Post by Chris BuckleyPost by Ted Nolan <tednolan>Post by Robert CarnegiePost by James NicollThe 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion
https://www.patreon.com/posts/98498779
also, there's some BBC coverage here.
Nearer to the end of a 45 minute radio show.
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001w8cd>
And incidentally, celebrity book club
"A Good Read" picked up _The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy_, today.
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001w73r>
So, can 2023 be opened for "Retrospective Hugo Awards"?
Doubt it.
Just do whatever is necessary to never, ever, let a Worldcon be awarded to
the likes of the People’s Republic again.
Pretty much everybody agrees with this, but exactly what is to be done is
much more problematic.
1. It's going to take time. Changes need to be approved by two consecutive
WorldCon business meetings. So we're talking about 3 years from now.
2. There's going to be a large debate just considering site selection.
Eg, there's a quite large contingent that wants to eliminate Uganda because
of its strong anti-gay laws (Uganda has been organizing a bid for the
first African WorldCon). There's another contingent lobbying against
several Eastern European countries like Hungary for both anti-gay and
repression reasons. There's another contingent that wants to make sure
Texas and Florida can never get a WorldCon.
Good luck with any of that. Pretty much all of English-speaking Africa (and
the Caribbean) has ’strong’ anti-gay laws, thanks to HM Gov in London.
French-speaking Africa (and the Caribbean) has similar laws, thanks to French
colonialism... except for the bits which are now ‘Overseas Departments’
of France, which have current French law. If Britain had gone the ‘overseas
department’ route, the way France and the Netherlands did, the law would be
different. As it is, for quite some time the final court of appeals in much
of the ex-Empire were the Law Lords of HM’s Privy Council. The Privy
Council has been kicked out of most of the ex-Empire for several reasons,
including a desire to apply current British law, making it difficult when
ex-colonies wanted to hang miscreants. The screaming from Jamaica when the
Law Lords declard chunks of the Gun Court Act to be unconstitutional could be
heard in London, without need for radio or telephone, and the Caribbean Court
of Appeal was set up as a direct response. If Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad,
etc. had been overseas departments of Britain, complete with the ability to
vote in UK general elections and to send reps to Parliament in Britain,
things might have been different. If Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, etc. had been
overseas departments, things would have been very different.
As for Texas and Florida... I don’t know about Abbot in Texas, but Ron
DeSatan’s days are numbered. He has Offended The Mouse. The Mouse does not
forgive. The Mouse does not forget. Hell waits for thee.
Post by Chris Buckley3. Then there's the entire debate about whether and how much to
separate the WorldCon and Hugo Awards. Deep philosophical divisions
here.
should have been done decades ago.
Post by Chris BuckleyIf they try to do something minimal in Glasgow (this year's WorldCon)
like just adopting the voluntary actions that Glasgow has already
announced, then that should get adopted for the third year. But with
all the more ambitious proposals, we have the potential to cause
schisms which are a very dangerous in a 99% amateur volunteer
community!
storm in a teacup. Most fans don’t care. if they cared, something would
have been done about the Hugos a long time ago.