Stay ConnectedJoin PI Ed Opperman with expert guests and authors as they discuss true crime stories in the news, conspiracy theories, issues of social injustice and NWO resistance.
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Staggered Paths: Strange Deaths in the Badger State - Steven Spingola
During a twenty year span, over two dozen young men were found dead in Wisconsin lakes, rivers, and wooded areas. Law enforcement officials attribute almost all of these strange deaths to acute alcohol intoxication, but others suspect a shadowy serial killer. Like most readers, Steve Spingola first learned of these tragic incidents from newspaper and television reports. During a career that spanned parts of four decades, the now retired lieutenant of detectives spent fifteen years investigating some of Milwaukee’s most complex and heinous murders, including those linked to Jeffrey Dahmer and the north side strangler. In Staggered Paths, the stellar sleuth poured through thousands of pages of police reports, dozens of newspaper accounts, and autopsy findings to independently review these strange and troubling deaths. Is a serial killer lurking in college towns, such as La Crosse and Eau Claire, to lure inebriated men to their watery graves? Spingola definitively answers this question and suggests some of these cases should be revisited. This 2nd Edition of Staggered Paths includes and update regarding a death of a man in Green Bay, Wisconsin Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
“Wildly entertaining…. Zenith Man By McCracken Poston, Jr. is a true crime book but the events described seems more like a John Grisham novel.” —Mystery Tribune
Like a nonfiction John Grisham thriller with echoes of Rainman, Just Mercy, and a captivating smalltown Southern setting, this is the fascinating true story—sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking—of an idealistic young lawyer determined to free an innocent neurodivergent man accused of murdering the wife no one knew he had.
An inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice for readers of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Just Mercy.
Was this small-town TV repair man “a harmless eccentric or a bizarre killer” (Atlanta Journal Constitution). For the first time, Alvin Ridley’s own defense attorney reveals the inside story of his case and trial in an extraordinary tale of friendship and an idealistic young attorney’s quest to clear his client’s name—and, in the process, rebuild his own life.
In October 1997, the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley’s house—and even more shockingly, she was the wife no one knew he had.
McCracken Poston had been a state representative before he lost his bid for U.S. Congress and returned to his law career. Alvin Ridley was a local character who once sold and serviced Zenith televisions. Though reclusive and an outsider, the “Zenith Man,” as Poston knew him, hardly seemed capable of murder.
Alvin was a difficult client, storing evidence in a cockroach-infested suitcase, unwilling to reveal key facts to his defender. Gradually, Poston pieced together the full story behind Virginia and Alvin’s curious marriage and her cause of death—which was completely overlooked by law enforcement. Calling on medical experts, testimony from Alvin himself, and a wealth of surprising evidence gleaned from Alvin’s junk-strewn house, Poston presented a groundbreaking defense that allowed Alvin to return to his peculiar lifestyle, a free man.
Years after his trial, Alvin was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a revelation that sheds light on much of his lifelong personal battle—and shows how easily those who don’t fit societal norms can be castigated and misunderstood. Part true crime, part courtroom drama, and full of local color, Zenith Man is also the moving story of an unexpected friendship between two very different men that changed—and perhaps saved—the lives of both.
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Martin Lee - The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond
4 days ago
Martin Lee joins Ed Opperman to talk about his new chronicle of the LSD era and it's continued reverberations.
Few events have had a more profound impact on the social and cultural upheavals of the Sixties than the psychedelic revolution spawned by the spread of LSD. This book for the first time tells the full and astounding story--part of it hidden till now in secret Government files--of the role the mind-altering drug played in our recent turbulent history and the continuing influence it has on our time.
And what a story it is, beginning with LSD's discovery in 1943 as the most potent drug known to science until it spilled into public view some twenty years later to set the stage for one of the great ideological wars of the decade. In the intervening years the CIA had launched a massive covert research program in the hope that LSD would serve as an espionage weapon, psychiatric pioneers came to believe that acid would shed light on the perplexing problems of mental illness, and a new generation of writers and artists had given birth to the LSD sub-culture.
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May Pang : John Lennon's Lost Weekend
Monday Nov 9th 730 PM , May Pang is being honored with the Ambassador of Rock Award
Le Poisson Rouge 158 Bleeker St. NY
http://rockersonbroadway
May Pang, world-renowned confidant and companion of John Lennon, has been in the public eye for over three decades. Her career in the music industry spans over 40 years, beginning with Allen Klein's company, ABKCO Industries, the firm which managed the Beatles, Apple Corps. Ltd. and the Rolling Stones besides having an extensive music publishing catalogue which included songs by Sam Cooke.
In 1970, Lennon and Yoko Ono hired Pang as their personal assistant. She would eventually become their production coordinator -- playing a key role in records by Lennon, Ono and Harry Nilsson. In 1974, Pang was awarded an RIAA Gold Album Award for her work on Lennon's Walls and Bridges, the #1 hit album which included his first and only #1 single in his lifetime, "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night." She can also be heard singing on "#9 Dream," the second single from the album.
In the late 1970s working for Island Records, Pang coordinated all activities related to the release of albums by Robert Palmer, Third World, and Bob Marley and the Wailers. By the early 1980s, she was one of the leading professional managers in the music publishing industry, working with several unknown songwriters and successfully obtaining coverage by such artists as Diana Ross, Judas Priest, The Four Tops, Ullanda McCullough and Air Supply.
