Last night I couldn’t get myself to do anything useful aside from downloading some photographs that looked a lot better while I was taking them, but my personal inertia seems not to be shared by others. The debate world is definitely chugging along like gangbusters.
A while ago I heard from Mahesha Subbaraman of Loquitur about a project he was planning, with which he is now going public. His idea is for a magazine, The American Debater, devoted to high school debate, specifically LD and PF, with a mix of articles about topics, tournaments, tactics, etc. There are, after all, quite a few debaters out there, and while he may not get the same numbers we here at the Day Job generate, there is no reason why he can’t make a going concern out of it. He’ll begin with a website, then if that works out, progress to print (although I wonder if he couldn’t perhaps prosper as a website completely). He may be nuts, but he also may be on to something. There’s certainly room for more material for the community. There’s WTF, of course, but they act more as a communications arena than anything else, plus they have a clearly defined commercial aspect as an underpinning (which, I hasten to point out, I believe they handle quite honorably; O’C wouldn’t be one of my best friends in debate if I thought he was some sort of shyster, unless of course he was cutting me in on the take). There’s NFL, but as far as I know no one has yet been able to figure out their website, although I have noticed that when I click for something specific, I often get some random thing that is almost as good; I’d love to have a talk with them about web semiotics/heuristics some day. Then there are a few of us independents (although to be honest, I’m the only one I know of who publishes with any regularity, much to the dismay of the VCA who would be happy to see me take more days off, but then again I’m a logorrheic kind of person, at least in print). And then there’s the whole vast universe of people who are very interested in this very demanding activity who are being served by none of the above, or at least only marginally served. If you’re interested, you should contact MS; he’s still looking to fill positions both of the web design and editorial persuasions. I think he’s looking to go live in the Fall.
And speaking of Rippin’, apparently the Gods of Wisconsin are looking to have people write up topic analyses for the coming season. I opened the email and gaped at it for a second, then closed it and marked it as unread. As the World’s Worst District Chair, I should get some sort of dispensation from this sort of thing, but as an admitted logorrheic, I’ve got no one to blame but myself. Still, I do tend to be about as extended as I can get, since there is in fact a Day Job already, but I’ll think about it. The more people I can confuse with a misreading of a topic, the happier I will be.
1 comment:
All due respect to the great publication you put out for us here, but if the VCA is so small, and as you note you're one of the few publishing regularly, what makes you think there's an even wider market out there to make this publication work?
Also, if I were them, I would be pushing a lot harder the ability for those recently graduated, people like me, to stay connected to the event.
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