the Best Fan Writer Hugo has been awarded 40 times, 23 of those times to a working professional writer. In 2001, the award went to the same person who won Best Short Story. By and large, the SF world, pro and fan, doesn't find this extraordinary, because most of us are clear on the idea that "fan" and "pro" are terms for things we do, not for things we are.
Also: the fan Hugo categories are not junior-varsity versions of the pro categories, and "fan" is not the larval stage of "pro".
If these points don't make any difference, then we're talking across irreconcilable value systems. Or, alternately, you simply can't get past the idea that "fan" has to mean "spectator" or "aspirant" or "drooling wannabe." The best thing about the SF subculture is that, frequently, we do better than that.
AMEN!
Preach the truth, Brother Patrick, to all the assembled congregation! We may sin, and commit all manner of follies, but we try; and frequently, we do better!
I particularly love the "Clinton did it too!" defense from the self same blatherers who persist in describing Clinton's terms in office as a cross between the worst scandals of the Grant, Harding, Nixon and Stalin administrations. If he was such an evil and illegal president, how does "Clinton did it" constitute a defense or precedent for a purportedly lawful conservative administration?
Plenty of you reading this were probably fine with this, since for you the words “civil servant†and “union†summon up images of lazy postal workers.
Not in this family!
AFSCME Council 24, in the house!
(And our new title will not be 'Comrade YOURNAMEHERE' or 'Citizen YOURNAMEHERE': one is Commie, the other French. We are merely to be passive consumers, and will be 'Customer YOURNAMEHERE' [except for the growing number of us who will just be known by our prisoner numbers].)
Part of the secret agenda is undoubtedly to punish those nasty people whose unions have not been broken or permanently crippled, and who thus have "gold-plated" healthcare plans. (The corporate executives who scam the laws to use corporate status to give themselves tax-free health care will take the deduction instead.)
Shrub and his allies always like deduction-based tax incentives, not just because they are most valuable to the richest taxpayers, but also because they annoy the middle classes by making taxes more complicated, thus adding to the ranks of those who would fall for a Simplified/Flat Tax scam (again, most valuable to the richest Americans).
The unpaid deniers are still out in force. Little things like truth and honesty won't persuade them out of their conviction that the entire environmental movement is made up of drug-crazed Luddites.
I guess I am just fulfilling Dawn Taylor's prediction.
I am stunned and disgusted that she finds breastfeeding analogous to taking a crap, since "[t]hat's also a natural biological act, and not sexual"! Such a simile reflects a depravity in our culture, not in Ms. Taylor (as far as I know).
Some lines have to be drawn, and LJ is drawing the line on the "breasts are narsty, even when used as biology and/or God intended" side of the line.
Pfaughh.
I've written my congresswoman and both Senators!
Thanks, Teresa; that was just... oh, wow!
This is not mean-spirited. It seeks to shame the shameless. I only wish I could have afforded to make a substantial donation to fund it!
A lot of Christians have been calling out that heretical hatemonger for a long time. He ignores us.
More irritatingly, so does the mainstream press. Their worldview, by and large, is that he is a big-name Christian loudmouth, and therefore a good go-to guy as far as what Christians believe. And he gives good quote!
The cops threatening to shoot the "undesirables" were from the City of Gretna in Jefferson Parish. Jefferson is notoriously racially polarized (22% black), and has been forced into court to defend an election scheme apparently calculated to prevent the election of any black judges.
It voted heavily for Bush, of course: 117,692 Bush to 71,936 for Kerry.
Yup, they obviously chose to stay, because private cars are owned by all Americans who count. The rest just didn't provide properly for themselves, and will have to pay the price for their lack of good planning. Hell, they didn't probably even have the prudence to donate to the Bush campaign.
I feel like the 19th century farmer who is said to have commented, upon seeing an elephant, "There ain't no such animal!"
Sean Bosker wrote:
"This story reminded me of all the bosses and landlords I've had who made me call them by their first names. They were usually former hippies who felt guilty about the fact that they were making money off of me, so I had to pretend to be their friends to assuage their guilt.
I'd much rather have old-fashioned bosses, who have dealt with the fact that they are making money off of me and that they have to make certain concessions to make it work out in their favor. Like fixing the plumbing. These guilt-ridden hypocrites like to be as cheap and bossy as possible, and then make their employees cheer them up about it."
Union organizers encounter this phenomenon all the time: baby-boomers, and even later generations, who think of themselves as hip and Not "The Man" but who act just as much like a greedy bastard boss as any cliche from the past. Especially when they are running a hip, cool, perhaps even nominally not-for-profit enterprise, they just go berserk when confronted with the hideous fact that they are bosses, and are regarded by those whose lives they rule with the same dubiety always reserved for bosses. (Ask anybody who was in on the unionizing drive for Powell's about how they were told it was a shame to pick on the owner of such a wonderful institution.)
Mary Root wrote:
"The phenomenon of blogging must be terrifying to the lower eschelon of freelance writers. Having fought so hard to become a 'published writer,' and now anyone with a computer and internet connection can get their story out to the world. Anyone with an good idea, and able to express it, can become part of the discourse. And it can't be controlled. (OK, it can be controlled, but not to the extent that some would prefer.)"
As a card-carrying member of the lower echelon of freelance writers (National Writers Union/UAW 1981), the assumptions in this post are both bizarre and insulting. Does Ms. Root think we became freelancers in order to become part of some secret priesthood of information control???? I am really puzzled by the underlying unspoken premises of this. I write freelance (book reviews, local journalism, Dungeons & Dragons technical articles) to make a little money. How on Earth does blogging affect that? Can somebody please unfold this?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 1 |
| 2007 | 4 |
| 2006 | 3 |
| 2005 | 8 |
Total: 16 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey:
Show all comments by Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey.