I know an ER doctor (a no-longer-friend from high school) who believes passionately that people should not have insurance at all and should have to pay out of pocket for everything.

Because ER care is so affordable.

Jezebel just wrote a weirdly BDSM-shamey (maybe I should say it's weirdly--stop being naive, girl) about 50 Shades of Grey.

ARE YOU A WIZARD?

No, seriously, I just bought the damn e-book Monday night and finished it at lunch today. It is clearly recycled fanfic, it desperately needs nonconsensual editing, and there is one ENORMOUS assumption in there that makes me seethe with raaaaaaage (that people are kinky because of Big Ugly Trauma in their past).

That said, for a novel about BDSM, it's honestly not bad. Er, content-wise. The writing is...better than Dan Brown. That's about all I can say. t edit Was it Twilight fanfic? Because in the scene where the heroine meets the Brooding Dark Hero (think Spader from "Secretary" with a dash of Brosnan from "Thomas Crowne"), she literally trips and falls through his office door, and that is their first meeting. And I thought, "Oh no, you DIDN'T, Bella Swan!"

Speaking of scenes, do any Buffistas who participate therein bump into much raceplay? Is it done as publicly as other sorts of play? Gawker noted it as "advanced"

It's certainly not done publicly in my neck of the woods. I believe at one large weekend-long event (with classes and whatnot) there was a class on raceplay, presented by an African American submissive woman. t edit again Yeah, it was Mollena Williams, who's in the Jezebel article. I've read a little of her writing on it, and I think she'd agree that it's "advanced." I mean, simply because of centuries of ugly societal baggage, there be dragons.

It's complex, to say the least. And as a white woman, I won't even begin to posit whether raceplay is more complex in our society than male dom/female sub (because I think it's very difficult, given patriarchal yadda yadda, to be a woman and ask a man to hit me).

Just imagine what being able to get health insurance from the public sector would do to people trying to start their own business, or wanting to switch jobs to a start-up that can't afford good health insurance. There's a degree of freedom you'd gain for giving up having health care tied to your job.

It's not like you can even say you'll take a little gamble for awhile and get insurance once your business gets going. A gap in coverage can make for big trouble.

The worst thing about that stupid 50 Shades of Grey book is that there are 2 more, and I'll probably buy them.

Remind me why I don't write BDSM novels, again? I could write the HELL out of that shit. (As evidenced by my smoov prose stylings in this very post. Yo.)

Removing the pre-existing conditions clause would do wonders, in and of itself.

Didn't people used to at least give lip service to caring about other humans and not wanting them to suffer?

Didn't people used to at least give lip service to caring about other humans and not wanting them to suffer?

Maybe they were only pretending. I'm 100% serious. They didn't say what they were really thinking until the tide shifted and made it okay to voice the morally bankrupt shit they've believed all along.

Steph, yeah, 50 Shades of Grey was Twilight fanfic originally.

Didn't people used to at least give lip service to caring about other humans and not wanting them to suffer?

Lip service at least, but there's been such a shift to actively not giving a shit about people, especially from certain politicians, that I think they don't care about lip service anymore.

I think you're right about that, Steph...but what I'm wondering is, did the tide really turn?

I mean, I think the tide churned up some ugly shit, but it seems like there's a huge push back. Komen, then the Limbaugh stuff, the state congressdude getting mocked by all his colleagues about the girl scout cookies...

The Dow hit its highest mark since 2007, so I'm still sitting here waiting for all those predictions about the Marxist Black Panther party coming to steal my white girl ass from my home to force me to breed super-socialists as predicted by a bunch of dickheads. Still hasn't happened.

Maybe next week?