Unser USA-Korrespondent Thomas Adcock fährt mit seiner Analyse der amerikanischen Gesellschaft fort  und kümmert sich um die Realien, die für die Kriminalliteratur grundlegend sind: Gewalt & Tod The next president of the United States: Wayne LaPierre? The Party of Mass Murder G.O.P. = Guns Over People by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2013 Thomas Adcock NORTH CHATHAM, N.Y. Regarding the Republican Party and the support of its leadership for perpetual gun carnage in the United States, permit me to be as blunt as bullets: the once admirable Grand Old Party, asRead More

Citizen-Stranger in a Strange Land: On Being a Foreign Correspondent at Home  By Thomas Adcock NEW YORK, near America In days of yore, when people used stamps and stationery and fountain pens to communicate via public post, my dear friend Gisbert Haefs addressed letters to me in care of a place he christened “New York, near America.” He was confident that mail from Bonn would accordingly reach me, here in my ugly-beautiful city along the eastern coast of the United States. It always did. Thus did Herr Haefs, my comradeRead More

Lesen Sie heute den zweiten Teil (zu Teil 1) von Thomas Adcocks Reflexionen über die Hinrichtungspraxis in den USA – und dazu ein kleines, korrektes Narrativ: Der Fall von Joseph Amrine! Execution, American-Style ‘Tectonic Shift’ in Execution Policy By Thomas Adcock By October 2009, the frequency of death sentences began a clear plunging trend, even in the execution-friendly South. That month as well, the American Law Institute disavowed its fifty-year-old policy framework addressing executions—the Model Penal Code of 1962. The policy was deemed a failure “in light of the currentRead More

Einer der eher unangenehmen Aspekte der USA ist die Neigung, Leute hinzurichten. Unser USA-Korrespondent Thomas Adcock beschäftigt sich im Zuge seiner präzisen USA-Analysen heute und in der nächsten CrimeMag-Ausgabe mit dieser Art staatlicher Gewalt – historisch, aktuell und im internationalen Kontext. Execution, American-Style How the Government Commits Pre-Meditated Homicide By Thomas Adcock THACA, N.Y. The American experience in capital punishment is a kaleidoscope of legislative vogue, adaptive judicial wisdom, religion (stern and merciful), political passion and race—played out against the backdrop of “evolving standards of decency,” a debatable progressive impulseRead More

Am Mittwoch hatte sich unser USA-Korrespondent Thomas Adcock mit den selbstmörderischen Aspekten von Dummheit unter den Republikanern beschäftigt. Heute liefert er ein paar Beispiele – wanted! – die dümmsten Kongressabgeordneten: The 10 Dumbest Members of the U.S. Congress … and a (very) few of the hundreds of stupid things they’ve said by Thomas Adcock VIRGINIA FOXX — North Carolina Rep. Foxx was unmoved by the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, who was tortured, pistol-whipped, and nailed to a fence post to die—because he was gay, accordingRead More

  ELEPHANT GRAVEYARDS: The Caucus Room restaurant in Washington [photo at left, from fall 2012] was once popular with leaders of the Republican Party, affectionately symbolized by the elephant in nineteenth-century newspaper illustrations drawn by German-born political cartoonist Thomas Nast. Not far from the restaurant—in the rotunda of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History—is a work of taxidermy popular with Republican tourists: a huge armature of wood and metal lathe, stuffed with clay and girdled in the two-ton hide of a dead male African rogue elephant. Suicide by Stupidity: HowRead More

CORPORATE PIMPS and/or AMERICAN PSYCHOS. Top row, from left: mass murderer Jared Loughner; gun fetishists Gayle Trotter and Wayne LaPierre; kindergarten killer Adam Lanza, who shot his mother in the face. Middle row: Dick Cheney, who shot his hunting companion in the face; war jingoist Donald Rumsfeld; Senator Lindsey Graham, companion to an AR-15 semi-automatic assault carbine. Bottom row: John Yoo, law professor and torture advocate; General Philip H. Sheridan, genocide advocate; George W. Bush, war criminal. American Blood Money, Inc. By Thomas Adcock (Copyright © 2013) Lesen Sie hierRead More

