As the slogan goes, guns don’t kill people – people kill people. While, depending on your politics, that may or may not be true, the sum of the guns plus people equation is often enough death, especially when it comes to the world’s most popular automatic rifle, the legendary AK-47. Sometimes, however, in the...
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Where it began, I can’t begin to knowin’.Without a home, but not without a star,I learned how to laugh and I learned how to cry,Weeping like a willow.I’ve been misunderstood for all of my lifeBut what they’re sayin’, girl, just cuts like a knifeTwo floors above the butcher, first door on the right.And I’m...
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by Hartford Gongaware The United States has made every effort to forget about Cuba. The island’s charms are illicit. To most of us who will read this, they remain unknown. But there was a time when Cuba was the Las Vegas of the Caribbean and “wide open” as Captain Michael A. Patten, USN(RET) puts...
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The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, lovingly dubbed “Alcatraz of the South,” is the largest maximum security prison in the United States. Its 18,000 acres of bucolic farmland at the end of a 20-mile, two-lane back road are home to roughly 5,200 inmates, about 86 percent of whom are violent offenders, and 52 percent...
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The fall of the Iron Curtain ushered in an era of heady, unprecedented freedom for the residents of former Soviet states. With it, however, came disquieting uncertainty, as the body politic struggled to reconcile decades of repression with their newfound liberties. Life was assuredly not all flowing Coca-Cola and crisp Levi’s blue jeans, and...
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GUTFIRE! is a committed advocate of multilingual education – in an information age and a global economy, we simply cannot afford to be monolingual. To that end, we had our good friend Fanny Pompidou, a foul-mouthed regular at the port bars of Marseille, put together a little reading comprehension exercise for us. If you’ve...
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by Michael StarcSome 30 years after their biggest hits, I finally feel ready to wrestle with Hall and Oates. For the woefully uninitiated, Daryl Hall and John Oates formed one of the most popular duos in music history, unleashing six platinum albums and six number one tracks. Throw in an additional 21 top 40...
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Liquor and Night – two things Manhattan has never been short of. Indeed, if one knows where to look, one can find them in stunning abundance, until four legally, even later if you’re lucky. In this rogue’s gallery of good-time saloons, GUTFIRE! pays homage to a few of our favorites, dependable standbys to whom...
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by Hartford GongawareI find myself at China #1 in Effingham County in Georgia – Methingham, so-called by its Sherriff – where the Southern-fried Ginger Chicken is no less addictive than methaphetamine and, presumably, not so conducive of delusions and paranoia and the variety of psychotic behaviors. Meth addicts fill the jails in Effingham County...
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