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.

Response to "Former child soldier Ishmael Beah recounts his past.Full"

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kEL_LRBSqk

           This video is very eye opening and gives you a lot of insight into the horrible things that occur around the world. It reminds me of the movie "Blood Diamond", which showed the conflict in Sierra Leone over diamonds. A conflict which included the recruitment of child soldiers. In the video Ishmael describes the tactics the commanders used to get the children to kill. These were tactics like drugging them and blind folding them and then making them shoot people, and they did these things to desensitize the children. These same tactics were shown in "Blood Diamond" and in both cases proved to be very effective.

           The article "Teaching Kids to Kill" is similar and different to the video. To begin, there were tactics used by the army to desensitize children to the violence, in a way video games are doing this because they make it seem easy and nonpunishable. The article is different from the video because it is talking mostly about non military cases where children have fired weapons. These kids did not have adults directly telling them to commit these acts of violence, like in the case of Ishmael.

           From the video, I would challenge whether Ishmael is truly rehabilitated, because he has been through so much. I wonder if he is just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I also challenge whether he should be given so much notoriety, because he has done inhumane things in the past.

           I think it is important to note the severity of the wrongful acts committed in conflicts. These are things that we are oblivious to, yet they occur all over the world. It really helps us to see the wrong in these situations when we can see someone affected by them.

           I think that the creators of this video want to raise awareness of the issue at hand. Raising awareness for it will make people realize how horrible it is, and this will result in change.

Response to "Damascus air strikes 'kill nearly 200 in 10 days'"

Refrence: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31427471

           This article is addressing the conflict between the Syrian government and rebel group Army of Islam. More specifically it talks about airstrikes that span over the period of ten days and are being used to gain control of areas in Syria, by both parties involved. These airstrikes were launched by both the Syrian government and the rebel group, and have killed almost 200 people. A representative from the rebel group was quoted saying that their airstrikes were a result of the Syrian army bombing civilian areas. There is not much of a medical effort being made for those who were wounded, and this conflict does not seem to be slowing down.

           I believe that history repeats itself and does so continuously. If we take a look back into World War One, we can see that it was a continuous effort for each opposing group of countries to take over their enemies countries. This article is talking about the same things, just on a smaller scale. The Syrian government and the Army of Islam want to control areas of Syria, just like the British(and allies) wanted to control Germany and the Germans(and allies) wanted to control Britain. This broadens my understanding of this article because I have spent great amounts of time looking back into World War One and I learned that it was a fight for control, and I now understand that the conflict in Syria is just a struggle for power, peace will not be achieved until control is gained by either of the parties involved.

           I enjoy action movies and the greatest action movies are the ones about war. A movie I recently watched was titled "unbroken." This movie showed the conflict between USA and Japan, and goes in depth to show one mans life as a soldier. He is captured by the Japanese and is treated in a cruel manner until the Americans infiltrate Japan and rescue him. My article reminds be of this because America couldn't free their soldier until they got into Japan and had control of it. In Syria one group cannot be the leading power in an area until they have control of it.This expands my understanding of this article because it shows me the two groups reasoning behind the airstrikes.