“There remains only to mention a prediction that my Fire Chief, Beatty,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
made in 1953, halfway through my book. It had to do with books being<\/p>\n\n\n\n
burned without matches or fire. Because you don’t have to burn books,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
do you, if the world begins to fill up with nonreaders, nonlearners, non-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
knowers? If the world wide-screen-basketball and -footballs itself to<\/p>\n\n\n\n
drown in MTV, no Beattys are needed to ignite the kerosene or hunt the<\/p>\n\n\n\n
reader. If the primary grades suffer meltdown and vanish through the <\/p>\n\n\n\n
cracks and the ventilators of the schoolroom, who, after a while, will know<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or care? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All is not lost, of course. There is still time if we judge teachers, students,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and parents, hold them accountable on the same scale, if we truly test<\/p>\n\n\n\n
teachers, students, and parents, if we make everyone responsible for<\/p>\n\n\n\n
quality, if we ensure that by the end of its sixth year every child in every<\/p>\n\n\n\n
country can live in libraries to learn almost by osmosis, then our drug,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
street gang, rape, and murder scores will suffer themselves near zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Fire Chief, in mid-novel, says it all, predicting the one minute <\/p>\n\n\n\n
TV commercial with three images per second and no respite from <\/p>\n\n\n\n
the bombardment. Listen to him, know what he says, then go sit with<\/p>\n\n\n\n
your child, open a book, and turn the page.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Excerpted from Bradbury’s foreword to “Fahrenheit 451”, published in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1993 by Simon & Schuster INC., Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Americas, New York, NY 10020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Fahrenheit 451” first published in 1951, clearly shows that Ray Bradbury,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, was amazingly omniscient<\/p>\n\n\n\n
concerning the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Islander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“There remains only to mention a prediction that my Fire Chief, Beatty, made in 1953, halfway through my book. It had to do with books being burned without matches or fire. Because you don’t have to burn books, do you, if the world begins to fill up with nonreaders, nonlearners, non- knowers? If the world … Continue reading “Ray Bradbury”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1593","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1594,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1593\/revisions\/1594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}