It is a bright and mild for the time of the year on the last Sunday in November and I am spending my day working on the submitted testimony of victims of the abuse of the power of the print media and catching up in the latest three episodes of the Sopranos. This was the position until about 4 in the afternoon having also listened to the three disk set of a Satyagraha which arrived on Saturday morning and which means I can also complete my writing of the opera seen a week ago
It was just before 4pm that I first learned news that a former Newcastle and Welsh midfield player, Welsh International and present Manager of his national side had been found dead at his home in Cheshire at the age of 42. It was later suggested that he had taken his own life as there were no suspicious circumstances.
I switched over to various news channels and sports football news and live broadcasts and listened to 606 on radio Five Live BBC. There was a moving film of Shay Given his former Newcastle team mate in tears playing for Aston Villa against Swansea and a succession of influential figures from the world of foot expressed their shock and sadness at the news with several posing the question why? The man was married with two sons he adored and a beautiful wife. He had appeared on a BBC programme the Saturday lunchtime talking about the games to be played over the weekend. Everyone agreed that he was a stable and balance individual, who cared for others, football players, sports journalists and football supporters. There had been no previous indication that he was upset, emotional disturbed, depressed or considered taking his own life.
This tragic event and the immediate public reaction merited headline news during the rest of the evening including a statement issued on behalf of the Prime Minister. It therefore can be argued that his death is a matter in the public Interest as well as being of interest to the public.
But this goes to the heart of the Leveson Inquiry. The family have been asked to left in peace and a subsequent statement that they would contribute to celebrating his life at a later date. My response is to not only accept their request but to argue that the circumstances should remain private for the family unless there is any evidence that the police statement that there were no suspicious circumstances must be questioned.
The news has been filled with hours of stories about the man. When he moved from Everton to Newcastle after a distinguished career at Leeds United where with other midfield players he was known as something of a hard man on the field I had my reservations. However he quickly won over the hearts and minds of everyone including myself and when he moved back to the North West after five years with the club here was regret at his moving on, and there is now as his premature death. I had noted that the Welsh team had won the last three games under his captaincy and that he was bringing pride back to a nation where Rugby union has always been its first love as a national sport and where the football team was not supported because of its repeated failures to progress in the International arena.
Returning to the Sopranos I watched the first episodes of season four and begin and end with Tony being angry frustrated and under increasing pressure from within the family and from his associates.
In one of a couple of brief conversations with Dr Melfi in which he has a few moments of honesty, he confesses that his wife has expressed anxiety about what will happen to her and the children if he should suddenly die or be sent to prison for a long period. Dr Melfi suggests that he gives up his career as a crime boss. The cause of his mental and emotional state is best reflected in the lives of his family and “professional associates”. It follows the disclosure at the end of the previous season that his son has inherited the problem of passing out in moments of great stress, something which Tony has also inherited and which in his instance he is in the wrong profession and no amount of psycho analysis or counselling support will make a difference.
In the first episode For All Debts Public and Private his wife Carmela become anxious about her future and those of her children after seeing the wife of one of his former associates who Tony murdered because he was blackmailed into spying for the Feds, handing out free samples at a local supermarket. She presses Tony for information about the financial provision he has made for her and the children should he come to an untimely end or end up in prison for a long time. Tony assures her that he has made secret provision. He cannot provide the normal family trust provision or investments for having to disclose the source of the income. Tony recognises he is indebted to his wife for tolerating not just his criminality but also his way of life. Later when he does not return home for the evening meal she has prepared she hears of an armed robbery believed to have mafia connections. Tony is elsewhere occupied, on this occasion.
