Review of book Blink

The book Blink by Malcom Gladwell is one of my favorite books and one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. Gladwell is also the author of the bestselling book The Tipping Point. I was literally hooked to reading this book until the very last page. I actually did not want the book to end. The author of the book knows exactly what he is taking about and includes many entertaining and interesting ideas about "the power of thinking without thinking" in "the blink of an eye." I especially recommend this book to students studying journalism because of his terrific skills and journalistic viewpoints.
Gladwell provides some interesting stories and personal accounts of the awesome power of instantaneous judgment and the positive and negative consequences that come from it. He uses examples throughout the text that show how the human mind has the ability to make complex decisions in a matter of no more than a few seconds.
Here are examples of stories from the text: In the beginning of Blink, art historian experts sensed immediately that a supposed rare 6th century sculpture called the "Kouros" was a fake. There was another story about a psychologist named John Gottman was able to tell whether which couples are likely to get divorced. The famous news case of an immigrant named Amadou Diallo was featured in Blink. As he was about to presumably take out his wallet to show four police his ID, they mistakenly thought he was armed and shot and killed him with an alarming number of 41 bullets. Diallo, 23, turned out to be harmless and unarmed.
The conclusion to this story is that instinct is a complex and powerful human ability!

Reaction and Summary of Story 17 in book Floating off the Page

This article was quite comical. It talked about how many women have crushes or even fantasies of the UPS delivery men. In the beginning of the article, ironically a professional runner named Lynn Jennings would order a pair of new sneakers each week and have them delivered by UPS. It turns out it wasn't exactly so she could have brand-new shoes each week, it was because she had a crush on Dave, her UPS delivery man. After four years of him delivering packages to her, they are now husband and wife. Many women seem to have fantasies of "men in uniform." (In regards to that particular topic I will not state my opinion...) Anyway, many women have the desire to run off with the UPS man on their route and some will even start outwardly flirting with them while they are on the job.
The portrayal of women having huge crushes for the UPS delivery men have been seen in a number of books, movies, plays, even songs have been written about the romance that sometimes exists between a UPS driver and a lady. A particular movie that came to mind while reading this article is Legally Blonde. The character named Paulette, Elle Woods's friend, has a severe crush on the UPS worker that comes in to the nail salon Paulette works in almost everyday to deliver a package. Remember the "bend-and-snap" scene? I always thought that was hysterical. Turns out at the end of the film, Paulette and the UPS man get married and have a child!
Some of the UPS men enjoy conversing with the flirtatious women and even "talking dirty." However, some men do not enjoy the pressures of the women and "the highly charged atmosphere makes some drivers uncomfortable." Some men get frustrated because they are married or simply not interested (because they of course have to reach a certain quota by the end of the day).
As long as it is "harmless flirting" I see no point in making a huge deal of the situation. It seems almost natural due to the high number of women that do flirt with the UPS men. If I were the UPS man, I would take it with stride, unless it negatively interfered with my job and pay, I would not worry.

Reaction and Summary of Story 38 in book Floating off the Page

The title, "Y2K Alert! (But It's 1980)", caught my attention by surprise. I remember almost ten years ago the profound discussion of the "Y2K bug," supposedly our computers were going to collapse...I thought back then that that was just nonsense...just because we are going into a new millennium?! I could not understand the media's logic; even as a child it sounded so absurd.
This article is very fascinating...what a story! (I recommend that everyone reads it).
This article is about a group of a little more than one-hundred residents that live in a town called Stelle, located "rising out of the cornfields" in Illinois. The townspeople believed that on May 5, 2000, there would be violent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that would destroy the earth (obviously this did not occur). The people had a plan to build "lighter-than-air" vehicles so they would be able to float above the tumult and had for a new city in the Pacific that they would have called "Philadelphia." (I wonder why they would have called the city Philadelphia; the article did not answer this). Other than this strange prediction, the goal of the town is to "make it a safe place and be able to go back to the values that middle-class America came from." They think that society is now corrupted. Stelle was aware at the time that there had been so many false end-of-the-world predictions. The town does not want to be referred to as a cult (even though I, for example, feel they certainly are).
Many folks came to this town because they felt that the book "The Ultimate Frontier" written by the town's spiritual leader, Richard Kieninger, gave them the answers to the purpose of life and other such topics. The townspeople did not allow their families from watching TV, only videos. Mothers attend workshops that teach them how to "properly" raise their children. Children are expected to read by age three and write by age four.
However, Mr. Kieninger has made some false predictions that drew many people in 1977 to leave Stelle. He stated that the U.S. would not see its' 201st. birthday. When 1977 rolled around, many left.
I do understand the desire to live in a society that brings up their children well and in a place that is safe. Yet, it is contradictive when the town is run by one person's philosophies and therefore people revolved their lives around them. That is ridiculous! One of the most important things in life is to be open-minded. If I am not able to be a free spirit in a certain location, I'll pack my bags.