ray bradbury

Balloon Boy, Drifting 'Downwind From Gettysburg'

It will never happen, I realize. Too much money. Too much publicity. But I know what I'd like to see happen to the man who set up the "Balloon Boy" hoax, which my colleague Melinda Henneberger weighed in on earlier this week. Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury offered the prescription back in 1969 in a short story called "Downwind From Gettysburg." This is a tale of a man who builds a mechanical, computerized Abraham Lincoln exhibit -- which a publicity hound named Booth shoots and wrecks. Here's what the creator of the Lincoln robot does to punish Booth: "It never happened, Mr. Booth. Tell ...

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