Barbie

Our discussions about the objectification of women in recent weeks, made this commercial specifically catch my eye. As we all are now aware, society is inundated with propaganda from companies such as Mattel, the owners of Barbie, from childhood. It is true that girls are often raised with a Barbie doll in one hand and a bottle in the other yet, is it justifiable for a doll company to take credit for women leaving the home and taking jobs that require great intelligence—essentially make them equals to men? This clip closely resembles a Simpson’s episode that we watched in class where Lisa discovers that dolls have essentially ‘corrupted’ the minds of young girls and that ‘corruption’ has followed them into adulthood. This commercial is trying to take credit for women’s strides, just because they played with a Barbie in childhood but also emphasizes that “dreams are what make us alive” insinuating that playing with one of Barbie’s many identities plants the seed for these girls to dream about a career and gives them the motivation to achieve it.

Society is driven by consumerism and this commercial is no exception, just in the process it slightly degrades the achievements women have made. I believe the last line in the clip reveals the most about advertising today stating, “Barbie: Over 125 careers & counting.” For isn’t it the best strategy in marketing to re-attract a previously loyal audience and a new innocent childhood audience as well? The colorful, warm atmosphere of the clip attracts women and reminds them of the bliss their Barbie brought them—making them want to share that joy with their daughters and other young girls. And so Barbie continues to spread from generation to generation, taking credit that is not theirs for the taking.

http://www.youtube.com/user/barbie?v=bz_XFdPBkLY&feature=pyv&ad=6722554768&kw=barbie

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December 1, 2010 10:25 AM

OR By: B.D. Colen

This is one of the most interesting memoirs I've read in a long time. The Pulitzer Prize Winner "O.R.," by B.D.Colen, is about exactly what happens through the course of 24 hours in the operating rooms of North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.. ( Some of my Aunts in Long Island used to work in that hospital but not in the O.R..) The events in this book are not over dramatized like a lot of T.V. renditions - blood, screaming, etc. The stories are all true using the real names of the Surgeons, Nurses, Anesthesiologists, and support staff. All the conversations depicted are actual accounts. Anybody that has known somebody who has had surgery, is about to have surgery, or are curious about what happens in the O.R. once your loved one is rolled away, will be totally intrigued by this book. I picked it up just to flip through it and found it very hard to put down. Its fascinating and I found myself wanting to know how the patients were doing. Mr. Colen chronologically takes you through one entire day in the 16 O.R.'s at North Shore. He spent six weeks observing every detail of life in the O.R. The day starts at 6:30 A.M., when alls quiet and the night shift turns seamlessly into the day shift. B.D. Colen makes a point that I thought was very interesting, the world of the O.R. is a world all unto itself where real miracles happen and where - when you give yourself over to that world - you are in their total control because you are unconscious. One nurse said that up in the O.R. they don't get very emotionally involved with the patients because they only know them for about 15 minuets - before they knock you out that is. That doesn't mean though that they are detached. The actual details and procedures of the surgeries, and the equipment used are explained in fascinating detail -all of them. You follow a number of cases from start to finish. Colen included patient interviews before they had their surgeries - their concerns and fears, so you learn a little about the patient's lives. You find yourself caring and hoping for them. He also interviewed the surgeons, anesthesiologists, and the nurses so you learn about their lives, their experiences, and what makes them tick.

