Rebels: "The Siege of Lothal -- Part 1" (Ep. 2.01)

"I guess there is no going home."

It's Rebels week here at StrangePegs, which means two thing:

1. There will be an episode of Rebels reviewed each day!

2. No politics this week.

Except that it's Rebels, so there's a good chance there will be politics.

So... Kanan isn't happy. His and Hera's small rebel band of hooked up with the larger Rebel Alliance after the events that ended season one, and Kanan is feeling uncomfortable being a part of a larger organization. And taking orders. He really doesn't like having to take orders and be part of a chain of command.

Probably, he doesn't like having Ahsoka around, either, but that's just me saying that.  It doesn't come up in the episode.

Vader's not happy with the fact that our group has joined the larger organism, either, but that's because they're not on Lothal anymore, and Vader wants them back. Which means a plan...

Remember The Empire Strikes Back and that whole part where Han and Leia go to Bespin and... it's trap! This is kind of like that. Vader knows what's going to happen since, you know, he can see the future and all, which makes it a bit unfair. Evidently, Kanan never progressed in his training enough to be able to get glimpses of the future? I don't know. It's not a thing all Jedi can do, anyway, so maybe he just doesn't have that skill.

But, anyway, part of what happens is that Vader and Kallus order Minister Tua to make things... difficult... for the population of Lothal. This also echoes Empire; however, Tua doesn't have the stomach for it. Although she's a good little Nazi, um, Imperial agent, it seems that there are some things that go beyond even her ability to condone, very unlike our very own Republicans who seem just fine with rape as long as it's a good Republican boy doing the raping. [See, I told you. Politics.]

This episode is a good start to the season, and I didn't want to stop watching to write this.

Day 31 (a future history)

Monday, February 19, 2018

Trump announced his new America for Americans program this morning. I’m not really sure what it all means, but it sounds like it’s something special for white people to help white people live all together without anyone who is not white. He said if you’re white and live in a place where mostly minorities live, you can apply to have the government move you to a white neighborhood. They’ll even make sure you get a better house because houses in minority neighborhoods are always trashy. Or something like that.

He also said that if you live in a white neighborhood and have people in it you don’t like being there, minority people, you can apply to have them removed. I think he said relocated. Yeah, relocated because they’re going to have relocation camps.

The scary part is that he made that crying Nazi guy in charge of something called hud. Hud is going to be the organization making sure that America is for Americans. That’s how he said it. But the Nazi guy, when he got his turn to talk, said it was about making something he called a pure ethno state. Something like that. He said ethno state a lot. And he wore some kind of Hitler armband, which was the really scary part, because he was right there on the TV with the president wearing a Nazi thing. AND EVRYONE WAS OKAY WITH IT!

Then, he gave Trump some little gift pin thing, and Trump put it on, and it was also some kind of Nazi thing! He just put it on and everyone clapped and he called it beautiful. It made my stomach hurt like I wanted to throw up and there were people in the auditorium who were crying, but I don’t know who it was or how many.

Then all the stupid little Trump Youth Bastards started cheering and Caleb got up and said he was going to write everyone down – everyone, even teachers – who wasn’t cheering. And he did, too. Or, at least, he pulled out a notebook and started acting like it. Everyone started standing up and there were some claps, but Trump was still talking, so the Asshole (that’s Caleb) started yelling at everyone to shut up.

That didn’t make people quit crying, though. I could still hear sobbing.

It made me think of my friend Tamira, and I quit wondering why they suddenly moved away. I want to move away and I’m white! It all made me sad. I miss Tamira. She didn’t even say goodbye. They just left.

Lots of people have just left. But no one who is white.

And I think some people are just disappearing. Like Mrs. Madison. Because I don’t think she’s ever coming back, and no one is talking about it. Maybe they took her to a “relocation camp.”

Oh, the relocation camps.

Trump made someone called Arpieo in charge of the relocation camps. Arpieo is some other asshole that Trump pardoned, someone who has had his own concentration camps. Or something. I kind of remember when that Arpieo guy got pardoned, but I didn’t care, then. And I didn’t know he was running concentration camps and throwing Mexicans into them. It sounds like he had everything except the gas chambers. I don’t know; it just makes me sick, and I want someone to do something about it, but I guess people are trying to and that’s why we’re in a war.