The episode has longer term significance in revealing some of the ways Tony is stashing hundreds of thousands of dollars around the house. His uncle complains to him that organising his defence for his forthcoming trial has cost him over a million dollars and he outlines some of the way that the lawyers continue to demand fees. Tony has told Carmela that there is a shortage of funds for various reasons despite his hoarding of cash. He tells his Uncle the same story and then berates underlings for their failure to increase their earnings from criminal enterprises. Carmela had warned that hiding cash earned no interest a point made in the recent episodes of Romanzo Criminale. Tony then offers to take over a warehouse, a “worthless” site from his uncle for $100000 to help him out when in fact he has been tipped off that he site will needed for a development project worth much more as a consequence.
His mood for parsimony leads to beating up the barman at the Bada Bing for wasting money by throwing away old ice cubes which is just one manifestation of his edginess. Christopher is present and again full of resentment because Tony is using him as his beck and call driver unaware that Tony has significant plans for him. The reason that Tony does not return home for dinner is because he has arranged a party for a visiting New York Crime Boss to discuss the progress of new Esplanade development in which he has a shared financial interest. He takes Christopher to introduce him to the Crime boss. A group of girls dressed as air hostesses (they may be air hostesses) are brought to the party for a sex orgy. Christopher participates but is called away by Tony as the evening is underway.
This is the second purpose and the main cause of the title. He takes Christopher to a roadhouse where he explains that the police officer responsible for his father’s death when he was only a child is holding his retirement party. Tony had though his father’s killer had already been dealt with long time past but Tony admits they have kept the corrupt police officer on the payroll because he had been useful but now with his retirement the account could be closed. He gives Christopher the man’s home address where he lives on his own. Christopher waits and attached the man to the stair banister with handcuffs. The first denies involvement and then attempts to bargain. Christopher turns up the volume of a gangster movie and shoots the officer dead using the man’s own gun so that it looks like suicide. He visits his mother who has remained a widow and a drinker and talks about his father. Before he leaves he pins a 20 dollar bill he has taken from the killer’s wallet to a shrine of pictures and memorabilia in the room.
The new season opens with Tony going out to the gate of his domestic property to collect the local paper. Tony always starts each new season going out to the gate of his home for the paper and what he wears indicates his mood. His is dishevelled in a dressing gown and boxer shorts.
He then enters the breakfast room only to find Carmel going through a pile of papers with AJ for a school project. AJ has just started at the new school following his expulsion and persuading his parents not to send him to army school. Tony complains about the boy’s bad grades so AJ comments that he has not been enrolled long for any grades to be issued. AJ is off the radar for most of the rest of the three episodes.
It is Meadow who causes both parents concern. The daughter spends most of her time in bed or lounging at the family pool with female friends. She walked out of internship and makes excuses about getting any form of summer job. She then announces that she is going to miss a college year and go to Europe with a friend, paying her way with casual work and also participating in a film being made by a contact of her friend in Demark. Dr Melfi suggests that the girl should talk over problems with a professional counsellor because of depression following the murder of her boyfriend despite having dumped him because he was cheating on her rather than his criminality.
When the counsellor presses her about the family interests she clamps down on appearing to confirm that her father is involved with the Mafia. However she later informs the parents that she is still going to Europe with the blessing of therapist and that she can do what she likes as she is eighteen and storms out of the house. The parents think she had gone to Europe as threatened. They do not know that she had gone back to College and as warned finds that all the popular courses have been filled. She takes one under Philosophy which includes morality and social responsibility. The parents do not know where she is after a stand up row with her father.
Carmela attends a monthly social event organised by the Catholic priest for Italian wives and girlfriends and they take along Christopher’s fiancée Adriana. The speaker gains repeated applause by going through various stereotypes about Italian women to establish a sense of Italian pride and then broaden this to stereotypes about all Italians being part of the Mafia. She makes the point that only a minority are part of the criminal fraternity. This incenses one of the party of wives and girl friends who exclusively involved with Mafia criminals. She berates the priest for allowing the woman to make such comments given the position of Carmela and the amount of money the crime family donate to the church.
