De trop

Reading over that thread about progressive debate (and I continue to be amused at the use of the word progressive, a value judgment that is far from proven), I am reminded of the days when the LD-L ruled the world. We had a wildly busy listserver where arguments like this one were conducted, a few posters taking it extremely seriously, the rest of us enjoying the discussion for a little while then deleting new entries without reading them. Enough is enough, after all, and God, those mailboxes would fill up fast. I am also reminded why I never bothered to post much, because you start getting vilified for either responding or not responding enough, and if your interest is marginal, you're sort of in the line of fire without caring all that much about the war.

Still, I like the idea of a place to air opinions and have discussions, good or bad. Once again we see the potential value of a site like BYOB, which chooses to mix the good, the bad and the ugly willy-nilly, with no apparent self-knowledge about the difference. Thank God that they're all wound up for the coming weekend, with reporters poised at state tournaments throughout the country to post the schematics of novice round 3. Good luck, Herman, wherever you are.

I read The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr yesterday. I have mixed feelings about it. It's a Sherlock Holmes story narrated by Dr. Watson. I guess I enjoyed it, but I found it almost identical to a Doyle novel (as compared to being identical to a Carr novel). I'm not the greatest Carr fan in the world; I found The Alienist to be stylistically convincing but ultimately an average policier. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed subsequent books less. I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Oh, yeah. You may have heard that the Nostrumite is getting married again. News travels fast in the forensic unverse. I talked to him on the phone last night (he was in a state of permanent depression with time on his hands this particular evening, thanks to no more West Wings for the year, combined with a great fear of actually starting to believe in the coming Apocalpyse). It is all true, although he's asked that I don't give away too many of the details, for fear that BYOB paparazzi might show up in force and ruin the intimate nature of the event. He has, however, allowed me to comment that he is indeed starting on a new series, this time in a blog format. I've posted the link over there on the right. He has no idea how much time he'll give to it, but he says he's enjoying workng out some new characters based on his work at his new job. When real debate (or BYOB) gets me down, I can now go see what's shaking with the debaters at TWHS.