LDEP, and Wines of the World Unite!

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The Lincoln-Douglas Education Project Their goal seems to be making LD safe for the ages. Barnes, an old Hen Hudder, has grabbed the problem and is actually trying to organize folks to do something about it. The problem, of course, is the tendency to argue anything but the resolution, to argue in such a way that the debate is inaccessible to any but a specialized audience, to use materials that are inappropriate to high school, etc. I've been looking at their proposed ballot. I have some reservations about their speaker-point system. It's not a bad idea, necessarily, but a hard one to get across because of embedded practices. That'll be interesting. The ballot also stated: The affirmative must persuade the judge that the resolution is true, and the negative must persuade the judge that the resolution is false. This I don't buy as a paradigm. Not that it's necessarily untrue sometimes, but it's a license for weasely negs that have no offensive thrust. As I've said about a bazillion times, the neg is not just the absence of the aff. So, we'll see how that pans out.

I do like the idea of a general speaking point system adapted by one and all. It's really ridiculous that at a given tournament every judge has a unique idea of what points are for and how they should be rewarded, especially when we're attempting to give speaker awards based on these unique ideas. Throw in those non-English-speaking judges, and Whoa, Nellie. That's why I've posted judging materials on the MHL site, and why I'll distribute those materials at tournaments.

Meanwhile, O'C is up in arms over our team calendar—why is he on our team calendar—which pointed out that the food at Big Bronx, when they had any (there was a year or two when the best you could hope for was Hobo Stew over an open fire at the subway yards), wasn't exactly up to Iron Chef standards. Iron Stomach standards, maybe. If you've read his invitation, you'll notice that this year they're doing a Wines of the World tasting or something like that. Beers of the World? Diet Cokes of the World? God only knows, because aside from promising it, there's no explanation of what it is. Not that we need a menu down to the last peanut and coriander leaf, but this Buffets of the Bronx thing isn't exactly clear. Sips of Science? Feasts of Forensics? Lucullian LD? Pastry Puffs of Policy? (That one's got a ring to it.) Whiffs of Pffft? Whatever. Well, I'm reserving judgment until the event. (Oh, yeah. I've been communicating with BA Gregg who's doing Pffft tab, and he sounds open to torturing O'C as much as I am. We might have to install a take-a-number system, the way things are going.)