At the end, Trump says we are now going to be called the American States. The real American States. It was just something he said at the end, but I think that means there is no more United States, which makes sense, I guess, since some states were smart enough to get away from Trump and all of the stuff he stands for.

It’s confusing to keep up with, though, because we’re at war with China and Trump says that it’s China that has taken over those other states, which I know is a lie, because why would you change the name of the country if it was someone else who had taken over part of your land. And Russia is at war with China. And maybe something happened in North Korea, but I don’t know. All I know is that Trump said we were going to do to our enemies what we did to North Korea. And maybe there’s a war in Europe, too, but no one seems to know, only that the “war in Europe” was mentioned at some point.

It all makes me feel stupid because, back when I could know stuff and find things out, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything happening in the world or I was trying to pretend that nothing was happening in the world. I thought everything was just going to be okay because this is (was) America and everything is always okay, even when bad disasters happen, like those hurricanes last year and everyone was freaked out but, after a little while, everything was okay again. And I just want everything to be okay again.

But I guess sometimes things are not just okay and if you want them to be then you have to do something to make it better. I just don’t know what to do. I’m only in middle school.

The Comfort of Lies

Remember The Matrix? Great film, right? Well, it is as long as you pretend the two followups don't exist. Once you embrace the entire trilogy as one story, it kinda sucks. Okay, more than kinda. But, you know, it's okay to pretend; it's only a movie.

But let's explore that idea a little more.
And, you know, if you haven't seen The Matrix... Well, you'll just have to try and keep up, because I'm not explaining the movie in this post.

As you know, Neo has to make a choice, the choice between Reality and the fabricated world of the Matrix. One is real; one is a lie. The choice is symbolized by the two pills pictured above, the red pill or the blue pill. Of course, we all know which choice Neo is going to make, because the movie would be over if he were to choose to stay in the Matrix. Besides, it's the choice we all tell ourselves that we would make. Of course we would choose to forsake the lie!

But, man, Reality really sucks. (Much like the reality of the subsequent two films.)

Which brings us to Cypher. Cypher, having lived in the real world for quite a while, decides he doesn't like it. He decides he would rather live in a comfortable lie than continue to struggle through Reality. Remember, Reality sucks.

So Cypher cuts a deal with the machines and betrays his friends so that he can re-enter the lie, the Matrix.

The general reaction from the audience at the time was one of bafflement. How could he choose to go back into the Matrix knowing it was a lie? How could he?! But, you know, he tells us all the reasons as he's making the deal. He misses the... comfort... of it. The taste of food (rather than protein mush), the feel of the sun and the wind (rather than the blotted out sky), the ease of living as opposed to the constant life-threatening struggle that was Reality.

And, man, I empathize. Reality sucks, especially this current reality where we (in the United States) live on the teetering edge of authoritarianism and fascism. I get why so many people are choosing to believe the lies Trump pushes. It gives them comfort. It's their blue pill. If they can just believe in Trump enough, they can pretend he's not a racist douche bag and, if he's not a racist douche bag, then they, also, are not racist douche bags. And no one wants to be a racist douche bag. I mean, heck, even the white supremacist Nazi assholes try to pretend that they're not racist douche bags; that's why they go with all the "white pride" shit instead. But they're only fooling themselves.

To be fair, it's not like those on the Left aren't sucking on their own blue pills by continually talking about how we've forgotten the "white working class." This, also, is an appeal to racism and white supremacy. "C'mon white people, we're on your side." Seriously, no one forgot the white working class. In all seriousness, the white working class is doing just fine. The white working class, no matter how they feel about it, is still doing better than people of color. Any color. We need to stop talking about the "white working class" and how they feel left behind or whatever bullshit they want to call their racism. All they're really saying is, "We're worried our superior position is in jeopardy." And everyone else is trying to make them feel better about it while people of color are still getting the shit end of the stick.

Let me give you a practical example of the systemic racism in the system:
As I'm writing this, hurricane Irma is losing power, but the damage has already been done. There are about 45 known deaths to the storm and much of Florida is without power at the moment. Of course, just prior to Irma was Harvey. Harvey is responsible for 70 deaths and major flooding in Texas. These two storms caused huge amounts of destruction and have dominated the news for weeks.

