From: Sean Roach <roach_s@alph.swosu.edu>
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 03:38:09 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: Big Brother is watching you watch Farenheit 451
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970906142352.18e791e6@alph.swosu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 05:56 PM 9/5/97 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
>
...
>BTW, the last copy of F451 I saw really irked me - the cover had
>explanatory notes like "Fahrenheit 451, the temperature that books burn!"
>and stuff about firemen whose job is setting fires.  
>Are today's kids dumbing down, or less literate, or is it just enough
>longer since the book was written that publishers need to try harder to 
>get people to read it?

A varient on the third and the first.
The people now see this and say "so what?, the school boards decision to get
rid of Mark Twain is over a year old."  They see the simple title and don't
see the same high octane comments that they see on movie posters.  "burn,
and fire" probably selling at least 5% more books.
That and even though they realize that a lot of it is old news to them.  It
happened within thier lifetime without thier realizing it.
Everyone, please send a recomendation to your senators and representatives
to please at least watch the movie variations of Farenheit 451 and 1984.
The fact that so much of what was depicted in these books was once fiction
should be noted and expressed.

If teenagers were informed that there was full-frontal-nudity in the 1984
movie, they might even be convinced to watch it.

I didn't see the Farenheit 451 movie, I read the book, I saw part of the
opening, saw one inconsistancy, (teacher where the neighbor was a student),
turned the PBS station off and went to bed.  So, I really don't know if
there is any good stuff there.  (Does the owner of the bible burn on screen?
Does the stand in for Guy Montag get killed on camera by the electric hound?
Does Guy Montag roast the fire chief alive, and do we get to see the flames?
Etc.)