A Break From All of This: The Idea of the Writer

I have become so obsessed with this election, I can barely think of anything else. I endlessly surf the internet from blog to blog and the many youtube videos and comments and on and on well into the early hours. It will be a relief when this is finally over and President Obama readies himself to take the helm.But sometimes it becomes overwheming and downright stressful. Although most polls have Obama ahead by a good margin there remain those others like the AP poll and there remain some states, like FL, PA and MO that still need to push ahead before we can breathe a sigh of relief. I am beginning to get stomach cramps just thinking about the next week. So maybe it is time for a break. Something thoughtful and interesting. I am posting here the link to David Milch's"The Idea of the Writer" lecture series. Milch is a screenwriter and producer, he gave us what I believe are the best two series ever! "John From Cincinnati" and "Deadwood".
(Click on title)

Truth

Now seems like a good time to contemplate the notion of truth, so I am posting several quotes to ponder.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell

Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.
-Miguel de Cervantes

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
-Aldous Huxley

Seek not greatness, but seek truth and you will find both.
-Horace Mann

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
-Frank Herbert

When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.
-William Blake

To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful.
-Edward R. Murrow

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
-George Bernard Shaw

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
-Mark Twain

A man can?t be always defending the truth; there must be a time for him to feed on it.
-C.S. Lewis

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for the truth; and truth rewarded me.
-Simone de Beauvoir

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
-Oscar Wilde

If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow up, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.
-Emile Zola

We are hidden in ourselves, like a truth hidden in isolated facts. When we know that this One in us is One in all, then our truth is revealed.
-Rabindranath Tagore

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
-Leo Tolstoy

Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.
-Socrates

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
-Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
-Arthur Schopenhauer

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
-Carl Sagan

Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced?more true than the truth itself. One far superior to me has well said?, 'A clever imitation in glass casts contempt, as it were, on that precious jewel the emerald...' Lest, therefore, through my neglect, some should be carried off, even as sheep are by wolves, while they perceive not the true character of these men, because they outwardly are covered with sheep's clothing (against whom the Lord has enjoined us to be on our guard), and because their language resembles ours, while their sentiments are very different.
-Irenaeus of Lyons

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
-Thomas Jefferson

Are you Greek? How Can you Tell for Sure?

One more, sent from the Eagle:

ARE YOU A GREEK? HOW CAN YOU TELL FOR SURE?

1) If you have ever been hit by a 'PANTOFLA' or a 'KOUTALA'

2) If your Holidays include 5 meats and 50 relatives.

3) If others tell you to stop screaming when you are really just
talking.

4) If you light a candle to Panayia on the night before your big test.

5) If you use your chin to point something out.

6) If you have at least 2 relatives within walking distance'

7) If your mother yells at the top of her lungs to call you for dinner,
if it's a one bedroom apartment.

8) If you ever attended, graduated or dropped out of Greek School

9) If during Greek Easter you take off from work for religious reasons,
and attend the Epitafio at NIGHT.

10) If you become sick and anemic because you did not eat meat.

11) If whenever you feel under the weather, you compulsively dab on
> some 'Vick's vapor rub' all over your chest and inside your nostrils.

12) Your mom makes your bed every day even though you've just turned
thirty-two.

13) If you call all non Greeks 'XENI' even if you know their
nationality.

14) If at least 2 other cousins have the same name as you.

15) If you hated fakes, bamias, or fasoulakia as a kid , but started
enjoying them as you grew up.

Send this to all your Greek friends! You can also send this to
your non-Greek friends, but if you have to explain more than three
items, what's the point?

Camp

Camp
- by Skorda

Running from the law, the family, bad debt.
or maybe just running, chasing fortune
with dreams and picks they headed west
to the edge of the hills, Deadwood.
Whatever they had been, this is what they are now,
ragtag men with muck on their boots.
Just men, with strong backs and hopeful hearts
thrown together by chance,
the fateful cry of "gold!"
Perhaps this day will be the one
when luck will change and gods will smile ,
promises will be kept.
Or maybe this day will end
as have a thousand others
for these tired, dirty men,
caught in their breaking dreams.
One more night in the rough saloon
knocking back whiskey, numbing fear.
Camp women lean across the bar
smiling into the dirty darkness,
a promise of their own.
Here in this land of dreams
where everyone can make a buck
the lonely heart will pay.