However, in the midst of this, Mexico suffered the worst earthquake its had in a century, leaving around 100 dead. The media barely mentioned it and isn't talking about it anymore. And the news hasn't even mentioned that 2017 has been a harsh year for monsoons (hurricanes) in south Asia. The worst year in decades. So far, there have been almost 1300 confirmed deaths due to these storms and over 40 million people affected, including the destruction of more than 700,000 homes and a massive loss of crops due to flooding which is likely to cause food shortages. But, hey, they're not white, so, you know, big deal.

Right?

Look, I'm not diminishing what's happened to people in Houston and in Florida and in the Caribbean. What has happened has been horrible, but it doesn't make it less horrible to remember that other people are suffering, too. Except that, for some people, it does make it less horrible, because, to them, having bought into the Lie, they believe it's Us against Them, anything that happens to Them is okay because they deserve it. Or, maybe, not quite deserve it, but they don't deserve the special protection that white people ought to have from these kinds of events so, somehow, when it happens to white people, it's more tragic. Like when the Greeks only wrote tragedies about nobility because it wasn't tragedy if it happened to the common man.

But we're all common men.

The Lie is that we're not. The Lie is that it's Us (whites) against them (people of any other skin color).

Let me put it another way, to paraphrase Yoda:

My ally is the Truth, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, binds. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Truth flow around you. Here, between you, me, the brown person, and the black, yes, even between all others and the white.

The Truth, what Reality really is, is the we are all us.

We are all us.

(And I didn't even mention the blue pill of climate change denial.)

Angel Island (part two)

America's issues with immigration go way back before Joe Arpaio. In fact, they could be said to have started right here in California. And, really, for all of the same issues. In a nutshell, the Chinese and other Asians flooded into California during the gold rush, much like people from the rest of the world. And there was plenty of cheap labor for them, especially with the construction of the transcontinental railroad. However, when the gold rush died down and the railroad was complete, there was a glut of available bodies in the labor market, and white dudes got scared of losing their jobs, which was the same sort of fear as it is today, considering the Chinese generally did the kinds of low-paying jobs that whites wouldn't take.

But fear is fear.

Or something like that.

All of this lead to the Chinese Exclusion Act which lasted for six decades. Sixty years! During that time, because the Chinese Exclusion Act lead to discrimination against all Asian immigrants, Asians trying to come to America were detained at Angel Island. For weeks. At least. For comparison, European (white) immigrants coming into the United States through Ellis Island had a processing time of a few hours; Asians coming in through Angel Island had a processing time of almost a month. The men were detained in the building pictured above and WERE NOT ALLOWED TO GO OUTSIDE for the duration of their "detention." Now, while I said that the processing time was generally about a month, it was often quite a bit longer than that. Months. Sometimes more than a year.

It wasn't so bad for the women and children... unless you count the part where they were taken away from their husbands and fathers and kept somewhere else. But, hey, they were allowed some brief moments outside.

To deal with the loneliness and depression, the men carved poems into the walls of the detention center.

And here is a translation of one of the poems:

"It's useless to be friends with those of narrow mind."

And, you know, narrow-mindedness is a hallmark of conservatives. It's a fear thing, actually, because fear makes people narrow minded, unable to see possibilities, and conservatives tend to live on fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of others.

That's not an opinion, by the way; it's what research shows.

One of the things that's been said quite a bit by those on the Right who support all of Trump's #fakepresident racist immigration policies (not to mention the Nazis and white supremacists) is, "It's not like we haven't done this kind of thing before." As if a past misdeed makes a future misdeed okay. In fact, the acknowledgement of a past misdeed, like Angel Island or the Japanese internment centers during WWII, should be motivation to not repeat the same mistake.

It's to cut out all of this white supremacist and Nazi bullshit.

What I've Learned from Politics

I've learned that I'm tired of politics. Seriously, I'm not really a political person anyway. Yeah, I see you laughing there, but you should go check this post to understand what I'm talking about.

I've learned that I really liked it when I didn't have to pay attention to the political realm EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY. I think this must be what it's like to live with an abusive alcoholic. You have to always be on guard, always on watch, always paying attention. God, it's tiring. If nothing else, Obama gave us a kind of stability that allowed us to pursue our own lives but, now, every day there is something new and every week, seemingly, some new catastrophe. Because if there's one thing you can count on is that Trump #fakepresident will get drunk every weekend and go on some kind of twitter-rage so that each week begins with some kind of horrible drama.

I've learned that one man can make a difference, but it's not a good one. Political stress is everywhere, not just here but all across the world, and a great deal of it is being caused by ONE FUCKING ASSHOLE with the power to wage nuclear war #fakepresident, and I don't mean the chubby baby in North Korea. The whole world is on edge because of the toddler the US put in the highest office in the world.

