Health Care Bills and Protests

March 21st, 2010 by Brianna

The health care reform bill just passed, and there’s a bunch of unhappy people all over the country.

I won’t pretend to understand the issue completely (I got bored and stopped following it closely a long time ago). But if the summaries are correct, (and the CBO is accurate, which seems reasonable), we’ll get a moderate reduction in the deficit, some new taxes for the rich and people who use tanning salons, some decent subsidy expansions for low-income people, and some mild tweaks to medicaid and medicare. All quite undramatic, really.

All of which makes the protests quite bewildering.
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On warming to fanfic

March 1st, 2010 by Brianna

When I first heard about fan fiction, I thought it was the Worst. Idea. Ever. By a long shot. Why not be original?, I thought. It seemed so… dishonest, almost like stealing. And slash (actually, shipping generally) seemed to be downright obnoxious. The characters are author’s, right?

Then, of course, I learned about textual analysis, and the whole concept that each reader constructs their own reading of each work, only truly applying to them. Fine. But still – fan-fiction’s different, right?

Not so much. On the off chance that you still can’t stand it (or want to convince someone else), here are some thoughts:

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