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You get what you give in Varanasi India

7 minute read if you skip the bad stuff.

The Lonely Planet guide to India, the gold-standard of travel guides, a bible for budget backpackers, and usually a kind voice encouraging you to travel without judgement, said this about Varanasi India:

Brace yourself. You’re about to enter one of the most blindingly colorful, unrelentingly chaotic and unapologetically indiscreet places on earth. Varanasi takes no prisoners.

Varanasi tested my patience, humor, and immune system more than anywhere in the world, yet remains one of my favorite memories of a trip across Nepal and India.

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Van Halen, Brown M&Ms, and Quality Assurance

6 minute read.

In the 1980’s, the rock-band Van Halen caused $85,000 damage to their dressing room after finding brown M&M’s in their bowl of “munchies” before a concert. The facts behind that story can help medical-device companies become more efficient and pass any FDA or ISO Quality-System audit. This article shows you how, with the lead singer of Van Halen, David Lee Roth, as your guide.

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Havana: 01 March 2019

“Edward Grady Partin was a big, rugged man who could charm a snake off a rock.1

Jimmy Hoffa, the opening lines of Chapter 10 – The Chatanooga Choo Choo – in “Hoffa on Hoffa,” published by Stein and Day just after Hoffa vanished in 1975
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Havana: 04 March 2019

“[Jimmy Hoffa’s] mention of legal problems in New Orleans translated into his insistence that Carlos Marcello arrange another meeting with Partin, despite my warning that dealing with Partin was fruitless and dangerous.”

Frank Ragano, J.D., attorney for Jimmy Hoffa, New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, and Cuban exile and Miami mob boss Santos Trafacante Jr., in “Mob Lawyer,” 1994

“These [Baton Rouge Teamster] hoodlums make Marcello and the Mafia look pretty good.”

“I won’t let Edward Partin and his gangster Teamsters run this state!”

“[We’re going to arrest Partin] as soon as we get the evidence against him.”

“Walter, get him out of my state. Now listen to what I am saying to you. Just get him out of my state. I’ll help you do it and I’ll give him immunity. You write it up and I’ll sign it. Just please get him across that state line.”*

Louisiana governor John McKeithen in a series of 1968 news statements, quoted from Walter Sheridan’s “The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa,” 1972, including *personal correspondence with Walter.1
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Havana: 01 March 2019

“We can report that Edward G. Partin has been under investigation by the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office in connection with the Kennedy Assassination investigation… based on an exclusive interview with an Assistant District Attorney in Jim Garrison’s office. We can report that Partin’s activities have been under scrutiny. In his words: “We know that Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were here in New Orleans several times… there was a third man driving them and we are checking the possibility it was Partin.1

WJBO radio, New Orleans, June 23rd, 1964; quoted from Walter Sheridan, “The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa,” 1972
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1979 Rumors

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

1 Corinthians 13:4-6
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Havana, 01 March 2019

But then came the killing shot that was to nail me to the cross.

Edward Grady Partin.

And Life magazine once again was Robert Kenedy’s tool. He figured that, at long last, he was going to dust my ass and he wanted to set the public up to see what a great man he was in getting Hoffa.

Life quoted Walter Sheridan, head of the Get-Hoffa Squad, that Partin was virtually the all-American boy even though he had been in jail “because of a minor domestic problem.”1

Jimmy Hoffa, 1975
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Havana: 01 March 2019

“We can report that Edward G. Partin has been under investigation by the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office in connection with the Kennedy Assassination investigation… based on an exclusive interview with an Assistant District Attorney in Jim Garrison’s office. We can report that Partin’s activities have been under scrutiny. In his words: “We know that Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were here in New Orleans several times… there was a third man driving them and we are checking the possibility it was Partin.1

WJBO radio, New Orleans, June 23rd, 1964; quoted from Walter Sheridan, “The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa,” 1972
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Baton Rouge, Autumn of 1976

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 6:1-4
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Havana, 01 March 2019

But then came the killing shot that was to nail me to the cross.

Edward Grady Partin.

And Life magazine once again was Robert Kenedy’s tool. He figured that, at long last, he was going to dust my ass and he wanted to set the public up to see what a great man he was in getting Hoffa.

Life quoted Walter Sheridan, head of the Get-Hoffa Squad, that Partin was virtually the all-American boy even though he had been in jail “because of a minor domestic problem.”1

Jimmy Hoffa, 1975
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Baton Rouge, Spring of 1976

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Exodus 20:12
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Christmas, 1976, Part II

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:1-6

Being the valley of the world, eternal virtue will never desert you, and you become like a little child anew.

The Tao Te Ching, Chapter 28
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