I've learned that some people I thought once were pretty decent people have been vile undercover racists and worse all along. I've learned that people who, at this point, are still supporting Trump #fakepresident have no redemption in store for them. If you support a racist, fascist, Nazi-lover; you are a racist, fascist, Nazi-lover. Sorry, you don't get to be a Trump #fakepresident supporter and also try to claim that you're not racist. Not anymore. Not ever, really, but certainly not after Charlottesville and Trump's #fakepresident refusal to condemn the Nazi-instigated violence.

I mean, fuck, even some of the worst Republicans out there, real assholes themselves (Rubio, Hatch), immediately condemned the acts of the Nazis. How hard is it to condemn Nazis? Too hard for Trump #fakepresident and Sessions. So, yeah, Sessions called it domestic terrorism, but it was obvious that he was forced into that position with his whole, "it meets the legal definition" bullshit.

I've learned that the GOP are even bigger assholes than I thought. And complete cowards.

I've learned that talking politics is good for blog traffic, which isn't something I considered when I started doing political posts.

I've also learned that the increased traffic does not lead to more comments or book sales. Which, admittedly, was not a motivation for making the political posts (again, see the link provided above), but it would have been nice. Would be nice.

I've learned to not respond to people who say things like "prove it." It doesn't matter what data or evidence you show them, they will continually tell you that that data and evidence are fake, something they've learned from their Russian-Nazi master #fakepresident.

I've learned that Texas is the hand basket. Except for Austin. Texas has politicians as bad as #fakepresident. It makes me ashamed to have been there and so glad to be away from there.

I've learned that Nazis don't give up. David Duke is still around and pushing his racist KKK agenda decades after trying to be governor of Louisiana. Louisiana is probably the handle of the hand basket.

I've learned that books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 never quit being relevant.

I've learned that intolerance is a thing that can't be tolerated. At all. If it could be tolerated at all, we wouldn't have Nazis inciting violence again and heading us toward a New Civil War. Also, you can see this post where I first talked about that.

I've learned that it's never too late to punch a Nazi in the face.

Repeal and Replace

The Republicans have been talking a lot, lately, about "repeal and replace," not that they have any good plan for that. It's just all about their rabid drive to undo everything the black man did while he was in the White House. They're really a sad, pitiable lot, but I'll wait to pity them once they're no longer in control of things, because, right now, they're rampant destruction of everything good needs to be stopped. [Seriously, it's a government BY the people and FOR the people, but Republicans seem intent on handing everything over to corporations and greed.] Okay, no, I will probably never pity them just like I don't pity anyone who was a Nazi during World War II.

Okay, I'm getting off topic...

Now, just a little more than a week into Trump's presidency and all of the horrible things he's been doing (seriously, he's turning us into the playground bully, and Mexico is his current target to punch on and steal lunch money from (except he calls it "wall" money)), I think it's time for a new approach to Trump's administration.

See, what I've been seeing is people starting to focus on the 2018 midterm elections, and that's good! But I don't think it's good enough or soon enough. Trump's first week was a disaster, and, personally, I'm not into waiting two years before we can begin to mount an effective campaign to stop him. So I think it's time for us to have our own "repeal and replace" strategy.

Before I go on, yes, I know I live in CA and that I'm getting off easy with this idea. I mean, California is THE state setting itself up to be the opposition force to Trump and his agenda. And, well, we have the weight to do it as the 6th largest economy in the WORLD and being a state that gives more to the federal government than it gets back. HOWEVER...

It's like this, the thing that our congressmen, especially those in the House, want most, generally speaking, is to be re-elected. They spend, especially those in the House, inordinate amounts of time on that rather than just doing their jobs. Especially Republican congressmen considering they've spent most of the last decade almost literally doing nothing. So, while starting now on campaigns to get Democrats into office during the 2018 elections is a really good thing, that's still two years away, and incumbents tend to have an advantage during elections.

I don't think we need to wait. It's time to "repeal" some of those congressmen. That sounds so much better than "recall," don't you think? "Sorry, Ted Cruz, you've been repealed." Wouldn't that make such a great headline.

The hitch is that there is no mechanism for that... and it has never happened before. BUT!

