In which we go nuclear

I have to admit that I don’t give LD topics much thought these days, if for no other reason than I’m pretty sure that no one ever really argues them anymore, at least in the places where I tend to hang out. And no one in their right mind is going to drag me in to judge a round no matter what the emergency, or more to the point, no emergency is so grave as to warrant my presence in the back of the room. On the other hand, I’m happy to judge the odd PF round, if there is such an emergency. Needless to say, the emergency has to be, at the minimum, a severed limb, but things like that have been known to happen, at least at $ircuit tournaments. At regional tournaments, the worst seems to be mostly heavy bruising and battered egos. Then again, I was just another rubber duckie in the PF pool at NDCA, and judged my fair share with great enthusiasm and enjoyment. I mean, I did get into this in the first place because I enjoyed it. And I can still enjoy a good round, but my personal definition of rounds probably excludes anything LDish beyond the odd novice bout as actually being a round, much less enjoyable.

Anyhow, countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power. When this first hit the shelves, it said states instead of countries, which was obviously enough of a non-starter that they changed it in the womb. My initial comment on it, back when I was making such comments, was that the word states rendered it impossible, and I thought it through no further. But as countries, it got the votes for September-October. Which makes you wonder. I read some commentary from Stefan B over the weekend that drove home the obvious: Go negative, young padowan.

Let’s see. Are we talking about nuclear weapons? Nuclear-powered submarines? Nuclear power? Fusion? Fission? All countries?

Wow. When it’s time to vote, there ought to be a rule that you actually have to think through the ramifications of the topic before you’re allowed to vote on it. Granted, this is more than we expect of people voting in, say, presidential primaries, but it might make a more balanced couple of months for the poor debaters out there in DebateLand. Then again, since they won’t be debating the resolution anyhow, it probably doesn’t matter.

It makes me happy to stay in the tab room. Unless, of course, there’s the odd surprise severed limb. I’ll be bringing Band-Aids, just in case.

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Coachean Life Coaching Day

I know you think you know everything, but you don't. Which is why Fridays are devoted to Coachean Life Coaching. Hie on over, young Padowan.

In which we are right, yet again

About 75% of the voters chose not to support the PF topic on schools going to your house and standing over your shoulder as you troll all your ex-friends on Twitter and Facebook. I'm glad to see it, although I admittedly did not necessarily predict it. The voters have chosen the less debatable topic in the past, so their preferences are no guarantee of much of anything. Of course, the topic that was chosen does have its problems, at least to me, but maybe that's because my default mindset is old LD, and we would have framed this as a basic rights issue, where the conflict is between the individual and some sort of society. Plus the added issue of this being the school vs the presumed child: what rights, if any, do children have? This becomes especially interesting when the presumed child is also the debater. 

At the old Hud, when this was an LD topic, we started thinking about the rez by trawling through court cases. There's plenty, and the discourse therein on both sides came up with numerous arguing points. Needless to say, we didn't argue that because the courts said something, it was right. We just used what the courts had said, pro and con, as fodder for our own arguments. But yet again, that's an LD approach. If PFers are going to launch evidence battles, as is their wont, one wonders what exactly counts as evidence. Will they be going extreme, because that's where the action (unfortunately) is? Beats me. In any case, I still think they're better off than they would have been with the other topic. Only time (all two months of it for Sept-Oct) will tell.

The reason I didn't post the last couple of days was that I was up lounging at Mohonk Mountain House, in the Shawangunk Mountains about an hour and a half from my house. Lots of hiking to earn the right to big hiker's meals, reading a book of my own choice (and then, to balance things, one for the DJ), watching Russian and non-Russian dancers and listening to a couple of flautists have at it, and generally letting my brain have a holiday. But now it's back for a while, until the next week off. I can't wait. I do love a good vacation.

Friday? You know what that means

Coachean Life Coaching is back with a new entry on acknowledging the little people. You can't afford not to read it.

In which we ramble pointlessly

The Bronxwegians asked me to post their judging request in various places. Curiously enough, I got more likes on that on Facebook than anything else I’ve posted in quite a while. I hope that means the people are just excited about the whole idea and immediately going to sign up to provide great judging, rather than that I’ve hit the nadir of my posting prowess, where the only thing that gets liked is my hawking the tournaments I attend. Of course, for me great judging is 1) hitting the start button when the round starts; 2) starting the round at the scheduled time; and 3) entering the decision about 45 minutes later. After that, I don’t care if your paradigm prefers whoever serves man (in the Twilight Zone sense of the phrase) best, since it’s up to the debaters to want you as a judge or not based on your preferences. I’m only looking for your efficiency. That’s all that matters in tab. Such is the world of MJP, and my main argument in favor of it. Do you really want me deciding who the best judge for you is? I didn’t think so.

