By now, the catastophic event of the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami is about to be understood by people around the world. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake west of Sumatra caused a series of huge tidal waves (tsunamis) that hit Sumatra, Nicobar, Andaman, Thailand, Malaysia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Somalia, and Kenya. Initially, the magnitude of this disaster was not understood.

In Gulliver's Travels, the satirist Jonathan Swift provides religious, political and philosophical critique on various aspects of British Society in his time.

The movie: Brazil has themes similar to George Orwell's 1984.It depicts a case where a simple typographical error caused an innocent man to be arrested, and eventually disappears in the torture chambers of the oppressive and bureaucratic government. When the main character, a simple government bureaucrat dreaming of a fantasy world, attempts to inquire more, he in turn gets arrested. He is tortured, and his dreams hope for someone to rescue him from his misery, which never happens.

In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll always made thinly masked critiques of the Victorian age he was living in. Once such criticism is the Knave's trial and the Queen of Hearts attitude: sham trials with guilt being pre-determined.The Knave of Hearts is accused of allegedly stealing the Queen of Hearts' tarts, where in fact it was Alice who did so. The Queen of Hearts had made up her mind and wanted the Knave to be beheaded.A trial is set, but it is only a sham trial.

Alice in Wonderland is on the surface a childrens' story by Lewis Carroll.

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by William Golding, expressing his view that society is just a thin layer of civility disguising the real savagery of humans.It also has themes on how when two opposing forces, one of good, and the other of evil, it is very hard to convince the masses to follow the good one, and that they often succumb to the rhetoric of evil.

• Summary of Lord of the Flies

Brave New World is a novel by Aldous Huxley, and is yet another dystopian society where there are predefined 'castes/classes' that humans fit in due to them being "manufactured" that way. Mind control is done via the consumption of Soma, and brain washing is used to keep every caste in its place.

• Summary of Brave New World
• Full Text of of Brave New World

Animal Farm by George Orwell depicts how oppression and injustice unites the oppressed to overthrow their master, but after a revolution against injustice, a few usurp it to their own benefit. Then the masses are in the same misery after the revolution much as they were in before, replacing the old oppressors with new ones, their ex-brothers in arms.This was a critique of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party after the overthrow of the Tsar of Russia.

The novel 1984 by George Orwell is popular today as it was decades ago.

Recently, I bought an oil painting that just looked good. Now I am curious about the artist, and where is the place in the picture actually is.