(no subject)

[liptonrm_backup]

Ugh, am feeling a little melancholy. Fell right asleep upon returning home last night and had some very vivid dreams. The one I remember the best was about how I was going to marry some guy I had only been on a few dates with and the dream logic of it all was that he was going to die in a few weeks so that made it all right. For some reason my father also had only a few months to live. There was a bit where I was crying on the phone to a friend because the wedding had been announced by someone else on LJ but I hadn't actually told anyone about it and she was upset and I was upset because everything was a mess and everyone was dying and wow. No wonder I can't shake the melancholia.

The Mum watches Lou Dobbs on CNN every single night. It's kind of really annoying. Everytime I see him I can't help but think of the screaming pundit guy in V for Vendetta. The big talking point of the moment is illegal immigration and I can't help but wonder why is this suddenly a big issue? People have been crossing the Mexican border for decades, centuries even, and only now do the pundits feel it's time to talk about it. Srsly. I can't seem to find it in me to get all hot and bothered about people who are only trying to find a better life for themselves and the people they love. I've known illegal immigrants, I talked with a boy who had spent his early childhood living in conditions that would make any American, no matter how impoverished, shudder. His best friend was a rat.

What really gets to me is that people are talking about the wrong things. They're yelling and screaming about security and the economy and how horrible it is for people to want a bit of the American Dream when most of their ancestors came to this country for the exact.same.reason and they're saying nothing about the fact that it's not the immigrants who are at fault for driving down salaries or whatever, it's the businesses. You know what, I'm going to stop right here. I hear enough of this in my family's living room. This is all another reason for why I don't watch the news and avoid cable news networks like the plague. It's all skewed and horrible.

There's a great discussion of fanfic going on over here all spurred by the idiot who tried to sell some of her Star Wars fanfic on Amazon.com. It's fascinating to see all of the different view points but mostly it's satisfying to realize that even the 'professionals' realize that fanfiction is merely an extension of humanity's need to tell stories.

Just thinking about fanfic is already raising my spirits. Now I will eat an apple and walk to the post office and after that I'll think about fanfic some more. =D

Comments

[writerj.livejournal.com]

The illegitimacy of fanfic becomes more and more illusory when compared to such "legitimate works" as How Opal ..., the novel by the supposed 19-year-old wunderkind of literature, which is slowly and devastatingly being revealed as outright plagiarism. As in word-for-word sentences and paragraphs and plots, but passed off as original. Now THAT's bad karma.

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

OMG, I know. I read about that in the NY Times and I could only shake my head. It's one thing to freely admit that you're Mary Sue-ing yourself, it's a completely other thing to try and pass it off as original fiction.

You'd think people would've learned from the Frey Debacle. Srsly.

[elendiari22.livejournal.com]

I agree that the imigration issue is really tetchy and obnoxious, but you have to look at it from a Californian's point of view: it is really hard to get a decent job out here if you don't speak Spanish, and they expect to be fully catered to, like this is still Mexico but with a different econy/language/benefit/whatever. A common attitude in my old high school was "It's cause I'm Mexican, huh?". True, there's nothing wrong with wanting the American Dream, but there definitely needs to be a way to achieve it that doesn't involve sneaking into a country legally. And now I shall crawl back to my corner. :)

Sorry about that little aside. I hope you have a brilliant day and are able to shake the melancholy. Fanfic! Fanfic! Woot!

*hugs*

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I'm a fan of all viewpoints being expressed, just so long as it's not my mother parroting some pundits gross overgeneralizations. =D

Living in South Texas was an interesting experience and quite different from SoCal in a lot of ways, it seems. The border was extremely fluid, I like to joke about how I really served in Northern Mexico. I never got the sense that illegals felt entitled to much of anything, but then people act a lot differently around missionaries.

Yay fanfic! Choose fanfic!

[lil-banik-slave.livejournal.com]

Someone actually tried to sell their fanfic.

*LOL* Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

The stupidity of some people burns. I mean, seriously. *rolls eyes*