GOLF, COOKING & WINE ON LAKE COMO

Chauffeured driven – Depart from the States on Sunday and return the following Saturday Destination: Lake Como

Length: 6 days / 5 nights

Hotel type: Hotel Metropole & Suisse in Como

Arrival details: in the morning

Departure details: in the morning

Nearest airports: Milan Malpensa MXP

Check-in time: from 2 pm

Itinerary:

Day 1: Monday

First cooking class

First wine tasting

Upon arrival at the airport, a hostess will meet with the group at the gate while a porter’s service will take care of the luggage at the carousel.

Once boarded a private coach, the group will be taken to Como. According to the time of arrival, a schedule of the day will be prepared.

The first cooking class will be organized for this late afternoon. A wine tasting will accompany the dinner.

Day 2: Tuesday

First round of golf

Second cooking class

Second wine tasting

Your first day of golf will be at Le Robinie, the only Jack Nicklaus course in Italy.

At 5 pm drive to the local hotel school for your second cooking lesson. A wine tasting will accompany the dinner.

Day 3: Wednesday

Second round of golf

Third cooking class

Third wine tasting

Today it is the turn of La Pinetina Golf Club, a course cut in the forest. In fact, Pinetina means small forest.

At 5 pm drive to the local hotel school for your third cooking lesson. A third wine tasting will accompany the dinner.

Day 4: Thursday

Third round of golf

Fourth cooking class

Grappa tasting

Today, drive north along the west shores of Lake Como directly to Menaggio where you’ll play the local golf course, one of the oldest in Italy, built by the English aristocracy at the beginning of the 20th century.

Once there, take the occasion to go and visit Bellagio, just on the other side of the lake (use the ferry boat) or Villa Carlotta, famous for its azaleas garden.

At 5 pm drive to the local hotel school for your fourth and last cooking lesson.

Day 5: Friday

Fourth round of golf

Today, it is the turn of a historic Italian golf course: the Villa d’Este, seat of the Italian Open for 12 times, located at only 6 miles from the town.

No cooking class and time at disposal for the last shopping.

Farewell dinner at a local restaurant in town.

Day 6: Saturday

Your golf holidays is ended. Drive to the airport and depart.

Cost per $ 2219

Hotel Metropole – 4*

The cost includes:

meet & greet at the airport

porters’ service at the airport upon arrival and departure

5-night accommodation sharing a double room

5 buffet breakfasts

5 dinners (4 included in the cooking classes)

4 cooking classes (hands-on)

3 wine tastings

1 grappa tasting

4 green fees (18 holes)

return transfers to the airport by private coach with driver

return transfers to the golf courses by private coach with driver

return transfers to the cooking school by private coach with driver

tourist material on the area

VAT, taxes

The cost does not include:

tips, everything not specified in the Cost per person, Air: Lowest available airfare may be secured upon request at time of booking, golf carts:

For Bookings Please Call

Celebrity Tours Inc.

914 457 4319

Fax 646 536 8116

http://www.celebritytours.net


Info@celebritytours.net

815 McLean Ave Yonkers NY 10704 Suite 6

Defensive end Leonard Marshall. Marshall spent 13 years in the National Football League, nine of which with the Giants, and ends his career with two Super Bowl rings, and a three Pro Bowl appearances.

# # #

Find More New York Giants Press Releases

Freedom Is For Those Willing to Defend It: Stories of Men in War

By Helene Ensign Maw

236 pages; perfect bound; catalogue #02-0105; ISBN 1-55369-292-6; US$ 18.95 (Can$ 29.50)

Patriotism is a character trait of great people, and within these uncommon combat stories, veterans express convictions that acclaim our legacy of liberty, which if forgotten, would necessitate repurchasing. The intended audiences are service men and women, veterans, and citizens currently flying flags in our nation who are rekindling their patriotism.

About the Book

Twelve true stories of men in war during the Vietnam, Korean and World War II wars. Each story of twenty to thirty pages comprises detailed experiences with maps and photographs.

“They removed the handcuffs, stretched my arms out spread eagle against the wall and pinned a target on my chest. Leg irons clamped on both legs and a blindfold over my eyes. . .At the same time I could hear the rifle butts hit the flagstone path and I knew what that meant. It was ready, aim, fire and that’s it, and in those seconds my life flashed before me.” After three and a half years in Japanese prisons in China, this veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam was on the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo 18 April 1942, and tells of his capture and imprisonment in the story Freedom is for Those Willing to Defend It.

I Dreamed of Steel Chargers with Skies to Roam, but Mostly I Dreamed of Just Going Home is a story of five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton. An F-105 American pilot depicts more than torture in the infamous Knobby Room at Hoa Lo Prison and isolation without mail from his wife and five children, he discloses how he survived with three others in a 12 x 12 concrete cell for five years and their longing to see America once more. “We faced east which was toward home and where an American flag was flying and with a hand placed over our heart pledged allegiance to the flag.” Bursting the noise ban, they loudly sang The Star Spangled Banner while another cell in greater volume burst into God Bless America and another, even louder, America the Beautiful, and another and another throughout the cells of the prison camp until silenced by Vietnamese guards with tear gas and bayonets.

A twist of unexpected humor surfaces in No Place to Hide, when a bombardier lieutenant is forced to jump out of bed while still in his shorts and salute General Twining; when his Purple Heart goes unclaimed because he was wounded on his anatomy in a place he never wanted to explain. “I decided to hand crank the stuck bomb bay doors shut. I took off my flak jacket, parachute, and Mae West life jacket, and headed for the open bomb bay. The quarters were too tight to work with those strapped to my body. I instructed the flight sergeant to hand me a new oxygen bottle every thirty seconds, since I didn’t want to run out of oxygen, pass out, and fall out the bomb bay without a parachute. I got out on the six-inch catwalk, leaned over the open bomb bay and looked down at the ground 28,000 feet below. . .”

In the invasion of Guam, a Marine from the 3rd Marine Division tells of the fight on the beach and scaling the Chonito Cliffs in The Sounds and Smells of War I Know So Very Well. “The next morning descending from Fonte Canyon by an easier route than the cliffs we had scaled, we witnessed an astounding spectacle. Looking down from a ridge trail into the desolate ruins of Aga–a, once a metropolis of 12,000, the Japanese soldiers were holding a full-dress ceremony on a bomb-pocked avenue of the capital city, or what was left of it. Flashing Samurai swords gleamed in the sun as they paraded wearing full combat regalia. We ordered an artillery concentration, but it was too late to catch the prideful retreating Imperial enemy.”

