The War against Bologna

As in phogna bologna, of course. (If it wasn't for words, I wouldn't have anything to say.)

Tonight I've decided to go with Refuting the K. I wrote this document last year as a more practical approach to the material in Caveman, and it's posted on the private files area of the team website, but I've never actually gone at it at length. It should be interesting. I don't think the novices have had much direct exposure to any of this stuff, but that's because they've been floating in the amniotic fluid of the novitiate. When they pop out next year into the varsity real world, they'll need to be prepared.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much other protection for them. I'm curious how much this stuff will be flying this year, and since I'll probably judge at least a round or two at TOCs, I guess I'll find out. I happily heard little at the Lex RR when I observed (although there was some wacko source material, but you can be wacko and traditional at the same time, or at least blend the two, and when you do, you takes your chances), but that was about all I observed all year. Too much time spent in tab rooms. But I got the impression that last year's TOC wasn't terribly avant garde. It's amazing how theories sort of stand aside when there's real gain to be had. It's one thing to run wacko stuff offline, when you've already got your bids or at RRs. But at the actual TOC, to run something controversial that could lose you the round when a more conservative argument would have won it, well, you don't see much of that. These people aren't running wacko material in order to lose, after all. I maintain, of course, that they're usually running it in an attempt to win unfairly by encircling the round in a miasma of intellectual hooey that judges have either demonstrated in advance a prediliction for, or which is so confusing but which sounds so hifalutin that they don't want to look like an idea so they pretend to understand it.

Anyhow, Refuting the K tonight, and some final thoughts on Mar-Apr. I think I'll keep having meetings for the foreseeable f, since I have a lot of stuff in the Cur that we haven't covered yet. I mean, what else do any of us have to do on Tuesday nights? It's not like we could be golfing or anything.