Fahrenheit 451 is, of course, the temperature at which paper burns.

But the book of the same name -- I read it, I think, in Grade 12 or something -- is an anti-utopian tale that warns against state control of thought and the dangers of state censorship. And when I saw the movie version, I was sure of that point.

That book is one of the core books of my life. I take Northrop Frye's message that the point of the artist in modern society is to imagine the future and help us move toward it. Ray Bradbury, it seemed to me, imagined a future we ought to want to avoid. And I was moved by Bradbury's vision, in part, to do what I've been doing since I was 16 -- to be a journalist that is not afraid to "speak truth to power", to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable", and mostly to press for as much public transparency as possible when it comes to the machinery of the state.

Well, now comes along the guy who wrote the bloody book (left) and says it has nothing to do with all that! (Click on "Bradbury on Censorship/Television). And, not only that, he says what I'm doing for a living nowadays is "moronic"!

"Fahrenheit's not about censorship. It's about the moronic influence of popular culture through local TV news, the proliferation of giant screens, and the bombardment of factoids."

Sheesh .... :)