eCube: it tastes like burning

I can't say that I'm thrilled.

After extensive conversation in recent days, and having spoken directly with Ms. Moon on the subject, we continue to believe that her presence will contribute to the Con.

And what did she have to say for herself? I'm having difficulty seeing what kind of positive contribution she's going to provide if she just wants to avoid talking about the thing we all want to talk to her about.

I don't envy ConCom at a time like this. And I think I love WisCon too much for one stinky author to drive me away. But this does not sit well with me.

The Way to Bet

So, this is the crux of it for me. The section that I quoted, before:

After extensive conversation in recent days, and having spoken directly with Ms. Moon on the subject, we continue to believe that her presence will contribute to the Con.

Well, I can imagine a few ways that the "spoken directly with" part might have gone.

She could have said: "I stand behind what I wrote, and I have nothing further to say on this topic."

She could have said: "I'm terrified of the responses, and what that might mean for my career as a science fiction writer. I'm just trying to put my head down and hope that it all calms down."

She might even have said: "I get that people are really angry. I just need to get a bit of distance from the issue before I feel comfortable saying more on this topic."

Or: "I'm content to have some conversation about all this at WisCon, but I just don't want to hash it all out on the Internet."

Heck, she may have even said that she hopes to use her GoH speech as a forum to apologize to the entire WisCon community for being so clueless. I don't think that's likely, but it's possible.

All of those responses are possible, but based on what I've seen to date, I feel that one of those responses is more likely than the others: I think she intends to say nothing more on the topic. And if that's the case, if I were ConCom, I'd dump her.

I'm not ConCom, and ConCom didn't dump her. So I feel anxious that I don't understand this decision. Further, I feel like there's data ("how did Moon respond") that, if it were visible to me, would probably assuage my anxiousness. Having said that, I get that there are any number of reasons why this announcement didn't come with a transcript of the conversation.

I can't, for the life of me, figure out why I'm having difficulty trusting that ConCom is making the right choice. WisCon has never let me down. But I still have anxiousness.

I have no answer

When people ask me how I got involved in Haiti stuff, I never know what to say. I wish I had a good, concise answer.