“Fly Paper (An Arsenic Story Told in Four Acts)”

I really liked reading “Fly Paper (An Arsenic Story Told in Four Acts)” because it was very clear and her voice is pretty easy to follow. Before reading this article I had never really ever heard of “fly paper” or what it technically means. I find it pretty interesting and appealing that back in that time period people used it for more than just pest control, it is scary to me to think that it could be so easy to use. Deborah Blum talks about some books with deaths related to arsenic poisoning. She also talks about Dashiell Hammett’s classic book “Fly Paper”. Deborah paraphrases what exactly happens in “Fly Paper’ and she makes you want to know all the details of the book and actually want to read it from start to finish. I really never would have thought or know about arsenic as such a poison to kill people with it hadn’t been for this article. In general the article “Fly Paper (An Arsenic Story Told in Four Acts)” was a very enjoyable and an easy read.

Political spats on Facebook spill into real life

“Political spats on Facebook spill into real life” proves that most of our so called friends on Facebook, are just people that we have pretty much nothing in common. When one of our “friends” posts something besides a pointless status it can show who they truly are and what they really believe in but most of their friends are immediately turned off. For me personally I never mind friends posting about their candidate that they favor, but only if it isn’t rude or insulting. During the time when people were trying to cause chaos about Obama’s race, that isn’t something, anyone should post no matter how much you dislike the president. In the article “One in six social network users say they've changed their views about a political issue after discussing it or reading posts about it on a social networking site,” according to a Pew Research Center survey fielded in January and February.

This is why I will block anything that down right insulting and also gruesome pictures of any subject. We need to learn to set boundaries and take a proactive role because Facebook is supposed to be fun, and no one enjoys getting into arguments with people over the stupidest things.

"The Things They Carried"

"The word war itself has a kind of glazing abstraction to it that conjures up bombs and bullets and so on, whereas my goal is to try to, so much as I can, capture the heart and the stomach and the back of the throat of readers who can lie in bed at night and participate in a story." - Author Tim O'Brien

The quote holds true in this book “The Things They Carried,” because he talks about the experience on a group of soldiers in the Vietnam War. Reading this story will put you right along the lines of the soldiers. It is one of the rare works of recent literature that has helped define Vietnam and the experience of war.

In this News Hour interview, he talks about goals in writing the book and how it relates to his experience fighting in the Vietnam War, and what the younger generation should know about war. Tim O'Brien had to set out to write about for people that were over 25, he wasn't aiming at high school or the college audience. “The Things They Carried” is meant to go above what war is really about and more into the physical objects you carry with you and the memories you brought with it.