In which we meditate on prefs and gender

The Scarsdale tournament went swimmingly. Everything was single-flighted, except the last couple of novice rounds, and I can’t recall changing more than a couple of judge assignments, always for reasons other than anyone engaged in shenanigans. Once again, as at Rather Large Bronx, the girls who made it to the final round were declared co-champions, at their request. Nice.

We talked in the tab room about girls in the activity, and how MJP probably works against them. At Scarsdale, people had strikes, but that was it. In the tab room, we simply noted which judges were experienced and which were not, and that was as far as we went when it came to making any particular assignments. That is, we wanted the experienced judges on the rounds that mattered the most. Makes sense, right? After all, there were bids at stake.

As a result of this, all the women in the judge pool judged a lot, and they judged a lot of important rounds. There was no bias for them or against them as adjudicators. Am I saying that female judges are biased in favor of female debaters, and that the female debaters did better as a result? No. But I am suggesting that at pref tournaments, those female judges might not have been in those rounds. And further, the preffed judges who would be in those rounds, young college males, are indeed biased, at least subconsciously, in favor of male debaters. If you don’t believe this, you haven’t been following gender discussions very closely in the activity. But even so, being the only female in the room—or being the only anything in the room—is problematic, while being the only rich young white guy is probably a lot less problematic than being the only anyone else. Just sayin’. A diverse judge pool used virtually at random will by default increase the comfort level for the students who often get no comfort in a round whatsoever.

I have for a long time been a proponent of MJP, based as much as anything as it is the best solution to the question of who gets to rank the judges, if the judges are going to be ranked at all. There are tournaments where students enter in full battle armor, supported by coaches and assistant coaches and concierge coaches and whatnot, and the competition is murderous. Those folks expect MJP, and all use it to their perceived advantage. Including young women. Given that Rather Large Bronx is one of these tournaments, and a few weeks ago it resulted in two female co-champions, it is clear that girls are perfectly capable of getting the job done in that environment. But not all tournaments need to use MJP, or any ranking at all, by anyone. A few strikes to clear out the hoi and the polloi, sure, and then you debate in front of whomever. At Scarsdale we certainly weren’t assigning female judges to see female debaters. It never would have occurred to us. It was just random, with that previously mentioned exception for experienced versus inexperienced. The end result seems to be that there remains much to be said in favor of randomized judging. If LD is to have any value beyond the full-battle paradigm—and I’ve always claimed that the least value of the activity is derived from the full-battle paradigm—then we need to keep at least some tournaments without MJP. And they need to be viable bid generators. A great speaker can convince anyone of anything. In high school debate, that leads to picking up ballots. IRL, it means getting jobs and presenting winning ideas and so forth. A successful debater, as compared to a great speaker, often can only convince a small number of people about something relatively arcane. IRL, this may translate in great backroom skills—you’ll be one hell of a researcher in the odd corners of any relevant literature—but not much in the way of winning people over to your way of thinking.

And what are we supposed to be doing here anyhow? Education? Or winning rounds?

Friday Arts

If you liked Kingsman: The Secret Service, you probably won’t hate Kingsman: The Golden Circle, but the first in the series is much the better film. Still, the second one did manage to pass a couple of silly hours well enough. It’s one of those movies where famous people keep showing up, and it’s best not to know anything about it in advance so that you can be surprised by them. Other than that, the movie is little more than an excuse to eat some popcorn.

On the music front, new additions to the playlist:

The First Cut is the Deepest & Kitty, Cat Stevens, New Masters — Very early Cat, and not that great an album, but a big Yusuf/Cat fan can always find a cut or two in anything he’s done. “First Cut” was apparently his first big hit.

Parchman Farm, Bluesbreakers, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers —This particular album was regularly pulled out of the pile by self-appointed cognoscenti back in the day because Mayall worked with so many people who went on to great fame, like Clapton on this album. But I didn’t like it much then, and I didn’t like it much now. There’s nothing revelatory about the music, which just churns through basic blues riffs, sometimes laid end to end in random order, making you wonder exactly what song they’re performing. More than that, I don’t like Mayall’s voice. But “Parchman Farm” is simple and clean enough, included in the playlist mostly for historical purposes.

Angelina, She Just Wants to Dance, & Am I Wrong, Keb Mo’, Keb Mo’ — If you want to understand more why I don’t like Mayall, compare him to Kevin Moore. Play the two back to back. You’ll get it.