When the day shift comes on sometimes there are on going cases that the day shift just picks up and continue from the night shift. The O.R. doesn't really have days and nights it seems more an on going 24 hour cycle. They leave notes for each other to let the next shift know whats going on and what equipment needs cleaning or restocking. Just an aside- during surgery there is a nurse whose job is to catalog all the syringes, drapes, sponges, drugs drips, etc. given you while your procedure is being done and they bill you for it. Don't you think they could just include all that in the cost of the O.R.? Anyway, the actual O.R. is just a green tile room, now, with no windows. Dr. Mountain remembers a time when they used to do surgery with the windows wide open with the outside air blowing in! Can you imagine? He said somehow they managed. Only one of the 16 O.R's is set aside for cardiac procedures. For the most part everything in the O.R. is extremely well orchestrated. What surgeons, anesthesiologist, nurses, and technicians are going to be in what room, at what time, doing what procedure on which patient. The nurse coordinator is responsible for all this. Sometimes operations go long, sometimes they are shorter than expected. Some surgeries are 5-6, or more, hours long. The surgeons don't just cut into you. They carefully dissect you. The head surgeon Dr. Tony Tortolani , Chairman of the Department of Surgery, a cardiac specialist , says the night before a surgery he carefully plans each step of what he is going to do, reviews the anatomy, and goes to Mass each morning before he does surgery. Dr. Tortolani grew up in Eastchester. He said he was a very average student and had his parents listened to his H.S. guidance councilor they would have directed Tortolani to go to trade school.

Each case you read about is really so interesting, each surgery so incredible. Here are a few. One 17 year old guy - Andre - was in a car accident . He had been comatose for four days, on a ventilator, being fed through a tube, and had a heart attack while in his coma. Neurosurgeons had done emergency surgery to relieved the pressure on his brain, but now his left leg had become gangrenous and he was back in the O.R. for amputation. Even though medicine has advanced a lot since the Civil War, surgeon Dr. Larry Scher said the operation is still virtually the same. Andre's doctor had called for amputating the entire leg but, Dr. Scher felt that he would save the knee if he could. Dr. Scher said that if this kid wakes up he'd want to walk and run and he'd want a prosthetic that would let him do that, so he saved the knee. God bless him.

Baby David, eight days old, had a deformed heart. The blood vessels leading to and from his heart were attached opposite the way they are supposed to be. It is called transposition of the great vessels. De-oxygenated blood coming from the body returning to the heart was being returned to the body instead of going to the lungs for oxygen, and the oxygenated blood was being returned to the lungs. The only reason David was alive was because he also had a hole in his heart from which some oxygen was seeping through. David was in surgery for four and one half hours in which time pediatric cardiac surgeon Dr. Vinnie Parnell was able to reverse the two blood vessels, attaching them properly,and stitch up the hole. He said David will now live a long healthy life. Wow! Baby Rashid was born with a severe cleft palate. He basically just had a hole where his nose and mouth should be. Pediatric Plastic Surgeon Dr. Pamella Gallagher somehow with a scalpel and tiny sutures, like an artist, created for this baby a top lip and a nose. When she was finished she whispered, " Welcome to the world new baby. Hopefully, you will be more welcome now."

This next case makes my throat hurt. Lillian Paskow, a fifty something woman, had always been a heavy smoker with a real gravely voice. She had a sore throat that would not go away. She waited to long. By the time Dr. Micheal Setzen saw her her entire voice box was riddled with cancer. Sadly he said, if he had seen her much earlier he could have lazered away the cancer as an out patient but now her entire voice box had to be removed. Lillian's interview with Colen was heart wrenching. She knew she would never speak normally again but it was remove her voice box or death. Her surgery went very well and she is fortunate to have a very supportive husband. She will have to learn how to control grunts of air through a mechanical box. I hope she can master it. I'll never, ever smoke!

Here are some of the O.R staff's thoughts. Dr. Torolani says most of the surgeons are very shy people. Anesthesiologist Dr. La Porta says the surgeons have enormous egos. They have to have super confidence because they can't open you up and say things like - I didn't expect any thing like that. They have to know what they are going to do - and do it. Its Dr. La Porta's job to anesthetize you, make sure you feel nothing, support your breathing, monitor your blood pressure, fluid levels,etc., and then wake you up again remembering nothing. He loves his work and is honest when he says that with all you can do with anesthesia they still don't know exactly how the gases work. I liked Dr. La Porta. He sounds like a very dedicated guy. He goes to visit all his patients the night before before their surgery so they won't be so afraid - especially children. He grew up very poor. He never wastes money. His wife always complains he's too cheap. Poor guy bought a nice house and was afraid to live in it, so he's working really hard to pay off the mortgage early. Some of the nurses complain that some of the doctors are condescending and they won't work with them. Those doctors don't last at North Shore. One very talented O.R. nurse wants to be a pastry chef. As Dr. La Porta points out - we're all just people.

