NATIONAL: Science Fiction Great Ray Bradury Dies June 5, 2012

Prolific Sci-Fi writer Ray Bradbury died recently at the age of 91. Author of many science fiction classics, the recent article in The Tribune newspaper provided some inspiration for me as a potential writer, so I'll start with that angle. A sign next to his typewriter says "Don't Think". He said "We are ideas bursting to be born". He advocated writing fast and furiously; second-guessing or editing was NOT part of the his creative process; the important thing is to explode; thinking is a way or preventing disasters but not preparing for the future. As an aspiring writer, I find myself thinking WAY too much, and not EXPLODING enough! In fact, this article yesterday in the Tribune on Bradbury inspired me to get back to writing, including this blog entry!

Bradbury goes on in the Tribune article to describe his early days of writing, which I will summarize here. He never made it to college, but spent 3 days a week in the downtown Los Angeles library reading everything he could get his hands on. It was in those days that he decided he wanted to fill a shelf with books written by him, after he decided that he had graduated from the library at the age of 27. Later, when he wrote one of his best known and read books - Fahrenheit 451 - he was married with 2 toddlers of his own. Looking for a place to write, he discovered the basement of the Library at UCLA, which had a herd of typewriters waiting to be rented at a mere 10 cents an hour. With only $9.80 worth of dimes, he went on to write Fahrenheit 451 in that UCLA basement in an astounding 9 day explosion!

BRADBURY'S FAVORITE BOOK: The Complete Prefaces of George Bernard Shaw. I've never heard of this book, but I'm gonna go out and get it and read it, for sure. How about you? [NOTE: google is not helping me out here, but apparently Bradbury's reference to Shaw's Prefaces needs an explanation. Shaw wrote a preface to each of his many plays. These prefaces provided background viewpoints on the subject matter of the play, often revealing personal biographical details about himself, and often did NOT reference the plays directly. Apparently, these prefaces, often longer than the play themselves, were of such literary quality that Bradbury found their appeal persuading. These prefaces have been pulled together into several different volumes, the most readily available being the one containing prefaces Volume III from 1930 - 1950]. Bradbury's reference to "The Complete Prefaces..." was referring to multiple volumes of prefaces to Shaw's many plays. So I don't have one book to read, but many! Cool.

LESSON TO YOUTH: Don't be discouraged by lack of direction; famous author Bradbury was jobless and poor at age 27 and hanging out in the library! Bet that didn't exactly get the girl! Look where he ended up at 91. Pursue your dreams, and don't be discouraged. Though you don't have forever, you do have a lifetime to explode, as Bradbury's life (and many others) demonstrated.

STATE: Current California Budget Deficit at $15.7 Billion

My liberal buddies may get the impression that I'm a hard core conservative Republican, but that's not accurate: like many folks, I consider myself a problem solver. I look at each issue and try to figure out what would best solve the problem to the benefit of everyone, not just (or even) me.

The bottom line is that our California state government is in the hole every year in recent memory, and our leaders have more or less "kick the can down the road" each year. Budget problems are not solved, but the deck is merely re-shuffled. The losers are those truly in need. Those that don't have a union or a lobbyist to protect them get the shaft. I'm talking about the disabled, the elderly, the homeless, the mentally ill. They lose every time.

You would think that our soft-hearted left-leaning leaders would be the champions of the downtrodden, but ... not really. Read this in our local paper from June 8, 2012: Democrats and Governor Brown Discuss $2 Billion Budget Cuts.

In the article above, Democrats are in disagreement with Gov. Brown over a proposed $2 Billion cut by Brown, hurting "the most unfortunate" amongst us. Though the dems would rather not make those cuts because they hurt the most vulnerable, they have not said where the cuts should be made.

WE CAN START CUTTING HERE: I can provide a place for them to begin. Start with continuing to tax the California rich at one of the highest state income and capital gains taxes in the country - just don't increase those taxes or they'll just leave the state. Next, cut back on pay and perks to the statewide unions - particularly the powerful prison unions - then reduce the number of folks in prison for victimless crimes, abolish the Death Penalty (too expensive and nobody gets executed), cut out the boondoggles and senseless projects (start with the $100 Billion bullet train to nowhere), and then see where those cuts take us.