Matthew

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention And How To Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari. Very interesting book.

Obvious the Dodgers are going all in, wanting to be the dominant team for the next decade. Their one blind spot is the continued thinking that Dave Roberts is the right manager for this to happen -- nope, not in a million years, his speciality is messing up the playoffs. Really, staring Kershaw??? 1/3 inning, 6er, the Dodgers never recovered from that one.

Ohtani to the Dodgers is not unexpected. Once Dave Roberts spoke publicly about Ohtani meeting with the Dodgers last week, I felt it was over. Supposedly the Giants made a strong run, but given the amount, I'm kind of glad they lost out. I don't see Ohtani pitching long term, but moving to first base in the next couple of years. No hitter can impact a club that much to earn 700 million, look at Bonds, he was unreal as a Giant (won't get into the PED stuff, the stats are incredible though), but he never won a World Series with them. Plus, Roberts will find a way to mess up the post season as always.

Jim Sullivan: UFO

Friends: Season 1: In honor of Matthew Perry's passing, I'm going to go through the whole series.

Matthew Perry Drowned Today Okay, I'm a huge Friends fan, and this is sad.

The Avalanches: Since I left You

Star Trek The Next Generation. Reconnecting with Star Trek after years of being away from it.

HPI.Season 2. I watched this during a long plane trip yesterday, and I enjoyed it quite a bit (thank goodness for subtitles). It had a lot of interesting characters, and a nice feel, even though the main character, Morgane Alvaro, was very irritating at times. A very nice police show to pass the time. Too bad it's not offered on Amazon Prime, I'd love to see season one, and the outcome after season two.

I know this isn't his best writing but I really love this novel.

Gravity Falls. I know it's a kids show, but it's great.

In a state of high intellectual ferment, I watched this twice over the weekend. Support Your Local Sheriff

Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World by Jonathan Bate.

To my mind, he's more than a manager. Can you imagine the pressure of Churchill and FDR watching your every move? Critiquing them, and knowing you're sending men to death, no matter what your decision? Also dealing with the massive ego of political / military leader of different countries? You have to get it right, and for D-Day, Eisenhower did. How he did as president is another matter...

What has become a D-Day tradition for me is to watch this CBS Special 20 Anniversary interview between Walter Cronkite and President Eisenhower. I get a glimpse into those leadership qualities Eisenhower had, and you can see his intelligence in how he answered the questions. It's also nice to see a quality interview and mutual respect between the two as they discuss D-Day. I always thought of Eisenhower as some kind of stumblebum, not that up on things, and this complete changed my outlook on him.

Lucky you, got to see a Judge homer. I that ball park as small as I hear?

I bet the fourth batter swung at the first pitch also!

Crazy is right! Some members would only/mostly post in the political section. If I remember, there was one, Johnny Z? would knew a ton about jazz, in fact was a jazz musician if I'm correct, but only posted in politics.

I don't mean this in a political way (know that is forbidden), but it is interesting, and incredibly sad, that since WWI, there has been this continuous background of people who have gone through war in the USA. Maybe it's more of an undercurrent, but there is a lot of people walking around with war time trauma as a part of their emotional / physical makeup since 1914.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll look and see about the Mendelsohn book, sometimes, if I wait for awhile, the Kindle version will go on sale of a book.

Thank you for the comments! I've read two of the three Atkinson's, but plan to read all three in the coming months, along with Ambrose's history of WWII. The one area I'm really looking for a recommendation on is the war Pre-Pearl Harbor, I still don't have a really good fix on that era for Europe. If you know of a good book on that topic, I'm all ears and eyes.

Nik Turner, The Space Falcons & Youth: Interstellar Engery

Reporting World War II. I've always wanted to read these two volumes, but kept holding back. Recently, I read a review by Alan Jacobs and it made me finally order it. Just started but the articles are very well written, makes me long for that quality of writing about events today. It'll take probably the rest of the year to finish. To add: One of the things I've come to realize is how much WWII was in the background and social atmosphere when I grew up (lived in San Diego), and it was the reference for everything. A lot of the, to me, old people I knew were WWII veterans, it was just a part of the culture. Now, it's not. I don't have a nostalgia for the war, but now that the vets are dying out fast, I feel a need to learn about it more than ever. One of the persons I respected the most in my life made the D-Day landing and was wounded about a week after. It all seems so far away now.

The Glass Menagerie. First time reading it, and it's almost too painful to read...