I could go on and on. The cases were so interesting. This book was fantastic, filled with miracles and the people that deliver them. An amazing - and real- read. I recommend this book to anyone who is not squeamish (H.S. and up.) One of the most reassuring things I read was said by Dr. La Porta. He said, with all the advances in anesthesia there are very few deaths in the O.R.. If somebody dies somebody really messed up. I loved this book. I recommend it highly.

Teaching A Stone To Talk By: Annie Dillard

Teaching A Stone To Talk, by Annie Dillard, is interesting and as you read it you keep wondering, where is this going? Are the stories she's relating connected or are they just a loose collection of memories and facts, and then- bang - the end impacts you like a great slap of reality.I liked this book a lot. Its a truly thought provoking piece of non-fiction, poetically written. Ms. Dillard spends a lot of time pointing out how pointless many things we humans do are. Nature, she feels, is much simpler, it just is. I started reading this book and got quickly lost in her metaphors. I had to start over. Then I realized this book is profound, full of naturalist's information, which I really loved, like how mangrove tree leaves extrude salt. Its full of questions, doubts, observances, recollections, and facts. Its hysterical in parts, depressing in others, and highly spiritual all at the same time. I don't think this book is for the type of reader that is looking for a light easy read. Nor is it for the person who looks to read into each thing to find the deeper truth. This book, like many of Dillard's observances - just is - and thats how it has to be read. With an open mind willing to explore the world as it is - and not miss it.

So, what is the 'stone' and can it talk? I have two theories. First I thought the stone was us -people. That we get so caught up in the trappings of the world we forget to look and be part of it. We don't see what is important. Like when the priests and pastors at an ecumenical service are all fumbling around looking for the host. They whispered, "do you have it?" Which of course everybody could hear through their microphones. Ms. Dillard stages this whole fiasco on an ice flow in the Arctic. Or, also on an ice flow, the Baptism of Oswaldo,when everyone was so worried about clothes and pictures and the little lump of a child is just there sort of unnoticed. They didn't see the importance of the event just the trappings. This is theory one, that we as stones must learn to look at and see this world we pass through and learn how to live and adapt to it. We have to learn to 'talk'. By way of example, Dillard talks about several British Polar expeditions and how truly ridiculous they were. Here these people were going to explore the Arctic Circle to find a passage through it, map and explore, and locate the exact North Pole, and what they took with them was outrageous. They took china, crystal, full tea service, silver ware - the officer's silver ware of course engraved with their name and family coat of arms, a 1,200 volume library, backgammon, and so on. However, for this three to four year journey due North they took only twelve days of coal, and no warm clothing. Through their stupidity and lack of experience, of course they were absolutely unsuccessful. Several expeditions after the first made the same mistakes. One voyage kept the crew's moral up by having plays out on the pack ice. Why not? They weren't going anywhere. Others printed weekly news papers (they brought printing presses). I can just see the headlines: "Still Caught in the Pack Ice. Starving, Cold, and Dieing Again Today." Great read. Obviously stubborn, resistant, hard headed stones that they were, not learning or adapting to that harsh environment all died.

Theory number two:, that the Earth is the 'stone' that is silent, as Ms. Dillard says, but that silence speaks volumes about the Earth, made of rock, and how it changes over time. She likens people to Mangrove trees. How as seeds they begin with nothing. The seeds fall into a blob of mud in the water and grow and sort of float on that blob where ever it may go. Sometimes out into the ocean bound for who knows where. The young trees bob and pitch, some die, some crash into other trees. As they grow they are so full of life with birds in their branches and all kinds of creatures living about their roots. The Mangroves are like a whole universe that drift along in space. Interesting metaphor.