Hey! Don't turn away from this just because it sounds impossible. Our government is still, theoretically, by the people and for the people, so, if we the people want a thing done, if enough of us get behind having that thing done, it should be possible to have that thing get done. That said, it's time for a movement to put into effect a recall mechanism, a repeal mechanism, for members of congress.

Some of you are thinking at this point, "Why don't we just go straight for the President?" Two reasons:
1. I think that would be much more difficult and wouldn't produce the desired result.
2. If Trump gets removed from office, that will leave us with Pence, who is possibly worse than Trump. No, he wouldn't spend his time trying to build an implausible wall; he would spend his time doing horrible things like funding conversion therapy.

Wait, wait! What's the desired result?

Well, the ideal result would be putting a mechanism into the Constitution to repeal congressmen. And, yes, that would take a long time, I'm sure, but, in the short run, it would let some Republican congressmen, especially those in the House, know that we are really, REALLY serious about opposing Trump and opposing the whole Conservative agenda that's set to turn our country back more than half a century, destroy the environment, and, possibly, involve us in some major confrontations if not all out war. Republicans who want to get re-elected are going to start listening to their constituents rather than toeing the Republican line. In fact, some of them might start doing the equivalent of grovelling to try to keep their seats.

Trump came into office on this whole idea of change and shaking up the establishment, something he's done NOTHING of. In fact, he's done the opposite by making the government even more establishment and by handing even more of it over to corporations. Now, it's time for us to be the change and to cause the change. It's time to stop Trump, and the best way to do that is stop Republicans. And it's time to do it now.

Clone Wars -- "Blue Shadow Virus" (Ep. 1.17)

-- Fear is a disease; hope is its only cure.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

This is another one-shot episode. I want to like it, but I don't quite, I think. The villain, Dr. Nuvo Vindi, is too cliche, too Nazi mad scientist. He even defends the right of life for a virus, the most deadly virus the galaxy has ever known.

And, fine, I get that. It's an interesting philosophical question. What right do we as humans have to try to eradicate diseases, which are also living things? But I don't think anyone is going to say that any living thing doesn't have the right to try to defend itself against things that are trying to kill it and a disease, by default, is attacking the host. So, yeah, I find the argument that a killer virus has just as much right to life as humans to be a little... weak. To say the least.

The threat is one of biological warfare. Dr. Vindi, working for the Separatists, wants to release a virus that could, potentially, wipe out all life in the galaxy. Of course, it wouldn't affect droids, so the droid army would be able to advantage of the chaos of a plague and defeat the Republic while they tried to halt the spread of the virus. From that perspective, I can't say it's a bad plan. And it mirrors the efforts of certain groups in our world to weaponize diseases for use in war.

Beyond that layer, though, it's just another rescue mission. Padme and Jar Jar, because they go off on their own, get captured by Vindi. Since Anakin's along, the focus is on rescuing Padme even though he knows the stakes are much higher. So we do get to see that some more, that Anakin's attachment to Padme is something that interferes with who he is as a Jedi. It's good development. But I do think I'm ready for them to lay off of the rescue missions for a little while, especially ones that involve Padme getting caught because she goes off like Lois Lane in pursuit of a story knowing that Superman will rescue her.

Okay, well, it's a fine episode. Taken on its own, it's an especially fine episode. Jar Jar is fine. Everything is fine. For the season, though, I don't think this one is particularly strong in comparison to some of the other stories.

Abandoned Places: Vulture Bunker

Travelling back to the Bay of Puck in Poland (remember the torpedo testing base?), we find another World War II era military installation. The Bay of Puck is formed by the Hel peninsula, a sand bar with delusions of grandeur. It actually plays host to several towns and is a popular tourist destination despite the fact that there are times that the peninsula becomes an island, unattached to the rest of Poland. However, it was of strategic importance during World War II, so the Nazis fortified the sucker with the Vulture bunker. Or series of bunkers. Basically, as soon as Germany took Poland, they fortified Hel with these bunkers -- the walls very from four to ten feet thick -- and construction on them was finished in 1939. The bunkers never saw combat.

After World War II, the Polish military put the bunkers to some use, but, at this point, they've mostly been empty and unused for decades.

Photos by Tomasz Jakubowski and used under the linked license.

