The 7-2 Buffalo Bills travel to Indianapolis to take on the 4-5 Colts. Both teams are dealing with injuries. The Bills may have two receivers out because of wrist injuries: Amari Cooper and Keon Colman. The last time the Bills played the Colts, running back Jonathan Butler scored FIVE touchdowns. The Bills have trouble defending the run and they’ll be tested today. The Bills are 4½ point favorites.

Many Bills fans fear that today’s game is a “trap” game because the Bills face the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs next Sunday. How will your favorite NFL team do today?

After the horrendous Election results, we all need a little comfort food to help us cope. Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Comfort, supplies plenty of delicious recipes to lift our spirits.

One of my favorite comfort foods is soup. I tried the “Pea and Ham Soup” on page 55. YUM!

My other go-to Comfort food is cake. I tried the “Chocolate Ripple Fridge Cake” on page 282. Super yummy!

If you’re looking for comfort, this is one book that will supply dozens of great recipes to brighten your day! What’s your favorite comfort food? GRADE: A

Table of Contents:

• Introduction. — 7
• Eggs, crêpes, pancakes — 20
• Soups, dips, spreads — 50
• Fritters and other fried things — 66
• Comfort veg — 84
• Roast chicken and other sheet pan dishes — 118
• Dals, stews, curries — 154
• Noodles, rice, tofu — 182
• Pasta, polenta, potatoes — 198
• Pies, pastry, bread — 236
• Sweet things — 270
• Index — 312
• Acknowledgements — 318

The Eschaton Sequence is a trilogy of three Science Fiction novels: The Other End of Time (1996), The Siege of Eternity (1997), and The Far Shore of Time (1999).

Essentially, this is a First Contact story as a group of humans are sent to investigate alien signals warning of the destruction of Earth by the malevolent Horch. The group of astronomers, led by Dan Dannerman of the Bureau of National Investigation, are taken prisoner by aliens.

Pohl uses many of the tricks he’s developed in past novels: alien technology, clones, bureaucratic bumbling, and tricky humans.

I’ve been reading Frederik Pohl since the early 1960s beginning with Drunkard’s Walk (the nude on the cover may have influenced my choice). I also enjoyed the Pohl and Kornbluth collaborations.

I enjoyed The Eschaton Sequence but be aware it’s 801 pages long with some tedious chapters. GRADE: B- (for all three novels)

A couple weeks ago I posted a review of Arista: A 15 Year History of Rock (you can read it here) and said I had another Arista anthology around here somewhere. I found 25 Years of #1 Hits: Arista and I also found Atlantic Records: 50 Years.

Arista: A 15 Year History of Rock was a mediocre collection of hits. My favorite song on 25 Years of #1 Hits: Arista is Annie Lennox’s haunting “Why.” I love everything Sarah McLachlan sings. It’s hard to believe “A Rose is Still a Rose” was a #1 hit.

Whitney Houston’s “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay” dominated the local radio stations back in 1999. Houston won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for this song.

Atlantic Records: 50 Years is a much superior compilation of songs. From Sixties classics like Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” to Seventies songs like The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” to Eighties songs like “Stop Dragging’ My Hear Around” by Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty these 2 CDs are full of hits most of us will recognize. Clearly Atlantic Records outperforms Arista!

How many of these songs do you remember? Any favorites here? GRADES: ARISTA: C, ATLANTIC: A

“She died of ovarian cancer in 1944, and because of her fear of being buried alive (reflected in her novel The First Time He Died) she bequeathed her entire estate to her sister ‘on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death.'” (p. 39)

I’m a big fan of Martin Edwards’ British Library Crime Classics anthologies and that quote from Edwards’ introduction of Ethel Lina White’s “Water Running Out” shows why I’m such an admirer. Edwards supplies facts about writers that I didn’t know.

I’m also impressed by the quality of the stories Edwards includes in his anthologies. Take “The Murder in Judd Lane” by Fran Howel Evans from 1909. A pair of murders presents a puzzle with an ingenious solution. I also enjoyed the Carter Dickson (aka, John Dickson Carr) story, “Error at Daybreak” where a murder isn’t exactly what it seems to be.