Ms. Dillard reflects on her travels, experiences, and events. Like going to the Galapagos Islands and experiencing the animals there who with no fear of people love to come visit and communicate and play for awhile. How these animals just are. They accept their environment, they are part of it and it is a part of them. They just live. Some day I want so much to go to the Galapagos. She relates her experience of going to see a total eclipse of the sun and how even though in modern times people know exactly what to expect the people screamed in fear, as did she. Her reaction to the eclipse was like this hallucinogenic panic attack. How primitive, and then when the sun reemerged she went to lunch!

In "Teaching a Stone to Talk," Dillard talks a lot about science and relates a lot of interesting facts. For example, when you're at the absolute North Pole if you took a photo of the night sky the stars would look arranged in a perfect circular pattern of concentric rings. I'd love to see that. This book is also a commentary on life and how we should absolutely "see whats there," and live as part of the world and not outside of it. Ms. Dillard relates a great story in chapter one about a weasel that really intrigued me because I'm very interested in interspecies communication. She was sitting quietly in the woods when this weasel popped out from under a bush. He was so startled to see her and she was so startled to see him that their eyes locked and as she puts it, "...I [was] in that weasel's brain for sixty seconds"(14). She saw that the weasel just is. He does what a weasels supposed to do. He hunts, he kills, he eats, and goes on. He doesn't have great thoughts perhaps, who knows- the weasel may think the same of Ms. Dillard, he lives by instinct. Ms. Dillard thinks maybe we should live more like he does. He lives as he is meant to. The weasel yields to life he doesn't fight it. Ms. Dillard points out that we live outside of the environment. We can live anywhere and we don't have to adapt to that place. We adapt that place to us. One interesting point (of many), that Ms. Dillard makes is that nature is silent. That we should look at it. The world was originally just rock-stone- and says nothing. "Nature's silence is just one remark, and every flake of the world is a chip off that old mute block"(69). It is suggested that someone should carve a little mouth on the stone so that we might teach it to talk. Would we understand?

This book is also about experiencing spirituality. Ms. Dillard said that in the Bible God spoke to the people and they were so frightened they asked God not to speak to them. So He stopped. Now after all this time, she asks, how do we get God to speak to us, the stones, again? Would we listen? Ms. Dillard says we run away from spirituality because we are afraid. She wrote a great line, "... Once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds and we were all afraid"(141). She realized how little of God's love she understood and then she ran back to Him. I feel God does speak and that nature is not silent. The sounds of life are like this great symphony. We must choose what we will do. That makes our life infinitely more difficult than a weasel's. If we choose to listen we will hear. If we watch the world we'll experience it. "It is the blended note of ten thousand things"(69). We are journeyers through this life on this planet Ms. Dillard remarks. She wonders where do we belong? Life passes. We think as children we have all the time in the world - to much time. Then as a bell curves all of a sudden we realize time is passing too fast and we are sliding down the other side of the curve... So, to me Ms. Dillard's most important message is this- experience life to the fullest. Be part of nature. Simpler. Notice what is around you because life passes and you can't go back. Our lives are short. The seasons change and pass- don't miss any of it.

Keep Reading, Devon

Looking For Alaska By: John Green

Looking For Alaska, by John Green, is a very good read. Its about a kid named Miles Cavalry, who just doesn't fit in in his school. He's a bit of a geek but a really nice guy that no body notices. He decides to leave his public H.S. school to go to his father's old private H.S.,Culver Creek Predatory School, in search of the 'Great Perhaps.' The 'Great Perhaps,' is something exciting.Nothing planned or known. Its the possibility of what could happen.Miles meets some great friends there and gets a neat nick name from his new room mate Chip, AKA -The Colonial. Miles becomes - Pudge. Through the Colonial Pudge meets Takumi, a Japanese guy who loves to rap, Laura, the Romanian with big beautiful eyes, and Alaska who is a beautiful, smart, devious, fascinating, and a deeply disturbed. Pudge notes that if he were rain Alaska would be a hurricane! Having watched her mother die right in front of her as a small child has turned Alaska into someone with very high "ups," and very "low," downs. She's moody yet deeply passionate. Loves to read and had a huge pile of books in her room she called her " life's library." Books that she intended to read before she died. Alaska love her boyfriend Jake, loves and is absolutely loyal to her friends, and hates going home. So much so that she did the unthinkable- she ratted out some fellow students to avoid going home. This book is not just about H.S., learning to smoke and drink, and sexual things, its about finding your way through Simone de Bolivard's -Labyrinth,' the suffering and how lost you can get in life. Alaska asks the question, How does one get out of the labyrinth? For her the answer was "straight and fast."