One of the group rushes off, the wife of gangster Bobby Baccalieri, to get a new tooth crown fitted. When her husband a call from their son to say his wife has asked if he can buy some food on his way home, he moans at this in part because of major traffic hold up which he learns is not only from a car accident but an accident in which his wife is killed. He is overcome with remorse and guilt for having told his son that his mother can be a real pain sometimes. At the usual flamboyant funeral wake attended by the crime family he is distraught and inconsolable and has the sympathy of the women folk because he not taken a mistress as is the custom and considered to be faithful.
Carmela who has so far become emotionally attached to a Parish Priest and to the handyman friend now turns her attention to Furio the killer hard man with a pigtail who Tony brought to the USA after his visit to the Southern Mafia to arrange a new deal on one of the enterprises he took over from Uncle Junior. Furio has bought a new house in the area and that he remains unattached becomes the subject of gossip within the women and of the extended “family.
It will be recalled that in the previous season Tony had a counter productive and destructive affair with another patient encountered at the office of Dr Melfi. He had one previous affair which also was related to the relationship with his mother and her relationship with his father.
This cycle of destructive relationships is also the record of one of Tony sisters, Janice who has accidentally killed one of her destructive affairs among several. She attends a family dinner organised by Carmela and who also invites Rosalie Aprile with her live lover Ralphie. Ralphie and Janice have a quickie which continues with a passionate affair kept in secret until Ralphie decides that he does not want to cope with Rosalie’s negativity and decides to move in with Janice without advising her of his intentions. She is also in receipt of analytical counselling and her need for approval from her brother through a succession of negative relationships. She throws Ralphie out of the house just as he is moving in.
In No Show Paulie Walnuts has been arrested and is in prison on a gun charge. Paulie had previously indicated his support for one of the New York bosses whose underboss Johnny Sack now has a home within the area under Tony’s control hinting that if there is to be a move on Tony’s it will have his full support. He is angered that Tony and his former associates have not kept in constant contact with him so he rings the underboss to express his dissatisfaction with the situation.
Tony has to keep low because of the imminent trial of Uncle Junior and he is aware that the Feds have been trailing members including himself. The family has a celebration to mark the birthday for made man Albert Barese at the Vesuivio where attention turns to the allocation of no show job at the Esplanade building development. These are official paid work jobs where the appointed individual does not have to work but spend the day on site lounging in chairs and enjoying chat with other given positions. Paulie was the Capo responsible for oversight of the site and he is allocated the first no show hob while he is in prison. Christopher is given the overseeing role held by Paulie while Furio and Paulie’s son are also allocated no work jobs hence Furio no longer being available to drive Tony. Tony who was not at the dinner alienates Barese who is a longer established made man than Christopher and Ralphie who has organised the dinner and subsequent meeting makes a joke about the wife of Underboss Johnny Sack who is significantly overweight.
Later Paulie is told the joke which he regards as bad taste and passes the information back to Sack’s who when discussing the Esplanade projects demands an increased share of the profits and also a share of the profit Tony has made from buying Uncle’s warehouse building as the information came for one of Sach’s associates. Tony does not understand why the Underboss is tetchy or cuts Ralphie.
There is also trouble on site when during a supervisory visit Tony finds out about the value of Internet fibre optics cabling and the no show crew and site manager believe that Christopher is giving the nod to steal and reselling the cabling for a side profit. Tony is not amused because such losses affect the profitability and completion date for the contract. Christopher apologises and takes it out on the crew. There is further trouble when Silvio Dante who is also in bad humour at the sudden rise to position of Christopher arranged for a lorry load of tiles to be stolen. Tony is enraged and comments that the load will be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Silvio hands over a wad of $2000 he has with him and promises the rest. Tony makes the point by adding “by the end of the day“.
The main story during the second show is the role of the Fed agent who has befriended Christopher’s girlfriend. They have become very close which annoys Christopher when he always finds her home when he returns for a drug injection. The girlfriend is giving up drugs and is trying to persuade Tony to do so. He promises after a final getting high following his promotions. He is suspicious about the undercover agent although on the basis that he thinks she is an male minded lesbian. Before this the agent thinks Adriana is about reveals secrets about Christopher and the mob family when in fact she wants to tell her that she had an abortion as a consequence she may not be able to have children which she dares not tell Christopher who has given her a fabulous diamond bracelet and said she would one day replace Carmela as the first lady!
