Thursday, September 12, 2013

News – James Reston, Jr., author of five historical works, has written a new book called The Accidental Victim, in which he argues that John Connolly was the intended victim when John Kennedy was shot. I may get it from the library and read it, though I haven't been convinced by any new theories of his death so far. His works have received a lot of praise and some awards, however, so he is at least a good writer I assume. Ron Howard did a movie of British writer Peter Morgan's screenplay based on Reston's description of the Nixon/Frost interview.

It's going to be another day of allergy discomfort, though this Claritin is definitely helping after half an hour or so for it to kick in. My throat and bronchial tubes are sore from coughing. I'll take some Robitussin again, too, though it really does taste nasty. Here goes.

The book Roadside Crosses is about a teenaged girl Tammy who sounds off in answer to a blog segment titled Roadside Crosses. She blames the driver of the car in which the teenagers were killed, and tells some things about him, indicating that she knows him. Kathryn Dancer, the kinesics expert who interviews the teenaged girl after she was nearly murdered, believes that the would be killer read her answer to the blog and targeted her for attack. The attacker failed in his attempt on her life and she is now a potential witness. She was not cooperative with Dancer, however, presumably out of fear.

The author goes into a lengthy series of blog comments, too lengthy for my tastes, and then gives some information about the mysterious language that teenaged bloggers use with its misspellings and abbreviations. I have seen that kind of writing a number of times, and I am exasperated by it. I don't find it readable, and I am disgusted by that type of rebellion against good writing. It's like the teenaged boys wearing their pants down below the waist and exposing their (always colorful) undershorts. When I was that age nobody went to such trouble to be obnoxious. Of course, we were the Disney generation, and while I was in high school at least, were basically conservative. Then we hit college and took anthropology and psychology and political science. Then came the rebellion. Some rebelled more than others, but in general the times did change a great deal. I'm not sorry for the social changes. Our society is more ethical now as a result. Life is more fair for the underprivileged and the racial minorities. It looks to me as though we made real progress, though there are still elements in society who are haters.

The author also goes into the so-called “synthetic worlds” of on-line gaming, which are opposed to “the Earth.”. There are rules to the synthetic world, which is enclosed by a “membrane” called a Magic Circle that “encloses virtual world.” Within this membrane the rules of the virtual world are followed, and outside it the rules are those of the real world. The membrane is “porous,” like a semi-permeable membrane in real life, and there is interaction between the two worlds. This is from a Wikipedia discussion of virtual worlds. There have been a number of books written about synthetic worlds, especially as it applies to on-line games. This author Deaver states that among older players when they play a video game, they draw a clear distinction between the synthetic world and reality, but people even as old as thirty and especially teenagers may spend most of their consciousness in the “synth” world of the game. Deaver states that an “average” gamer can spend 30 to 60 hours a week playing, and may consider the game to be the “real” world. The suspected “perp” in this mystery is a teenaged boy who may be living in a synthetic world in which vengeance is a virtue, and other negative things are acceptable. The victim Tammy posted an angry comment to a blog about a fatal car accident, blaming the driver of the car, an acquaintance, and criticizing him broadly. The theory is that the driver is her attacker, and if so he may try to kill others who also blamed him in their blog comments.

6:00 PM I've had supper and am getting ready to veg out now. Watching the news. They just showed some good foottage of a mated pair of Florida panthers. The male was scratching on a log and looked just like a house cat.