Mugabe and SF Awards

Almost two weeks ago, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe won yet another turn...months after finishing second in the polls. The current issue of Locus Magazine reveals certain winners in their annual Locus Awards poll actually received fewer overall and first-place votes than the runner-ups. In both cases, irregularities have been reported. In Mugabe's case, it was widespread voter fraud and intimidation that drove his opponents to quit the runoff election, leaving him to run unopposed. In the Locus Awards case, subscriber votes were counted twice compared to nonsubscriber ones...after the votes were in, with nothing stating this on the voting ballots.

Predictably, there have been responses to both. In the case of Mugabe, he's facing sanctions, which is but the fair and popular thing to do. In the case of the Locus Awards, there are a few people commenting about how this has skewed the awards, fan participation, and have made hollow Locus's claims that its awards most accurately reflect fan opinion on the previous year's best stories. While I do sympathize with those comments and I do agree that this was a very maladroit handling of matters by Locus, I found myself thinking of something a bit different when reading about it. Here I am, sitting at my computer on a warm summer's day, enjoying a month-long vacation before the school year begins again in August. It is so easy, getting frustrated over something about a matter regarding a hobby, but it's much more difficult it seems to be as passionate, be as eager for change, when it is a matter of another nation's political mismanagement and the brutal mistreatment of its citizens over the past two decades. Kind of puts things in perspective, perhaps. Still doesn't mean that I'm thrilled by this news, however, only that I am not ready to storm the barricades...yet.