Ray Bradbury seems to be, um, mad about a lot of things

[~~whimsy~~]

Ray Bradbury is mad at President Obama, but it's not about the economy, the war or the plan to a construct a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.

“He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon,” says the iconic author, whose 90th birthday on Aug. 22 will be marked in Los Angeles with more than week's worth of Bradbury film and TV screenings, tributes and other events. “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."

The man who wrote "Fahrenheit 451," "Something Wicked This Way Comes," "The Martian Chronicles," "Dandelion Wine"and "The Illustrated Man" has been called one of America's great dreamers, but his imagination takes him to some dark places when it comes to contemporary politics.

“I think our country is in need of a revolution,” Bradbury said. “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.”

The native of Waukegan, Ill., has never been shy about expressing himself -- he described President Clinton with a word that rhymes with "knithead" back in 2001-- nor is he timid about correcting people when it comes to his own perceived legacy. Bradbury chafes, for instance, at the description of his work as science fiction -- in the past he has pointed out that, to his mind, "Fahrenheit 451"is the only sci-fi book in his vast body of work -- and despite his passion for more national space projects, he is not technology obsessive by any means.

“We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”

Bradbury wrote darkly about bookburning in "Fahrenheit 451," but he sounds ready to use a Kindle for kindling. “I was approached three times during the last year by Internet companies wanting to put my books" on an electronic reading device, he said. "I said to Yahoo, 'Prick up your ears and go to hell.' "

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/08/ray-bradbury-is-sick-of-big-government-our-country-is-in-need-of-a-revolution-.html

I still like his novels.

 

[DJCowboy]

I don't get why people think that the idea of people reading books from electronic devices over actual paper novels is bad. They're reading still :dunno: and we're saving some paper

 

[Mayhem]

Pardon my ignorance but isn't reading off a screen a lot harder on your eyes, over the long term?

 

[~~whimsy~~]

Pardon my ignorance but isn't reading off a screen a lot harder on your eyes, over the long term?

It can be. So is reading a novel from a dim light at night every night.

Thing is I love my book collection. I love buying books, holding a book, flipping the page, and being able to let someone else borrow a book of mine. With a kindle it is rather hard to do such a thing. One can, I think, have a mass quantity of novels within a little piece of technology and put it on a shelf or desk top. It saves space. I will give it that.

Beyond all that, I love my books and being able to go to a book store and buy a book, without having to buy it and wait for it to download.

 

[Mayhem]

It can be. So is reading a novel from a dim light at night every night.

Thing is I love my book collection. I love buying books, holding a book, flipping the page, and being able to let someone else borrow a book of mine. With a kindle it is rather hard to do such a thing. One can, I think, have a mass quantity of novels within a little piece of technology and put it on a shelf or desk top. It saves space. I will give it that.

Beyond all that, I love my books and being able to go to a book store and buy a book, without having to buy it and wait for it to download.

:bowdown: We agree 100%! Screw technology.

 

[D-rock]

A lot of what he says seems well meaning, but also very unfocused and contradictory. Out of all the problems we have I don't know why he would care more about lack of manned space exploration than most other things. That's far from our greatest concerns, and seems like a waste of money when we don't have a lot to spare on luxuries. (Not to mention the negative physiological ramifications that people living in low gravity environments long term like the Moon and Mars would cause.)

 

[Neutron66]

Ray Bradbury is a fucking genius everyone should be thankful for.

The idea that he's 90 years old and a few comments of his have been portrayed to make it sound like he's an angry old man is hilarious.

If you've ever seen him on tv then you know what a jolly, warmhearted, sharp, funny guy he is.

I'm sure he was chuckling when he said some of those things.

 

[titsrock]

I don't get why people think that the idea of people reading books from electronic devices over actual paper novels is bad. They're reading still :dunno: and we're saving some paper

It's been proven that guys who read from hardbound books have dicks 3" bigger than guys who read from Kindles...:1orglaugh

How will hotties know what you're reading at the coffeeshop if you got yer mug buried in a fookin' Kindle? :dunno:

What would Sawyer use? :nono:

 

[Supafly]

We've got too many Internets.

What? There are SEVERAL internets???

Or does he mistake the multitude of websites each as an internet in itself?

 

[bustybbwlover]

What? There are SEVERAL internets???

Or does he mistake the multitude of websites each as an internet in itself?

phone, pc, laptop, psp, ps3, xbox 360 maybe that's what he meant by different internets? :dunno: anyway i didn't know he was so angry at everything still i do like his books especially fahrenheit 451 (it's the first book i read from him and still his best, to me)

 

[LukeEl]

I thought Ray Bradbury passed away, wow he has got to be pushing 80 right?

 

[Cloude]

“He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon,” says the iconic author, whose 90th birthday on Aug. 22 will be marked in Los Angeles with more than week's worth of Bradbury film and TV screenings, tributes and other events. “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."

aaaa

 

[calpoon]

Sounds perfectly sensible to me.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

He's absolutely right. We have about 5 billion more people on this planet than this planet can handle. Yeah, its gonna cost a lot of money, but it'll be worth it in the long haul. But people today don't think about what their descendants will have to deal with. I'll bet as soon as China has an inkling of going to the Moon or Mars we'll be scrambling to get there first.

 

[Ace Bandage]

I'll bet as soon as China has an inkling of going to the Moon or Mars we'll be scrambling to get there first.

We already won the moon race, right?. :dunno:

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

We already won the moon race, right?. :dunno:

He's absolutely right. We have about 5 billion more people on this planet than this planet can handle. Yeah, its gonna cost a lot of money, but it'll be worth it in the long haul. But people today don't think about what their descendants will have to deal with. I'll bet as soon as China has an inkling of going to the Moon or Mars we'll be scrambling to get BACK there first.

Sorry teach, is that better?

 

[D-rock]

He's absolutely right. We have about 5 billion more people on this planet than this planet can handle. Yeah, its gonna cost a lot of money, but it'll be worth it in the long haul. But people today don't think about what their descendants will have to deal with. I'll bet as soon as China has an inkling of going to the Moon or Mars we'll be scrambling to get there first.

Going there is hard and expensive enough but to get to the point of ever living in places other than Earth for a long time in large numbers will take Star-Trek like technology. It's not a good bet to rely on something like that to take care of the problems in the near future.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Going there is hard and expensive enough but to get to the point of ever living in places other than Earth for a long time in large numbers will take Star-Trek like technology. It's not a good bet to rely on something like that to take care of the problems in the near future.

Your right D, it could take hundreds of years, but we have to start sometime and we have the technology to get things going in that direction but not if we're sitting here. I think Obama said he wants a manned mission to Mars in this decade.

 

[maildude]

Thing is, he makes some good points!:2 cents:

 

[calpoon]

Going there is hard and expensive enough but to get to the point of ever living in places other than Earth for a long time in large numbers will take Star-Trek like technology.

How so? The problem only lies in sending ships that need to provide living systems for developed humans and pre-manufactured technology.

Based on the assumption that the planet to be colonized is sufficiently far away and capable of sustaining human life in it's natural environment, then there is no need to send such a ship. It is only necessary to send a small robotic probe containing raw genetic material that can be synthesized (aka. cloned). We already possess the technology to do that and it is cheaper than a typical manned NASA mission to the moon.