In the third episode Christopher which covers Columbus Day as well as the fortunes of Christopher Moltisanti the Feds decide to cut their losses when under pressure Adriana breaks with her best friend so they arrest Adriana who is sick all over the interviewing table when told she has a choice between charged with possession for distribution of drugs after a search of her home which carries a maximum 25 year penalty or agrees to provide them with up-to-date information on the activities of Chris and his associates.
She does not have to wear a wire. Christopher had built up homes of marriage and of replacing Tony as the boss in future.
The main reason for the title is that native Americans are staging a protest about the attention being given to Christopher Columbus. This leads to various conflicts. Tony and other members visit a stud and racing stables where he has an interest in a horse and where the owner is Jewish and takes offence when a Columbus critic says he behaved as badly towards the indigenous population as did the Nazi in the Holocaust. Those from Southern Italy also do not rate Columbus who they regard as a man representing the hated North. However the majority of the Crewe see the criticism as personal to them and confront protestors assembled at the Columbus statue leading to arrests and violence.
Tony operates a different approach and attempts to blackmail the lead protestor by threatening to reveal that one of their leading hero’s was not in fact from a native Indian family. Tony is also introduced to another wealthy native American who runs one of he new casinos. When they make a hospitality visit they find the purpose is a quid pro quo arrangements getting a national Italian background singer to perform free for a week at the Casino. Worse still the man rings Tony to say that the appeal for restraint has failed.
The trial of Uncle Junior begins with the knowledge that the Feds had placed someone undercover at the hospital which had been used for Tony and other’s to meet with Junior while he allegedly went to see his doctor who had been bribed to facilitate the meetings. The undercover agent appears to be a nurse who Junior offered to take a trip after the court appearance was over, He warns Tony that the woman will have gained information on their meetings and who was there although she was never present inside the room and he had not disclosed damaging information to her. Tony continues to be concerned about his future with considerable justification.
It was just before 4pm that I first learned news that a former Newcastle and Welsh midfield player, Welsh International and present Manager of his national side had been found dead at his home in Cheshire at the age of 42. It was later suggested that he had taken his own life as there were no suspicious circumstances.
I switched over to various news channels and sports football news and live broadcasts and listened to 606 on radio Five Live BBC. There was a moving film of Shay Given his former Newcastle team mate in tears playing for Aston Villa against Swansea and a succession of influential figures from the world of foot expressed their shock and sadness at the news with several posing the question why? The man was married with two sons he adored and a beautiful wife. He had appeared on a BBC programme the Saturday lunchtime talking about the games to be played over the weekend. Everyone agreed that he was a stable and balance individual, who cared for others, football players, sports journalists and football supporters. There had been no previous indication that he was upset, emotional disturbed, depressed or considered taking his own life.
This tragic event and the immediate public reaction merited headline news during the rest of the evening including a statement issued on behalf of the Prime Minister. It therefore can be argued that his death is a matter in the public Interest as well as being of interest to the public.
But this goes to the heart of the Leveson Inquiry. The family have been asked to left in peace and a subsequent statement that they would contribute to celebrating his life at a later date. My response is to not only accept their request but to argue that the circumstances should remain private for the family unless there is any evidence that the police statement that there were no suspicious circumstances must be questioned.
The news has been filled with hours of stories about the man. When he moved from Everton to Newcastle after a distinguished career at Leeds United where with other midfield players he was known as something of a hard man on the field I had my reservations. However he quickly won over the hearts and minds of everyone including myself and when he moved back to the North West after five years with the club here was regret at his moving on, and there is now as his premature death. I had noted that the Welsh team had won the last three games under his captaincy and that he was bringing pride back to a nation where Rugby union has always been its first love as a national sport and where the football team was not supported because of its repeated failures to progress in the International arena.
