THE LOOMING TOWER
AL-QAEDA AND THE ROAD TO 9/11

 First off I would like to point out that this was a phenomenal book. It was a non-fiction story that was filled with history and knowledge of one of the most well known events in our country's past, but what Lawrence Wright did was beyond the broadcast version of this event. This man took his time to perfect this book. He based on more than 500 interviews; including bin Laden's best friend from college to the former White House counter-terrorism chief. This man had information from all different sources, which is something quite different than our average, American take on this event. 

He spends most of his time taking us on a journey, in detail might I tell you, in which he describes the events that shaped Al-Qaeda's and more specifically bin Laden's attitude and feelings towards the United States.

A specific portion I would like to pull from the book is when Wright is writing about how Al-Qaeda began and who affected it. He said that it "depended on a unique conjunction of personalities." Two of those people involved are bin Laden himself and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, the bright thinker behind their morals and ideas, which were that only violence could change the nation.

This book gave me so much more insight into the event of 9/11. Sadly, I'm not one of those people who can just sit down and remember every specific event that happened to every specific person, whose name I don't know, because let me tell you there are a lot of names that I can barely type, much less say.

I really enjoyed this story and I would suggest it to anyone who has any interest in history, 9/11, terrorism, or to those who need a non-fiction book to read for their AP Comp class. Not a bad read.

There is just one last idea I would like to leave you with. The title of this book, "The Looming Tower," is not just a reference to the tragic event of 9/11, but it is also a small section of the Koran that bin Laden quoted when getting the 19 hijackers who were supposedly going to become martyrs to get their minds wrapped around what they were about to do for their nation and for their God. That section was, "Where ever you are, death will find you/even in the looming tower."

IS GOOGLE MAKING US LOOK STUPID?

Oh hey bloggers! I haven't been on here in quite awhile. I know this is two days late. Be disappointed if you must. I am on vacation here in the great state of Colorado. Last week I got to visit my sister in Denver. This week I am in Telluride! Anyways the moral of this little location story is that in Denver I had terrible wifi in my hotel and I couldn't get hooked up online to write this fabulous blog. However, I did get the chance to really get my thoughts wrapped around this article!

I have always heard my mom and dad talk about how fantastic technology is! I guess I am just used to it, being born in this generation and all, but from stories I have heard from them, technology has changed the way we socialize, the way we act, the way we think. This is just the point that Nicholas Carr wants to get across in this article. 

He kept repeating himself in this article about how easily we get distracted when reading now, rather than in the past. Something I found kind of odd when reading this article was how long it was. He was repeating all he said before about how we get distracted and how easy the internet has made it for us to just want to read the short stuff. We want all of our information right there in the introductory paragraph, but here in this seven page article with about a 10 point font, he expects us to read and completely analyze this entire article. Not happening all at once. It took me a couple times to sit down and read this sucker. It was interesting, I will give him that, but long. Way. Too. Long.

This article couldn't be more spot on in the way that it depicts how technology has changed the mind sets of everyone around the world! Scott Karp, a blogger who writes about online media, has admitted that he has stopped reading books altogether. Sadly, this isn't just true for him. Ever since nooks and kindles came out, people can just download their favorite book onto their technological device and read it! Now there are some pros and cons to this. It's really nice that you can just download all of your favorite books and have them with you where ever you go! Also, it's sweet that using the kindles and nooks we could eventually cut back on wasting tree's paper. Unfortunately, with purchasing these devices we lose the fun event of going out and looking all around the bookstores for that special little novel.

Technology has really changed the way we think and the way we live. Whether it is for the better or for the worst, it has changed us. All of us.