Trusting to My Instinct is about a young recruit from ranch country thrown into battle and learned from experience why the training manual was incomplete. “Reaching battalion headquarters with the POW, I placed him in the major’s charge, and rushed back up the mountain to rejoin my platoon. In my absence Lieutenant Davis had gone ahead alone to sneak behind the machine gun position. We estimated there was a machine gunner in a command post and about forty German riflemen in foxholes, dug in and camouflaged. We listened to the steady rhythm of the ra-ta-ta-tat of the machine gun bursts. Then it quit. On a hunch that the enemy gun had jammed, Bill and I rushed forward firing our Tommy guns from the hip, spraying every bush and tree while dodging bullets from the German riflemen. The command post comprised a four-foot high log hut in the brush, and behind the log hut was Lieutenant Davis. After circling around to get behind the machine gun to take it out, he met enemy fire and lay dead.”

A successful assault coincides with an attack of diarrhea in an empathetic vignette midst the valiant story If You Cut My Arm Of, Let Me Die, I’m a Baseball Player. A citizen of Czechoslovakia abandons the opportunity to join the New York Giants’ ball club to become a paratrooper in the U.S. Army and becomes a survivor of the invasions of Holland, Belgium and Germany. “Medic!” I yelled, but he died in my arms before a medic got there. I laid him down and started mowing with that .30 caliber machine gun, shooting so fast that the barrel got hot and glowed red in the night. Then the German tanks turned around and headed back toward my foxhole again. Just then out of the corner of my eye fifteen feet away from me a German jumped up and pointed a one-man bazooka at me. I moved the .30 caliber around and got him before he could fire the bazooka, then ducked down just as another tank crossed by my foxhole.”

The Epic Rescue of My Gal Sal; and The Great Escape is the survival of an airman in three aircraft tragedies. The crew of My Gal Sal, land their out-of-fuel 10-ton B-17 on the Greenland Ice Cap and are rescued by a pilot landing a 12-ton PBY on a small ice water melt lake and a veteran of the Arctic on skis. The ice melt lake disappears shortly after the rescue. The airmen is in a second emergency landing, and again a third time, when he is the lone survivor of his aircraft and bails out over enemy territory and is imprisoned for three years. He is part of the planning of a great escape of 250 prisoners, but eventually saved from annihilation by the Russians by Hitler.

The Chinese Trap at Chosin Reservoir, takes place at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea and as General Matthew Ridgeway explained the tragedy, “We were, in short, in a state of shameful unreadiness.”

“The ten Chinese divisions that had orders to annihilate the Marines at Yudam-ni attacked them all the way to the sea as the Marines withdrew. Following within the shadow of the Marines for protection were nearly a hundred thousand North Korean women, children, and old men carrying their wounded. During the two-week battle on the west side of the reservoir the 15,000 men of the U.S. Marines, British and South Koreans suffered 12,000 casualties. The 3,000 men of Task Force Faith of the 31st and 32nd battalions/Seventh Army Division on the east side of the Chosin Reservoir fared worse with more than 2,600 dead and only 385 survivors.”

In contrast to the men at the Chosin Reservoir, the men in the story of 9 Band-Aids and 9 Purple Hearts, had water to drink without carrying canteens, fresh eggs any time and freshly made donuts.

“When the dust had cleared we returned to count the cost of the all-night attack – of the 4,000 Chinese that had attacked us, 350 of the enemy had lost their lives and 2,500 had surrendered. When counting our casualties, we discovered that not one of our men had been killed. Our 240 men who had fought off 3,500 to 4,000 Chinese dusted off their fatigues and used Band-Aides to cover their scrapes, and with grateful hearts for their lives, they buried the enemy dead before moving out.”.

Letters from Vietnam is a daily record during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam abstracted from letters from a sergeant to his wife.

“7 Feb 68. Well, this morning was one of those mornings when you wake up and ten minutes later the VCs are shooting at you. We got carbine fire and RPGs. We moved out with the tanks about ten o’clock and started sweeping through the area where the VC were. About two o’clock we ran into them.

“I got the news about the baby when I got back. I am so happy I could cry! I love you so much… I don’t know what day he was born. They didn’t say, they just said it was a boy and weighted 7 pounds and something…all I can say is, I love you…”

Vietnam war negotiations ensued to end the war and exchange prisoners. The Last Plane Out is a story of negotiating with generals of South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong and how you actually shut down a war. Included are experiences that occurred at Phu Quoc Island, the POW camp where the majority of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were incarcerated.

About the Author

Helene Ensign Maw’s patriotism coupled with a writing talent and a penchant for accuracy has come together in her first book Freedom is for Those Willing to Defend It — Stories of Men in War.

After retiring from the business and legal world, she began writing in order to capture and publish the sacrifices that men in war have made for our country, their respect for the flag and their faith in dire times. Dedicated to those who underprize liberty, she has recorded historical experiences so that others may remember and honor the sacrifices made for them and keep vivid in their hearts that liberty has its price.

Abandoning a court reporting career ,which she was pursuing in Jackson, Wyoming, she chose to stay home after marrying a widower with five young and teenage children, and experience mothering. A Communication major, she attended the University of Utah. The specialty of verbatim court reporting required two-year schooling at Denver’s Mile High Court Reporting school.

Helene and her husband presently reside in the mountain community of Kamas, Utah (near the Olympic venue of Park City), in a log home that she and her husband designed and built adjacent to a mountain stream.

For author interview or review copy, please contact the author at helene@allwest.net

To order please contact your distributor or order directly from the publisher at:

Trafford Publishing

1-888-232-4444 or 250-383-6864

FAX 250-383-6804

orders@trafford.com

http://www.trafford.com

Find More New York Giants Press Releases

Freedom Is For Those Willing to Defend It: Stories of Men in War

By Helene Ensign Maw

236 pages; perfect bound; catalogue #02-0105; ISBN 1-55369-292-6; US$ 18.95 (Can$ 29.50)

Patriotism is a character trait of great people, and within these uncommon combat stories, veterans express convictions that acclaim our legacy of liberty, which if forgotten, would necessitate repurchasing. The intended audiences are service men and women, veterans, and citizens currently flying flags in our nation who are rekindling their patriotism.

About the Book

Twelve true stories of men in war during the Vietnam, Korean and World War II wars. Each story of twenty to thirty pages comprises detailed experiences with maps and photographs.

“They removed the handcuffs, stretched my arms out spread eagle against the wall and pinned a target on my chest. Leg irons clamped on both legs and a blindfold over my eyes. . .At the same time I could hear the rifle butts hit the flagstone path and I knew what that meant. It was ready, aim, fire and that’s it, and in those seconds my life flashed before me.” After three and a half years in Japanese prisons in China, this veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam was on the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo 18 April 1942, and tells of his capture and imprisonment in the story Freedom is for Those Willing to Defend It.