During this period, Pang decided to set the record straight about her relationship with Lennon. Warner Books published her memoir, Loving John, in 1983. The book detailed her liaison and working association with the late Beatle and shed light on his relationships with his first son, Julian, as well as Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
During the last two decades, Pang has appeared in every major news and magazine publication worldwide (NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, The Daily News, UK’s Mail On Sunday, Vogue online, Germany’s Die Seite Drei, Marie Claire, People, etc.) and has been a guest on such national TV shows as Good Morning America, Howard Stern, Good Morning LA, CBS Sunday Morning, Court TV and Entertainment Tonight.
Pang has also designed a unique collection of stainless steel Feng Shui jewelry and accent furniture. She has a weekly internet radio show with co-host Cynthia Neilson called Dinner Specials on BlogTalkRadio. Com. Pang continues her consulting work on music for films and is still an advisory board member of Women In Music. She also serves as an advisory board member, along with Julian Lennon, Jeff Bridges to name a few at the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) organization. ACT deals with saving the rainforest and its indigenous people. This was started by world known ethnobotanist Dr. Mark J. Plotkin and conservationist Liliana Madrigal.
In 2008, St. Martin's Press released Instamatic Karma, a collection of Pang's personal photographs of John Lennon. Fine art prints of these portraits have been exhibited in major galleries across the country.
Also in the Fall of 2014, she released a book only for the German market called John Lennon & May Pang, Another Love. She had received numerous press coverage in some of Germany’s largest newspaper publications.
Pang has lectured and given talks at various events across the country including public libraries and most recently at Berklee College of Music in Boston sponsored in part by the
Liberal Arts Dept. While there, she also lectured the John Lennon Songwriting class. She also gave a talk at The Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp in Las Vegas as a Special Guest Speaker.
She has also been asked to be a guest speaker along with guests Donovan, Peter Asher, Pattie Boyd and others at The International Beatles Week 2015 in Liverpool this coming August.
In this age of “social awareness”, Pang was asked to participate as an artist on a CD called: ALL ABOUT BULLIES…BIG AND SMALL. The CD won a Grammy for The Best Children’s CD category in 2012.
John Lennon: The Lost Weekend- Living, Loving and Making Rock & Roll
She shared his life, his music and his love. She was his intimate companion during the time known as- THE LOST WEEKEND.
May Pang was twenty-two. She was John and Yoko’s personal assistant, a trusted member of their inner circle of carefully chosen friends and associates. She budgeted and contracted for their albums and became an invaluable part of their creative and personal lives.
When John and Yoko separated, May was enlisted to care for John as he embarked on a period known as "The Lost Weekend" – an intense period of enormous creativity and violent self-destructiveness. She lived, worked, and fell deeply in love with Lennon.
Together they shared a rocky romance, with Yoko waiting in the wings for John’s return. This is her record of that time, a time when John was recording, seeing friends, exploring the world and confronting his own inner demons. It is a personal account written of life with Lennon by a woman who loved and was loved by one of the most fascinating creative men of our time. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
In the tiny Iowa farm town of Atalissa, a group of intellectually disabled men, all from Texas, lived in a tired old schoolhouse. Every morning, well before dawn, they were bussed to a processing plant to eviscerate turkeys in return for food, lodging, and $65 a month. From 1974 until 2009, the men lived in near servitude, enduring increasing neglect, exploitation, and physical and emotional abuse—until state social workers, local journalists, and one tenacious government lawyer helped these men achieve their freedom.
New York Times columnist Dan Barry reveals how these men in an Iowa schoolhouse remained nearly forgotten for more than three decades. Drawing on exhaustive interviews, he dives deeply into their lives, recording their memories and suffering, their tender moments of joy and persistent hopefulness—their endurance of harrowing circumstances. Barry explores why this small heartland town remained all but blind to the men’s plight, details how those responsible for such profound neglect justified their actions, and chronicles the lasting impact of a dramatic court case that has spurred advocates—as well as President Obama—to push for just pay and improved working conditions for people with disabilities.
A luminous work of social justice, told with compassion and compelling detail, The Boys in the Bunkhouse is inspired storytelling and a clarion call for vigilance—an American tale that holds lasting reverberations for all of us Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
In the tiny Iowa farm town of Atalissa, a group of intellectually disabled men, all from Texas, lived in a tired old schoolhouse. Every morning, well before dawn, they were bussed to a processing plant to eviscerate turkeys in return for food, lodging, and $65 a month. From 1974 until 2009, the men lived in near servitude, enduring increasing neglect, exploitation, and physical and emotional abuse—until state social workers, local journalists, and one tenacious government lawyer helped these men achieve their freedom.
New York Times columnist Dan Barry reveals how these men in an Iowa schoolhouse remained nearly forgotten for more than three decades. Drawing on exhaustive interviews, he dives deeply into their lives, recording their memories and suffering, their tender moments of joy and persistent hopefulness—their endurance of harrowing circumstances. Barry explores why this small heartland town remained all but blind to the men’s plight, details how those responsible for such profound neglect justified their actions, and chronicles the lasting impact of a dramatic court case that has spurred advocates—as well as President Obama—to push for just pay and improved working conditions for people with disabilities.
A luminous work of social justice, told with compassion and compelling detail, The Boys in the Bunkhouse is inspired storytelling and a clarion call for vigilance—an American tale that holds lasting reverberations for all of us Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
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