Manipulated?
I just watched The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise, and being in my class of semiotics made me think about things a little. Certainly enlightening, I could see more clearly how the director used certain scenes to manipulate the audience into feeling or thinking a certain way. It made for a great movie, but it also made me think about how much this is done in real life, not for entertainment purposes, but to part us of our hard-earned shekels. I am guessing that by tomorrow, I will have these thoughts ripped out of my head by the latest consumer fashion, and I will be driven to buy more and better. How pathetic. I think that the only reason all of this works is that we are located here, among the wealthy, so we don't feel the slightest bit guilty about our excess. I am betting it would be significantly more difficult to live like a Sultan in the middle Tanzania, where most people struggle to eat enough to survive.
I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, unfortunately, so... things will be busy around here. Anatomy, math, and semiotics all need attending to.