I Dreamed of Steel Chargers with Skies to Roam, but Mostly I Dreamed of Just Going Home is a story of five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton. An F-105 American pilot depicts more than torture in the infamous Knobby Room at Hoa Lo Prison and isolation without mail from his wife and five children, he discloses how he survived with three others in a 12 x 12 concrete cell for five years and their longing to see America once more. “We faced east which was toward home and where an American flag was flying and with a hand placed over our heart pledged allegiance to the flag.” Bursting the noise ban, they loudly sang The Star Spangled Banner while another cell in greater volume burst into God Bless America and another, even louder, America the Beautiful, and another and another throughout the cells of the prison camp until silenced by Vietnamese guards with tear gas and bayonets.

A twist of unexpected humor surfaces in No Place to Hide, when a bombardier lieutenant is forced to jump out of bed while still in his shorts and salute General Twining; when his Purple Heart goes unclaimed because he was wounded on his anatomy in a place he never wanted to explain. “I decided to hand crank the stuck bomb bay doors shut. I took off my flak jacket, parachute, and Mae West life jacket, and headed for the open bomb bay. The quarters were too tight to work with those strapped to my body. I instructed the flight sergeant to hand me a new oxygen bottle every thirty seconds, since I didn’t want to run out of oxygen, pass out, and fall out the bomb bay without a parachute. I got out on the six-inch catwalk, leaned over the open bomb bay and looked down at the ground 28,000 feet below. . .”

In the invasion of Guam, a Marine from the 3rd Marine Division tells of the fight on the beach and scaling the Chonito Cliffs in The Sounds and Smells of War I Know So Very Well. “The next morning descending from Fonte Canyon by an easier route than the cliffs we had scaled, we witnessed an astounding spectacle. Looking down from a ridge trail into the desolate ruins of Aga–a, once a metropolis of 12,000, the Japanese soldiers were holding a full-dress ceremony on a bomb-pocked avenue of the capital city, or what was left of it. Flashing Samurai swords gleamed in the sun as they paraded wearing full combat regalia. We ordered an artillery concentration, but it was too late to catch the prideful retreating Imperial enemy.”

Trusting to My Instinct is about a young recruit from ranch country thrown into battle and learned from experience why the training manual was incomplete. “Reaching battalion headquarters with the POW, I placed him in the major’s charge, and rushed back up the mountain to rejoin my platoon. In my absence Lieutenant Davis had gone ahead alone to sneak behind the machine gun position. We estimated there was a machine gunner in a command post and about forty German riflemen in foxholes, dug in and camouflaged. We listened to the steady rhythm of the ra-ta-ta-tat of the machine gun bursts. Then it quit. On a hunch that the enemy gun had jammed, Bill and I rushed forward firing our Tommy guns from the hip, spraying every bush and tree while dodging bullets from the German riflemen. The command post comprised a four-foot high log hut in the brush, and behind the log hut was Lieutenant Davis. After circling around to get behind the machine gun to take it out, he met enemy fire and lay dead.”

A successful assault coincides with an attack of diarrhea in an empathetic vignette midst the valiant story If You Cut My Arm Of, Let Me Die, I’m a Baseball Player. A citizen of Czechoslovakia abandons the opportunity to join the New York Giants’ ball club to become a paratrooper in the U.S. Army and becomes a survivor of the invasions of Holland, Belgium and Germany. “Medic!” I yelled, but he died in my arms before a medic got there. I laid him down and started mowing with that .30 caliber machine gun, shooting so fast that the barrel got hot and glowed red in the night. Then the German tanks turned around and headed back toward my foxhole again. Just then out of the corner of my eye fifteen feet away from me a German jumped up and pointed a one-man bazooka at me. I moved the .30 caliber around and got him before he could fire the bazooka, then ducked down just as another tank crossed by my foxhole.”

The Epic Rescue of My Gal Sal; and The Great Escape is the survival of an airman in three aircraft tragedies. The crew of My Gal Sal, land their out-of-fuel 10-ton B-17 on the Greenland Ice Cap and are rescued by a pilot landing a 12-ton PBY on a small ice water melt lake and a veteran of the Arctic on skis. The ice melt lake disappears shortly after the rescue. The airmen is in a second emergency landing, and again a third time, when he is the lone survivor of his aircraft and bails out over enemy territory and is imprisoned for three years. He is part of the planning of a great escape of 250 prisoners, but eventually saved from annihilation by the Russians by Hitler.

The Chinese Trap at Chosin Reservoir, takes place at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea and as General Matthew Ridgeway explained the tragedy, “We were, in short, in a state of shameful unreadiness.”

“The ten Chinese divisions that had orders to annihilate the Marines at Yudam-ni attacked them all the way to the sea as the Marines withdrew. Following within the shadow of the Marines for protection were nearly a hundred thousand North Korean women, children, and old men carrying their wounded. During the two-week battle on the west side of the reservoir the 15,000 men of the U.S. Marines, British and South Koreans suffered 12,000 casualties. The 3,000 men of Task Force Faith of the 31st and 32nd battalions/Seventh Army Division on the east side of the Chosin Reservoir fared worse with more than 2,600 dead and only 385 survivors.”

In contrast to the men at the Chosin Reservoir, the men in the story of 9 Band-Aids and 9 Purple Hearts, had water to drink without carrying canteens, fresh eggs any time and freshly made donuts.

“When the dust had cleared we returned to count the cost of the all-night attack – of the 4,000 Chinese that had attacked us, 350 of the enemy had lost their lives and 2,500 had surrendered. When counting our casualties, we discovered that not one of our men had been killed. Our 240 men who had fought off 3,500 to 4,000 Chinese dusted off their fatigues and used Band-Aides to cover their scrapes, and with grateful hearts for their lives, they buried the enemy dead before moving out.”.

Letters from Vietnam is a daily record during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam abstracted from letters from a sergeant to his wife.

“7 Feb 68. Well, this morning was one of those mornings when you wake up and ten minutes later the VCs are shooting at you. We got carbine fire and RPGs. We moved out with the tanks about ten o’clock and started sweeping through the area where the VC were. About two o’clock we ran into them.

“I got the news about the baby when I got back. I am so happy I could cry! I love you so much… I don’t know what day he was born. They didn’t say, they just said it was a boy and weighted 7 pounds and something…all I can say is, I love you…”

Vietnam war negotiations ensued to end the war and exchange prisoners. The Last Plane Out is a story of negotiating with generals of South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong and how you actually shut down a war. Included are experiences that occurred at Phu Quoc Island, the POW camp where the majority of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were incarcerated.

