Thank God they don't do Declamation!

Last weekend was our District tournament, where I got to do my annual visit to the world of the Speecho-Americans. It was actually quite enjoyable.

First up was a USX round, on foreign policy. Straightforward enough. A couple of folks bunched at the top, how will US do in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Texastan and whatnot. People either knew what they were talking about or they didn’t. Then it was FX, an African section. Oy. “Will things in X get even worse?” was the topic 6 times in a row. The answer was always yes, because the government is corrupt, the government is getting more corrupt, and no one outside of the country cares. That’s three areas of analysis, with the extemp two-step for each one, plus the summary. Tough to do well, actually, because you would have to have actual insight and evidence about this vague continent that we, as Americans, like to pretend doesn’t exist. I applaud those who did well (since they were double-entered, as often as not it was the same ones who did well in USX). I remain a fan of extemp, although when it comes to ultimately separating out the top performers I don’t necessarily trust myself. It’s a long time between Number 1 and Number 6 if those two are the ones battling it out. Maybe CP can explain how to judge this to me.

Saturday, since Sailors were all over the LD map, I was seconded to OO finals. Normally this would have had me slashing my wrists, but it was pretty good. I was happy to see that my first choice won at the end of the day. My criteria for judging were a combination of performance and content, which for some reason seemed an easier call than whatever criteria I was using for Extemp. Go figure. I guess there should also be a phogna bologna criterion: the more you sound like the sort of person who makes me want to go slash my wrists rather than listen to you (the down side of OO), the lower I rank you. If your sincerity act isn’t working, in other words, you’re screwed.

After that it was on to Duo finals. Saw one guy who blew me away with a partner who was pretty good; no one else came close to this guy. But that didn’t necessarily add up to a winning pairing (although, in the event, I ultimately felt that it did). Let me tell you, LD judging by comparison to speech judging is about as much fun as having a hundred Hottentots banging on your head with frying pans during a hurricane. LDers have so lost the art of speaking as anything other than shoveling in a lot of evidence that I am, momentarily, brought back to the good old days of bemoaning that loss. I hadn’t thought about it for a while, to tell you the truth. (Shades of the Legion of Doom!) And I don’t think that LD loses value as it reaches Policy speed any more than I think Policy lacks value because of its speed, but of course, that value has almost nothing to do with public speaking aside from the act of literally doing it (having the courage to stand up and speak, that is).

The day wrapped up with a round of PF. It was an unclear debate, with lots of hassling over one piece of evidence, and in some ways an example of experienced debating versus intuitive debating. Experience knows enough to cover everything while intuition points you to that one thing that you think you’re obviously winning. The flaw in that intuitive approach is that putting all your eggs in one basket is a cliché indicating potential problems for a reason. Unless your basket is made of cement or something. Anyhow, Mother Ruff and I split on this one, and she demonstrated what I consider the bottom line requirement for any judge: she stuck to her decision and felt that she was right, period. Not that I thought she was wrong. It was a round that could have been evaluated either way, which is too bad when it comes to sending people to Kansas City. (Or really good, depending on your position about sending people to Kansas City.)

At the end of the day, speaking of KC, we will be sending the Panivore. She says she can’t wait to sample all the different kinds of barbecue, not to mention the—Wait a minute! That’s not the Panivore. Wait till she tastes what they call bagels in the Midwest. I’ve got a feeling she’s not going to want to go to Kansas anymore.