The 21st century appears bent on making the crazy† seem normal.

Once, the guy in line next to you yammering loudly to himself was a psychiatric outpatient. Now, heís just another self-important jerk with a cell phone.

And it used to be that the only people who heard voices everywhere telling them what to think and what to do were schizophrenics.

But now, those commanding voices are directed at you and me ó and they assault us in the post office, the airport, the clinic, the auto-repair shop, the grocery store, the living room, and nearly every space where bored consumer attention is considered up for grabs.

Those voices blare from TVs, radios, and closed-circuit speakers that aim 24/7 news, weather, opinion, and advertising at us. And unlike printed words ó which engage the brainís analytical and reasoning faculties, and which you can choose whether to read or ignore ó these messages are broadcast in artfully modulated vocal tones that are able, like music, to bypass our conscious reason and influence our subconscious emotions.

Weíve heard increasing complaints from both right and left about the bias of broadcasting CNN or Fox News to a captive waiting-room audience.

But arguing over which party should get to impose its message on us misses the real issue. The deeper concern is the way weíre now bathed in a constant stream of audio propaganda.

Many of us wake up, for example, to the sound of a morning news announcer talking in a nasal drone that sounds like it could cut glass ó and that makes every single news item seem like an urgent crisis, whether itís an attack by Al Qaeda or a hangnail on Paris Hilton.

Other people spend their day at work with a radio talk-show host in the background mocking and sneering at ìthe liberalsî or ìthe Bushiesî ó and, not surprisingly, such people learn to dismiss every issue as a ìpolitically correctî sham.

Relaxing in front of the TV, weíre targeted by commercials with female voice-overs that sound like they are talking through a Stepford-Wife smile, now chirpy (ìI like coupons!î), now seductive (ìMmm, sinfully chocolaty delight ...î). Male commercial voice-overs instill the opposite sexual stereotype, growling and snarling to convince us of the toughness of the truck or tool or violent movie theyíre selling.

George Orwell wrote in ì1984î about propaganda-blaring ìtelescreensî installed in every public and private place that could be muted, but never turned off. Weíre pretty much there in 2007.

But like the hero of Orwellís totalitarian novel ó or like a successful therapy patient ó even though we may be powerless on the outside to turn the controlling voices off, we remain free on the inside as long as we can mentally take a step back and remind our subconscious that the soothing, cajoling, sneering, commanding electronic voices that surround us canít make us believe or do the crazy things they want of us, if we refuse to let them.