Book Review: The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

I finished listening to The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright Sunday morning. Actually, I sat 10 minutes in my car in the Panera parking lot listening to the end, because I had to hear the last little bits, even though by that part in the book, I was on familiar ground because I’d lived it, we’d all lived it. Any cognizant person over the age of twelve most likely vividly remembers that day and the days that followed.

The reason I picked up The Looming Tower in the first place though had to do with a realization that I don’t really understand how or why we got here. I prefer to be well-informed on the subjects that matter, especially the subjects that affect my political views and voting. I decided that I’d put it off long enough, that I couldn’t avoid facing 9/11 anymore.

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Where Did Islamic Radicalism Come From Anyway?

After much pouting on the subject of what wasn’t available for me to download to my iPod for audiobook “reading” pleasure, it came to me that now would be a good time to explore some history, religion, or philosophy I’m not too familiar with.

I’ve been wanting to read one of the books on suicide bombers. I just don’t understand the mental belief structure that brings a person to that place in their life where he or she is willing to purposefully sacrifice him- or herself in order to kill many other people for his or her faith or cause. So I started there, but what I found was several books about the events that led to 9/11 and that intrigued me. I really don’t know anything about why there’s fighting in the Middle East and why they hate the West so much. My opinion on the matter has been that they don’t want us there and we’re making it worse by being there, but I don’t really understand the roots of it all, the catalysts. I find it odd that my world history class in high school focused more on European history with a little bit on ancient Egypt. Certainly there was no coverage of the modern Middle East.

So, I’ve downloaded The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and The Road To 9-11. It seems to cover quite a lot of information from the beginnings of Islamic fundamentalism in the late 1940’s in Egypt by Sayyid Qutb to Ayman al-Zawahiri’s work with the Red Crescent and his leadership in a radical underground Islamic movement against the government of Egypt to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan against the Russians to F.B.I. agent John O’Neil in the mid-90’s trying to get someone to take the threat of bin Laden seriously only to die himself in the World Trade Center to the lack of cooperation of U.S. government agencies.

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Remembering Our Veterans…

Ragged Old Flag
– Johnny Cash

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin’ there.
I said, “Your old court house is kinda run down,
He said, “Naw, it’ll do for our little town”.
I said, “Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit,
And that’s a ragged old flag you got hangin’ on it”.
He said, “Have a seat”, and I sat down,
“Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town”
I said, “I think it is”
He said “I don’t like to brag, but we’re kinda proud of
That Ragged Old Flag

“You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
and It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it,
writing “Say Can You See”
It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham & Jackson
tugging at its seams.
and It almost fell at the Alamo
beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on though.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on
That Ragged Old Flag

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Thirteen Facts About Caffiene, 17th