About the Author

Helene Ensign Maw’s patriotism coupled with a writing talent and a penchant for accuracy has come together in her first book Freedom is for Those Willing to Defend It — Stories of Men in War.

After retiring from the business and legal world, she began writing in order to capture and publish the sacrifices that men in war have made for our country, their respect for the flag and their faith in dire times. Dedicated to those who underprize liberty, she has recorded historical experiences so that others may remember and honor the sacrifices made for them and keep vivid in their hearts that liberty has its price.

Abandoning a court reporting career ,which she was pursuing in Jackson, Wyoming, she chose to stay home after marrying a widower with five young and teenage children, and experience mothering. A Communication major, she attended the University of Utah. The specialty of verbatim court reporting required two-year schooling at Denver’s Mile High Court Reporting school.

Helene and her husband presently reside in the mountain community of Kamas, Utah (near the Olympic venue of Park City), in a log home that she and her husband designed and built adjacent to a mountain stream.

For author interview or review copy, please contact the author at helene@allwest.net

To order please contact your distributor or order directly from the publisher at:

Trafford Publishing

1-888-232-4444 or 250-383-6864

FAX 250-383-6804

orders@trafford.com

http://www.trafford.com

Freedom Is For Those Willing to Defend It: Stories of Men in War

By Helene Ensign Maw

236 pages; perfect bound; catalogue #02-0105; ISBN 1-55369-292-6; US$ 18.95 (Can$ 29.50)

Patriotism is a character trait of great people, and within these uncommon combat stories, veterans express convictions that acclaim our legacy of liberty, which if forgotten, would necessitate repurchasing. The intended audiences are service men and women, veterans, and citizens currently flying flags in our nation who are rekindling their patriotism.

About the Book

Twelve true stories of men in war during the Vietnam, Korean and World War II wars. Each story of twenty to thirty pages comprises detailed experiences with maps and photographs.

“They removed the handcuffs, stretched my arms out spread eagle against the wall and pinned a target on my chest. Leg irons clamped on both legs and a blindfold over my eyes. . .At the same time I could hear the rifle butts hit the flagstone path and I knew what that meant. It was ready, aim, fire and that’s it, and in those seconds my life flashed before me.” After three and a half years in Japanese prisons in China, this veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam was on the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo 18 April 1942, and tells of his capture and imprisonment in the story Freedom is for Those Willing to Defend It.

I Dreamed of Steel Chargers with Skies to Roam, but Mostly I Dreamed of Just Going Home is a story of five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton. An F-105 American pilot depicts more than torture in the infamous Knobby Room at Hoa Lo Prison and isolation without mail from his wife and five children, he discloses how he survived with three others in a 12 x 12 concrete cell for five years and their longing to see America once more. “We faced east which was toward home and where an American flag was flying and with a hand placed over our heart pledged allegiance to the flag.” Bursting the noise ban, they loudly sang The Star Spangled Banner while another cell in greater volume burst into God Bless America and another, even louder, America the Beautiful, and another and another throughout the cells of the prison camp until silenced by Vietnamese guards with tear gas and bayonets.

A twist of unexpected humor surfaces in No Place to Hide, when a bombardier lieutenant is forced to jump out of bed while still in his shorts and salute General Twining; when his Purple Heart goes unclaimed because he was wounded on his anatomy in a place he never wanted to explain. “I decided to hand crank the stuck bomb bay doors shut. I took off my flak jacket, parachute, and Mae West life jacket, and headed for the open bomb bay. The quarters were too tight to work with those strapped to my body. I instructed the flight sergeant to hand me a new oxygen bottle every thirty seconds, since I didn’t want to run out of oxygen, pass out, and fall out the bomb bay without a parachute. I got out on the six-inch catwalk, leaned over the open bomb bay and looked down at the ground 28,000 feet below. . .”

In the invasion of Guam, a Marine from the 3rd Marine Division tells of the fight on the beach and scaling the Chonito Cliffs in The Sounds and Smells of War I Know So Very Well. “The next morning descending from Fonte Canyon by an easier route than the cliffs we had scaled, we witnessed an astounding spectacle. Looking down from a ridge trail into the desolate ruins of Aga–a, once a metropolis of 12,000, the Japanese soldiers were holding a full-dress ceremony on a bomb-pocked avenue of the capital city, or what was left of it. Flashing Samurai swords gleamed in the sun as they paraded wearing full combat regalia. We ordered an artillery concentration, but it was too late to catch the prideful retreating Imperial enemy.”

Trusting to My Instinct is about a young recruit from ranch country thrown into battle and learned from experience why the training manual was incomplete. “Reaching battalion headquarters with the POW, I placed him in the major’s charge, and rushed back up the mountain to rejoin my platoon. In my absence Lieutenant Davis had gone ahead alone to sneak behind the machine gun position. We estimated there was a machine gunner in a command post and about forty German riflemen in foxholes, dug in and camouflaged. We listened to the steady rhythm of the ra-ta-ta-tat of the machine gun bursts. Then it quit. On a hunch that the enemy gun had jammed, Bill and I rushed forward firing our Tommy guns from the hip, spraying every bush and tree while dodging bullets from the German riflemen. The command post comprised a four-foot high log hut in the brush, and behind the log hut was Lieutenant Davis. After circling around to get behind the machine gun to take it out, he met enemy fire and lay dead.”

A successful assault coincides with an attack of diarrhea in an empathetic vignette midst the valiant story If You Cut My Arm Of, Let Me Die, I’m a Baseball Player. A citizen of Czechoslovakia abandons the opportunity to join the New York Giants’ ball club to become a paratrooper in the U.S. Army and becomes a survivor of the invasions of Holland, Belgium and Germany. “Medic!” I yelled, but he died in my arms before a medic got there. I laid him down and started mowing with that .30 caliber machine gun, shooting so fast that the barrel got hot and glowed red in the night. Then the German tanks turned around and headed back toward my foxhole again. Just then out of the corner of my eye fifteen feet away from me a German jumped up and pointed a one-man bazooka at me. I moved the .30 caliber around and got him before he could fire the bazooka, then ducked down just as another tank crossed by my foxhole.”

The Epic Rescue of My Gal Sal; and The Great Escape is the survival of an airman in three aircraft tragedies. The crew of My Gal Sal, land their out-of-fuel 10-ton B-17 on the Greenland Ice Cap and are rescued by a pilot landing a 12-ton PBY on a small ice water melt lake and a veteran of the Arctic on skis. The ice melt lake disappears shortly after the rescue. The airmen is in a second emergency landing, and again a third time, when he is the lone survivor of his aircraft and bails out over enemy territory and is imprisoned for three years. He is part of the planning of a great escape of 250 prisoners, but eventually saved from annihilation by the Russians by Hitler.

