Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Midnight's Children My daughter read Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie for a class in college and suggested I read it too. It was an interesting novel about India just before and after independence from Great Britain. The main premise of the novel was that children born near to midnight on the night of independence were granted various supernatural gifts. The main character was able to read minds and communicate with all the other children. Some of the children could travel through time, others were able to travel from place to place via smooth surfaces, such as mirrors. The main character finds out when he is 10 that another child was born at the same time and the two babies were switched. He, who was the natural child of a poor family was raised in luxury, while the child of the rich parents was raised in poverty. They became rivals. The story follows the upheavals with Pakistani independence and the war that split Pakistan and Bangledesh. The history of the countries mirrors the narrator's life. It was a very interesting book, with many illusions to both Hindu and Muslim religious practices. The book woon the Booker Prize in 1981. 4:37:21 PM     Clear your Browser Cache From Download Squad: information on Clearing your browser cache, along with reasons you want to do this periodically. 4:23:35 PM     Budget of the United States Government If you want to see how your tax dollars are being spent, take a look at the Budget of the United States Government. "Issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Budget of the United States Government is a collection of documents that contains the budget message of the President, information about the President's budget proposals for a given fiscal year, and other budgetary publications that have been issued throughout the fiscal year. Other related and supporting budget publications, such as the Economic Report of the President, are included, which may vary from year to year" 4:20:11 PM

© Copyright 2008 Jocelyn Shaw. Last update: 11/18/2008; 2:41:09 PM. Photo curtesy of Marjorie O'Brien