Culver Creek has a tradition of pulling pranks. In fact Pudge's Dad was legend for his pranks. The Eagle, the adult in charge of keeping the students in line and punishment, is always the "man" you have to prank best to get away with anything. Pudge, the Colonial(the master mind), Takumi, Laura, and Alaska pull off a great prank on the "Weekday Warriors,"(kids that are wealthy and go home for the weekend), and get away with it. They have a great time.

Pudge, the Colonial, and Takumi all love and are mesmerized by Alaska. She is beautiful, fun, and secretive. After the prank they all got extremely drunk together and played a drinking game- Best day/Worst day. They found out some very important things about each other, and some cryptic things about Alaska's deep inner sadness. Soon after Alaska was in Pudge's and the Colonial's room, all quite drunk, and Alaska started to seductively kiss Pudge who was very confused because Alaska loves her boyfriend, but then thats Alaska -impulsive and not always thinking everything through. All of a sudden Alaska up in absolute panic desperate to leave pleading for help to get her off campus so she can drive - somewhere.The shocker of the story is Alaska who burns so bright in life dies that night in a horrible car crash. Now Pudge and the Colonial (Takumi and Laura) are left to face the demons Alaska left them with - the why? Pudge and the Colonial are devastated and get so wrapped up with 'the why' of it that they are consumed by it. They become locked in Alaska's labyrinth. They try so hard to figure out why. Almost as a way of healing , the Colonial master minds a fantastic plot in Alaska's memory and they pull off the greatest prank of all pranks. Its mint! Pudge even gets his father involved. In a set-up phone call to the Eagle, Pudge's father pretends to be Dr. William Morse-a supposed professor from the University of Florida whose expertise just happens to be adolescent sexuality.Pudge suggested Dr. Morse be the Jr. class's guest lecturer at Culver Creek's annual " speaker day." In reality Dr. William Morse is actually a very well built male stripper named Maxx. Quite stoically, Dr. Morse begins his lecture and then all "----" breaks loose when Takumi hits the music and Maxx strips! The audience erupts into screams and whoops-laughter- and total chaos! Wish I could have been there.

This stuff though is not the most important message in the book. These happy go lucky friends now have to deal with the huge loose of a their friend Alaska, who left them suddenly and tragically. Honestly, I don't think it was Alaska's intention to die, what ever was going on in her head I think she just did not think it through. This book is about Pudge's journey into the labyrinth to find The Great Perhaps. In there Pudge finds great friends and then suffers the loss of an important one. They get pulled apart and drawn together again and learn to go on they must forgive each other for loosing Alaska, and Alaska for leaving.There is a great line at the end of the book that I thought was quite deep. "If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless"(218). Knowing is never useless. Great book with a good message. I recommend it to high schoolers and older.