Your bonus photos today are various abandoned houses in Virginia:

The "Dump House":

The "House of Five Black Doors":

And a church house (okay, a church, so a House of God):

Abandoned Places: Teufelsberg

Teufelsberg, or Devil's Mountain, was made from the ruins of Berlin. Literally. It is one of several mounds in Europe created after World War II from the rubble of destruction. What makes Devil's Mountain unique is that its site was chosen because of what's buried beneath it: Wehrtechnishe Fakultat, a Nazi military college that was never completed. At the end of the war, the Allies attempted to blow it up, but they found that the structure was so well built that it was easier to just bury it. By the time they closed the area to debris disposal in 1972, it was the highest point in West Berlin: 394 feet.

During the 60s, the NSA built one of its largest listening stations atop "The Hill," as it came to be known by the Americans who worked there.

There are rumors that Americans excavated shafts down into the ruins under the mound, but that has never been confirmed. The listening station was decommissioned in the 90s when the Berlin Wall fell. Although the equipment has been removed, the buildings and radar domes remain. Even though it's been fenced off and is actually guarded, the structures have been heavily vandalized.

The following photos are by Liam Davies and used under the linked license.

Also going back to World War II, your bonus photos today are from Torpedowaffenplatz Hexengrund, Nazi torpedo testing station they built in Puck Bay in Poland after they occupied it. Although the Russians briefly occupied the base at the close of the war, the facility has been abandoned since 1945.

And one more! The abandoned Toronto Power Company Generating Station.

The following photos are courtesy of Opacity.

"I don't try to describe the future..."

One of the very first "real" science fiction authors I read was Ray Bradbury. It started with a few short stories from a literature book in middle school, stories we weren't even assigned to read and, then, Farenheit 451 which came off of our reading list but which, also, wasn't assigned. This was around the time we were studying World War II and the concentration camps and Nazi book burning and all of that stuff, so that book had a pretty big impact on me. It's the book that molded my belief that government (or other organizational) censorship is pretty much always bad. Just because I don't believe or like what you have to say doesn't mean I get to tell you not to say it, and I really believe that. Thanks, Ray Bradbury, for helping me to understand that.

He has a great quote that fits really well with 451: "I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it."
I wish there were more science fiction authors writing today that were still trying to prevent the future.

You know, I went to see him speak once. Okay, you didn't know that, but I'm telling you now. It was something like 20 years ago at this point. Well, almost. It was at Centenary College in Louisiana in the gym. Packed. He just sat out in the middle of the gym with a mic and talked for a couple of hours. Even though I don't really remember what all he talked about, he was fascinating, and I remember being pretty enthralled by it all. There was one thing, though; he talked about the story "Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?" which is one of my absolute favorite stories by him, because I was that boy. I wanted to be a dinosaur when I grew up, and, failing that, I wanted to be a paleontologist, which I also failed at, because I found out you had to learn about rocks, and I hate rocks. I did, however, fail to get anything signed by him, because I didn't know they were going to allow signing after he spoke (especially considering the whole thing was in  the evening to begin with, and it was, like, 9:30 by  the time he finished), so I didn't take anything with me. I didn't have any editions of his books that I would have considered worthy of a signature anyway.

My favorite of his is The Martian Chronicles. And, now, I want to go read it again. And Farenheit, which my younger son just started reading a few days ago, actually. I figured I'd introduce it to him around the same age I was. I tried with my older son, but he felt it was too weird for him or something back when he was 12ish and wouldn't read it.

There have been a lot of stories I've loved over the years. A lot. But, even if I love them, most of them don't impact me at all. Don't change me. Bradbury was not one of those writers. He wrote stories that have hung around in my mind for three decades. The image of the boy and his sharp teeth and the dog being scared of him will always be in my mind. The weird reproduction of the House of Usher in Martian Chronicles has never faded. And, most of all, my belief that censorship (a fireless form of book burning) is wrong has never been brighter, but Bradbury struck the match that started that flame.

He may be gone, now, but, at least, the things that he wrote will continue on, and he can continue to light those fires in new, young minds. In my own writing career, I think, that's the very most that I hope for, that something I write will be worth going on after I'm gone. Not a Bradbury, but, maybe, just a shadow of him.

In case you don't know, he had a lot to say about being a writer. One of those things was that you jump off the cliff and figure out how to fly on your way down. It makes me wonder if that's where Douglas Adams got that idea, but that bit about flying in Hitchhiker's has always been my favorite part.

And here are a few more quotes to leave you with:

"I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it."

"I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories."

"My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off."


And, possibly, my favorite:

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."