I was pleased to learn that ICE agent Dean Cain is having trouble getting gigs at fan conventions. GalaxyCon, a company that runs commercial fan conventions, has notified him that it won’t work with him because “GalaxyCon’s values don’t align with Dean.” He faulted GalaxyCon for not being more specific, but I can understand their wanting to handle the matter politely. He surely knows what they meant.
In August 2025, I pointed out that having an ICE agent as a guest puts attendees in danger. Cincinnati Comic Expo had him slated as a guest, and I left a comment on their Facebook post expressing my concern. I felt I was fighting a lonely battle, but later on the organization found a reason not to have him appear. GalaxyCon also sees the danger, and Cain’s reference to a “blacklist” suggests that other conventions have similarly rebuffed him.
While I doubt that I had any great influence on the decisions, I can say I was one of the first to point out the concern. Some people in the Cincinnati organization must have seen my comment. Maybe it gave someone encouragement or a better choice of words to address the issue. The effect of what you say isn’t always immediate or obvious.
In other good news, Rockingham County in New Hampshire has “tabled” plans to hold ICE abductees in the county jail. County commissioners Tombarello and Coyle supported this position. In September 2025 I wrote about Commissioner Steven Goddu’s position, which was basically that the county should be morally agnostic and grab the opportunity for federal money: “It is not my position that the county should evaluate the appropriateness of actions ICE is taking.”
Did I have any significant effect on the decision to turn ICE away? Probably not, but it’s possible I made a little difference. This post, if the right people see it, might encourage someone to run against Goddu and replace him.
Speak out when you can, after being as informed as you can. It can make a difference.
Layout note: Up to now, I’ve laid out the blog with ten posts per page, displaying only the start of each post. This is causing problems with email subscriptions, which I just can’t get to show the start of the post and clearly let the recipient know there’s more. Starting with this post, I’m switching to putting full posts in the blog page. Once there are a couple of these, I’ll reduce the posts per page from 10 to 5. I think this will make it easier for people to follow the blog without extra navigation. Let me know what you think.