It seems only right that the cicadas are crawling out of the ground in their every-seventeen-year rotation this spring, because this has definitely been the craziest year ever, and it deserves to be marked accordingly. These occasional visitors are of the genus Magicicada, a lovely word, and apparently they can be either on a thirteen- or seventeen-year cycle, and while they were historically eaten by Native Americans, they were not that big a part of these folks’ diet because, well, they had to wait either thirteen or seventeen years for the next delivery, and a lot can happen in thirteen or seventeen years. The cicadas last a couple of months before they have mated and their eggs are laid and they die off. The last time Magicicada emerged around here was 1996, if my math is correct. I think that’s also the year I officially began coaching.
As I say, this has really been a crazy year, at least insofar as debate is concerned. To be honest, I think recent times as a whole have been pretty crazy, like the 60s without the good music, but that may just be nostalgia for my lost youth. In any case, for all practical purposes, in debate it’s been just one damned thing after another, whereas usually it’s all just a big blur. Some of it’s been personal. Some schools have irritated me to the breaking point, and I have really just had enough. I’m really sorry that you can’t get your act together and that I’m one of the few people who stands up to you, but that’s just the way it is. You will have to deal with me, and you will have to deal with my righteous outrage, instead of me having to deal with your selfishness and amateurism. I go out of my way to help real amateurs; if you’ve been around since, well, the last visitation of the cicadas, you sort of lose your amateur status. Members of the VCA will probably recall me whining about one or another of these situations over the year; people in tab with me have actually seen me uncharacteristically blow my stack. Enough, already.
More to the point, there have been big issues at almost every big tournament. Some of these have made their way to the public stage, while others haven’t. It began back at Jake, and to be honest, I’m not really sure what the controversy was about because it was all run on a site I didn’t even know existed, and by the time I heard about it, it was out of control enough that I was advised against bothering, advice which I took to heart. I don’t think the controversy was about me specifically, but I do recall publishing some information about how, exactly, I tab, just in case anyone was wondering. Unless I’m working at a league-designated closed tab (e.g., CFL), my door is always open, as long as you keep quiet when I’m trying to work. There’s nothing going on in tab that can’t be shown to any interested party, provided you don’t hold up the business of running the tournament.
The Tiggers had some situations that I’m pretty sure never fell into the public arena, but the tournament itself was one damned thing after another, one of them quite serious that caused a lot of internal concern. The thing about big tournaments at colleges is that a lot of people who attend are, at best, part-timers, and all sorts of confusion tends to arise. Worse, things are so spread out that when something is seriously amiss, you don’t always find out about it in a timely manner. And there are some things, frankly, that aren’t really tournament issues, but they take place during tournaments and one must deal with them. As at every college tournament this year that I worked, the college staff at the Tigs was superlative in their handling of situations. Concerned and mature, listening to advice when necessary, taking actions when necessary, intelligently trying to do what they thought was the best thing. If that had not been the case, I would have washed my hands of all of them. It’s too much work to help run these things if the students you’re helping aren’t there for you.
Columbia was, for me, a nightmare. I know that certain things that happened there did indeed enter the public arena, things that I have no intention of discussing and which, the few times I’ve seen them noted, have been misrepresented. So be it. But in the realm of one damned thing after another, this one took the cake. It was as if everyone took an extra dose of bitter pills that Saturday. I had two shouting matches, and there were a couple of people, if I could have gotten my hands on them, that would have brought the number up from there. That we managed to run a tournament at all is amazing; that it was pretty much on time by the end of the day was a miracle.
UPenn? We needed a revolving door on tab to handle the protests. At the very least, we should have installed a soapbox for a couple of the people who showed up. And there were real issues, too. Fortunately, my divisions were not particularly hit by this. Finally, some bullets dodged.
The high school tournaments were not without their little dramas either. And I almost twice jumped out of my chair to wring a few necks at NYSDCA.
Maybe it’s just me. I just wasn’t made for these times.
But then again, there’s that website that I didn’t know about, that I eventually found out about, and over there, they’re now going through hysterics about the TOC. Of course they are. A year like this, why shouldn’t the $ircuit go out with a bang? Accusations are flying, suppositions are strewing, and bile is spewing at unprecedented levels, as often as not under the cover of anonymity because, well, if I’m going to accuse you of doing something wrong, perish the thought that I do so publicly. I can’t say that I drilled down much into all of this nonsense. The lesson of ignoring idiocy stretches back to the old ld-l, where people would go one forever attacking one another, often anonymously, followed by VBD, the same story with better technology. Of course, adults know that most of this is from high school students, and hence immature by definition, or virtual high school students whose immaturity sell-by date seemingly has passed but we're sort of stuck with them. Which is why most adults don’t, I would imagine, bother to even glance at this stuff except out of extreme boredom. I certainly don’t feel any obligation as a debate commentator to keep up with it, and I do like to keep up with most issues in the community. These aren’t really issues, as such. They are related to issues, however, and I trust that true and concerned dealing with those issues will ensue in more appropriate venues.
So, a whole year of one damned thing after another. My DJ life, by comparison, is dullness on a stick. Any wonder I love doing this?
No comments:
Post a Comment