Blog post #6

This week I was finishing up the book that I started last year, Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett. While just finally finishing this book after a year I was very disappointed. Now I usually don't watch Oparah but I did catch one episode, and it was all about what a great book Pillars Of The Earth was. The episode featured an interview with the author. Now reading the book I feel let down, It was not that great of a book. First of all it was way to long and stretched out, the same story could have been told in hundreds of less pages. It also felt loosely pulled together. During the commercials on Oparah on of its main talking points  is the integration of architecture into the story. This is not the case the church is only mentioned vaguely  and has very little to do with the story. From what I have heard many people love this book but not me I think it is mediocre and the author could have done much better.

Blog post #4

I am currently reading Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile. It tells the story of the senator Charlie Wilson and the U.S. role in the Afghan-Russian war. This book really explained some of the islamic extremist problems in the middle east and the United states previous foreign policy. One of the other stories this book tells is how the united states helped radicalize Islamic fundamentalists and how our involvement in Afghanistan led to 9/11. The US supported the Afghans Jihad and supplied them with millions of dollars. Once the felt empowered since they had had forced one of the most powerful countries in the world out of their country, the extremists thought they could do it again and are now trying to destroy us. I mean they didn't probably think just that but some of the leaders of terrorist groups that fought in the guerilla war felt like they had power and passed there extremist ideas on. This book really helped me understand why there is so much violence in the region and it was really interesting. I am very glad that I read this book

blog post #3

I read the article from Salon.com by Juan Cole, "What's the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick" The Thesis of this article is that there is little difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist. The author supports this by showing the similarities between her and  a Muslim Fundamentalist such as, censorship, wants the story of creationism taught in public schools, and her views and abortion. Showing how radical she is and how some hardcore muslim fundamentalist countries are even more lax an abortion and other issues than she. It also gives comparisons to her belief that global warming is not "man-made" and how Muslim fundamentalists think the same thing and echos a Saudi Arabian statement. But it connects to her thesis that Palin is completely entitled to her convictions with herself but the real similarity between her and a Muslim fundamentalist is that she wants to force her ideas on people and imbue them into statecraft.