Returning to the Sopranos I watched the first episodes of season four and begin and end with Tony being angry frustrated and under increasing pressure from within the family and from his associates.
In one of a couple of brief conversations with Dr Melfi in which he has a few moments of honesty, he confesses that his wife has expressed anxiety about what will happen to her and the children if he should suddenly die or be sent to prison for a long period. Dr Melfi suggests that he gives up his career as a crime boss. The cause of his mental and emotional state is best reflected in the lives of his family and “professional associates”. It follows the disclosure at the end of the previous season that his son has inherited the problem of passing out in moments of great stress, something which Tony has also inherited and which in his instance he is in the wrong profession and no amount of psycho analysis or counselling support will make a difference.
In the first episode For All Debts Public and Private his wife Carmela become anxious about her future and those of her children after seeing the wife of one of his former associates who Tony murdered because he was blackmailed into spying for the Feds, handing out free samples at a local supermarket. She presses Tony for information about the financial provision he has made for her and the children should he come to an untimely end or end up in prison for a long time. Tony assures her that he has made secret provision. He cannot provide the normal family trust provision or investments for having to disclose the source of the income. Tony recognises he is indebted to his wife for tolerating not just his criminality but also his way of life. Later when he does not return home for the evening meal she has prepared she hears of an armed robbery believed to have mafia connections. Tony is elsewhere occupied, on this occasion.
The episode has longer term significance in revealing some of the ways Tony is stashing hundreds of thousands of dollars around the house. His uncle complains to him that organising his defence for his forthcoming trial has cost him over a million dollars and he outlines some of the way that the lawyers continue to demand fees. Tony has told Carmela that there is a shortage of funds for various reasons despite his hoarding of cash. He tells his Uncle the same story and then berates underlings for their failure to increase their earnings from criminal enterprises. Carmela had warned that hiding cash earned no interest a point made in the recent episodes of Romanzo Criminale. Tony then offers to take over a warehouse, a “worthless” site from his uncle for $100000 to help him out when in fact he has been tipped off that he site will needed for a development project worth much more as a consequence.
His mood for parsimony leads to beating up the barman at the Bada Bing for wasting money by throwing away old ice cubes which is just one manifestation of his edginess. Christopher is present and again full of resentment because Tony is using him as his beck and call driver unaware that Tony has significant plans for him. The reason that Tony does not return home for dinner is because he has arranged a party for a visiting New York Crime Boss to discuss the progress of new Esplanade development in which he has a shared financial interest. He takes Christopher to introduce him to the Crime boss. A group of girls dressed as air hostesses (they may be air hostesses) are brought to the party for a sex orgy. Christopher participates but is called away by Tony as the evening is underway.
This is the second purpose and the main cause of the title. He takes Christopher to a roadhouse where he explains that the police officer responsible for his father’s death when he was only a child is holding his retirement party. Tony had though his father’s killer had already been dealt with long time past but Tony admits they have kept the corrupt police officer on the payroll because he had been useful but now with his retirement the account could be closed. He gives Christopher the man’s home address where he lives on his own. Christopher waits and attached the man to the stair banister with handcuffs. The first denies involvement and then attempts to bargain. Christopher turns up the volume of a gangster movie and shoots the officer dead using the man’s own gun so that it looks like suicide. He visits his mother who has remained a widow and a drinker and talks about his father. Before he leaves he pins a 20 dollar bill he has taken from the killer’s wallet to a shrine of pictures and memorabilia in the room.
The new season opens with Tony going out to the gate of his domestic property to collect the local paper. Tony always starts each new season going out to the gate of his home for the paper and what he wears indicates his mood. His is dishevelled in a dressing gown and boxer shorts.
He then enters the breakfast room only to find Carmel going through a pile of papers with AJ for a school project. AJ has just started at the new school following his expulsion and persuading his parents not to send him to army school. Tony complains about the boy’s bad grades so AJ comments that he has not been enrolled long for any grades to be issued. AJ is off the radar for most of the rest of the three episodes.
