Finally, the question of WHY the mad right (and parts of the left) wage war vs. nerds?

Am I exaggerating when I call this phase of the U.S. Civil War an outright campaign against smart people? 

Earlier I referred you to when Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, while campaigning for Herschel Walker in Georgia, made this so explicitly by repeatedly taunting kale-eating “high-IQ stupid people.” The same folks who are dissed as “snobs” by Tucker Carlson and his Ivy League colleagues who fake folksy accents on Fox. 

It didn't begin in 2011, when Rush Limbaugh started his crusade against the "Four corners of deceit" (science, media, government, and academia), proclaiming, "Only *I* will tell you the truth." But the jeremiads against all fact-using professions accelerated, after he got away with it.

Today, tsunamis of bile spew at every kind of nerdy people... as well as the very concept of objective reality as the Risen Confederacy foments against every single U.S. profession that heeds things called 'facts.' Science, medicine, law, journalism, teaching, civil service... name ONE exception! Hate toward all Folks Who Know Stuff... 

...now screeching also at intel/FBI/military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on Terror. 

See my posting: Waging War on Expertise. (Where I also shine light upon the far smaller - but almost equally noxious - fraction of folks on the postmodernist left who follow an eerily similar pattern! But who are presently a microscopically-smaller danger. For now.) And in that posting I asked the obvious question.

Why? 

Why this all-out campaign, that no less than Mark Twain and Robert Heinlein described as an abiding, poisonous current that flows through zones of the American character?

Why? I can only offer theories... some that you may not have seen before. 

First. Culturally, MAGA/confederates are enraged by cities and universities and knowledge professions for a deep, psychic reason that's rooted in an annual trauma! Every year the best and brightest from every high school, in every small town, hug and promise to keep in touch... then head off to bright lights and colleges, then come back changed (if they return at all). 

If you squint a bit, it’s amazing how closely this recurring trauma resembles the classic archetype of 'elves stealing your children' that recurred in a very large fraction of past cultures. And it is so sad that no one has studied this.

Second. The fact professions refute almost every meme on the mad right. Certainly 98% of what's said on Fox. Hence, all fact-using professions must be discredited! Yes, even military officers - lest they utter those hated words "Sir, that's just not true."

Above all, the Foxite war against all fact professions is about power. 

The world oligarchic putsch – aimed at restoring aristocratic rule based upon inherited position and wealth - is resisted foremost by folks who have some power, but who gained it meritocratically, in accountable professions like law and science. People with ability to thwart feudalism's return, who are loyal to the enlightenment experiment: scientists, teachers, civil servants, Law, Medicine, intel, journalism. 

Think about it. All egalitarian, meritocratic professions must be discredited before any lapse back into the 6000 year pattern of inheritance-based feudalism can fully take hold. 

I do not say this to disrespect the victims who suffer most because of confederatism! But do please think about it, asking: what do the uber-powerful have to fear from the powerless? Racism and all that are real and horrible! But to the oligarchs, such dog whistles are just tools to rile up their MAGA grunts. 

Again (and again) this is not zero-sum! The oligarchs' foremost enemies, who they actually fear, those with real power to resist and protect the Enlightenment Experiment...

...are the nerds.

== Oh you poor oligarchs, but even more pitiable Donald ==

If they weren’t the epitome of evil, I’d feel sorry for the oligarch masters of the Republican Party, right now. They're in a tough spot!  

Like the Prussian aristocracy in 1933, they found that their populist rabble-rouser was hard to control, once in power.  Oh, this time it worked much better for the aristos… Trump and McConnell et. al. proved obedient regarding policy matters – delivering tax cuts for the rich and demolishing American politics as a tool for negotiation and adaptation. 

Moreover, the MAGA Confederate mob hasn’t turned on their masters, the way Hitler & co. did.  Not quite. Not yet.

But Trump’s antics and spewings drove nearly all fact people out of the Republican Party, including most members of the U.S. military officer corps, FBI and intel agents and nearly all skilled professionals.  Moreover, grand juries across the nation – composed largely of white retirees – are indicting GOP factotums at staggering rates. Trump personally turned what was to have been a Red Wave midterm election into an embarrassing fizzle…

…and now ol’ Donald seems determined to make continued support for him openly synonymous with outright, explicit treason, with his demand to suspend the Constitution of the United States. 

