Happy July 4th!

[L Verge]

Have a wonderful, safe trip, Thomas, and wish our forefathers well. Tell them to send some help to the USA...

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Shortly after I posted the above, my grandson announced that one of his summer reading assignments is Fahrenheit 451. That book was written back in the 1950s, and I vaguely remember it being very controversial when I was finishing elementary school. I went online to refresh my memory (because I know that Grandma will be asked to help interpret it), and one of the opening comments on a site like cliffnotes was this:

"Set in the twenty-fourth century, Fahrenheit 451 introduces a new world in which control of the masses by the media, overpopulation, and censorship has taken over the general population. The individual is not accepted and the intellectual is considered an outlaw. Television has replaced the common perception of family. The fireman is now seen as a flamethrower, a destroyer of books rather than an insurance against fire. Books are considered evil because they make people question and think. The people live in a world with no reminders of history or appreciation of the past; the population receives the present from television."

I couldn't help thinking that what was science fiction 60+ years ago is fast becoming our way of life...