Midterm portfolio time!

Without further ado...

http://davecook.weebly.com/index.html

I would also like to express my excitement about securing this URL.

Win.

The Forever War, Part 2

Continuing on with Dexer Filkin's The Forever War, the author paints a very different picture of some of the soldiers fighting in Iraq. He interviews an injured Talib fighter who is on his deathbed. The story he tells isn't one of a mad man crying for the fall of America and the rise of Islam, the death of infidels, and whatever other extremist messages the media likes to shove done our throats pretending they are hard facts. No, this particular interview was with a man who regretted his decision to join the Taliban. He only wanted to go home.

This book is perhaps the most unbiased 'reports' of the War on Terror that I've read or listened to in a long time. It is a very nice change of pace, and I look forward to reading more.

Talk of the town idea

A big part of college dorm life is community billings for damages done to a particular building or floor to the members of that community. After a recent strong of vandalism in the men's bathroom on the second floor of Pope Hall, I thought it might be interesting to get the thoughts of residents of not only this recent vandalism, but the thoughts on dorm damage payments in general. Usually, the charges range from $50 to a could hundred dollars, though these charges are divided up among residents, ending up with a bill of only a few dollars. It's not a lot, but enough of a pain to get peple grumbling when the end of the month comes and the e-mails go out.