Moreover, while potentially smoother successors – like DeSantis - are warming up in the bullpen, Trump has made it clear that he will go after any rivals, hammer and tongs, all the way to dukes n’ nukes. If anyone else gets the GOP nomination, he will take his fanatic wing and leave the Party, going rogue. Perhaps violently rogue.

The Oligarchs and their Foxite shills have experimented with having their other dogs repudiate old Two Scoops, but the craven curs always cave. 

See: “Trump will go away slowly, then all at once.”    

== Prevent the Howard Beale Option! ==

Hence, the Masters may see only one plausible way out -- a Hail Mary pass! A way to shoot for the win-win. To eliminate their former – now lethally inconvenient – champion while retaining the loyalty of his fervid/frothing base, turning their fury instead against both Democrats and every enlightenment institution.  

Alas, the obvious way to do that was illustrated chillingly in one of the greatest of all movies of all time, Network.

Yes, I refer to the Howard Beale Option.  

Martyrdom. Could anything be more obvious? That is, if they could do it without getting caught. (And hence, we need Henchman Prizes to incentivize whistle blowers, in case that becomes their plan.)

Truly, for the sake of our country and the world – not to mention constitutional enlightenment experiment – we must pray for the continued health of a jibbering-capering, rabid-frothing traitor-madman, and for the continued skill and perseverant guardianship of his Secret Service detail. 

(And yes, with an eye especially on those closest to him!)

We can do our own part, by spreading word that we are wary. That the chief effect of any such martyrdom will be massive whistleblower rewards to lure forth snitching henchmen. And our vow that the words “Howard Beale” will be on everyone’s lips. 

And that the neo-confederacy’s Masters – those Kremlin “ex” commissars and desert murder-princes and casino-mafiosi and hedge lords and inheritance brats and neo-feudalists and Foxite yammerers all know: 

“You made this monster. Now live with what you built.”

== FInal notes ==

“Some of the Kremlin’s blatant falsehoods about the Russian war - aimed at undercutting US aid for Ukraine - are promoted by major figures on the American right, from Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes to ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Fox News star Tucker Carlson….  54 House Republican Freedom Caucus members voted against a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine…”

Don’t tell me it was for budget reasons. Democrats are always effectively more fiscally responsible that Republican administrations.  That’s always. And bet me $$$ on that. (See my posting: Outcomes Matter more than Rhetoric.)

Furthermore, the U.S. and a rapidly strengthening NATO are actually benefiting in certain palpable ways during this conflict, e.g. testing and modernizing technologies and doctrines while brave Ukrainians carry the main burdens, a benefit scarcely visible outside the intel and military officer corps.

(Always recall Trump reacting to Putin's invasion of Ukraine as "Smart, so very smart!" And Michael Flynn and so many other Trumpists openly or covertly lobbying for Moscow.)

Given the spectacular moral imbalance of the two sides and Putin’s dangerous delusionality, there would be more than enough reason to stay staunch in our backing of Zelensky’s brave people. Though in fact, the simmers of pro-Moscow grumbling rising from sectors of the GOP indicate another motive to remain stalwart. 

Their orders from the Kremlin are clear and they dare not disobey for a reason I have asserted for years. Blackmail.

== And... ==

ADDENDUM in the Post – “Casino mogul Steve Wynn's fortune comes not just from Las Vegas but also from gambling hub Macau — making his casino empire there vulnerable to Be-ij-ing's whims. This year, the Department of Justice unsuccessfully attempted to force Wynn to register as a foreign agent due to his ties to that government.” 

Well, he’s not the only gambling mafiosi who is laundering, then channeling funds from the polit bureau directly into the GOP. Look up Sheldon Adelson. In fact ALL gambling czars are huge GOP oligarchs.

...and... finally... in a pair of completely unrelated side notes...