The Chinese Trap at Chosin Reservoir, takes place at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea and as General Matthew Ridgeway explained the tragedy, “We were, in short, in a state of shameful unreadiness.”

“The ten Chinese divisions that had orders to annihilate the Marines at Yudam-ni attacked them all the way to the sea as the Marines withdrew. Following within the shadow of the Marines for protection were nearly a hundred thousand North Korean women, children, and old men carrying their wounded. During the two-week battle on the west side of the reservoir the 15,000 men of the U.S. Marines, British and South Koreans suffered 12,000 casualties. The 3,000 men of Task Force Faith of the 31st and 32nd battalions/Seventh Army Division on the east side of the Chosin Reservoir fared worse with more than 2,600 dead and only 385 survivors.”

In contrast to the men at the Chosin Reservoir, the men in the story of 9 Band-Aids and 9 Purple Hearts, had water to drink without carrying canteens, fresh eggs any time and freshly made donuts.

“When the dust had cleared we returned to count the cost of the all-night attack – of the 4,000 Chinese that had attacked us, 350 of the enemy had lost their lives and 2,500 had surrendered. When counting our casualties, we discovered that not one of our men had been killed. Our 240 men who had fought off 3,500 to 4,000 Chinese dusted off their fatigues and used Band-Aides to cover their scrapes, and with grateful hearts for their lives, they buried the enemy dead before moving out.”.

Letters from Vietnam is a daily record during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam abstracted from letters from a sergeant to his wife.

“7 Feb 68. Well, this morning was one of those mornings when you wake up and ten minutes later the VCs are shooting at you. We got carbine fire and RPGs. We moved out with the tanks about ten o’clock and started sweeping through the area where the VC were. About two o’clock we ran into them.

“I got the news about the baby when I got back. I am so happy I could cry! I love you so much… I don’t know what day he was born. They didn’t say, they just said it was a boy and weighted 7 pounds and something…all I can say is, I love you…”

Vietnam war negotiations ensued to end the war and exchange prisoners. The Last Plane Out is a story of negotiating with generals of South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong and how you actually shut down a war. Included are experiences that occurred at Phu Quoc Island, the POW camp where the majority of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were incarcerated.

About the Author

Helene Ensign Maw’s patriotism coupled with a writing talent and a penchant for accuracy has come together in her first book Freedom is for Those Willing to Defend It — Stories of Men in War.

After retiring from the business and legal world, she began writing in order to capture and publish the sacrifices that men in war have made for our country, their respect for the flag and their faith in dire times. Dedicated to those who underprize liberty, she has recorded historical experiences so that others may remember and honor the sacrifices made for them and keep vivid in their hearts that liberty has its price.

Abandoning a court reporting career ,which she was pursuing in Jackson, Wyoming, she chose to stay home after marrying a widower with five young and teenage children, and experience mothering. A Communication major, she attended the University of Utah. The specialty of verbatim court reporting required two-year schooling at Denver’s Mile High Court Reporting school.

Helene and her husband presently reside in the mountain community of Kamas, Utah (near the Olympic venue of Park City), in a log home that she and her husband designed and built adjacent to a mountain stream.

For author interview or review copy, please contact the author at helene@allwest.net

To order please contact your distributor or order directly from the publisher at:

Trafford Publishing

1-888-232-4444 or 250-383-6864

FAX 250-383-6804

orders@trafford.com

http://www.trafford.com

NY Giants Legend Carl Banks golf cooking and wine tour of Italy.

Carl Banks will be leading a golf, cooking and wine tour of Italy from 1-7 of October 2005 The procedes from this tour will go to help his foundation which helps children who suffered concussions while playing sports.

NFL Linebacker Legend Carl Banks

Carl spent 12 years in the National Football League, Many of which were with the Giants, and ended his career with two Super Bowl rings, and one Pro Bowl appearance.

Celebrity Tours, Inc. is offering the unique opportunity to experience playing golf on Italy’s finest golf courses with New York Giants Legend and true gentlemen Carl Banks. Carl will be present for the duration of the Tour and the participants will play golf, dine, cook, taste wine and spend quality time with Mr. Banks. Carl enjoyed a very successful career on the Football Field.

Please find information below regarding a spectacular golf ,cooking and wine tour in beautiful Italy. This exclusive event is to benefit the Carl Banks Foundation which is an IRS recognized charity which provides medical help to youngsters suffering serious head injuries while engaged in organized sport activities, all payments should be made to The Carl Banks Foundation.

Dates 1-7 October 2005

Golf, Cooking & Wine on Lake Como

Chauffeured driven – 6 days/5 nights

Destination: Lake Como Italy

Arrival details: in the morning

Departure details: in the morning

Nearest airports: Milan Malpensa MXP, Milan Linate LIN, Milan Bergamo BGY, Lugano (Switzerland) LUG

Check-in time: from 2 pm

Itinerary

Day 1: Monday

First round of golf

First cooking class

First wine tasting

Once cleared the customs, you will be welcome by your escort. Board a private van/coach that will take you to your hotel in Como.

At 5 pm you will be taken to the local hotel school for your first cooking lesson. A wine tasting will accompany the dinner.

Day 2: Tuesday

First round of golf

Second cooking class

Second wine tasting

Your first day of golf will be at Le Robinie, the only Jack Nicklaus course in Italy. On the way back to the hotel, stop in a silk factory outlet. At 5 pm you will be taken to the local hotel school for your second cooking lesson. A second wine tasting will accompany the dinner.

Day 3: Wednesday

Second round of golf

Third cooking class

Third wine tasting

Today it is the turn of La Pinetina Golf Club, a course cut in the forest. In fact, Pinetina means small forest. On the way back to the hotel, stop a shoe factory outlet. At 5 pm you will be taken to the local hotel school for your third cooking lesson. A third wine tasting will accompany the dinner.

Day 4: Thursday

Third round of golf

Fourth cooking class

Grappa tasting

Today, you’ll drive north along the west shores of Lake Como directly to Menaggio where you’ll play the local golf course, one of the oldest in Italy, built by the English aristocracy at the beginning of the 20th century. Once there, take the occasion to go and visit Bellagio, just on the other side of the lake (use the ferry boat) or Villa Carlotta, famous for its azaleas garden. On the way back to the hotel, drive through Switzerland and stop in Mendrisio at the Fox Town, a big factory outlet department store. At 5 pm you will be taken to the local hotel school for your fourth cooking lesson. The end of the dinner will be delighted by a tasting of different grappas

Day 5: Friday

Fourth round of golf

Today, it is the turn of a historic Italian golf course: the Villa d’Este, seat of the Italian Open for 12 times, located at only 6 miles from the town. At 8 pm meet the escort who will take you to a local restaurant for your farewell dinner and he will introduce to you the programme of the week.