This is the time of year when a lot of Facebook is devoted to people traveling the known universe and not thinking about forensics. I’ve seen posts from Middle Europe, the Iberian peninsula, France, etc., as well as all sorts of USA vacation spots. I have to say, it’s a welcome change from the norm. I obviously like forensics as much as the next person, but only if the next person actually doesn’t give a crap about winning every round and actually has some sort of interests beyond the 1AR. Means to an end and all that. My own travels this summer have been spare enough, including upper New York, the Shawangunks, the spring trip to WDW and eventually a week or so in NOLA (for the first time). I have to admit that while I enjoy the far flung,  I’m also usually quite satisfied with the nearer flung. There’s interesting stuff everywhere, if you just go seek it out. For that matter, I love just popping down to roam NYC on a regular basis. Art, food, hustle and bustle—what else does one need, especially when one’s DJ keeps one’s nose in a book?

Have I read any good books lately? I’d be happy to answer that, but not here. Too complicated. Any good movies? Well, as one might have predicted, buying a TV the size of Cleveland has redirected me from theaters to the family room, so I’m hardly up-to-date. The one thing I saw that surprised me was Ex Machina, which was much better than I expected. Otherwise pretty much what you’d expect. Any good music? I do like that the Olympics have pushed a lot of Brazilian playlists to the fore. I’m good on the basics, but I’m ready to go way deep. On the other hand, no matter what I name my playlists, Alexa always wants to play some other playlist. Bad Alexa! Bad! I’ve found that just asking for an artist (after switching the default to Spotify) is one’s best bet. Alexa, play some Harry Nilsson. You know I’m happy when Coconut comes on.

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In which, among other things, the Bronx is up

Fairly Large Bronx is looking for judges and asked that I distribute their form: http://www.jimmenick.com/images/bbronxjudge.pdf  Consider it done.

My season doesn’t kick off until 9/9 at Byram Hills, which seems about a million years from now, but obviously isn’t. They’ve got about a hundred registrants so far, without yet having heard from all the usual suspects. Not bad at all.

Meanwhile, it’s amazing how long it takes to populate a new iPad with the apps from an old one. My first attempt bombed completely, and everything was “waiting” but nothing was “happening.” So I just stripped it and started again, and watched during the day at the DJ as app after app ponderously went from blacked-out to live. I have no idea why it didn't work the first time, but the ever useful turn it off and turn it back on again solution worked fine. Sometimes electronic items get sticks up their butts and you have to pull more than once to get them out. Whatever.

Kaz was down over the weekend, and we talked a bit about the PF rez I don’t like. She didn’t really convince me that it was any better than I thought it was, but it did become clear that none of my objections were cast in PF terms. True. I mean, it’s not as if I don’t agree that a school has some authority over bullying of its students (or faculty, for that matter) when the bully actually isn’t in the school, but the legality of that authority limits it greatly, for obvious reasons. Those reasons for the legality, and not the legality itself, frame my objections. To wit, if you’re a high school student, what you do on your own time is pretty much not the high school’s business unless it impacts on the high school. So, we immediately set two limits that, quite honestly, seem hard to disagree with. First, render unto high schools that which is high schools, and second, render unto somewhere else that which isn’t. I mean, that’s in the Bible, isn’t it? Oh, well. I’m not playing the game, so I shouldn’t really get all worked up over the playing field design. But old habits die hard. When I see a topic that doesn't seem to lend itself to good debate, I just can't stand by with my mouth shut. What kind of ex-coach would I be if that were the case?

Another thing we talked about is e-ballots. We really want to expand this universe this year. The problem is management. I’ve said this before. When you’re all in the same building or two, a judge who hasn’t pressed start is no big deal. You can either go into the room and threaten said judge’s life with a railway share, or find a replacement easily enough because there weren’t all that many places to go other than those buildings or two. But when I have an event spread over 10 buildings? And the rooms need to turn around on the proverbial dime for the next event? Not so easy. Still, we’ve got to do it eventually. We’re off the schneid everywhere it’s easy. Now it’s time to hit the hard ones.