CORPORATE PIMPS and/or AMERICAN PSYCHOS. Top row, from left: mass murderer Jared Loughner; gun fetishists Gayle Trotter and Wayne LaPierre; kindergarten killer Adam Lanza, who shot his mother in the face. Middle row: Dick Cheney, who shot his hunting companion in the face; war jingoist Donald Rumsfeld; Senator Lindsey Graham, companion to an AR-15 semi-automatic assault carbine. Bottom row: John Yoo, law professor and torture advocate; General Philip H. Sheridan, genocide advocate; George W. Bush, war criminal. American Blood Money, Inc. By Thomas Adcock (Copyright © 2013) Den ersten TeilRead More

CORPORATE PIMPS and/or AMERICAN PSYCHOS. Top row, from left: mass murderer Jared Loughner; gun fetishists Gayle Trotter and Wayne LaPierre; kindergarten killer Adam Lanza, who shot his mother in the face. Middle row: Dick Cheney, who shot his hunting companion in the face; war jingoist Donald Rumsfeld; Senator Lindsey Graham, companion to an AR-15 semi-automatic assault carbine. Bottom row: John Yoo, law professor and torture advocate; General Philip H. Sheridan, genocide advocate; George W. Bush, war criminal. American Blood Money, Inc. By Thomas Adcock (Copyright © 2013) NEW YORK —Read More

Der Blick in die Kristallkugel geht weiter: Unser „USA-Korrespondent“, der Autor und „Edgar”-Preisträger Thomas Adcock schaut auf die Entwicklung zentraler Aspekte und Themen der amerikanischen Politik und Gesellschaft im Jahr 2013. Setzt sich die Spaltung des Landes weiter fort? Wie entwickelt sich der Finanzsektor? Kommt es tatsächlich zu einer wirkungsvollen Reform der Waffengesetze und der Immigrationspolitik? Lesen Sie Teil 2 der Prognosen und Hintergründe zu aktuellen Themen der amerikanischen Gegenwart (zu Teil 1). IMAGES in the American New Year. Top row, from top left: lunatic Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, obeseRead More

Ein Blick in die Kristallkugel: Unser „USA-Korrespondent“, der Autor und „Edgar“-Preisträger Thomas Adcock, wagt einen Blick auf die Entwicklung zentraler Aspekte und Themen der amerikanischen Politik und Gesellschaft im Jahr 2013.  Setzt sich die Spaltung des Landes weiter fort? Wie sieht die Zukunft der Tea-Party aus und ihrer teilweise absurd argumentierenden Vertreter aus? Wie entwickelt sich der Finanzsektor? Kommt es tatsächlich zu einer wirkungsvollen Reform der Waffengesetze? Und: Wir geht’s weiter mit dem „War on Terror“? Lesen Sie Prognosen und Hintergründe zu aktuellen Themen der amerikanischen Gegenwart (Teil 1). IMAGESRead More

Death Row ADAM LANZA (top row, left) is America’s newest notable mass murderer. Adjacent is Nancy Lanza, first rampage victim and the killer’s own mother. Middle row: legally purchased semi-automatic weapons. Bottom row (from left): Mike Huckabee, former Republican governor of Arkansas, who said Mr. Lanza’s schoolhouse killing spree occurred because “we have systematically removed God from our schools”; Congressman Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, who wants more guns available to more Americans; William Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, who says schools should now have armed personnel.     Merry Murderous Christmas!Read More

Leading voices of the Republican Tea Party cult — clockwise from top:  Sarah Palin, 2008 Republican nominee for vice-president, half-term governor of Alaska; Congressman Allen West, Florida; Congressman Michael Coffman, Congressman Todd Akin, U.S. Senate candidate, Missouri; Colorado; Congressman Chip Cravaack, Minnesota; Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Minnesota; Tea Party polemicist Ann Coulter; Congressman Joe Walsh, Illinois; Congressman Steve King, Iowa; Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, candidate for the U.S. Senate. Der amerikanische Autor und Edgar-Gewinner Thomas Adcock berichtet exklusiv für CULTurMAG in seiner wöchentlichen Kolumne von dem täglichen Wahnsinn des US-Wahlkampfs.Read More

“How’m I doin’?” Campaign catchphrase of the great Ed Koch, mayor of New York Der amerikanische Autor und Edgar-Gewinner Thomas Adcock berichtet exklusiv für CULTurMAG in seiner wöchentlichen Kolumne von dem täglichen Wahnsinn des US-Wahlkampfs. Heute: Religion und Wahlkampf. Jesus Christ for President Dear Reader: Should you take umbrage by so much as a whiff of blasphemy, partake here of no further scurrility that would injure your spiritual sensibilities. I shall be offended not in the least if you opt to turn your attention, post haste, to some more pleasingRead More

