What do novices want?

You can now register for Bump at tabroom.com if you have nothing better to do on the weekend of Nov 14. Me, I’ll be in Argentina. I’ll send you a postcard.

I think I may be in the minority about Sept-Oct for novices, since I feel the material we’ve discussed has been of value for starter-outers. Of course, that material has been raw morality—consequentialism, deontology, human worth as a basis for not using people as a means to an end, utilitarianism (which is not the same as consequentialism), experimental philosophy—rather than anything about running conditional cases or that sort of thing. Novices don’t give a rat’s posterior about conditional cases; they’re more worried about not collapsing in a heap in the front of the room the second they open their mouths for the first time. The fact that Nov-Dec is felons means that the deep background goes back as far as the social contract via retributive justice, which keeps us in the LD 101 category as far as I’m concerned. JV and I were talking about this one a bit as we were roaming the streets of Pupville, and we both like it. You know, of course, the recent changes in the law in Florida and some other states, not that this means anything in terms of what we should do, but there is, I would imagine, ruminations available by those who have passed laws allowing ex-felons to vote, and they should be tracked down. I do know that the Obama campaign is actively soliciting the Floridian ex-felon vote. Seriously. Florida Ex-Felons For Obama: there’s a tee shirt for you.

Anyhow, I did toss off a couple of brief outlines of Sept-Oct for the newbies to work from, and passed them to the novice coordinators for their input. Never again in their debate careers will they get positions from me, much less cases—I’m reactive, not proactive when it comes to cases, since the point of the activity ought to be that they do the work, not that I do the work—but as novices, as I say, the issue is getting oneself into the fray, period, not the fine points of the fray itself. Take ye this outline and flesh it out and go into that room. You’re going in a kid but you’re coming out a debater! One of them is, indeed, signed up for the first-timers’ MHL. Another one couldn’t figure out how to sign up, which is almost as good. The team of tomorrow is coming together.

And tonight I’ll see what we’ve got with Regis this weekend. The last time I looked it was pretty tiny, but it should have grown some (which reminds me of a Scot joke I’ll simply reference and move away from). Small is good, actually, because that means I can bring the small printer and not have to worry about entrusting the Brother to some poor Sailor on the bus while O’C and I go off to dinner. Speaking of whom, I hardly said boo to the guy in Pupville. We ran into him once or twice but he was heavily involved in the vomit situations, so one tended to steer clear, if you get my drift…