I best get my a$$ moving and start finishing this paper for one of my uni courses. The subjects a little heavy… the link between propaganda and democracy. If you're interested, go and read a bit of Noam Chomsky's stuff – he'll set you straight. Basically, I'm arguing that democracies, like authoritarian governments or dictatorships, used the media/press to manipulate people and to sell their message. The topic's a little touchy…
I think my prof doesn't understand how democracies can use propaganda, but from all that I've read, its quite common for governments (i.e. US, Canada, Australia) to use the media to sell its message. C'mon, look at Fox news… or just look at when elections happen. Political parties "campaign" to get the most votes to win. But what is this campaigning? It's basically saying, "hey, that other party sucks or doesn't have your best interest in mind, so vote for us". Of course they could be telling the truth, but with all the informaiton out there, who knows.
One paper to go and then I'll be finished with my semester. I'm half way through my Masters program. Its taken a while since I'm doing it part time. But with my fingers cross and my nose to the grindstone, I should be done by the end of 2007. That'll be the last of school for me. Need to get out and find a job or something interesting to do.
Even with the paper looming, I needed a break so I spent most of the weekend hanging with friend and taking some photos. This one is from the new mall Central World Plaza (surprise surprise, BKK has ANOTHER mall)… it's actually a really nice mall inside and out, but i think the "fung sui" is bad because it was pretty dead before they renovated and it still was empty over the weekend.
Also wanted to see a friend off at the airport so i decided to take the public bus out to the airport to see how long it took. 35baht (approx. CND$1) and 40 minutes later I was at the airport. Pretty quick and cheap… that's how i like it.