictory internal impulses to hold him accountable and to forgive. Ultimately, as she allows us to witness de Kock's extraordinary awakening of conscience, she illuminates the ways in which the encounter compelled her to redefine the value of remorse and the limits of forgiveness.
 
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The 1968 Democratic Convention, best known for police brutality against demonstrators, has been relegated to a dark place in American historical memory. Battleground Chicago ventures beyond the stereotypical image of rioting protestors and violent cops to reevaluate exactly how—and why—the police attacked antiwar activists at the convention.
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Editorial Review:
Early in his career, Judge Dee visits a senior magistrate who shows him a beautiful lacquer screen on which a scene of lovers has been mysteriously altered to show the man stabbing his lover. The magistrate fears he is losing his mind and will murder his own wife. Meanwhile, a banker has inexplicably killed himself, and a lovely lady has allowed Dee's lieutenant, Chiao Tai, to believe she is a courtesan. Dee and Chiao Tai go incognito among a gang of robbers to solve this mystery, and find the leader of the robbers is more honorable than the magistrate.

"One of the most satisfyingly devious of the Judge Dee novels, with unusual historical richness in its portrayal of the China of the T'ang dynasty."-—New York Times Book Review

"Even Judge Dee is baffled by Robert van Gulik's new mysteries in The Lacquer Screen. Disguised as a petty crook, he spends a couple of precarious days in the headquarters of the underworld, hobnobbing with the robber king. Dee's lively thieving friends furnish some vital clues to this strange and fascinating jigsaw."-—The Spectator

"So scrupulously in the classic Chinese manner yet so nicely equipped with everything to satisfy the modern reader."-—New York Times

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The police stars, CPD clothes, and cop cars we see every day.

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From officers on the frontlines of a bloody battle over gangland turf to those at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, from those who battle personal demons to those who celebrate the adrenaline of the chase, On the Job peers into a world of individuals trying to simultaneously balance work demands with the demands of their own private lives. Far from the imaginative portrayals sprouting from American televisions, On the Job shares the honest and sincere stories of those who carry the Chicago Police star alongside their life's ambitions, responsibilities, and realities.

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