Keep reading,
Devon

Hocus Pocus By: Kurt Vonnegut

I thought I found a new favorite author in Kurt. The librarian recommended this book to me. I read the outside jacket and thought sounds good. Well- I have to say - not my favorite. The first critique on the cover is "Terribly Funny..." I'm not sure if the the author of that remark feels the same way I do or not but, I didn't think it was so funny. Like- ha,ha, funny. I thought the story was sarcastic and sort of sad. Its about the life of a man named Eugene Debs Hartke, who as he goes through life seems to go from situation to situation rather easily. He just sort of flows from one situation to the next. "Manna from heaven," as Gene refers to it. He's a smart guy goes to West Point, graduates, and goes to Vietnam where he serves well. Becomes rather well known as "The Preacher," because he never curses. Everything in Gene's life seems to be sort of two sided. Like he gets the good and the bad together. Sometimes the sequence of things in this book were difficult to follow. Vonnegut jumps back and forth in Gene's life so that Gene's life is sort of told like it is a Picasso. Its all there all at once in the same place- its just sort of all folded in and outside of itself. So I'm not sure if Gene got married before he went to Vietnam or not,but he married a woman named Margaret whom he really did love and was very devoted to but, not in the way you might think. Margaret it seems is beautiful and very close to her mother, so they sort of come as a pair and they all live happily together, at first. What Gene finds out as life goes on is that both mother and daughter both have inherited some form of insanity and both go nuts (mother-in-law first) but Gene never leaves them. He always cares for them and never sends them away. Which causes a terrible rift between Gene and his two children, (who he secretly worries may have inherited the insanity gene), a son and a daughter, who can't stand that they have to live with these two insane women. They are totally embarrassed by them and leave home the second they are both able informing their father that they will never speak to him again for making them live in the asylum, better known as their home. When Gene comes home after the war decorated, a hero and all, he doesn't have any plans as to what he is going to do with his life when he runs into his old commanding officer who happens to now be the President of Tarkington College, in Scipio, New York in a beautiful valley. The college is situated next to a beautiful lake with a magnificent forest, and across the lake is a prison up on the hill, and down below the college is the sleepy little town of Scipio. This is a very special college. It seems all the kids are very well to do, but all of them are sort of special ed. They are not very smart but their mommies and daddies pay a lot of money to get their kids a special education. There are no papers to write. No text books per say, but yet the kids do get a good education, graduate with an associates degree in several areas, and some of them go on to do some very good things. Now Gene is pretty set. He has a good job teaching at the college which he truly loves, a nice house that comes with the job that he loves, is well respected, and expects that some day he will be laid to rest up on the hill on campus where the sun comes up. One of his favorite things is that he gets to play the Lutz Carillon, which are the bells in the tower of the school. So life's good except for the flip side. His mother -in-law and wife are nuts, and his kids hate him. Gene also has quite a flare for the ladies. He has lots of affairs with women like the Board of Trustees wives, fellow professors wives, female professors, some women in town, oh, and somebody that becomes important at the end of the story- a woman journalist that he met before he came home from Vietnam who he has a illegitimate son with named Rob Roy, that Gene doesn't find out about until much later. So, life goes on for Gene and then some interesting things happen. One of the members of the Board of Trustees secretly has his daughter following Gene around asking him stupid questions and taping them. She also tapes private conversations he is having with fellow professors in social setting where Gene is just kidding around. All these tapes get turned into the Board of Trustees where Gene is set up, and even though he is the most popular teacher on campus he is fired. Devastated really- Gene loves his job and his little insane asylum-ah- his house - he goes to town to get a drink or two when fate shines on him again. It just so happens the prison is hiring teachers. The Japanese warden likes him a lot and Gene gets the job and a new little insane asylum- house. One thing you've got to say for Gene is he never abandoned his wife or mother-in-law. Some people thought he was a saint for that, others thought he was nuts for that. Gene again becomes the most popular teacher, well respected, etc. Life is good. Then one night there is a prison break. The inmates blow up the prison, escape across the lake, sack the town and take the Board of Trustees of Tarkington College hostage. Oh, and because Gene had been working at the prison he has contracted TB. All the Japanese employees wore masks and gloves for that reason, Gene never did. So Gene's out of a job again. The National Guard come to get control of things and before they leave the town the commanding officer of the National Guard makes Gene the new Mayor of Scipio. Gene protests saying nobody would ever listen to him, so the commanded gets on the phone and the Governor of New York makes Gene a Brigadier General in the National Guard. Gene actually does a lot of good things as Mayor. He also now meets his illegitimate son, Rob Roy, before he leaves for Italy after being charged with child molestation. Rob didn't do it. So, now Gene's in pretty good shape again. One sad note-the night of the prison break is the last time Gene saw or spoke to his wife. As Gene left his house in the night amidst all the chaos, his wife opened the window and called him by name in her sweet normal voice. She hadn't called Gene by name for years. Its rather touching and sad that as Gene leaves her, even though Margaret was asking him if he was going to be with some woman, Gene honestly said he wasn't, and as she closed the window Gene called back to her-"I love you Margaret." That was the last he ever saw of her. So, like I said Gene did a good job as Mayor. Tarkington College become a new prison since so much of the other one had been destroyed, most notably all the toilets at the old prison were blown up so Tarkington had plenty of toilets and showers. Of course then, Tarkington became a new prison. Gene helped to set the prisoners there up in good housing. So, life is good again. Gene's wife and mother-in law had been relocated to a mental hospital during the prison siege, as a Brigadier General Gene mets his son Rob Roy (who by the way tells him the made up stories about Gene's family his mother told him, pretty funny-all lies), Gene's doing a great job, and is well respected once again. Then as Gene was being told by the Commander of the National Guard what a good job he had been doing, the Commander arrested Gene charging him with insurrection. It seems Gene was being blamed for the prison break because while he was a teacher in the prison he had told the prisoners about the lake, and the forest, the town and the college, where they all were and stuff. So, this book written by Gene is actually being written in jail as he is dieing of TB waiting for trial.

