Poll update: Voters having 'buyer's remorse'?

In the article I read, the latest polls have shown John McCain catching up to Barack Obama's 49-44% lead in the national polls. However, this isn't odd because as the title of the article says, people might be experiencing "buyer's remorse", which is switching candidates because they think the other one might be better. Even with a large difference in popularity, McCain is still in the running, even though the only other person to overcome such a deficit was Ronald Reagan in 1980. I think that this presidential race is still not over, and that nobody should be surprised, no matter what happens, because this is a race that will go down in history.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/30/poll-update-race-may-be-tightening/

Photography

In the article I read, I learned that taking pictures of flowers in full light makes the flowers become lighter and have less contrast than if they were pictured under shadow or on a cloudy day. This kind of application of techniques of shadow and lighting also shows us that even when it is sunny, it doesn't have to be a "happy" picture. If some things are taken in specific lighting, like flowers in shadow it might even be be more artisticly pleasing.

Zuckerman, Jim. "Flower Photography in Good Light." BetterPhoto.com. 23 Oct. 2008 .

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The Best of Satyajit Ray: A Strange Night for Mr. Shasmal

This is a short story about Mr. Shasmal who we find at the beginning of the story in a bungalow he rented for 3 days. He is served dinner by the servant that comes with renting the bungalow and during dinner, they talk about how they are in the middle of the forest and that Mr Shasmal shouldn't leave his door open at night. Just after dinner, though, Mr. Shasmal finds a dog in his room after he leaves the door unattended. He calls the servant but the dog is gone and everybody is thoroughly confused. A little later, the dog appeared in the corner again and he noticed another animal in the opposite corner of the room, a stripped cat. He remembers about one night years ago that he was angry and a cat yowling was really annoying him so he threw a large paperweight at the direction and it ended abruptly. The next day the neighbor's cat was found murdered. At that time he was scornful of people who considered killing animals murderers, like killing ants as a kid. A murdered dog was what he tried to remember now, in 1973 he remembered when he got a new car he was speeding and hit a dog and just kept going. Now, all the animals he had killed showed up in his room; snakes, and birds and cats, whims of cruelty. Soon, he heard footsteps. He knew who they were, they were his business partner who had turned into an enemy because he was against the way Mr. Shasmal ran their business and was going to file a report to the police, so Mr. Shasmal knew he had to take care of him. After he had shot him, he had gone straight to the bungalow. There was a knock on the door and Adheer, the business partner, spoke to him...

In the end, it turned out that Mr. Shasmal had missed when he had shot Adheer and he had brought the police because he "decided this lunatic must be handed over to the police (279)." 

I think that the guilt Mr Shasmal had gathered his whole life and had tried to bury was drawn out by his, what he thought, killing of Adheer. He had lied to himself his whole life that nothing could be earned by stray dogs or annoying cats. He also seems to be a distrubed person in some way because he was able easily revert to violence whenever things weren't going his way. In the beginning of the story, he had asked a funny question, if there were ghosts in the bungalow, but when he heard that there weren't it seemed he was too relieved for it to be a joke, but that was when the author hadn't told us about Adheer, so I wasn't able to understand it until after I had read. Mr Shasmal's guilt really does seem to be the main reason he hallucinated about all of the things he had killed while keeping us in the dark, which made this a very spooky title all the way until the end.

Ray, Satyajit, and Gopa Majumdar. The Best of Satyajit Ray. Trans. Gopa Majumdar. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 2001.

The Best of Satyajit Ray: Bapin Chwdhury's Lapse of Memory

Bapin Chowdhury was an avid reader and had a responsible job with a very sheltered life, so when a strange person calling himself an old friend from 5-6 years ago approaches him at the bookstore he frequents saying things that repeatedly contradict what he thinks, he starts to doubt his own memories. He visits Ranchil, the city he was supposed to be at and tries to remember since another friend of his said that they were both together there. In the end, it turns out that his old friend Chunilal had planned this whole thing, from the stranger to his other friend giving the same story because Bapin had repeatedly refused to help him find a job when he was on hard times. This story really tells you how easily the most staid person could doubt himself if he is given a few pushes in one direction. I think anybody would be made to believe the plan Chunilal concocted mostly because he covered all bases and also because people are just gulible sometimes.

Blog Question #1

2. I think Homer shows Odysseus as a liar and murderer because he thought that pretty words weren't enough. If you were to find your spouse being courted by suitors who are sucking your wealth dry after you have been gone for 20 years, anybody would be upset. To do justice what brings us to Odysseus' side when he pretty much commits cold-blooded murder. There are probably not many people who read the book thinking that Odysseus should have reasoned with the suitors, revenge is what we would hope for, even today. Today, I think we as a people have gained perspective and have learned that both sides of wars have stories, which means our heroes should be different that Odysseus, but Odysseus still strikes a chord with a lot of us because we still, and probably will always be attracted to the side of humanity that is raw and hasn't changed for thousands of years.

There is also the cunning and always planning side of Odysseus that seems ahead of its time. Smarts are always thought of as a good characteristic for a hero, and Odysseus exemplifies this really well. He is always labeled as the "great tactician" which was definitely good, especially during war-time which meant it was a good characteristic like bravery. Pride, however wasn't so great of a thing to have. Achilles was prideful in The Iliad when he said he wouldn't fight, which ended up killing his best friend. I think Odysseus was more like a real person than an unreachable hero (or superhero) because he had those bad qualities and the great qualities you would expect. I think this causes us to reach out to Odysseus more and makes him seem much more like a hero we like nowadays.