-- Jon Bon Jovi
Tag: USA
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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About this entry
- Published:
- 27 Nov 2007 / 03:16 PM
- Category:
- Book Talk
- Tags:
- Afghanistan • Africa • Al Jihad • Al-Qaeda • Ayman al-Zawahiri • Britain • Christian • CIA • FBI • history • Islam • Islamic Radicalism • Israel • John O'Neil • Middle East • Osama bin Laden • Saudi Arabia • Sayyid Qutb • Soviet Union • Sudan • Taliban • USA • USS Cole • World Trade Center • WWI • WWII
- Comments:
- No Comments »
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.
Read the rest of this entry »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.
About this entry
- Published:
- 14 Nov 2007 / 12:43 PM
- Tags:
- Al-Qaeda • Ayman al-Zawahiri • Britain • Egypt • history • Islamic Radicalism • Israel • John O'Neil • Middle East • Osama bin Laden • Palestine • Red Crescent • Sayyid Qutb • USA • WWI • WWII
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I Watch Too Much Crap On T.V.
I’ve been pondering what to write for tomorrow’s Thursday Thirteen. I had finally settled on “Thirteen Television Shows Worth Setting Your DVR For”. However, when I started making the mental list, I realized that I only actually set my DVR for 9.
So, of course, I had to wonder why it is that the t.v. is on all of the time in my house if there is only 9 hours of t.v. worth watching a week and not all of those shows are on every week. For example, Monk has several short seasons a year and Heroes hasn’t been on in weeks and I’m not interested in its reruns anyway. If all I watch are new episodes of Supernatural, The Closer, Eureka, Burn Notice, and Psych, what am I doing with all my friggin’ brain draining time?
Oh, well, that is only seven, right?
Well…CSI (the Las Vegas one) and Law & Order (the original and maybe Criminal Intent) are on all the friggin’ time between Spike, TnT, Bravo, and USA. I can just put that on and it all just melts together. I really don’t need to set the DVR for it anymore.
It occurs to me that I’ve got the television on too much. I like having it on making noise in my otherwise too quiet house. However, it’s distracting. You can’t really read with the television on all of the time. You can’t really think that way either. I don’t think much gets done.
I think I’m going to have to rethink this. Maybe I’ll consider reprogramming myself so I only watch what’s on the DVR.
About this entry
- Published:
- 25 Jul 2007 / 12:00 PM
- Category:
- T.V. Brain Drain
- Tags:
- Burn Notice • Criminal Intent • CSI • Eureka • Heroes • Law&Order • Monk • Psych • Spike • Supernatural • T.V. • The Closer • TnT • USA
- Comments:
- No Comments »
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