The Bin Ladens Post #1

 Since I finished An Atheist in the Foxhole, I have been struggling to find a new book. I knew I wanted to read something non-fiction, because I love getting knowledge about the world from reading, but I wasn't sure what topic. My mom has read tons of interesting books about Africa, India, the Middle East, etc. I thought about reading a book I had found in my room about India, but it was written in kind of a boring manner. Finally though I found a really interesting book of my mom's, called The Bin Ladens. For most Americans the mention of the surname Bin Laden brings up an image of one of the worst terrorists of all times, Osama Bin Laden. However Osama Bin Laden comes from a very wealthy and huge family from Saudi Arabia. To put it into context, he has 53 siblings according to the family tree in the beginning of the book. Beyond just his siblings he has hundreds of relatives all over the world, most of whom are ultra-wealthy but beyond that relatively "normal" people. One of my aunts who lives in Switzerland has worked with one of his cousins, and she said that she is a completely sane person. The book is by Steve Coll, who has no connection to the Bin Ladens, so it is a fairly unbiased account based on tons of very meticulous research. I haven't read very much of the book yet but it is broken into four parts, The Patriarchs, The Sons and Daughters, The Global Family, and the Legacies. It appears to be written in a combination of third-person narrative and expository writing. The first chapter is called "We All Worship the Same God" and begins by telling the story of Lynn Peghiny, a piano player who became involved with the family after being asked to play at Salem Bin Laden's huge estate in Orlando. I think that starting with a chapter called "We All Worship the Same God" is a good move on the author's part, because it can address the preconceived notions about Islam and Saudis that a reader may have. The book is very long, almost 600 pages, but I look forward to reading it and getting an "inside" perspective on this family and their role in the Middle East. Over the summer I read a book called "The Price of Honor" which taught me a lot about the political climate of the Middle East and I am looking forward to getting an additional perspective.

An Atheist in the Foxhole Post #2

As the book progresses, Joe Muto is getting deeper and more entangled in Fox News. He has just gotten off a horrifying night shift that left him quite zombie-like, and also contributed to a slowing of the action of the book, as he spent many pages complaining about the sleepy fog he drifted through for almost a year. However, when he gets put on the regular 9-5 shift, there is a portion of the text that really stood out to me. Muto shifted from his normal humorous and snarky narration and commentary of life at Fox News, to a relatively serious issue. He goes into a monologue in the midst of the coverage of Michael Jackson's trial, he describes it as the whole world screeching to a halt until a verdict on the child molestation charges was reached, with every media network focusing on it at once. He talks about how while waiting for a verdict, a sort of "trial-party" was going on at work, and people were laughing and making jokes about how they should play songs by Michael Jackson such as "Pretty Young Thing" or "Beat It" in light of the nature of the charges. Muto points out that he feels awful for ever having joked about such a serious issue, but explains that when you work for the media, you become horribly desensitized. Beheadings, bombings, natural disasters, murders, they all become your norm. It gets to a point where people feel that the only way to cope is through laughter, even if the joke is horribly cruel. I think that this phenomenon occurs in the audience, not just those working for the media. For example, many people are desensitized to seeing the effects of war on the news, and do not think twice about where we are fighting or why. If war was on our homefront however, the situation would be taken far more seriously. He also points out that he actually began to feel that he could create a career in Fox News. This surprised me considering is initial aversion to the network and everything it stood for. He notes that even though he has to grit his teeth while watching some segments, he doesn't feel like he would agree with every segment on CNN or MSNBC either. This made me think about how bias exists on all sides, but people tend to only see it in their opposition. I think being able to reflect one one's own bias and look at an opposing perspective is an important life skill that Muto is teaching through his writing.