Sniper News Article

The Sacrifices of War
By: Jaskaran Singh
January 20, 2012

             Last night In Dublin two snipers were seen fighting on rooftops across the street from each other, one had been killed.

            

The now barren block where the fighting occurred.

           The fight between Republicans and Free Staters is not showing any signs of slowing down and what happened last night's firefight proves this to be true. The sad part of the firefight is that the two snipers turned out to be brothers, but this was a fact discovered too late.

            

            In the dark of the night they could not tell it, but the two snipers were in fact brothers. If they had known this it is easy to imagine a very different outcome. Instead, the sad truth is that one of the brothers fighting for the Republicans has killed his brother who was fighting for the Free Staters.

            

            One civilian witnessed this fire fight in action from his city home. "The shots kept going and when they finally stopped, I had a feeling that something horribly bad had happened. Although I never thought it was be something this bad."

            

            There are a lot of opinions and point of views on this topic looming around. It is important to discuss things like this so that there is a larger comparison to the whole war. Please mail in your opinions and discuss this issue with us. We would love to hear your opinion!

The Sniper Summary and Thematic Paragraph

In your own words, summarize this text.

         The short story “The Sniper” depicts a civil conflict situation between Republicans and Free Staters. It focuses on a man who is a sniper for the Republican side. This sniper is pinned by another sniper that is across the street. Both take shots at each other one by one, in an endless battle. The Republican sniper moves around continuously trying to get the kill. The enemy lands a shot on him but luckily it is not fatal. The sniper quickly patches himself up and hatches a plan to fake his death and take out his enemy with the element of surprise. The plan worked and his enemy is dead, but the sniper feels remorse and loses his excitement of war. Curiously he moves to the enemies position and once it is calm he turns the sniper over, only to find out that it was his brother he was fighting.

What is the author's message? Provide evidence from the text and explain your thinking.

          I believe that the authors message is that war can distort your thoughts and make you think unclearly. It forces you to develop hatred and desensitizes you to inhumane things. In this story we have two brothers shooting and each other relentlessly and so cold heartedly. If they had realized the fact that they were brothers before it was too late, they would both still be alive. “Then the sniper turned over the dead boy and looked into his brother’s face.” I would imagine this to be very horrible and sad. He unknowingly killed his own brother, all in the name of a large scale war. There must be people from both sides that know each other and loved each other. Looking at this conflict on a smaller scale could help work things out without the senseless killing.

Second ISU Blog Post

POEM

Life after death

A great illusion

It creates a lot of confusion

Never has been proven
This Life is great
Carpe Diem my friends
And you shall need no other
This life is yours
Don't put it in the hands of something unproven
Take control and never take it slow
Live by what you know

Not by what you've been told
Come to your well educated conclusions
Forget about assuming
There are no guarantees in this life

Live like there is no tomorrow

Or for that matter a life after death

           The poem that I have written reflects my opinion on the issue of whether life after death exists or not. My opinion is that life after death does not exist and therefore nor does a god or higher entity. I also believe that everyday should be lived to the fullest because this life is guaranteed but one after death is not. My opinion is contrary to what the author of my book writes about. In the book the author has created this world where people live after they die. I talk about the lack of evidence there is supporting the theory of life after death to try to get my point across. In one line I wrote,"Don't put [life] in the hands of something unproven," and not only does this try to point out that god is a myth but it is also saying that since god is not proven why would you want to put your trust in him when you are capable and can put it in yourself. In another section I wrote, "Carpe Diem my friends and you shall need no other." Carpe Diem is Latin for "seize the day,"so what I am trying to say is that you should seize the each day you live and be content with your life to the point where you no longer care for a life after death. This all comes back to my opinion that you should just live the life you are guaranteed instead of worrying about what is next. By reading my poem I think that it will be very clear as to what side of this social issue I lie on.

First ISU Blog Post

Article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largestever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-neardeath-experiences-may-actually-be-real-9780195.html




           This article that I have chosen is written by Adam Withnall and is talking about a type of experiment scientists conducted in an attempt to see whether life after death truly existed or not. The experiment was conducted by talking to cardiac arrest patients and analyzing the experiences they had. The conclusion of this experiment was that 40 percent of the patients said that they had some form of awareness at a time when they were declared clinically dead. This article relates to my book because my book is based all around the theory of life after death being true. After reading the article my opinion on the matter stays the same. I do not believe in life after death. I don't think that this experiment was sufficient enough on proving me wrong and was more focused on hearsay rather than cold hard facts. A flaw in the experiment was the fact that they are saying that temporary death is still death because they simply don't have another word for it. Another flaw is that the people they interviewed may very well be lying and there is no way to prove whether they are or not.