Month: September 2017

Bubonic plague may not be the only star of the Black Death. Anthrax may have had a supporting role. Whether one, the other, or both, the Black Death killed twenty million people, a percentage of world population even greater than the fifty million killed by the Spanish Flu pandemic of the early twentieth century. A culling of that magnitude had a profound effect on the future world. It gave us Ring Around the Rosie and prevented the Plantagenet kings from seizing the rule of France, the Low Countries, Spain, and possibly even Germany.

 

Mr. Cantor delves deeply into the impact the plague had on historic individuals as well as facets of society. He explores the intricacies of land inheritance as it was impacted by the loss of heirs and convoluted English law. These aspects are the focus of this book more that the rampage of the epidemic across Europe and Britain. In the Wake of the Plague also tells of the contemporary attempts to rationalize the disaster. In various places Jews were tortured until they confessed to poisoning wells. The alignment of Jupiter and Saturn were blamed, and at later times, pathogens from outer space were the cause. This fascinating book is quite scholarly. It is definitely not light reading, but it is well worth the effort.

Buy at Barnes & Noble

Buy at Amazon

Our shiny-headed governor says he will sign a bill into law ordering courts, police, cities, and all the way down to landlords, to violate Federal Law. If I recall, South Carolina did something similar to this in 1860, just before Lincoln sent federal troops to resupply Fort Sumter.

The California Constitution says this:

SEC. 3.5.  An administrative agency, including an administrative

agency created by the Constitution or an initiative statute, has no

power:

   (a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to enforce a

statute, on the basis of it being unconstitutional unless an

appellate court has made a determination that such statute is

unconstitutional;

   (b) To declare a statute unconstitutional;

   (c) To declare a statute unenforceable, or to refuse to enforce a

statute on the basis that federal law or federal regulations prohibit

the enforcement of such statute unless an appellate court has made a

determination that the enforcement of such statute is prohibited by

federal law or federal regulations.

Part (c) seems to say to me, “Federal trumps State.” Furthermore, parts (a) and (b) make no distinction between state and federal statutes when denying administrative agencies the power to declare them unconstitutional.

By signing this bill, our governor will be committing an act of treason. It’s time for President Trump to declare Jerry Brown to be in a state of rebellion and send federal troops to throw his ass in jail along with the legislature and all the mayors—numerous police chiefs as well.

House of Spies by Daniel Silva

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Julian Isherwood, geriatric art dealer, was stood-up by his date, who was half his age. His untimely exit from the posh London restaurant made him witness to the beginning of a terrorist attack. His panicked reaction saves dozens from annihilation. It just won’t do to have a terrorist attack without bringing that master of assassination, Gabriel Allon, out of the shadows where he has been lurking at the head of Israel’s intelligence service. The perpetrator is well known to the heads of intelligence across the globe, but how will they locate him and draw him into the open? Gabriel, as usual, has the solution. First steal a few hundred million Euros from Bashar Assad, then buy a villa at San Tropez in the name of a Russian arms dealer and his French wife. This was to attract the attention of a French billionaire and his stunning, almost wife, who is actually the largest importer of Moroccan hashish. Of course, we know that Gabriel won’t fail, but what will be the aftermath of the ISIS’s leader’s demise?

I first encountered Daniel Silva in Barbados. He wasn’t there, but one of his books was in the hotel’s ‘take a book, leave a book’ library. I’ve been hooked ever since. The Gabriel Allon character is a part-time assassin and a part-time art restorer who has a troubled past. He slips in and out of Europe and the U.S. with cat-like stealth mounting complex operations for the Israeli secret service. One can think of him as a Jewish James Bond who practices monogamy. As odd as that sounds, Allon is enormously appealing.

Buy at Amazon

Buy at Barnes & Noble

View all my reviews