-- December 19 1997… 25 years ago… TITANIC came out, to thunderous success, quickly sinking all competition.  Know what it’s competition was, the same weekend?  THE POSTMAN, of course. In one of the greatest epic fails of release timing ever. Still, Costner’s flick is visually and musically one of the most beautiful ever shot and it’s way big-hearted! I try to look at good qualities and shrug off the rest. And hey, the flick gave me 25 years of something to say to folks in airports.

And RIP my friend, sci fi geek... also pretty darn good musician... David Crosby.

Looking back at Heinlein's Future History - coming true before our eyes.

This one is so pertinent and important, I tried to find a more public venue for it. But one of the tragic consequences of the Trump Era is the decay of op-ed journalism -- everyone recycling the same whines. I'll speak more of this, at the end. But now -- this just can't be put off, any longer.  Prepare to go wide-eyed!

== A chilling forecast: accurate down to the last detail ==

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. – Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100

Robert A. Heinlein’s 1953 "Future History" collection, Revolt in 2100, vividly portrays citizens rising up against an authoritarian theocracy which has taken root in America. A succession of fundamentalist despots have ruled for nearly a century, dating back to the First Prophet, Nehemiah Scudder. John Lyle, a graduate of West Point and now a member of the Prophet's elite guard "Angels of the Lord," joins an underground revolt when he finally begins to question the society under which he always lived: 

"I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy ... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything -- you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." (If This Goes On-- Chapter 6)

Does that sound familiar? Oh, but you ain't seen nothing, yet. Prepare to be amazed.

Sure, Heinlein's voice is different than mine. But he largely raised me, and I deeply resent it when some folks lazily dismiss RAH as a "right winger" or even "fascist." Sure, there are ways in which he reads rather retro, today. And he yelled "get off my lawn!" at hippies who came to pay homage, after Stranger in a Strange Land.

But he truly saw himself as a champion of equal rights and equal opportunity, even if his characters can seem cringeworthy, through modern eyes. His libertarianism is of another, Jeffersonian-Adam Smithian variety, and while he passed through a phase (the way many college sophomores do, today) saying good things about Ayn Rand, he later outgrew that fetish, when he realized it stood not for open competition, but for selfish solipsism, a trait his characters often spoke of despising.

Of course, our chief overlap is seen in that extract, above. Heinlein and I both portray light as the cleanser and liberator. We must all see as much as we can handle, and then more. It is a citizen's duty to look! And yes, to re-examine things we had been comfortable believing.  Transparency is key to reciprocal accountability, which we use to be both free and smart. It is the miracle tool that enables us to question the lies of monsters.

== Amazing prophecy! ==

Is it ironic that the author of a novel about false prophets nailed the future so well? Oh, but it gets much better. Especially the paragraph in bold, below.

Here, I’d like to quote extensively from Revolt in 2100's afterword, “Concerning Stories Never Written,” in which Robert Heinlein takes an incisive look at a possible dark future for our country:

“As for ... the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. 

"It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.

“Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country – Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva’s Zion, Smith’s Nauvoo, and a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance now exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.

“Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not – but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday’s efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck. 

"Throw in a Depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negrosim, and a good large dose of anti-“furriners” in general and anti-intellectuals here at home, and the result might be something quite frightening – particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington."

Jiminy!  Heinlein wrote that in the early 1950s! Is there anything he did not hit right on the head? Heck, he even nailed the dominionist "Prosperity Gospel" so popular among Ted Cruz types, promising fervid followers that their "material heaven here on earth" will come by righteously seizing the property of unbelievers. (Late note: a prosperity gospel preacher keynotes Donald Trump's inauguration.)

Seriously, read his last paragraph (above) again.  Then recall that Heinlein portrayed Nehemiah Scudder taking the White House against the will of a majority, in 2012.  (He also spoke of America sinking into "The Crazy Years.") 

As for you blithe judgers who dismissed Heinlein as a 'fascist'? Shame on you.  He was fighting the good fight before you were born, far more persuasively and effectively than you'll ever be.

