Science fiction author Ray Bradbury sits in front of a photo of Mars, presented to him during an 83rd birthday party in his honor on Aug. 23, 2003.
Posted on 06/06/2012 3:21:57 PM PDT by montag813
Science fiction author Ray Bradbury sits in front of a photo of Mars, presented to him during an 83rd birthday party in his honor on Aug. 23, 2003.
Ray Bradbury, master of the sci-fi fantasy and author of Fahrenheit 451, died Tuesday at 91.
The man who chronicled dystopian societies had strong political beliefs and spoke as darkly about contemporary politics as he did about burning books.
"I think our country is in need of a revolution," the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying in 2010. "There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people."
A Ohio Tea Party blog later quoted him on it, and the conservative blog All American Blogger wrote: "I think Ray is ready to lead the Tea Party movement."
Bradbury also had some choice words for our nation's presidents.
On Bush: "He's wonderful. We needed him." - Interview with Salon, 2001
On Clinton: "Clinton is a sh*thead and we're glad to be rid of him. And I'm not talking about his sexual exploits. I think we have a chance to do something about education... We should have done it years ago." - Interview with Salon, 2001
On Reagan: "Reagan was our greatest president. He lowered our taxes and gave the money back to the people." - At Comic-Con in 2010
On Obama: "He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon... We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever." - Quoted in Los Angeles Times in 2010
According to fan site Bradbury Media, the writer once declared in an interview all politicians to be fools.
Would love to know what Bradbury had to say about Clinton....
Thanks for those quotes
A great writer and a visionary. Heard him speak about 45 years ago.
The Sound of Summer Running will always epitomize for me what a short story should be and do. And it wasn’t even SF...just one of the best things I ever read.
The last of the great four. Clark, Asimov, Heinlein and Bradbury. Thank you Ray.
Very sad. An icon of conservatism.
An armed society is a polite society.
Robert Heinlein
He was a unique talent.
What really makes me sad/sick is that not only have so few youth today ever read him, but they don’t even know how he was. Or care. Reading for pleasure, and I don’t mean a Facebook page, is almost dead. It’s dying with Gen X as so few Millenials seem to care for the idea of sitting down with a good book.
I feel sorry for them. There is no greater pleasure one can have fully clothed than a walk through a used book store and the very smell of all that ‘mind food’.
My apologies, that should be Clarke. I keep forgetting the e.
Please allow me to riff a little. What really makes me sad/sick is that today is the 68th anniversary of D-Day and so few youth today don’t even know what happened that day, or for that matter, what WWII was all about. Or care. Not that most of the post gen-x’ers ignore honoring our Heroes willfully or from disrespect, but because the total failure of our educational system to teach American history.
If there is one positive thing to consider, the blessings of our modern society, which to the old guard sifi writers would be both fantastic but familiar if they could have somehow been transported to our time, allow those who wish to to explore areas of interest throughout their lifetime. I would like to think that, as these youths grow up they will recognize the importance of the history of our country and take it upon themselves to learn using all of the modern tools of the information age.
I read sifi extensively as a youth in the 60’s, so I read Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, among others, but I never read them as part of a public school assignment, I read them in spite of what I was supposed to be reading for English or History. It may take a little while but I dare say, give the yutes some time and if they're interested they will discover the old masters on their own.
Just a side-note, I've helped install home theater systems in a dozen or so houses, many in the 7 figure price range and only in about 10% of these houses, (we're talking doctors, lawyers and scions of industry) was there anything approaching a bookshelf or personal library.
R.I.P. Mr. Bradbury, he will be missed, and how nice to know that he was a Conservative and a Patriot to boot.
I can’t disagree.
But it really is the same subject overall. And education is at the core. Today’s kids aren’t taught there is value in knowing history, in the ‘real’ sense or fictional literature. Which is of course, by design. Orwell nailed it. If you cannot formulate a doubleplus ungood thought, or have reference to a doubleplus ungood idea from the past, your mind can be filled with whatever Big Brother believes is the correct positions for you to hold. At the moment.
Bookstores, especially used book stores, are a joy for the mind and senses.
‘time enough for love’ and various other novels about Lazarus Long....
was Robert Heinlein’s work, not Bradbury...
. There was a grandeur and austerity to the older writers though that seems to be missing now. The focus now seems to be on more personal, intimate portrayals rather than archetypes.
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You defined the difference so well. Thanks
Thanks montag813.
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