After re-reading this blog, I guess this story is pretty funny in a sarcastic, ironic way. There are a lot of details I left out like how the Japanese warden was in Japan when the A- Bomb went off over his head, and how all the prisoners felt bad for Gene because he only had a Mercedes and the prisoners all had better cars than him, oh and how germs are going to take over the Earth. Life certainly is interesting in Kurt Vonnegut's mind. I'm not really sure who would like this book. People with sarcastic scenes of humor for sure, and Kurt Vonnegut fans of course.


PS. Ms. O'Brien,
Don't forget that I did write a blog about Cat' Cradle but, it didn't transfer to blogspot. I e-mailed it to you a while ago.

Those Who Trespass By: Bill O'Reilly

"Those Who Trespass," by Bill O'Reilly, is a real crowd pleaser. I enjoyed it a lot. It's a murder, mystery, thriller about a man named Shannon Michaels who works as a field reporter for "GNN" news. Shannon files a fantastic story about a riot he was covering and then became enveloped by on the streets of South America. His story is stolen by this news caster named Costello that everybody hates at GNN . Shannon tries to do something about it but ruffles the wrong feathers in the process and gets fired. Shannon who is tall, dark, handsome, and very suave lucks out and becomes a news anchorman on a small, disorganized T.V. news broadcast on channel six. He becomes famous, rich, not very well liked by the people he works with but, the ratings are great. Then Shannon ruffles the wrong feathers again and is fired. That ended his T.V. career and sent him off in a very different direction. This is also when people from GNN start mysteriously showing up dead in the most creative manors. Enter Detective Tommy O'Mally - a really talented, well liked detective who is excellent at his job. Besides being a detective, O'Mally has a loving dotting mother, a great partner, and a super self absorbed, extremely religious Italian princess X-wife. While O'Mally works to solve the GNN murders he meets the lovely, sexy, talented investigative newspaper reporter covering the story for "The Globe," Ashely (Ash) Van Buren. All the characters, and the side characters, in the book are very well done. They are all 'alive' and believable, very much like someone you would know, which is unfortunate in some cases. The story is exciting. Once you realize who the killer is you are not disappointed there are still a few surprises. The ending is very exciting, so I'm not going to tell you. I think anyone - guys or gals - who enjoy a good murder mystery thriller will enjoy this read.

Devon.

Speaks review

" This extremely well-written book portrays a large suburban high school with a fresh and authentic eye- all the cliques are there, from the jocks, to the Goths, to the "Marthas" (Martha Stewart wanna-bes)... This powerful story has an important lesson: never be afraid to speak up for yourself." -VOYA

Truer words were never spoken. You could find all the cliques right here in Ardsley. I agree with this critique. "Speak" is a powerful illustration of what hugh consequences bad choices can make. The voice spoken in this book needs to be heard.