[Recovering_Democrat]

Ray Bradbury grew up in a Baptist home while living in Illinois, Arizona and California.

He is best known for his book "Fahrenheit 451", a book about government censorship of books and thinking. The government uses TELEVISION as a distraction to real thinking, and anyone found with a book has their home and goods burned to the ground.

Bradbury's hero in the novel is a book burner whose mind and heart is changed. He sees the television for what it is: a distraction to keep people from thinking.

I don't know Bradbury's politics, but he was damn right about TV's detrimental effects on the human brain.

I think Bradbury's thoughts on censorship might be a bit different 8 years later--it certainly seems as though some form of "censorship", though not explicit governmental censorship, is rampant in some quarters. "Censorship" as I see it is an act of government, not the market place.

[Recovering_Democrat]

More of what Bradbury said about Moulin Rouge:

It came out a few years ago and won a lot of awards. It has 4,560 half-second clips in it. The camera never stops and holds still. So it clicks off your thinking: you can’t think when you have things bombarding you like that. The average tv commercial of sixty seconds has one hundred twenty half-second clips in it, or one-third of a second. We bombard people with sensation. That subsitutes for thinking.

[PaleoBob]

Bradbury is a paleo lib but his comments here are good. And funny.

[Huck]

I think the film “Network” nailed it a long time ago. I gave up broadcast and cable tv a few years back and haven’t missed it a bit. In fact, I’ve lost all tolerance for it. If I am exposed to it for even a few minutes, it starts to make me sick.

[cuban leaf]

I got rid of TV in the mid-1990’s. Whenever I’m exposed to LOCAL news anywhere in the US, without exception I notice the same thing. They speak and act, literally, like their primary audience is in the 7th grade.

[skeeter]

Read all his major works in high school. I’m not a big si fi fan but loved his stuff.

[television is just wrong]

that is why I stopped watching the news.

[Paladin2]

I’m Montag.

[NRA1995]

My favorite Bradbury book was “The Martian Chronicles.”

[Yossarian]

Obligatory Ping.

[neefer]

he was damn right about TV's detrimental effects on the human brain. I finished reading this book yesterday and agree with you. What I found so interesting is that it was first copy written in 1953. He had such a clear vision of the future - TV's control and degradation of morals. I kept thinking as I read, "Is this guy a conservative?"

[Jack Hydrazine]

I can’t remember who said the following quote.

“Those who don’t read the news are uninformed. Those who do are misinformed.”

[Pearls Before Swine]

"If you watch local news, your head will turn to mush."

And, if you watch national and international news, your head will explode!

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Lorianne]

Brains to Tapioca, one of my all-time favorate Dilbert strips

[Paradox]

TV is great, but it depends on what you watch. I dont watch the news anymore. But history channel, science channel, etc, there are some excellent programs.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[mewzilla]

A link from 2000, with a quote from Kathleen Hall Jamieson.....

The 'Gender Gap' explained: Robbing Peter & Paul to pay Mary!

 "Local news watching makes you dumber," Jamieson said.