Der amerikanische Autor und Edgar-Gewinner Thomas Adcock berichtet exklusiv für CULTurMAG in seiner wöchentlichen Kolumne von dem täglichen Wahnsinn des US-Wahlkampfs. Diese Woche: „G.O.P., R.I.P“ Last week’s daily menu of discouraging news for White House hopeful Mitt Romney began late on Monday afternoon with the bombshell release of a video surreptitiously taped during a fundraising banquet last May in Florida. At the private gathering, the multi-millionaire challenger to President Barack Obama disparaged half the American population as social parasites who feel “entitled to health care, food, housing, you name it”Read More

Am letzten Samstag hat Thomas Adcock ein paar Lebenslinien der politschen Geistesgeschichte Amerikas umrissen, heute startet, exklusiv bei CULTurMAG, seine wöchentliche Kolumne rund um den Wahlkampf in den USA . Diese Woche: “The New Sarah Palin” By Thomas Adcock. One of two men vying for the office of president of the United States has evidently decided that imbecility and deceit are effective strategies in his campaign to evict a black family from the White House. Perhaps the candidate is influenced by the wisdom—dubious versus merited—of two very different but quintessentiallyRead More

Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika sind eine gespaltene Gesellschaft mit unterschiedlichsten Konfliktlinien und einem scharfen Arm/Reich-Antagonismus sowie einem trotzigen „dennoch“-Optimismus. Thomas Adcock beleuchtet ein paar Hintergründe, die helfen, den aktuellen Wahlkampf (den Adcock ab dem nächsten Montag wöchentlich aktuell und exklusiv für CULTurMAG kommentieren wird) zu verstehen. Rx heißt übrigens in diesem Zusammenhang prescription, also Arznei-Rezept … The American Spirit of Optimism: Rx for Lousy Times by Thomas Adcock   American plutocrats have a natural alliance with corporations, bankers, and true believers in laissez-faire capitalism. To keep the riff-raff fromRead More

Die rassistischen Untertöne der Anti-Obama-Kampagnen bekommt man bei uns nicht immer so deutlich mit oder sie werden von anderen ideologischen Themen überlagert. Dabei hat Rassismus schon immer und immer noch einen hohen Stellenwert in der politischen Auseinandersetzung in den USA. In einem für CrimeMag überarbeiteten Essay geht Thomas Adcock auf diese unappetitliche Tradition ein … Godfathers of Political Racism, American-Style by Thomas Adcock Lee Atwater, the late operative for America’s right-wing Republican party, is described by numerous detractors as the godfather of contemporary xenophobic dog whistles to the baser instinctsRead More

The Cannibal of Pang Yang by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2012 Thomas Adcock Teil 3 IX.   Inaugural edition of Noah Palmer’s pre-employment series of self-published reports, in which the young artist of purple prose plays herald for Ulster County and the world beyond in breaking first news of——   The Cannibal of Pang Yang! C A Horrible & Revolting Murder!  B Butchery Most Foul! Mountain Fiend Cooks & Consumes his Kill! • By Noah Palmer •   PANG YANG, N.Y. (15 January 1902)——A fiend in human form by theRead More

The Cannibal of Pang Yang by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2012 Thomas Adcock Teil 2 VI.   Six months following the Nativity incident and disastrous raid on the Binnewaters, Oscar Jukes laid out a goodly sum of cash to engage a land surveyor and attorney from Poughkeepsie, one Nelson Forbath. The transaction surprised Kingstonians and untouchables alike, for it was Jukes’ habit to conflate most legal niceties with evil incarnate. As he often ranted, “The Devil makes his Christmas pie with fookin’ lawyers’ tongues.” Handsomely remunerated, Forbath commenced professional examinationRead More

The Cannibal of Pang Yang by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2012 Thomas Adcock In the grey of autumnal daybreak, with the air chilled by a dank breeze, a gang of workmen assembled in the wide cobblestone lane behind the Ulster County Jail. There they engaged in respective tasks in advance of a public execution scheduled to commence at high noon. The citizenry of Kingston had long relished arrival of this Sunday of October 20th, 1907. Gentlemen and ladies of Christian outlook were busy at home, readying picnic baskets of sandwichesRead More