Debate: I cannot for the life of me understand cheating in debate. We went through a bad spell of it not too long ago, where it seemed as if every tournament had an incident where one team or another was found to be communicating with folks outside of the room, essentially having remote teammates research answers to the opposing case and feeding those answers to the team that was debating. That we haven’t had much of this lately is, I would like to think, because it’s no longer a practice, but I suspect that the cheaters have just gotten better at it. If someone is eager to beat the system they will probably find a way to do it faster than system can detect them. So maybe it’s still going on, not rampant but insistent. Who can tell?
(There are plenty of other ways to cheat, of course. Intimidation seems to be popular with certain schools, and there are multiple ways of doing this. Hell, multiple ways is the name of the game. Unfortunately.)
I can’t imagine why debaters would cheat. If it works it’s not a valid win. There’s no pride in “beating” a tough opponent because you didn’t actually beat them, and you know it. The only pride you can take in it is that you’ve successfully used the cheating tools (whatever they are). An ill-gotten trophy would be a constant reminder of your unworthiness to possess it. Qualifying for another tournament would not be because of a win but because of a scam; when you get to that other tournament, the only way you can succeed is to continue scamming. The scammer’s ego must suffer through all of this. Think of the scene in “Singin’ in the Rain” where they raise the curtain to show Debbie Reynolds voicing the leading lady. If it ain’t you, it ain’t you.
But I think there’s a deeper reason that cheating seems especially wrong in our activity. I mean, what are we debating? One way or another, we’re debating right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust. We’re debating morality and ethics. How does this sit at all comfortably with debating immorally and unethically?
Is a puzzlement, as the King of Siam would put it.
Reading, paper division: When I’m between books I read series mysteries. The most recent was Aaron Elkins’s Curses! This is part of the Gideon Oliver series, and they’re perfectly enjoyable, but they don’t necessarily stick in the brain. Oliver is referred to as the bone detective in the series, which revolves around archaeological digs and the like. If I’m not using Elkins as a palate-cleanser, then it’s probably Ngaio Marsh. After all, you can’t just read Dostoevsky over and over. Or, well, you shouldn’t. Trust me on this.
Reading, audio/paper division: Bleak House is at the top of my list of favorite Dickens novels. So when Stephen Fry, my favorite audiobook narrator, called Miriam Margolyes’s audiobook of BH one of the best, I had no choice but to acquire it. And I began to listen, and yes, it is one of the best. The down side is that it’s about skatey-eight thousand hours long. After listening for a couple of enjoyable weeks, I switched over to the paperback version that was in my home library so that I could get through it before the Apocalypse. I’ve only done this once before, listening to I, Claudius back when it was Books-on-Tape. It was so good that even though I was enjoying listening, I wanted to devour it at my own speed. There are two volumes, and I’d probably still be listening to it if I hadn’t switched off. Most audiobooks are in the 8-10 hour range, meaning that you can get through them in about two weeks, no problem. Longer than that, it becomes problematic. Consider this a warning if you’re thinking of trying audiobooks anytime soon.
Reading, audio division: Putting down Dickens, we moved to the next title in the Audible queue. The God Engines is a novella by John Scalzi where the spaceships are powered by, well, gods. For Scalzi fans it can be summed up by simply pointing out that it is not narrated by Wil Wheaton, nor should it be. It reminded me that not all Scalzi books are an absolute hoot, and that he has a serious SF side. My favorite of his to recommend is the Interdependency trilogy, if the person I’m recommending it to seems in it for the long haul. Otherwise, of course, Redshirts.
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