Thirteen Things about J. Lynne Coffee beans are actually the seeds of the berries of the coffee plant. It’s a fruit, not a vegetable. (Coffee Bean) According to Chinese myth, in 2737 BCE, Emperor Shen Nung of China discovered tea while sitting under a wild tea tree with a cup of hot water. A leaf from the tree fell into his water, creating the first tea. Then in 900 B.C., Homer makes reference to a mysterious black and bitter beverage with the power to ward off sleep … a reference repeated in several Arabian legends from the same period. (Caffeine Timeline) A major study has found fewer suicides among coffee drinkers than those who abstained from the hot black brew. (Studies on the Side Effects of Caffeine) Although it’s important to note that coffee is the most popular drug in the world. Ninety percent of Americans consume it in some form every day and over 450,000,000 cups of coffee are consumed in the United States every day. (Fast Facts About Caffeine) According to a study at the University of Georgia in Athens, Women who had the caffeine equivalent of two cups of coffee the day after their quadriceps were stimulated (as if they’d done squats) felt 48% less leg pain within an hour. Apparently, caffeine may block the body’s receptors for the pain-causing chemical adenosine. (Self Magazine, May 2007) Decaffeinated coffee does not mean caffeine-free. Decaf coffee may contain enough caffeine to affect people sensitive to the stimulant, especially after a few cups. (Self Magazine, May 2007) A moderate amount of caffeine may make you more agreeable to persuasive arguments according to a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Apparently Caffeine enhances not only alertness but also reasoning abilities. (Health Magazine, December 2006) Despite the fact that coffee has been described as a contributor to hypertension in the past, a study in the Journal of American Medical Association found that drinking coffee isn’t associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure after all; however, soda may be. Women who drank 3 cans or more of caffeinated regular or diet soda increased their chances of developing the condition by 16 to 44 percent, compared to those who had none. (Fitness Magazine, March 2006) Young women drinking 4 or more cups of caffeinated coffee daily reduced their breast cancer risk by 40 percent compared with nondrinkers according to a study in the Journal of Nutrition. (Self Magazine, June 2006) People who drank more metabolism-firing caffeine gained less weight over 12 years than those who cut back on caffeine according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. The best choice for a healthy buzz? Black, lightly sweetened tea. (Self Magazine, August 2006) According to a study of more than 27,000 women by the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, daily coffee drinkers of 1 to 3 cups had a 4% lower risk of dying from heart disease and other inflammatory conditions. (Self Magazine, October 2006) During the Civil War, coffee was as commonplace on the battlefields as it is in office buildings and shopping malls today. In fact, the Union army was so fueled by the need for caffeine, if there was no time to boil water, the Boys in Blue would chew on whole beans as they marched. Apparently they hadn’t discovered chocolate-covered coffee beans yet. The Confederates however were pretty much cut off from a good caffeine buzz by the Union naval blockade. While a pound of coffee in the Northern states cost about 20¢, after the pre-war supplies ran out, a pound of coffee beans in the South ran about $60. And people complained when Starbucks raised their prices a few cents this year! (How Coffee Played A Role In The Civil War) The world’s first coffee house, Kiva Han, opened in Constantinople in 1475, 496 years before the first Starbucks opened in Seattle. (Caffeine Timeline) Links to other Thursday Thirteens! (you could be next!)

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Book Review: Land of Lincoln

Land of Lincoln by Andrew Ferguson, an editor at the Weekly Standard, is by far the best book, not just the best nonfiction book, I’ve read all year. Confusedly inspired by protests in Richmond over the dedication of a Lincoln statue, Ferguson, who was a Lincoln buff as a child, begins his journey of humorous enlightenment by pondering the question “Who was the real Abraham Lincoln and how does he affect America and Americans today?”

As Ferguson points out early in his book, there are an unlimited number of books on Lincoln, many of them analyzing his psyche. There are books claiming he was bipolar, books claiming he was gay, books claiming that if he were alive today he’d be a liberal, books claiming he was religious, books claiming he was agnostic, and so on. Basically, every special interest group out there wants to claim that Lincoln is just like them. Probably the best conclusion that Ferguson came to in his travel is that no one really knew or knows the real Abraham Lincoln; he simply didn’t share enough of his personal self in his written words or the things that have been recorded about him. He seems to have been an excellent politician in that he said just enough without admitting anything.

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T.V. ESP

Over the weekend I had another one of my T.V. ESP experiences. Actually, it was a rather ESP-rich weekend.

I know you’re wanting a definition for that. What I mean is that sometimes I’ll get a feeling that some old movie or t.v. show is coming on television in a day or so. I can get down to specific episodes of old reruns even.

For example, I’ll be sitting in my car and think, “That episode of Roseanne where young Darlene has to read the poem in front of her class and she doesn’t want to but Roseanne makes her was a really good episode.” The thought will come out of nowhere. I haven’t watched a rerun of Roseanne in ages. I can’t even tell you was channel it’s being run on. Then later that day or the next, I’ll be flipping through the channels and there it’ll be — that episode of Roseanne.

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