Once my sister submitted a poem for a collection of literature for students in her area. The theme had to be connected to the word "sign". When the book came out, there were some good short stories. I'll admit, my sister's poem wasn't one of her better works, so it didn't stand out, but there were some that did, and those I really enjoyed. A friend of mine wrote a satire on superstitions, and the humor was well composed. I saw another creative story about an alien named Zone who got scared by earth signs that seemed to know his name. Very clever.

The stories that got placed in the number one and honorable mention sections had little value. They were nothing more than politically motivated stories. I hold nothing against the youths that wrote them, but I don't think that they should have been held in such high esteem. First of all, neither were good. The passion of the authors was appreciable, but their stories were flawed because they were talking about big things and they were only children. The second reason I don't like the esteem they were held in was that they only got their because of the judges' bias. This means that some stories will have an unfair advantage and some are being judged for their opinions, not their writing.

In short, I disapprove of judges trying to push an agenda through their awards. It is the wrong place to do so, and if they want to judge politics, they can go somewhere else. Just don't force it down on something which main theme is entertainment.

There is a third reason, and it's that no matter what, people who disagree will be offended. A lot of the time, a political writing can antagonize those it disagrees with, which was what the ones the youths wrote did. If a story offends as much as it entertains, why give it special honors? We should be familiar with this here on BZP where it doesn't matter how good a story is, if it gets political, it will be shut down out of concern of flame.

Of course, this happens on a larger scale than just a public writing. We see it in the Oscars too. Movies that express a political ideal will get a highly honored Oscar. I could never help but wonder if it was because such movies are so good or if the judges just want to push their agenda and making their point.

In my opinion, it's fine for a political film to not win an Oscar. As far as I'm concerned, they can just go up on the shelf at the local library, with a few critical acclamations, but no official badges of honor. I don't care if I agree with the agenda or not (and sometimes I do) but those in charge of awards should begin judging for the right reasons.

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