It is Meadow who causes both parents concern. The daughter spends most of her time in bed or lounging at the family pool with female friends. She walked out of internship and makes excuses about getting any form of summer job. She then announces that she is going to miss a college year and go to Europe with a friend, paying her way with casual work and also participating in a film being made by a contact of her friend in Demark. Dr Melfi suggests that the girl should talk over problems with a professional counsellor because of depression following the murder of her boyfriend despite having dumped him because he was cheating on her rather than his criminality.
When the counsellor presses her about the family interests she clamps down on appearing to confirm that her father is involved with the Mafia. However she later informs the parents that she is still going to Europe with the blessing of therapist and that she can do what she likes as she is eighteen and storms out of the house. The parents think she had gone to Europe as threatened. They do not know that she had gone back to College and as warned finds that all the popular courses have been filled. She takes one under Philosophy which includes morality and social responsibility. The parents do not know where she is after a stand up row with her father.
Carmela attends a monthly social event organised by the Catholic priest for Italian wives and girlfriends and they take along Christopher’s fiancée Adriana. The speaker gains repeated applause by going through various stereotypes about Italian women to establish a sense of Italian pride and then broaden this to stereotypes about all Italians being part of the Mafia. She makes the point that only a minority are part of the criminal fraternity. This incenses one of the party of wives and girl friends who exclusively involved with Mafia criminals. She berates the priest for allowing the woman to make such comments given the position of Carmela and the amount of money the crime family donate to the church.
One of the group rushes off, the wife of gangster Bobby Baccalieri, to get a new tooth crown fitted. When her husband a call from their son to say his wife has asked if he can buy some food on his way home, he moans at this in part because of major traffic hold up which he learns is not only from a car accident but an accident in which his wife is killed. He is overcome with remorse and guilt for having told his son that his mother can be a real pain sometimes. At the usual flamboyant funeral wake attended by the crime family he is distraught and inconsolable and has the sympathy of the women folk because he not taken a mistress as is the custom and considered to be faithful.
Carmela who has so far become emotionally attached to a Parish Priest and to the handyman friend now turns her attention to Furio the killer hard man with a pigtail who Tony brought to the USA after his visit to the Southern Mafia to arrange a new deal on one of the enterprises he took over from Uncle Junior. Furio has bought a new house in the area and that he remains unattached becomes the subject of gossip within the women and of the extended “family.
It will be recalled that in the previous season Tony had a counter productive and destructive affair with another patient encountered at the office of Dr Melfi. He had one previous affair which also was related to the relationship with his mother and her relationship with his father.
This cycle of destructive relationships is also the record of one of Tony sisters, Janice who has accidentally killed one of her destructive affairs among several. She attends a family dinner organised by Carmela and who also invites Rosalie Aprile with her live lover Ralphie. Ralphie and Janice have a quickie which continues with a passionate affair kept in secret until Ralphie decides that he does not want to cope with Rosalie’s negativity and decides to move in with Janice without advising her of his intentions. She is also in receipt of analytical counselling and her need for approval from her brother through a succession of negative relationships. She throws Ralphie out of the house just as he is moving in.
In No Show Paulie Walnuts has been arrested and is in prison on a gun charge. Paulie had previously indicated his support for one of the New York bosses whose underboss Johnny Sack now has a home within the area under Tony’s control hinting that if there is to be a move on Tony’s it will have his full support. He is angered that Tony and his former associates have not kept in constant contact with him so he rings the underboss to express his dissatisfaction with the situation.
