The forensics blues

I, for one, am thrilled that O’C is putting pictures of the schematics from Texas on FBI. I love seeing schematics of tournaments I’m not at and have no interest in. This enables me to see initials of people I don’t know, from schools I’ve never heard of, being judged mostly by people totally unknown to me. Is there anyone who really cares? If you are among that group of the rabidly interested in non-events that don’t concern you, do please let me know. I want to take you off my Christmas card list. My seeming fit of pique—I am so seldom sarcastic--ensues from the lack of judge names from Jakey for the upcoming MHL. Home is where the heart is? Or where the heart of Texas is? Whatever. Maybe I’ll send the skems of the MHL to O’C to post for me on CIA. A waiting world wants to know. $5K a pop: it’s the only explanation I can think of that explains it. Fortunately for me, the site remains totally or partially screwed up, depending on which browser I use to view it, so since I’m missing stuff, at least it’s stuff I like to miss. Poor Bietz. I feel his pain. There’s nothing worse than trying to get web pages to work. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to find the problem, and often the problems are only on this platform and not that platform. I’ll bet he can’t wait for the combined new releases of both Mac and PC OS’s!

Anyhow, the MHL is entered into the new TRPC (so I can print ballots, and it won’t be a problem with only one division per iteration), with the biggest pool of LD in quite some time, and that’s not even taking Jakey into consideration. Let the little novices come unto us, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Of course, before long LD novices turn into full-fledged Pfffters, from the look of it. I’ve got most of the Sailors Pffffting at Li’l Lex, for example. Can’t say as I blame them, though. If you’re not traveling the $ircuit, Nov-Dec is pretty bleak, nautically speaking. The only major tournament in the northeast is Bump, which doesn’t help us any. Can’t say I blame the higher echelons of our tars for seeing how the other half lives while they can. Then again, if Li’l Lex is coming, Bi’g Lex can’t be far behind.

I’ve passed my tentative NFL resignation letter along to the District committee. I’m not sure if it’s a heads-up or a talk-me-out-of-it at this point. I do seem to have great relationships with everyone in positions of forensics authority. NYSFL wants me to go away, the NFL will no doubt want me to go away, and the Legion of Doom probably wants me to go away. No doubt CFL will join on the bandwagon once they see the way the wind blows. The only reason the MHL doesn’t get rid of me is because I run it. Do I detect that much of the debate establishment is, indeed, an establishment? An installed conservative oligarchy that likes things done just so, and woe to anyone who challenges the status quo? Is the originating principle of the Legion, for instance, not preservation of educational goals but merely the reactionary bluster of old farts unwilling to consider meaningful change? Hell, I’m the oldest fart around these days, and I strongly believe in the educational goals of forensics, but people, please, if you really believe that an activity devoted to dialogue is immune from the dialectic, you were obviously out of school on a very important learning day.

But I digress. This is not about how everyone in the world is wrong. It is how poor, poor pitiful me is being persecuted. Damn. Nobody loves me but my mother, and sometimes I think she’s jivin’ too.