Huh. A pop mention, and a sad-but-true one.

Vonnegut and Bradbury would be missed for other reasons, but not (I think) because of science or technology that they invented or helped invent. Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke, on the other hand -- absolutely.

Comic is sadly on target for other reasons, too. :/

Well, it gets worse today, although it's sf-irrelevant. I have most of those authors still on the shelf (and still with pride)...

Ah yes, "Tea Partier" is now a handy term of generalized aspersion. "Everyone" knows that anything "Tea Party" is anti-intellectual, no? None of those hicks have read Timothy Leary! Bzzzz. Wrong. As a matter of fact I was unpacking books last night and out came The Game of Life and Neuro-politics.

QED.

Now, now, Robert. I took it as (1) a punch line that fits in the postage-stamp world of modern comic strips and (2) the very common repudiation of that era of writers. Not some kind of sweeping dismissal. It was fashionable for a number of years to make snide comments about Hoffman, Rubin, Dellinger, etc. after having read everything they wrote in a prior time. Witness the vitriol hurled at Alinsky in recent years - hard to work up that much spit unless you're familiar with his writings in the first place.

The tea party managed to make a big enough joke out of itself, anyway. Like the Occupy movement, they managed to take a valid zeitgeist and turn it into an exercise in pointlessness in a stunningly short time.