Another unusual story is Cledwyn Hughes’ “The Strong Room” where a female bank robber provides some surprises. If you’re in the mood for an off-beat mystery anthology, you’ll find Crimes of Cymru a Wale of a book! GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction — vii 

A Note from the Publisher — xiii 

The Murder in Judd Lane/Frank Howel Evans — 1 

Water Running Out/Ethel Lina White — 38 

A Busman’s Holiday/Francis Brett Young — 55 

Change/Arthur Machen — 78 

Error at Daybreak/Carter Dickson — 96 

Murder in Church/G. D. H. and M. Cole — 118 

Brother in the Barrow/Ianthe Jerrold — 151 

The Way up to Heaven/Roald Dahl — 160 

Lucky Escape/Berkely Mather — 178 

The Strong Room/Cledwyn Hughes — 185 

Mamba/Jack Griffith — 196 

The Chosen One/Rhys Davies — 202 

No More A-Maying/Christianna Brand — 245 

Y Mynyddoed Sanctiaidd/Michael Gilbert — 269 

“Bannon was engaged in his typical combination of sycophancy and agitation, alternating praise for the president with lamentations of how Trump was under assault from the press, the FBI, the deep sate and ‘globalists.'” (p. 141)

H. R. McMaster served as Trumps National Security Advisor for 13 months. At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House includes McMaster’s examples of Trump’s wacky decisions, Trump’s weakness for flattery, and Trump’s inability to focus on defending the United States from Putin’s threats.

In a recent episode of FIRING LINE on PBS, Margaret Hoover interviewed H. R. McMaster about his time in the White House. But, my interest was in Hoover’s questions about what a second Trump administration would look like. As you might guess, McMaster fears Trump will fill his administration with sycophants, grifters, and flakes.

If you’re concerned about what Trump will do if he wins, At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House provides a clear blueprint of a dark future. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Note to readers — viii

“You’re fired” — 1

“You’re hired” — 17

“Love all, trust a few” — 31

DJT and LBJ — 57

Intrigue, elbows, and separate agendas — 71

A well-oiled machine — really — 83

Deep contradictions — 107

Tightrope — 123

Travels with Trump — 139

Guarding independence of judgment — 163

Winning friends and influencing foes — 179

Knives out — 193

Movement in a resistant element — 211

Contradiction and contention — 227

Asian odyssey (20K miles with Trump) — 245

Weakness is provocative — 271

Allies, authoritarians, and Afghanistan — 291

The last 385 yards — 315

Postscript — 329

Acknowledgments — 335

Notes — 339

Index— 349

The 6-2 Buffalo Bills take on the 2-5 Miami Dolphins with the concussion-prone Tua Tagovailoa risking his health. The Bills are favored by 6½ points. The Dolphins and the Jets were projected to challenge the Buffalo Bills in the AFC East according to the preseason “experts.” Not happening.

What will your favorite NFL team do today?

With our democracy under attack, I decided to reread Isaiah Berlin’s Freedom And Its Betrayal. Back in the early 1950s, Isaiah Berlin delivered a series of six lectures on the six enemies of human liberty. Berlin’s insights are just as true now as when he expressed them over 70 years ago.

Some of the “enemies” on Berlin’s list are a little surprising. You wouldn’t think that Rousseau, who championed freedom–“Man is born free but everywhere is in chains”–would undermine human liberty. But Berlin shows Rousseau’s hatred of elites leads to less freedom, not more.

Hegel presents a different problem. Hegel believed the Universe moved in directions humans could not affect. He believed History determined our fates, not individual choices. Hegel’s theories of the momentum of History, the development of ideas from one generation to another that change the economic, social, and political order in a relentless fashion, diminish human liberty because the State becomes the key instrument of Power and all patterns.

Comte Henri De Saint-Simon “was the greatest of all the prophets of the twentieth century. His writings and his life were confused and even chaotic. He was regraded in his own lifetime as an inspired lunatic.” (p. 105). Saint-Simon believed that the government of societies depended on elites who used a “double morality.” “…elites…understand the technological needs of their time; and that, since the majority of human beings are stupid…what the enlightened elite must do is to practice one morally themselves and feed their flock of human subjects with another.” (p. 107). Sound familiar?

All six of these thinkers tried to improve the human condition, but decided to sacrifice human liberty to do it. Autocratic methods, giving Government more power over citizens, limiting rights, are all strategies promoted by these historical figures who factor in our present politics. If you want to trace the origin of many of the autocratic ideas impacting us today, Freedom And Its Betrayal will lay it all out for you. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• Note to the Second Impression — v
• Editor’s Preface — ix
• Introduction — 1
• Helvetius — 11
• Rousseau — 27
• Fichte — 50
• Hegel — 74
• Saint-Simon — 105
• Maistre — 131
• Notes — 155
• Index — 175

The Lincoln Lawyer, Season 3 is based on Michael Connelly’s 2013 novel, The Gods of Guilt. This 10-episode series features Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller, a criminal-defense lawyer and recovering addict. As in the first two seasons, Mickey Haller has plenty of personal problems in addition to his professional problems.

I really like Becki Newton as Lorna Crane, Mickey’s second ex-wife and his legal aide. And, Neve Campbell as Maggie McPherson, Mickey’s first ex-wife and a criminal prosecutor, is a delight!

I’ve only watched the first two episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer, Season 3, but the intensity and plotting will force me to binge on it this weekend. If you like legal thrillers, I recommend The Lincoln Lawyer series, both TV streaming and novels. GRADE: INCOMPLETE, but trending towards a B+