Oh, but back to his essay. It gets even more amazing:

“I imagined Nehemiah Scudder as a backwoods evangelist who combined some of the features of John Calvin, Savonarola, Judge Rutherford and Huey Long. His influence was not national until after the death of Mrs. Rachel Biggs…. who left Brother Scudder several millions of dollars with which to establish a television station. Shortly thereafter he teamed up with an ex-Senator from his home state; they placed their affairs in the hands of a major advertising agency and were on their way to fame and fortune. Presently they needed stormtroopers; they revived the Ku Klux Klan in everything but the name – sheets, passwords, grips, and all. It was a “good gimmick” once and still served. Blood at the polls and blood in the streets, but Scudder won the election. The next election was never held.

“Impossible? Remember the Klan in the ‘Twenties – and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and note how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without – mind you – the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed."

Give Heinlein's Revolt in 2100 a read (available for Kindle.)  

Are the parallels with our present situation perfect? Well, no. For one thing, there is the spectacular hypocrisy of U.S. fundamentalist Christians gushing their fervid support for a man who is - in every conceivable measure of action or character - the diametric opposite of Jesus. Even Heinlein could not have written that.  

No, this has to be a clarion call. Members of the American center and moderate-left must get past their clichés... like the insipid stupidity of calling old-fashioned Jeffersonian libertarians like Heinlein "right-wingers." For one thing, anyone who loves science, nowadays is, by definition, no member of that cult.

We must be welcoming of fellow citizens who flee the rising, confederate madness. Soon, these will include waves of 'retiring' U.S. military and intelligence officers, potential allies of stunning value in our task of saving civilization! So do not listen to fools on the far-left, who would spit in the faces of such refugees. The far-left can be as crazy as the entire-right has become. Especially if they would reflexively spurn powerful allies, just because they have good posture and sport crewcuts.

Or powerful inspirations, like the science fiction author and American, Robert A. Heinlein.

Honor the legacy of Heinlein and Pay It Forward! Support the efforts of the Heinlein Society -- which promotes education, blood drives and provides books to veterans.

== Addenda ==

Oh, you don't believe that there is a nationwide cabal of fundamentalists who aim for precisely the scenario that worried Heinlein? Read this. An escapee from the "christofascist" network describes how a million or so children at any time are not only being homeschooled, but indoctrinated to think of themselves as holy warriors, battling a satanic republic. And this is the central goal of Betsy DeVos, our new Secretary of Education.

And yes, central to their belief system are not the words of Jesus, but the diametrically opposite and hate-drenched Book of Revelation.  With hand-rubbing delight, they anticipate the torture and death of you and your loved ones and our nation, followed by eternal torment and damnation, plus an end to all democracy, science, ambition, curiosity, questioning, exploration and every other thing that makes us human. And... oh yes, a violent end to the United States of America. And I did not exaggerate a single word. Every single one of those outcomes is directly and explicitly what they pray for, daily.

Finally... A Scottish newspaper listed coverage of the Trump Inauguration as a Twilight Zone reboot: "The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history. Sci-fi writers have often dabbled with alternative history stories... It sounds far-fetched, and it is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible..."

== The meta problem, here ==

I had saved up this posting, offering it to every venue I could find (or shortened versions, eliminating my personal voice.) It is interesting, effective and different. But there is the rub.

Look, there's one more factor at work now. Fear. When that emotion reigns, even the side that believes in openness and originality shuts down psychologically. At the very moment when we need a wide stance and originality, mass media have circled the wagons, allocating op-ed soapboxes to pals who re-word the same whines, over and over.

Like the latest wave of ill-considered reactions, screaming about the Trumps' increase in military spending, as liberals fall for a baited trap, reflexively shouting hate at the Military Officer Corps, spurning another set of victims, another fact-centered profession. This is the stupidest thing we could possibly do, right now.

It's not that they are wrong in opposing this tsunami of Confederate madness! Their mistake is a belief that the Union can win this phase of civil war with "resistance" alone, pushing back with grunting sumo.  Again and again I cry - as Heinlein did - that this is a time for agility.  For judo.

Altering human via genetic engineering? The "Heinlein Solution?"