Day 6: Saturday

Your golf holiday is ended. Drive to the airport and depart.

Grand Hotel Imperiale – 4* Starlake view

Cost Per Person $ 5,000

The cost includes:

· Meet and greet at the airport

· Escort at disposal throughout the entire stay

· 5-night accommodation sharing a double room

· 5 buffet breakfasts

· 5 dinners (1 in restaurant and 4 during the cooking classes)

· 4 cooking classes (hands-on)

· 3 wine tastings

· 1 grappa tasting

· 4 green fees

· 1 free of charge in single rooms

· 1 free for the entire programme (cooking, wine tastings and green fees)

· Chauffeured driven van or coach according to the programme

· Tourist material on the area

· VAT, taxes

The cost does not include:

· Tips

· Everything not specified in the Cost per person voice

Air: Lowest available airfare may be secured upon request at time of booking, golf carts:

For Bookings Please Call:

Celebrity Tours Inc.

914 751 2198

Or

E-mail: celebritytours@optonline.net

###

More New York Giants Press Releases

To mark the anniversary of the first stage performance of the baseball-theatrical poem “Casey at the Bat,” or to tap into interest in actress Drew Barrymore, an historian is available to discuss the close ties that used to exist between baseball and the theater.

Drew Barrymore’s great-grandfather, Maurice Barrymore, was one of the five most prominent actor-baseball fans at the time the poem was published. For example, he was colorfully described in newspapers for having “bohemian” mannerisms at games. Great-granddaughter Drew recently signed to star in a Fox 2000 studio baseball movie, “Fever Pitch,” about an obsessive Boston Red Sox fan.

Maurice who was born Herbert Blythe in India (his father was a surveyor for the British East India Company), was educated in England and in his youth was quite a boxer (he won England’s amateur Marquis of Queensbury Cup in 1872). After emigrating, he became a big baseball fan of the New York Giants (the ancestor of today’s San Francisco Giants). The Giants won the pennant in the season “Casey at the Bat” was published, 1888.

Another notable actor-fan was De Wolf Hopper (one of whose six wives was Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper). On August 14, 1888, Hopper gave the first public performance of the poem, at Wallack’s Theatre in New York City. He would recite it thousands of times until his death in the 1930s.

Howard W. Rosenberg, the definitive writer on baseball’s ties to the theater to 1900, has chronicled early baseball ties of famous actors over dozens of pages in his 2004 book Cap Anson 2: The Theatrical and Kingly Mike Kelly: U.S. Team Sport’s First Media Sensation and Baseball’s Original Casey at the Bat. Hall of Famers Mike “King” Kelly, who may have served as the model for the baseball situations facing the title character in the poem, and Cap Anson of Chicago, the lone baseball player to reach 3,000 hits before 1900, accomplished notable firsts on the stage.

Kelly’s firsts as a player-actor were being highly paid for accepting a bit part (in Charles Hoyt’s “A Rag Baby”), and frequently reciting “Casey at the Bat.” Anson’s notable first among players was for receiving star billing on the stage, in Hoyt’s 1895 “A Runaway Colt,” which had a baseball theme. Hoyt, a former Boston baseball writer, loaded the play with baseball double entendres (as well as political ones, such as in reference to the then-police commissioner of New York City, Teddy Roosevelt).

Kelly made his stage debut months before the first publication of “Casey at the Bat.” And months before his stage debut, he played baseball in San Francisco in the presence of “Casey at the Bat”’s soon-to-be author, San Francisco Examiner baseball writer Ernest Thayer; Thayer had his poem published the following spring in the Examiner and Hopper gave the first performance of it that summer on Thayer’s 25th birthday.

Kelly was so popular at the time that weeks after the first publication of the poem, a parody was printed that replaced Casey’s name with Kelly’s, and substituted his major league city, Boston, for Mudville (the true nickname of Stockton, Calif., and Holliston, Mass.). An article in the A section of the New York Times this past March, by Kate Zezima, singled out Kelly as a possible inspiration for Casey, and explained the dual claims of the above cities as inspiration for Mudville.

Kelly died in 1894 at age 36 two years before the first modern Olympics. For his daring base-running, a song was written in 1889, “Slide, Kelly, Slide,” that in Babe Ruth’s heyday, 1927, became the title of an MGM silent movie. Kelly acquired his fame overnight in 1887 when Chicago sold him to Boston, both of the National League, for a then-record price of $ 10,000, about $ 200,000 today.

For several years starting with 1887, Kelly’s fame in Boston rivaled that of a native of the city, heavyweight boxing champ John L. Sullivan. Sullivan was the first U.S. professional athlete to have star billing on the stage. Maurice Barrymore sometimes sparred in the ring with Sullivan and, in San Francisco, launched the stage career of heavyweight boxer James Corbett. After Sullivan, Corbett became the second U.S. professional athlete to have star billing on the stage. Cap Anson was the third.

Other entertainment figures who Rosenberg can discuss for their baseball ties (or indirect associations with the sport) include: conductor John Philip Sousa and Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth (brother of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth), although whether Edwin had any liking for baseball is not readily clear. Rosenberg’s book, incidentally, contains a picture of 19th-century actor Joseph Jefferson, for whom the late actor Tony Randall named his son Jefferson Salvini Randall. And the actor-son of the actor Salvini for whom Randall’s son received his middle name is pictured as well (the younger Salvini, but not his father, had some notable baseball ties).

Rosenberg can also discuss topics including:

What were the common bonds of baseball and the theater in the Victorian Era?

Does “Casey at the Bat” have a basis in fact?

How did comical actors including Hopper take such a liking to baseball?

On stage, what kinds of allusions did they make to the sport? (For example, Hopper’s 1880s sidekick, Digby Bell, who once played for the New York Knickerbockers amateur baseball team, worked its little expressions and incidents into his performances in catchy ways. In Gilbert and Sullivan’s the “Mikado,” when Katisha makes for him intent on violence, he runs to the side of the stage, puts his foot up on the wall and says: “You can’t touch me. I’ve got my foot on the base.” At another part of the play, when he sets forth the joys of being a prisoner condemned to death to the Mikado’s son, one of them is playing “Baseball every day.”)

How did Kelly personify the late President Ronald Reagan (beyond the coincidence of Kelly being the first actor-baseball star and Reagan the first actor-president)?

The author can also account for the unfamiliarity today of once-famous Victorian Era baseball-actors and actor-fans. Despite their trailblazing, overlapping interests in baseball and the theater, they are summarily ignored today according to tastes that favor immediately recognizable names or the telling of personal stories, often with an “overcoming adversity” story line (a staple, by the way, of modern-day Olympics coverage).