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In which we are a techie who cain't say no

I bought a Chromebook a couple of weeks ago during the Amazon Prime sale, an Asus C200. I was quite pleased when it arrived, and I enjoyed playing around with it, but the real test was at an offsite meeting for the DJ last week. The Cb was the only device I brought other than my iPad, which I brought as a backup just in case, and, of course, my phone. Okay, let me rephrase that. The Cb was the device I planned on using exclusively for the days of the meeting, to see how it would fare under fire. Needless to say, all a Cb can do is browser stuff, but in real life, what else is there? Or maybe more to the point, in real life, what can’t be done via browser? The only time mischief ensued was when we were sharing Google docs, and the email I use at the DJ is not the same as my Google ID, and I had to go through a few hoops to have multiple logins on the Cb. But I managed to do it. Overall verdict: I really liked it. Very lightweight machine, fast, with long battery life, capable of everything I needed to do. This will become my tabbing computer, although there is one drawback, in that you can’t just plug it into a printer. There are apparently conniptions one can go through to print, and I’ll try to sort that out, although simply getting someone else to print on their machine might be easier for those dreaded albeit inevitable paper ballots. Anyhow, this was my alternative to buying a new Macbook Air. I saved about $800. Of course, I have now sold my soul to Google, but I can live with that. They’re only getting what’s left over after my previous sale of same to Apple.

After meditating for ages about possible buying an iPad Mini, and saving a few hundred bucks there buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7-incher that I’ve become quite fond of (although, while admittedly it lacks the sophistication of the iPad, it nonetheless slaps down the Kindle Fire like the helpless schnook the Fire obviously is), I managed to drop my regular iPad Air so as to not only crack the screen but to leave it with sharp glassy ridges that can slice your finger as you swipe. Argggggh. I really can’t live without an iPad, so I replaced that yesterday with an iPad Air 2, which I can turn on with my thumbprint. Thus I ate up a lot of the profits from not buying the Mac, but you can’t win them all.

I think I mentioned somewhere over the summer that I finally upgraded my MacBook Pro to the latest OS, and it took, so even as I only probably drag it along in the checked baggage so to speak as a backup, everything is now up to date in my personal Kansas City when it comes to technology. I’ve gone about as fer as I intend to go.

Anybody need any tabbing done?

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In which we catch up with a lot of tournaments

It’s beginning to feel a lot like debate.

Byram Hills opened up, and a few hardy souls have already signed up, which is always a good sign. I suggested to their powers that be that they send out an invite reminder; yes, it’s on your tabroom.com front page, but are people scrupulously checking that page on the first day of August? Maybe they are.

I’ve signed up for tabbing Monticello once again, and Rose JT has created the tabroom file. I’ll look at it some time this week. I do hope that people rouse themselves a little more this year for Monti. Why everyone in the region isn’t there befuddles me. Everyone wants and needs more rounds. Monti offers more rounds. Do the math.

Final tuning is finished on the Bronx tabroom file. They’re opening registration the middle of the month. Mostly it’s the same as last year, from what I can see and the discussions we’ve had. Which is fine. Stability is, in an unstable universe, often its own reward.

Vassar had suggested that they wanted a tournament back in the spring, but then they disappeared off the map until this weekend. Uh, for a November tournament? It’s a little late to get people onboard, given that half of the schools prep their budgets the previous school year. Then again, the Vasses are strongly into Parli and want that to be their cornerstone. Which is fine, but that means looking to Connecticut, where the Parlis are thicker than fleas on a three-legged moosehound. (As the Vast Coachean Army well knows, I don’t trouble my pretty little brain much with metaphors; I shouldn’t have to do all the work around here. If you've got a better one, feel free to sub it in.) Additionally, they don’t seem to know much about LD or PF at all. My suggestion to them is to start with a small Parli tournament and build over time. Better that than a small Parli tournament and a bust of an LD/PF tournament. I’m happy to help them do whatever, although they’ll have Everett R for Parli, and won’t need me if that’s all there is.

Parli. Jeesh. Meanwhile Worlds is rearing its forensical little head. It’s already been taken into the NDCA finals. Kaz (and, for that matter, everyone else) says it’s a great activity, with a lot of spontaneity. My issue with it, at the moment, is that we still have policy, LD and PF kicking around. I don’t run a single tournament with space for yet another debate activity. I think regions need to pick their poison and leave it at that. In the northeast, with policy steadily shrinking, the poisons of choice are PF and LD, in that order. The former is robustness on a stick, while LD mostly continues to hold its own. We just don’t need to offer more, at least at this time. Who knows what the stage will look like a couple of years from now.

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