Mona and I went to visit Nick and Tonya in Alexandrian, Virginia for Thanksgiving. Alexandrian is just a couple of miles from DC so we got to see pretty much everything including the White House, The Mall, The Natural History Museum, Library of Congress, Congress, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, Supreme Court, Pentagon, and pretty much all the government departments including the EPA (where Tonya works), the Justice Department (where Nick works), Agriculture, FBI, etc. We were also able to walk around and see some of the cooler neighborhoods in DC. Anyway, Thanksgiving turned out wonderful and it was great to see Nick and Tonya again.
Mona’s friend Nancy flew into town a couple of days ago. We mostly hung out around town and I finally made it to Melts Bar and Grill to try one their cheese melts. Mona and I have been exploring Lakewood and have made it a point to try a new place every time we go out. Still no good Mexican food! We also found that the Lakewood Art Center has an attached coffee shop where residents can show off their talents including playing music and pictures. The place is great to walk around and is free to the public. Mona and I were also able to go to a concert on the east side of Cleveland. I was worried that nobody would come to town and for the most part, that seems to be the case. You almost have to go to Detroit, Chicago, DC, or New York to see a show. Oh well, that just means we’ll have to do more travelling:D
The weather is really dropping and it’s snowed a couple of times but nothing is sticking around for more than a day. All the leaves are officially gone and we are transitioning between seasons. We made a trip to Pennsylvania for coats since they don’t have a sales tax. We drove through Amish country which was interesting. There were people riding around on horse pulled wagons. I’m hoping this weekend; we’ll take a trip down to Amish Country which has the biggest population of Amish folk.
Zola’s language skills are way ahead of her age. At 2 years of age, you are supposed to know 40-50 words. We think she knows 400-500 words. She’s also starting to learn her colors, shapes, and says small sentences. Viola is now sitting up and mostly rolls around the floor to get around.
I’ve been getting back to writing my book which I haven’t done since I was in Arizona. The chapter I’m working on deals with the subject of “public manipulation industries.” By public manipulation industries, I’m talking about public relations, think tanks, front groups, advertising, etc. and how they’ve played a large role in our society. I start off the chapter by asking whether one can live in a truly free society when billions are spent on controlling the public mind. It is interesting that most people are unfamiliar with this subject since these industries shape anything that is media or information related. Basically, “the truth” and “knowledge” has become a commodified where the biggest funder decides what is true and what is false.
This subject is also very close to consumerism as an actual ideology and goes into the history of how and why consumerism plays such a focal point in any state capitalist society. The history is quite interesting because in the early 1920’s private companies actually had to create what they called “manufactured wants” because people bought things for practical reasons not because they were cool or fashionable. Instead, companies would focus on the superficialities in life. It’s fascinating to see the internal papers of companies and how they consciously manipulated the public. In their words, they would say things like, “We have to move America from a ‘needs’ to a ‘wants’ society.” The idea was to get consumers to focus on the superficialities in life like clothes, style, class rather than practical needs. If you just turn on the television for 2 second, you realize that they who won that little war.
Okay, that’s it for now.