This fascinating (if long) essay - Engineering the Perfect Baby (from Technology Review) - explores the scientific and moral ramifications of “germ cell genetic engineering” or the changing of genomes in ways that can be inherited and passed-down, parent to naturally conceived child. 

And while we may shrug or even cheer, if we see a mother elephant give birth to a fertile woolly mammoth, some time in the next 20 years, it is both enticing and worrisome to imagine we might rush into “designing” or pre-modifying human babies -- selecting desirable traits and eliminating genes that cause inherited diseases.

Worrisome… but also inevitable.  As with most new era quandaries, the real question is .... “How do you plan to stop it?”  

"Any scientist with molecular biology skills and knowledge of how to work with embryos is going to be able to do this," according to Jennifer Doudna, a biological researcher at UC Berkeley.

== Should We Regulate? ==

The reflex to pass laws and ban something seems nearly universal… and nearly always turns out wrong, since all you’ll do is drive the endeavor underground, into secret dabbling by the uber-castes — the perfect formula for uncriticized plans to go awry and give us Hollywood-Crichtonian dire scenarios. 

Much better is the true science fiction film GATTACA, which portrays a society genuinely concerned over the injustices and grappling with how to solve the problems.

In this case, the dullard tendencies of the punditry-class are especially evident.  It never seems to occur to even smart science reporters - let along dogmatists of right and left - to use a finger and trace the trend lines... realizing that what's impossible today will likely be expensive in ten years… and cheap as dirt a decade after that.

Many countries ban or regulate germ-line engineering, and leading scientists have recently called for a summit to discuss these issues, saying that researchers should accept a self-imposed moratorium on techniques that could lead to genetically altered children.

I do not oppose all such pre-discussions or moratoria!  Indeed, I want one on METI or “Messaging to ET” until we have a chance to talk it over. (See a more extensive writeup here.)  But notice that yet again, my theme is opening up a field to the widest argument and range of ideas.

Bans and prudish renunciation will not solve the problem of human germ cell engineering. 

Nor will the simplistic assumption that all choices have to be black and white, zero sum, either-or.

== A potential positive-sum? ==

Are there conceivable win-win scenarios, in which we might get many of the benefits, while minimizing most downsides? That very question is offensive to the dogmatic purist.  But it is how we got all known benefits of the modern world. Moreover, that fact seems worth raising, from time to time, as simplistic reflexes dominate most of our indignation-soaked politics.

In fact, these issues were explored far earlier than most pundits realize. Aldous Huxley, when writing Brave New World, discussed germ cell engineering with scores of that era’s finest minds, as did science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, when he wrote his classic novel Beyond This Horizon.

(As I say elsewhere, it is the second half of this novel that is “classic” and thought provoking.  The first half is to be endured or skimmed, on your way to the fascinating parts. Not the usual Heinlein pattern, which is more generally the reverse.)

Those discussing germ-line engineering would be startled by Heinlein’s startlingly simple suggestion for how to deal with the moral quandaries of genetic engineering — what’s now called the “Heinlein Solution” — allowing couples to select which naturally produced sperm and ova they want to combine into a child, but forbidding them to actually alter the natural human genome.

Consider the elegance of this proposed compromise. Thus, the resulting child, while “best” in many ways (free of any disease genes, etc), will still be one that the couple might have had naturally. 

Gradual human improvement, without any of the outrageously hubristic meddling that wise people rightfully fear. (No fashionable feathers or lizard tails, just kids who are the healthiest and smartest and strongest that the parents might have had, anyway.) 

It is a notion so insightful that biologists 40 years later have only recently started to discuss what may turn out to be Heinlein’s principal source of fame, centuries from now.

Honoring Ray Bradbury ... by Exploring Tomorrow

My friend Ray Bradbury passed away this morning. While 91 is certainly a ripe and full age, especially for a revered figure who leaves behind a vast and highly esteemed legacy, there is still a certain bittersweet, knowing that he worked until the very end. Science-fiction authors never retire, you see. The need to spin yarns — to weave dreams about tomorrow — is always the last thing to go.

