Some days the world deserves to be kicked where it hurts.

[odditycollector]

I'm not in the right frame of mind to finish up the five things meme right now. I am much too angry, and I have to wait until tomorrow to deal with the root cause.

So I went on the internet in an attempt to distract myself, where I learned that Harlan Ellison groped Connie Willis onstage at the Hugo Awards, (and also assaulted another author whose book I do not know, but seems to be rated quite high on amazon.com).

And. I could not properly parse this new happening. I had to break it down into concepts small enough for my brain to digest.

Harlan Ellison.

Sexually assaulted.

Connie fucking *Willis*.

Onstage.

That is, in front of an audience.

At the Fucking Hugo Awards.

(And he was entirely inappropriate off-stage, in case that makes it okay.)

WHAT THE FUCK, WORLD, WHAT THE FUCK.

I scanned over Google News to see what sort reaction the press had to this and. Nothing. Not one article that I saw felt it worth mentioning.

I'm wondering, is it just because these are the *Hugo Awards*, and this kind of shit should be tolerated at the highest recognition ceremony the speculative fiction genre has? Would "Emmy Winner Groped Onstage By Fellow Nominee" have been considered news? Or only if the Fellow Nominee didn't think it was funny.

More people should be ANGRY. And pnh explained why much better than I could.

Just as with George W. Bush's now-famous uninvited shoulder-rub of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the basic message of Ellison's tit-grab is this: "Remember, you may think you have standing, status, and normal, everyday adult dignity, but we can take it back at any time. If you are female, you'll never be safe. You can be the political leader of the most powerful country in Europe. You can be the most honored female writer in modern science fiction. We can still demean you, if we feel like it, and at random intervals, just to keep you in line, we will."

And also I'm thinking this:

Neil Gaiman refused his nomination for this year's Hugo awards. I bet it wasn't because he was afraid someone would grab his ass.