#posts about nothing

Can you believe there's gonna be an Olympics within US borders in a couple years? Will "alien" athletes even be able to travel for them? Will it be safe for women, women at the peak of their condition, with muscles for days, or with bodies so lithe and streamlined the wind hardly touches them, women who aren't hourglass-shaped with heart-shaped faces, women who a debatably-sized but extremely noisy portion of American institutions and population would like to see stripped naked to check what's between their legs? And the men, men who, like those women, have trained and dreamed and worked so hard for perhaps their whole lives for this twice-in-a-decade opportunity, but who find themselves a color other than "somewhere between milk and unripe peaches"?

It's already happening in amateur sports. There are cancellations coming through from international children's and youth teams for baseball, soccer, ice hockey, etc, who are pulling out of tournaments or training camps because their coaches and chaperones feel they can't be reasonably confident about their charges' safety even crossing the border, much less moving around within the country. International school groups, who for decades have made annual educational or cultural trips to USA, but are cancelling for the same reasons.

Then there's academic and professional events. Universities, academic coalitions, professional associations warning their international members to reconsider travel to USA, that they may be subject to institutional harassment and detention for any number of reasons, possibly up to and including "someone at CBP was having a bad day".

And for the geeks: everything from umbrella events like GenCon or any of the various comicons or gaming or anime cons, to fandom-specific events like Star Wars or X-Files; even the Star Trek cruise sets sail from Florida. I think about the fans abroad who are looking at event websites with sadness because they want to meet up with friends, make new ones, bask in a day or three of like-minded camraderie, but look at the location and feel it's a risk they just can't take. I think about the American fans who are looking at those same sites and wondering if law enforcement in whatever state is likely to stop them and question the validity of their status or even their natural-born citizenship. That wonder if they, too, might find themselves in jail and legal limbo just for existing in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think about the international guests scheduled for any of these and I both admire their confidence and low-key wonder: when? When are we gonna hear about someone most of us have seen on tv or read their books or played their games but who is not necessarily a household name, landing in a CBP or ICE detention facility, even if only "accidentally" and only for a few hours, for a morning, an afternoon, a night?