At Salon Magazine's request, I wrote this tribute to Ray Bradbury: American Optimist. It was therapy-solace, on the day that my fellow Los Angeles High School alumnus graduated from our Earthly plane... leaving this particular world less colorful, less passion-filled today.

Ray was the last living member of a “BACH” quartet — writers who transformed science fiction from a pulp magazine ghetto into a genre for hardcover bestsellers. Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke and Robert Heinlein helped shatter barriers for the rest of us, establishing the legitimacy of literature that explores possible or plausible tomorrows. But it was Bradbury who made clear to everyone that science fiction can be art. An art form combining boldness and broad horizons with sheer, unadulterated beauty.

And love. Ray always spoke of it. Love of possibilities and imagination. Love of language, the rolling of phrases off tongue and pen. Also hope, without which, love is sterile.

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born in 1920, in Illinois, but at age 13 became a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, graduating from L.A. High School in 1938 … exactly 30 years before I did. Among many early influences on a fertile young imagination was the (way cool, to a child) fact that one ancestress had been executed as a witch in Salem, Mass., in the 1600s. He described the lasting impressions left by early Lon Chaney films, or when a stage magician touched him on the nose with an electric sword, commanding him to “live forever!” Like my own father, he nurtured his love of writing in free public libraries and while hawking newspapers on Depression-era street corners. And, as did many authors who followed, he got his start writing stories for mimeographed fan publications, climbing gradually upward while honing his craft.

Sometimes luck can strike like lightning. When Ray got the celebrated British expatriate  writer Christopher Isherwood to take a look at the manuscript for The Martian Chronicles, the resulting review launched Bradbury … well … not out of poverty, not yet, but into a career. One that later took him through Hollywood, scripting films like “Moby Dick,” as well as into television and punditry, all while helping raise four daughters and penning one luminous book after another, exploring the edges of the barely plausible.

But I’m not here to write a biography. This is an appreciation and, hence, in keeping with Ray’s own style, let me give way to impulse. To passion.

Indeed, I referred earlier to Ray’s fervent dedication to love and hope and the power of words that yank at us, compelling empathy. But there was another emotion that he would evoke, from time to time. One that always left a lasting impression on audiences, when he gave one of his popular lectures.

Onstage, Ray Bradbury could wax eloquently and vociferously angry at one thing, at one human trait — cynicism. The lazy habit of relishing gloom. The sarcastic playground sneer that used to wound him, and all other bright kids, punishing them for believing, fervently, in a better tomorrow.

Ray had one word for it. Treason. Against a world and humanity that has improved, prodigiously, inarguably, fantastically more than any other generation ever improved, and not just with technological wonders, but in ethics and behavior, at last taking so many nasty habits that our ancestors took for granted — like racism or sexism or class prejudice — and, if not eliminating them, then at least putting them in ill repute. Ray spoke of the way violence has declined, worldwide, long before Harvard professor Steven Pinker clarified the case, in his recent book “The Better Angels of our Nature.”

Yes, Bradbury’s stories and novels often plunged fearlessly into dark, foreboding themes. The world ends in The Illustrated Man and we decline into Big Brother levels of dystopia by the unusual path of liberal political correctness in Fahrenheit 451. We are reminded of villainy in Something Wicked This Way Comes. After reading Bradbury's short story, “All Summer in a Day,” the reader knows with utter clarity, how basic is the tendency toward cruelty, and that childhood is neither pure nor innocent.

Could anyone reconcile this chain of chillers with overall optimism?  Ray did. Human beings are fretful creatures, he said. Our skulking worries often cause us to shine light in dismal corners, and thus help us to do better! To be better.

Good literature has that power.  Indeed, science fiction offers writers a chance to create that most potent work, of which “Fahrenheit 451″ is a prime example. The self-preventing prophecy that so shakes up readers that millions of them gird themselves to prevent the nightmare from ever coming true. That’s power.

Moreover, even someday, when we’ve tamed our surface selves, growing up in our fair interactions and behaviors, partaking of a mature civilization, there will still endure, below the patina, a roiling, molten species, fevered with impulses and wild dreams. Far from becoming pallid beings, we’ll love to tell ghost stories by firelight and shiver at the touch of chill fingers up the spine. Why would we ever give that up?