Two of the few recent articles relating to the author’s subjects include one on playwright Hoyt, by the managing editor of the Atlantic (Monthly), Cullen Murphy, in 2001 (the link is: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/11/murphy.htm). Another, a feature on Anson’s 1895 performance in Hoyt’s play, was by David Hinckley of the New York Daily News in 2003 (the link is: http://www.nydailynews.com/city_life/big_town/v-bigtown_archive/story/119568p-107738c.html).

Rosenberg’s first book provided the definitive baseline on off-the-field discipline in baseball (Cap Anson 1: When Captaining a Team Meant Something: Leadership in Baseball’s Early Years, 2003). He has been cited or featured in such national outlets as National Public Radio, the Associated Press and USA Today and on radio stations in Chicago and Boston. He is available for interviews and, on short notice, can forward PDFs of the two or three most relevant chapters of his 2004 book. Those chapter numbers and titles are:

1. Kelly and Casey

5. Anson and Kelly: Acting

6. De Wolf Hopper, Digby Bell and Other Actor-Fans

Cap Anson 2 also has an Olympics angle: In vivid detail, it describes Anson’s extensive trapshooting career, in an age when live birds were the targets. In the first trapshooting in the modern-day Olympics, in 1900, live birds were shot at. Because of the messy carnage, Olympic trapshooting from 1904 to today has been at nonliving objects.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Howard W. Rosenberg

1111 Arlington Boulevard

Number 235 West

Arlington, Virginia 22209

703-841-9523

http://www.capanson.com/cap_anson_books.html

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More New York Giants Press Releases

NewTek, worldwide leader in portable live production and 3D animation systems, today introduced TriCaster? 850 EXTREME?, an advancement that blurs the lines between live and post production and will radically change the way an integrated live production system is defined. TriCaster 850 EXTREME includes proprietary NewTek IsoCorder? multi-track recording technology, which provides the ability to record up to eight channels of video from either inputs or outputs. TriCaster 850 EXTREME offers important additional benefits, such as direct support for any Apple

“The Infamous Mr. Rothstein”

David Pietrusza

(PRWEB) October 21, 2005 — Let us now praise infamous men.

October is upon us. The World Series awaits, an event so American and so sacred that only the most despicable of miscreants, a Bud Selig or a Donald Fehr, might dare risk its harm.

. . . Bud Selig.

. . . Donald Fehr.

. . . or Arnold Rothstein.

I do not mean to praise Messrs. Selig or Fehr. I have my limits. But I do wish to give some credit to Mr. Rothstein.

Eighty-six years ago, New York gambler Arnold Rothstein played a role in fixing the Chicago White Sox?s last World Series appearance. That is fairly well known. In September 1919, two very small-time gamblers, Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, thought they could entice certain less-scrupulous members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the upcoming World Series. They did not, however, possess the necessary cash. The pair approached A.R. They wanted him to finance the operation. He loudly, rudely, and publicly refused.

Rothstein?s pal, former featherweight champion Abe Attell, however, saw promise in Burns and Maharg?s simple yet ambitious scheme. Attell informed them that A.R. had changed his mind, and they should proceed. Attell was lying, but they didn?t know that.

Gambler Joseph ?Sport? Sullivan then ventured down from Boston. He too wanted to fix the Series. He too knew which players could be bought. A.R. reconsidered. He knew Sullivan. He trusted him. He gave him the cash.

The Black Sox?Shoeless Joe Jackson, Chick Gandil, Swede Risberg, Happy Felsch, the lot of them?proceeded to lose the World Series to Cincinnati.

When the scandal broke, Rothstein went to Chicago, and with the support of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey?s attorney, bamboozled the investigating grand jury. Chicago grand juries are easy to bamboozle. He walked away scot-free. Eventually, so did everybody else.

That is the story in the books and in the movies.

It does not do Mr. Rothstein justice.

Today we forget just how big Arnold Rothstein was. In fact, he was the original ?Mr. Big.? When he died (of lead poisoning) in 1928, few paid much attention to the fact that he had dared to fix a World Series. That was simply among the least dishonest, the least lucrative, of his varied enterprises. Gambling. Loan Sharking. Fencing Stolen Goods. Wall Street Swindling. Rumrunning. Labor Racketeering. Drug Smuggling. Rothstein was big in all these occupations, and each generated more income than fixing some postseason baseball exhibition.

Yet fixing a World Series remained a big deal. ?It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe,? wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.

It occurred to Arnold Rothstein. And it occurred to him very early on.

A.R. played a far greater role in the scandal than he has henceforth received credit for. A new examination of the evidence reveals:

Rothstein did not become part of the conspiracy after it had been hatched in Boston in September 1919?or after he met with Burns and Maharg. He had already set it in motion no later than that August. Former Chicago Cubs owner Charles Weeghman testified to that before the grand jury.

Rothstein did not refuse to work with Burns and Maharg because he thought fixing a World Series was impossible, he refused because he and his agent Sport Sullivan were already working on a fix and didn?t want them in the way.

Abe Attell was not operating separately from Rothstein in pursuing his end of the caper. He took orders from Rothstein every step of the way. In fact, Rothstein had a direct phone line to Attell in Cincinnati.

Abe Attell was broke and hocking his wife?s jewelry less than a week before the Series started. The day the Series opened he was supervising a cadre of Midwestern gamblers betting thousand-dollar bills on Cincinnati. From where had Attell?s men and capital money so quickly materialized? To ask the question is to answer it.

Rothstein brought Attell into the conspiracy, primarily not to fix the series (since he already had Sport Sullivan working on that) but simply to oversee those Midwestern gamblers in laying down bets?and to deflect blame to Burns and Maharg if anything went wrong.

And from where had those Midwestern gamblers come? They?d been there with Rothstein all along. In fact, they had plotted to fix the 1918 World Series.

Abe Attell did not refuse to tender the Black Sox any appreciable amount of cash merely because he was greedy, arrogant, and shortsighted. He may indeed have been all of those things, but he acted as he did, because he knew the players were already on the take, getting Rothstein?s cash from Sport Sullivan and another Rothstein associate, Nat Evans. Attell?s outlays would only be superfluous?a waste of A.R.?s money.

Charles Comiskey had little influence over the grand jury. His hated enemy, American League president Ban Johnson, did. It was Johnson who worked to cover-up Rothstein?s role in the affair. Johnson?s motive: he needed support from Rothstein?s shady business associate, New York Giants owner Charles Stoneham to stave off efforts to create a new baseball commissionship. A.R. double-crossed him.

