Tim O'Brien -- Am I Missing Something?

So to start off, I'll admit The Things They Carried is an interesting book. It goes into depth on the different hardships the soldiers endured on their tour of Vietnam. During class everyone is constantly saying how they love the book, the newest chapter is amazing, and the like. Personally, I find The Things They Carried to be a bit of a let down.

He has several different stories dealing with the war, but the problem is the truth. I am fully aware that war is so chaotic at points that the facts are hard to get straight. But fabricating entire stories? That seems unfair to the true acheivments of soldiers during the war. His choice of making up the stories detracts from the reading for me because I am constantly asking myself, "Is this real?"

Another style of Tim O'Brien that erks me is his use of repetition. He will tell a story once. Then he moves onto another story. Then O'Brien revisits the first story, and, oftentimes repeats word for word his descriptions. He slowly goes into more detail, but I find the repetition to slow down the pace of the story.

Even with my criticisim, I still think The Things They Carried is a good book--just not as good as everyone else thinks. Now, after saying all that, I'm slightly worried about what you guys might do to me in the name of Tim O'Brien and your love for the book.

Student Protesters

First of all, I want to talk about the Dow Chemical protests which we saw in the Two Days in October video. During class discussion I felt like many people thought the police were entirely to blame. None of us were there. Who knows what happened. Yes, the police maybe did come in swinging. Or maybe, instead, the police were already frightened by being highly outnumbered and a violent protester took a swing at them. That's all it would take to send it into a full out brawl.

Anyways, now that I got that out of my system, I thought the article about modern day protesting was misleading. You can't compare protesting now with protesting that happened 40 years ago. Our nation has changed and so has our perspective on things. Also, during Vietnam there was a draft. Forcing people to fight in a war that they feel is wrong does merit protesting. The Iraq war does not have a draft though; soldiers in Iraq joined the military on their own accord. It's comparing apples to oranges; it doesn't make sense to me.

Sound of Fury

I'll start off by saying that I missed the last day of the movie so I have no clue if the girl ever got a cochlear implant.

Now that I said that, there was something from that movie that really got on my nerves. As the parents, they shouldn't have even questioned the thought of the cochlear implant for a second. They didn't mention any side-effects so I'm assuming their fear of the implant wasn't due to medical reasons. No, it was just plain selfishness.

Throughout the movie, the parents used the excuse, "If she gets a cochlear implant she will forget all about deaf culture and become a hearing person only." That's complete crap. Both of her parents are deaf. How can she just forget about deaf culture? She has to be able to communicate with her parents, and I'm sure the way they raise her, she will be heavily involved in the deaf community.

The ability for her to function readily with the vast majority of the world offers her so much potential. Why her parents try to deny her that astounds me.