Ray Bradbury saw optimistic progress and dark fantasy as partners, not opposites. On camera, during the moon landings, he could not stay in his seat! And he demanded that others get out of theirs. Long before Peter Finch did it in “Network,” Ray demanded that viewers stand up, step outside and shout!  Only, instead of cynical resentment, he insisted that we “get” what had just happened, how we had – all of us – just become a bit more like gods.

Those who yawn at such achievements, he denounced, calling them “ingrates.” And ingratitude he deemed one of the lowest human vices.

Ray was grateful, always, for what life had allowed a geeky youngster to do. I am thankful that he was my friend. And we who love both words and freedom of the mind should all feel gratitude today. For all those wonderful words.

And so long, Ray.  Thanks for all the stories.

=====

Speaking of Salon, my author's page as a columnist-contributor offers a review of articles that range in topic from transparency and freedom to Tolkien and Star Wars. From how to help Haiti to "Why Johnny can't code." From admiring Ray Bradbury to how the internet may be turning us into "gods." Unlike blog entries, these articles were crafted with meticulous and provocative (and eloquent!) care.

== Book Tour Events ==

In the coming newsletter and at davidbrin.com you’ll find a schedule of both live events and chances to meet/chat with me online. Virtual channels will range from Twitter to Reddit to a vivid new (beta) video chat room. Hope to either see or "see" you soon!

==Also in the Realm of Science Fiction == 

The New Yorker magazine published "The Science Fiction Issue," with stories and essays by Jonathan Lethem, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, China Mieville, Junot Diaz, Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan, William Gibson, and others. Has the literary mainstream changed its collective mind about SF and its readers? Judging by its selections, what does The New Yorker think Science Fiction is all about?

=Was The Uplift War also good anthropology?=

Are human beings natural athletes? In All Men Can't Jump, on Slate, David Stipp contends that our greatest leapers, jumpers, sprinters and so on would seem hilarious to the animals out there whose four-legged gallops nearly always leave us in a cloud of dust.  Stipp goes on to make a point that I illustrated with Robert Onmeagle’s race across a continent in The Uplift War, that humans excel at one sport, above all - long distance running.  For about a dozen reasons, we are the masters at this art and it may have been crucial in both our survival and evolution.

Still, I must quibble with Stipp’s exaggeration, his claim that long distance running is our only physical species superlative.  Wrong.  To that you must add anything having to do with precision that a few (not all) humans can achieve. From the delicate movements controlled by finger and thumb, to tonal-sound control more accurate than any bird or whale, to the cosmically difficult task of accurate throwing.  Indeed, University of Washington researcher William Calvin, in The Throwing Madonna, shows just how special this last trait is, how difficult, and how it might even have pushed brain development toward capability for language.

Indeed, the maligned American pastime of baseball may be by-far the greatest and best sport by one criterion, when it comes to emulating and training for genuinely useful Neolithic skills! Think about it.  The game consists of lots of patient waiting and watching (stalking), throwing with incredible accuracy and speed, sprinting, dodging... and hitting moving objects real hard with clubs!  And arguing. Hey, what else could you possibly need?  Now, tell me, how do soccer or basketball prepare you to survive in the wild, hm?

=== And an Old Sci Fi Theme - Marching Morons? ===

Are electronic media and devices lobotomizing the new generation?  Or empowering all of us to reach ever-higher levels of awareness and effective citizenship? Read an excellent perspective on the pros and cons of the modern, wired lifestyle -  The Information: How the Internet gets inside us, by Adam Gopnik.

This New Yorker essay dissecting the debate between cyber transcendentalists techno-grouches covers much the same ground as my Salon Magazine feature, Is the Web Helping Us Evolve? comparing the technology pessimists to those who think the Internet is turning us into gods. Only Gopnik then forges into different territory, offering both greater erudition and some well-crafted insights that - honestly - I never contemplated before.

Compare the two. It is a tall wave that we're surfing.