Ray Bradbury has died. If you don't know the name, Bradbury belongs in the pantheon of great science fiction writers for his anti-censorship novel Fahrenheit 451 alone.
In a time when right-wing lawmakers in my home state of Tennessee have tried (and failed, at least so far) to ban the use of the word "homosexual" in public school classrooms and right-wing lawmakers in North Carolina have successfully banned the use of climate science models showing a sea-level increase of up to 39 inches between now and 2100, Bradbury's warnings against government thought control seem pretty damn prescient.
And so I mourn, not only for Bradbury, but also for what the wealthy and powerful are doing to our formerly democratic and free-thinking society. Think I'm being melodramatic? Sit back and watch while Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers under the guise of "American Crossroads" spent upwards of a billion dollars smearing first-term President Obama as the sole cause of the current budget deficit.
— Jeff Callahan
Flat Rock