Rothstein, in turn, protected Abe Attell from prosecution. The obvious question: If the two had not worked together in the fix, why would A.R. bother?

Confusing?

You bet. Or rather, Arnold Rothstein bet?at least $ 270,000 on the Cincinnati Reds.

In 1961 a newspaper columnist asked Abe Attell if the World Series could still be fixed. ?Not a chance, the Little Champ responded. ?that kind of cheating died when they buried Arnold Rothstein.?

David Pietrusza is the award-winning author of Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series (Carroll & Graf), available from amazon.com at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786712503/103-5679373-7771802?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

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]]> http://www.nflscoreboard.info/archives/21344/feed 0 http://www.nflscoreboard.info/archives/21319 http://www.nflscoreboard.info/archives/21319#comments Tue, 06 Sep 2011 17:00:01 +0000 admin http://www.nflscoreboard.info/archives/21319
PARAMUS, N.J. (PRWEB) April 17, 2008

The Italian American Network (I A NET), a new, advertiser-supported, multi-platform media company, has been formed to provide Americans, for the first time, a vibrant daily window to the complete Italian and Italian American experience. The new company has today launched its first media leg with the premiere of its English language broadband video platform – http://www.ItalianAmericanNetwork.com. The company is also committed to developing and launching a high definition (HD) linear television network, a video-on-demand (VOD) offering, a mobile content platform, as well as home entertainment and publishing initiatives. The announcement was made today by Italian American Network Founder and CEO, Tony Ceglio.

A multiple Emmy Award winner, the Italian American Network’s Mr. Ceglio remarked, “As someone who grew up in an Italian American household, I have an intimate understanding of the countless traditions and experiences that are part of a culture that millions of Americans have fallen in love with throughout the years. Embracing this experience, the Italian American Network will offer compelling, contemporary lifestyle programming featuring the beauty, pleasures and passions of a country and a culture that for more than 500 years have enriched our country with the same. There is no lifestyle that has become more admired and envied than the Italian La Dolce Vita – the sweet life.” He added, “Beginning with its initial broadband video launch, I A NET will celebrate everything Italian in an entertaining and informative way, regardless of the media platform.”

As part of this mission, the Italian American Network will appeal to both the 26 million Italian Americans as well as the nearly 70 million Italophiles in the U.S. who dearly embrace the belief that “there is a little Italian in all of us.” According to a recent study conducted by the leading cable industry research group, Horowitz Associates, Inc., “One in five adults expresses a strong interest in watching a channel like the Italian American Network.” As the first multi-platform media company devoted exclusively to serving this audience, I A NET will seek to serve both consumers and advertisers across several electronic media platforms through HD programming that is originally produced and developed by its in-house team, along with co-productions with leading production companies worldwide.

Advertising & E-Commerce

The Italian American Network’s completely English-language broadband video platform is advertiser-supported, with charter sponsors including: the Piemonte Italy Regional Tourism Bureau, Perillo Tours and ShopWineandDine.com. To celebrate the launch, Perillo Tours is sponsoring a “Win a Trip to Italy” sweepstakes, with the grand prize winner receiving Perillo’s “Roman Holiday” eight-day, six-night vacation for two, including airfare, first-class hotel accommodations and more.

Also part of http://www.ItalianAmericanNetwork.com is The Italian Zone, an online retail and e-commerce platform that will offer shopping opportunities for a variety of quality products from Italy. The Italian Zone product line-up at launch will range from foods and gifts to cosmetics and specialty items that can be shipped directly to a home or office.

Original Programming

Initially, http://www.ItalianAmericanNetwork.com will feature originally-produced, English-language programming, updated daily and dedicated to multiple, in-depth content categories including: Food, Travel, Sports, Cooking, Must-See Videos, Phrase of the Day (Italian ones, of course), Our Community, Restaurant Reviews, In Shape (health and fit living), Comedy, Music, Produce Pete, Video Blogs, Behind the Scenes, and even… Italian Superstitions.

Nearly 100 percent of the online content is originally produced, world premiere programming, with video clips and webisodes ranging from 30 seconds to four minutes in duration per piece. ItalianAmericanNetwork.com will also include blogs, podcasts, interactive games and user generated content in the comedy, music and other categories.

Valerie Smaldone, a five-time Billboard Magazine award winner who is best known for successfully holding the #1 position in the New York radio market as the midday host of New York’s 106.7 FM, hosts Valerie, an original video series that features candid and illuminating one-on-one interview segments with Italian Americans who are leaders in their chosen fields. Guests range from actors and athletes to musicians, noted physicians and authors.

At launch, other celebrity hosts for IA Net online content will include former star football (soccer) player Giorgio Chinaglia, star actor/screenwriter Chazz Palminteri, television personality “Produce Pete” Napolitano, “Biker Chef” Christopher Coppola and recording artist/television host Rue DeBona.

About Tony Ceglio

Mr. Ceglio, prior to becoming the founder and CEO of the Italian American Network, had more than 30 years of experience in the broadcast television industry as well as a long history with the New York Giants. He joined the Giants staff as the team’s first Film Director in 1976 and introduced such innovations as the installation of a state-of-the-art film laboratory and editing facility. He pioneered the process of in-house television program production in the NFL while serving as the Giants first director of broadcasting.

During his 27-year tenure with the Giants, Mr. Ceglio designed the premier video sports editing system in the NFL that was put online in 1986, the year that the Giants won their first Super Bowl championship. In 1986, he was elected as Chairman of the National Football League Video Directors Committee. In this role, he authored practices, policies and rules for all NFL video and, today most of the NFL teams employ a director of broadcasting who uses Mr. Ceglio’s business model. Working with NFL Properties, Mr. Ceglio played a key role on the task force which orchestrated a $ 17 million deal with Sony for the league to switch from film to video. Mr. Ceglio, who has served as executive producer on programs that have garnered 14 Emmy Awards, went on to launch a sports film laboratory business based in Valhalla, New York. In less than two years, the company had built a roster of more than 100 clients.

About The Italian American Network

The new multi-platform media company was founded by its CEO Tony Ceglio to both entertain and inform Americans by providing the nation’s first and only daily window to the complete Italian and Italian American experience. The Italian American Network has already received overwhelming interest and support from the Italian American community and, in turn, has established grassroots affiliations with millions of Americans through such noted organizations as: National Italian American Foundation, Order Sons of Italy, Columbus Citizens Foundation, National Trust of Italy, Center for Italian and Italian American Culture, New Jersey Italian American Heritage Commission, and UNICO, to name a few.

The company’s headquarters are based in Paramus, New Jersey. For more information about The Italian American Network, its executive team and its content, please visit http://www.ItalianAmericanNetwork.com