Wednesday, September 11, 2013

News – President Obama and Vice President Biden and their wives came out to the White House lawn and stood in silence marking the 9/11/2001 attacks, then a military band played Taps. They quietly turned around and walked back into the White House. It was a dignified and moving ceremony. In the face of such a sad occasion there is little left to say now. It has all been said.

My allergy reaction is still going on, though the Claritin did work when I took it last night. It is supposed to be a 24 hour pill, but the problem is back again this morning. It got worse after I ate and had coffee, so I suppose the yogurt and hot liquid irritated it. The pills are 10 mg, and the dosage recommended by the manufacturer is 20 mg. Maybe I'll take another pill this morning.

I have one more thing I need to do for Perimeter Security – go by the Post Office and turn in a change of address card, sending all the mail directly to John in Germany. I'll send John an email to let him know about it. I don't want to keep going by the office to check the mail and sending the mail to him in an envelope. It's a chore and it costs money, though not a lot, but even so I'm retired now and I shouldn't keep doing it.

I'm trying to continue to read this book. I hate to stop a book in the middle, and I have wanted to broaden out my reading to other types of things. There are bound to be some things I won't especially like. I tend to avoid modern novels that aren't mysteries, because you never know what kind of writing and story you will get. They are all different from each other, and by no means are they all well-written or equally interesting. Also they tend to have extended sex scenes that are described in detail, and I don't want to read pornography. I still prefer the nineteenth century classics like Pride and Prejudice, or others of that quality. They have well-developed plots and characters, and keep me reading until the end. Back to the book now.

1:21 PM I took a trip south, going to the office and collecting mail, then to the post office and doing the change of address, plus sending today's mail bundle, and then went to the library and got three mysteries and two non-fictions. The books were too heavy so I left all but one mystery in the trunk of the car to carry in another time. I'm reading Loose Change again right now. I can get through it if I expect less.

I have stopped reading on the Davidson book and taken up a mystery by Jeffery Deaver called Roadside Crosses. I've read a couple of his and enjoyed them. He uses the term “kinesics” to mean a science of observing facial expressions and body language to tell whether or not a witness is lying. Kinesics as a science was first described by the anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell in 1952. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson also pursued the study, while another scientist Paul Ekman disagreed with them in some aspects of the theory. See Wikipedia for more about Kinesics.