One Big Union

ELECTION ALERT

Check it out here - apparently it is true.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/straightticket.asp

Subject: ELECTION ALERT: Pass it along, Avoid this vote counting trap

ELECTION ALERT: Straight Party Voting Trap. You may have read about
this; Here are the details and what to do about it:THE PROBLEM:
"Straight party voting" on voting machines is revealing a bad pattern of
miscounting and omitting your vote, especially if you are a Democrat.
Most recently (Oct. 2008), a firm called Automated Election Services was
found to have mis-coded the system in heavily Democratic Santa Fe
County, New Mexico such that straight party voters would not have the
presidential vote counted.STRAIGHT PARTY VOTING is allowed in 15 states.
Basically, it means that you can take a shortcut to actually looking at
who you are voting for and instead just select a party preference. Then
the voting machine makes your candidate choices, supposedly for the
party you requested.HOW TO PROTECT THE COUNT against Straight Party
Trap:1) NEVER CHOOSE THE STRAIGHT PARTY VOTE OPTION, because it alerts
the computer as to your party preference and allows software code to
trigger whatever function the programmer has designed.
2) SEND THIS INFORMATION OUT TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN, blog it, root n' toot it out there to get the word out.
3) ESPECIALLY GET THE WORD OUT TO PEOPLE IN THE FOLLOWING STATES, which
have straight party voting options:
Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West
Virginia, Wisconsin
4) DEMAND COMPLETE AND CAREFUL TESTING OF THE STRAIGHT PARTY OPTION IN
LOGIC & ACCURACY TESTS.
5) LOOK FOR UNDERVOTES (high profile races with lower-than-average
number of votes cast) and flag them, post them, bring them to the
attention of others for additional scrutiny.Details, links to documents,
news stories, more specifics
here:http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/78367.htmlVoting
machine miscounts of straight party votes were proven by California
researcher Judy Alter in the 2004 New Mexico presidential election; in
Alabama Democrat straight party votes were caught going to a Republican,
and Wisconsin a whole slew of straight party votes disappeared
altogether.

Both DRE and optical scan machines are vulnerable. Private contractors
are involved; private firms like LHS Associates, Automated Election
Services, Harp Enterprises, Casto & Harris and others will program
almost all systems in the USA this November. ES&S scanners were involved
in examples cited, but Diebold has also issued a cryptic Product
Advisory Notice in 2006 about unexpected results from certain Straight
Party option programming practices. (More:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/78367.html )PERSPECTIVEThe
big "Oops" needs a new frame of reference. For example: You are counting
the cash for a fund raiser. Somehow, it's discovered that $500 didn't
make it into the count and someone put it in their pocket. They say
"Oops" and tell you it was a mistake. Really? Will you let them count
the cash again? Probably not. Consequences! Where are they for Automated
Election Services, ES&S, or Diebold?A LEHTOISM - From voting rights
attorney Paul Lehto: "Being at the mercy of whoever's in power is not a
definition of freedom, if I may seize on the power of understatement."*
* * * *

With Thanks to Andrew Sullivan at "The Daily Dish"

Name Days in October

Name Days for October
October 1 - Ananios, Pomanos, Melodos
October 2 - Kuprianos, Iosstiounis
October 3 - Dionisios, Dionisos
October 4 - Ierotheos
October 5 - Xaritinis
October 6 - Thomas
October 7 - Poluxronios
October 8 - Peladias
October 10 - Eulampios
October 15 - Loskianos
October 18 - Loska, Loskas
October 19 - Kleopatras
October 20 - Artemios, Gerasimos, Kefallinias, Yerasimos
October 21 - Sokratous, Sokrates, Sokratis
October 23 - Iakovos
October 24 - Sevatianis
October 26 - Dimitrios, Dimitris, Dimitria
October 27 - Nestoros
October 28 - Agias Skepis
October 30 - Xaritinis, Zinovios