Copperhead Road, Snake Oil, & The Devil’s Right Hand, Steve Earle, Copperhead Road — I spent most of the 70s and 80s listening to non-rock. Among the genres I grew to love was Texas Swing and Old Timey Music. WKCR, the Columbia radio station, had a lot of shows that introduced one to different music, most especially jazz, but also Cowboy Joe’s Radio Ranch and the like. (Cowboy Joe was some guy not named Joe who lived in New Jersey.) Meanwhile, rock was going through glam and grunge and punk and whatever. When I decided I wanted to get back in, I eased my way with various “country” artists who seemed to be carrying the flame of good old rock and roll better than anyone else, via honkytonk and rockabilly and so forth. Steve Earle was one of these. There’s country in him, but also serious rock. I’m still a fan.

157 Riverside Avenue & Prison Women, REO Speedwagon, REO Speedwagon — As any crossword puzzle person can tell you, REO stands for Ransom E. Olds. This group came along after I was on my rock sabbatical, so I really don’t know much about their work. Their name popped up in a list of “other artists,” and I did like these couple of tracks. They’re not bad at all, and I’ll keep tracking down their discography.

Summertime Blues, Blue Cheer, Vincebus Eruptum — Deleted. How did this get into my playlist? What was I thinking? Aaaaarrrggghhhh! Do you realize that this group had about a thousand members over the years and recorded about as many albums? Wikipedia credits them as “pioneers” of heavy metal and “influential” in punk, grunge, stoner, etc. Reason enough to never listen to them again.

In which we explain why you can't go home on Sunday

I wrote this and put it into the toolkit. I intend to distribute it before all the big college tournaments, just to shut people up. I think it covers all the details. Feel free to make it your own.

http://www.jimmenick.com/vault/obligations_judge.pdf

In which we are—and I apologize for this—political for once

It’s nice to wake up in the morning and not feel that the country has sunk even lower. It seems as if a lot of people were motivated to vote, and the more people that vote, the more likely the result will be better for everyone. Is American youth starting to mobilize? I certainly hope so. The last time they attempted to mobilize, in the ‘60s, we got Nixon elected and reelected, so they weren’t exactly getting the desired results. If anything, and this is hard to imagine, Trump is more reprehensible than Tricky Dick, and I say this having just learned a bit about the senate election versus Helen Gahagan Douglas. At least Nixon pretended to be honorable. Trump doesn’t even bother. But the issue is not with Trump, per se, but with the people who turn a blind eye to his immorality because they see some sort of gain for themselves in it, either personal or political. The devil is not the problem. It’s those who enable the devil who are the real issue.

This is not a political blog, but I doubt if anyone reading it is on the other side of the political fence from me. When I browsed Facebook this morning, pretty much everyone I follow was reveling in the Congressional takeover. When I browsed Twitter, Trump was reveling in his great election success, saying that to believe anything else was to buy into Fake News. You gotta give this imbecile credit for sticking to his guns. Unfortunately, those guns are aimed at us. I hold out little hope that Trump will somehow turn around from his demonization of the Dems and figure out a way to work with them. He’s never given any indication of being that kind of person. Now, at least, when he blames the Dems for not getting his agenda passed, it will be true, as compared to when he blamed them while he held both chambers of Congress.

So my prediction is that he will get worse. Unable to get legislation passed (not that he was ever all that good at it), he will resort to more irrational actions and continued childish name-calling and idiotic conspiracy theories and the unblemished racism/sexism/prejudice/bias/hatred that appeals to his “base” (the perfect word for them). More executive orders as if he’s king and can do whatever he wants. More courts shooting him down. More of the usual nothing being done to address the problems people face every day. More toadying up to bad actors on the international front because they’re the only ones who will put up with him.

To make this go away? I don’t know if the Democrats are smart enough to knock him out of office in 2020. I mean, it was the Democrats who thought Hillary was a good choice for president in 2016. My hope is that it’s the Republicans who finally realize what they’ve gotten themselves into, and that they dump him in 2020 for someone like Romney who may have politics I disagree with but who is at least not reprehensible as a human being. But that won’t happen. The GOP has too much to lose at this point to turn their backs on Trump. We all know that most of them are holding their noses until he goes away, but in the meanwhile they’ll take what they can get from him while he’s still around. This is called politics.

Politics sucks.