Ray Bradbury
88 years old and still fighting. That’s how I hope to be.
Ray Bradbury is fighting, speaking, and fundraising for public libraries in California. The famous sci-fi writer is helping to save the libraries, which are suffering due to declining property tax revenues in the Ventura area. I remember reading Bradbury’s account of writing Fahrenheit 451, where he rented space at a typewriter to start and complete his novel. That’s some serious history. I love this guy’s take on libraries:
“Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”
He also had some funny stuff to say about the internet:
The Internet? Don’t get him started. “The Internet is a big distraction,” Mr. Bradbury barked from his perch in his house in Los Angeles, which is jammed with enormous stuffed animals, videos, DVDs, wooden toys, photographs and books, with things like the National Medal of Arts sort of tossed on a table.
“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’
“It’s distracting,” he continued. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”
Exactly what one would expect a veteran to say!
At the end, it also says he spends his time at the libary in Koreatown, which he often visited as a teenager. There’s our Asian connection. 
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Haha – that’s pretty funny. Mom would totally agree with his stance on libraries – but schools are good too!
I thought that guy was dead. I guess I’m getting him mixed up with Isaac Asimov.
Anyway I liked Bradbury’s seminal works: Fahrenheit 451, Martian Chronicles, etc. I actually liked the movies based on those books. There was a french film Fahrenheit 451, and there was an NBC 2 part movie, the Martian Chronicles. Even though it had the cheapest special effects (and I mean dirt cheap!), I have a fondness for that TV movie, especially Part One.
Bradbury hits it on the head, though, with his observations. Libraries truly are far more valuable than universities, because you can teach yourself and uplift yourself. not that universities aren’t helpful, because they provide you an environment to meet with other students and give you a foundation of knowledge and discipline. but I’ve learned and applied far more from my local libraries, than I ever have from the universities and colleges I attended.
Now the Internet is a bookworm’s delight, because bookworms (like myself) thirst for knowledge. The internet is a world wide library open 24/7.
But like Bradbury said, the internet is a big f-ing distraction. Wasting time does serve a purpose, but if you’re doing it 20 hours a day, then it’s no longer purposeful but lifestyle debilitating.
While the Internet can be a major distraction, it is also a great resource. Nowadays, many universities have open-courseware initiatives and are putting video lectures and materials on the web. With a laptop and internet connection, one can give themselves a world-class education. Myself, I regularly download lectures from Stanford’s website via iTunes and watch them on my portable media player while commuting to work.
But I agree with Mr Bradbury’s stance on colleges and universities. Going to lectures and taking examinations are a formality. You are really teaching yourself.
I love the internet! It helps us to connect and meet with people who would normally be out of reach. It’s amazing how fast info gets transmitted these days. It can really educate people. Look at the whole collaboration that has taken place among Asian Americans.
One aspect where I would totally agree with Bradbury however is novels, books, and other areas of deep thoughts. As of yet–and I don’t know if this will change in the future–the internet is not a good way to transmit deeper stuff. I can’t comment on the Kindle because while I’ve seen one, I have yet to actually read on one.
In terms of my own activities, I blog wayyy too much. I have to nix about one out of every three post ideas that come because I KNOW it will take too much time. I’ve actually been scaling back blogging for my short story writing, and so far, it’s been good. Frank Chin never had to deal with a blogosphere.