Tony has to keep low because of the imminent trial of Uncle Junior and he is aware that the Feds have been trailing members including himself. The family has a celebration to mark the birthday for made man Albert Barese at the Vesuivio where attention turns to the allocation of no show job at the Esplanade building development. These are official paid work jobs where the appointed individual does not have to work but spend the day on site lounging in chairs and enjoying chat with other given positions. Paulie was the Capo responsible for oversight of the site and he is allocated the first no show hob while he is in prison. Christopher is given the overseeing role held by Paulie while Furio and Paulie’s son are also allocated no work jobs hence Furio no longer being available to drive Tony. Tony who was not at the dinner alienates Barese who is a longer established made man than Christopher and Ralphie who has organised the dinner and subsequent meeting makes a joke about the wife of Underboss Johnny Sack who is significantly overweight.
Later Paulie is told the joke which he regards as bad taste and passes the information back to Sack’s who when discussing the Esplanade projects demands an increased share of the profits and also a share of the profit Tony has made from buying Uncle’s warehouse building as the information came for one of Sach’s associates. Tony does not understand why the Underboss is tetchy or cuts Ralphie.
There is also trouble on site when during a supervisory visit Tony finds out about the value of Internet fibre optics cabling and the no show crew and site manager believe that Christopher is giving the nod to steal and reselling the cabling for a side profit. Tony is not amused because such losses affect the profitability and completion date for the contract. Christopher apologises and takes it out on the crew. There is further trouble when Silvio Dante who is also in bad humour at the sudden rise to position of Christopher arranged for a lorry load of tiles to be stolen. Tony is enraged and comments that the load will be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Silvio hands over a wad of $2000 he has with him and promises the rest. Tony makes the point by adding “by the end of the day“.
The main story during the second show is the role of the Fed agent who has befriended Christopher’s girlfriend. They have become very close which annoys Christopher when he always finds her home when he returns for a drug injection. The girlfriend is giving up drugs and is trying to persuade Tony to do so. He promises after a final getting high following his promotions. He is suspicious about the undercover agent although on the basis that he thinks she is an male minded lesbian. Before this the agent thinks Adriana is about reveals secrets about Christopher and the mob family when in fact she wants to tell her that she had an abortion as a consequence she may not be able to have children which she dares not tell Christopher who has given her a fabulous diamond bracelet and said she would one day replace Carmela as the first lady!
In the third episode Christopher which covers Columbus Day as well as the fortunes of Christopher Moltisanti the Feds decide to cut their losses when under pressure Adriana breaks with her best friend so they arrest Adriana who is sick all over the interviewing table when told she has a choice between charged with possession for distribution of drugs after a search of her home which carries a maximum 25 year penalty or agrees to provide them with up-to-date information on the activities of Chris and his associates.
She does not have to wear a wire. Christopher had built up homes of marriage and of replacing Tony as the boss in future.
The main reason for the title is that native Americans are staging a protest about the attention being given to Christopher Columbus. This leads to various conflicts. Tony and other members visit a stud and racing stables where he has an interest in a horse and where the owner is Jewish and takes offence when a Columbus critic says he behaved as badly towards the indigenous population as did the Nazi in the Holocaust. Those from Southern Italy also do not rate Columbus who they regard as a man representing the hated North. However the majority of the Crewe see the criticism as personal to them and confront protestors assembled at the Columbus statue leading to arrests and violence.
Tony operates a different approach and attempts to blackmail the lead protestor by threatening to reveal that one of their leading hero’s was not in fact from a native Indian family. Tony is also introduced to another wealthy native American who runs one of he new casinos. When they make a hospitality visit they find the purpose is a quid pro quo arrangements getting a national Italian background singer to perform free for a week at the Casino. Worse still the man rings Tony to say that the appeal for restraint has failed.
The trial of Uncle Junior begins with the knowledge that the Feds had placed someone undercover at the hospital which had been used for Tony and other’s to meet with Junior while he allegedly went to see his doctor who had been bribed to facilitate the meetings. The undercover agent appears to be a nurse who Junior offered to take a trip after the court appearance was over, He warns Tony that the woman will have gained information on their meetings and who was there although she was never present inside the room and he had not disclosed damaging information to her. Tony continues to be concerned about his future with considerable justification.
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