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I've been told some people are saying they aren't going to read "Fahrenheit 451" because they think Michael Moore is a jerk.

Whoa, hold on there.

"Fahrenheit 451" is a book. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a movie. And never the twain have met.

In fact, Ray Bradbury published his timely, futuristic novel in 1953, a year before Michael Moore was born.

Michael Moore may be a jerk. And Michael Moore may think Ray Bradbury is a jerk, especially since Bradbury didn't take kindly to Moore lifting the title of his book. Bradbury, now in his early 80s, demanded an apology from Moore for playing off his book's title without permission.

He actually wanted Moore to re-name his documentary.

"Fahrenheit 451" takes its title from the temperature at which book paper burns, although Bradbury admits he just called some firehouse and that was what he was told. He never checked.

Moore has called "Fahrenheit 9/11" the temperature at which freedom burns.

Bradbury wrote his book at a cost of 10 cents an hour - the price to use a typewriter at his public library.

It first appeared serialized in the second, third and fourth editions of a new magazine by an upstart entrepreneur: Hugh Hefner's "Playboy."

Everybody's reading Fahrenheit 451 these days - high school kids, seniors, book clubs, we book-readers at-large - because its the choice of The Big Read, Attleboro's 1 ABC (1 Adventure, 1 Book, 1 Community).

There are a whole slew of activities built around the book that are happening this fall.

I was also told by someone who recently picked up the book that it was hard to read. That's how I remembered it, too, but when I re-read it a few months ago I was surprised at how well it was written.

And it's prophetic, full of things happening right here, right now. Spread the word. And get ready for the fall. And where's your blue pin?

In every column since June 24 I have been giving you an apropos quote to chew on. Here's this week's:

"If children are appalled by what they read, they can close the book at the bottom of page one; if they read further, they will learn what is in the world and in its people, and no parents who have been discerning with their children need fear the outcome." - Curtis Bok, former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice, 1949.

What a world

We live in a world where in a supposedly free country an elected Congress and president last week conspired to enact a law that expands already draconian government power to wiretap phone calls and monitor e-mails on American soil without court oversight.

Where elected town officials entrusted with the welfare and fiscal health of a community can nonchalantly say they haven't gotten around to having the minutes of their meetings typed up for, oh, several months.

And am I the only one who thinks the phrase "she's showing a Hillary" is immediately recognized by millions of Americans and perhaps demeaning to all women?

See you next week.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle and The Siilver City Bulletin. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.

See you next week.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Silver City Bulletin and The Sun Chronicle. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.

Thanks to Mark Cuddy of Attleboro for copies of papers from Akron and Canton, Ohio, he brought back from a trip with his fathjer and his son to Canton to see the latest inductions into the the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Shannon and Linda Smith said "Hi from Denver" by dropping off Denver papers for me at the Taunton Public Library.

Gail Coelho also dropped off papers at the library. "My husband and I took a day trip to Provincetown," she writes. "We enjoyed it, especially the Pirate Museum and Race Point."

Someone also anonymousl;y dropped off papers from Anchorage and Fairbanks in Alaska, and from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Thanks to Sue Bessette from the Larson Senior Center in Attleboro for a copy of The Oregonian from Portland.

"I would like to comment on one feature of this newspaper which my wife brought back from Denmark," writes Sterling Alam of Attleboro. "I wish all newspapers would begin each artucle with a bold type introductiry paragraph as this one does. It could be written so as to encourage the reader to want to know more. It would be an advance over the common habit of reading the paper by reading headlines only."

"We could have brought papers from Sweden, Norway, and Finland and Estonia as well," adds Julie Sophos. "However, they were not in English and space in our luggage was limited." She notes they travelled by airplane, bus, train and ship.

"I've been collecting these forever!" writes Andrea Soucy of Plainville in a note with a stack of papers and magazines from Vermont. "They should stand as proof that the Northeast Kingdom isn't as bucolic and idyllic as some seem to think."

"Thought you might like to have a couplke of newspapers from Bennington, Vt.," write Kay and George Gosselin of Attleboro. "Had a great time and got to visit our nephew who has just moved to the area with his family. He is the new Emergency Room doctor at the local hospital. Beautiful little town."