The phrase “mandatory volunteerism” should cause you to shudder. If you’re not, as the old phrase goes, you’re not paying attention. This is something that I’ve been railing on about for awhile now, but now I’m able to see it come to fruition in the form of a smarmy, innocuous sounding piece of legislation known as the GIVE Act, HR 1388. I could go on and on about it, but I think the video embedded below emcompasses the majority of my thinking on the subject (appropriate Southern drawl included):

H/T:  restrainednomore at Break The Matrix

As a former psychology student (and current marketing student), I found this video very blogworthy. It’s part of a BBC series called “The Century of the Self” and covers psychoanalytic theory and its ties to successful marketing through fear and unconscious desires. It’s a shame that Freud is so maligned in undergraduate psychology theory classes as being non-PC and out-dated. Apparently all that stuff I spent years studying has practical applications (for fun and profit). Part 1 of the video is embedded below.

The remaining parts of the series are available on Google Video: Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

H/T:  The Daily Paul

If you go into a bookstore, you’ll find George Orwell’s 1984 in the “classics” section. I always remark when I walk by the classics section that they should create a “currents” section for it and other dystopian works. It’s unfortunate that a lot of folks won’t read such an important work. However, as Howard Beale pointed out in the movie Network, “since less than three percent of you people read books,” you can at least make the effort to watch the movie version (embedded below):

Of particular note, the constant state of warfare, how language is frequently changes, the lack of meat in daily rations, and the presence of an arch-terrorist whose face is plastered across television screens in order to incite the masses. As I said, the book really belongs in a “currents” section.

For those who are in the militant book-reader marketing segment (and we know who you are), you can also read 1984 online.