1984

----For my next book, I am reading 1984, by George Orwell, the same author who wrote Animal Farm. The cool thing is that it was written in 1949 as an apocolyptic prediction of the year 1984. In the real world that year, according to Wikipedia, the space shuttle Discovery took off for the first time, Ronald Reagan was president, and John McCain's daughter was born. Nothing especially depressing (except the standard middle east crisis, economic trouble, political turmoil, and several bombings.) So it's interesting to see how much the estimate was off.
----However, even in the first twenty pages, I can see how elements of the world in this book are similar to modern real life. For example, the controlling Party's slogans are as follows:

• War is peace.
• Freedom is slavery.
• Ignorance is strength.

----If you're like me, you took one look at those mantras and guessed that someone had forgotten the colons in an analogy. Then you realize, wait, there are people living like that? It's scary because... I can understand why those people believe what they do. I can see how you could convince someone that those slogans make sense.

----For example, ignorance is strength. Ignorance, according to Merriam-Webster's, is "the lack of knowledge, education, or awareness". Focus on that last word- awareness. So the slogan reads "Not knowing is helpful." Helpful to the government, that is.

----The knowledge in this world is suppressed. No one really knows what's going on, which is the first thing to cause panic, usually. But they've lived this way for a while, so no one thinks it's odd that they have telescreens in each one-room apartment, telescreens that can see and hear everything above whisper and transmit to The Party, who rules the world, and, worse, Big Brother, who is their leader and almost deity, he is so untouchable.

----So if you don't know anything, you don't know what the government doesn't want you to know. You can't get in trouble, so you stay alive. Seriously. In this world, keeping a journal is punishable by death.

----Also, the people in the book seem so normal- the burnout guy with the crummy apartment, the lady down the hall with too many kids calling him to fix her sink, the girl at work who's playing hard to get. They could all so easily be the person waiting for the traffic light to change. But they're not. They were lucky enough to be born in the crumbling shadowy squalor where there are such things as "Thought Police" and "Thoughtcrimes," which are when you think something traitorous and disappear a few nights later. It's scary.