For 35 years the satirical Ig Nobel awards have been a geeks’ delight in the Cambridge, Mass. No longer. This year’s event is moving to Zurich, Switzerland, due to fear of rampant human rights abuse by ICE and its supporters.
“During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country,” Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, told the Associated Press in an email interview. “We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the USA this year.”
The plan is for Zurich to host every second year; every odd-numbered year, the ceremony will be hosted by a different European city. Abrahams likened the arrangement to the Eurovision Song Contest. In an online comment, Abrahams said “We’re not abandoning the US. We’ll be having a big celebration event in Boston three weeks after the 2026 ceremony happens in Switzerland.” So there’s that.
Compared to the other damage that Trump 2.0 is doing to the country and the world, this is small potatoes. But it’s indicative of how America is being made shoddier and dumber by the backward-looking MAGA mindset.
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