Coming up: a quiet weekend

According to Kant, all empirical knowledge is conditional and all a priori (reasoned) knowledge is absolute. I just thought I’d point that out, in case you have any cocktail parties planned for the weekend and you run out of chitchat about the upcoming Oscar nominations. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what’s missing in the world today, namely, glittery accolades for the best philosophy of the year. Or best supporting philosophy. Best philosophy adapted from another medium. The whole magoo. We could all show up in our best bibs and tuckers, walking the red carpet, being interviewed by Joan Rivers.

I know. I’m a dreamer. I see things that aren’t and wonder, what time is the next bus to Albuquerque? I’m just that kind of guy.

This weekend is Columbia, which happens annually without any pother on my part, although that could change in the future. Simply put, Chris Palmer, who is the honcho of the Massachusetts Forensic League, has done great work getting various and sundry venues to get their acts together, most noticeably the Bullpups, where field and entry limits were installed making the whole operation manageable and, in my estimation, worthy of its TOC bids. He’s trying to do the same for Columbia. Aside from my old and no longer relevant complaint about the tournament competing with Newark (although honestly, I held my higher level of complaint for those schools who chose Columbia over Newark, thereby not supporting the hard work of the high schools in a high school activity in favor of, well, God knows what), the recent lack of entry limits per school does dilute the pool much like an MHL, which is fine for novices looking for rounds but hardly speaks well of an invitational. In fact, backloading with a handful of schools to buff up the numbers is the second mark of a tournament scoundrel; backloading with your own school to buff up the numbers is the first mark, at least when your motive for doing so is to paint a rosy picture of teeming multitudes to TOC. But I don’t actually think that Columbia is playing any particular game one way or another, they’re just trying to get a tournament going. But from a Sailor perspective, it’s expensive and complicated to attend because of the distance and lack of housing, so it needs to be worth the effort, and I don’t believe presently that it is. If it were to become worth the effort, however, I would feel differently. And if anyone can make it become worth the effort, it’s Chris Palmer. So, we’ll see how that plays out going forward.

Because of the snow around here last night, I ended up not going out as originally planned, so I did manage to post a new Nostrum, making me rather up to date in most of my forensic enterprises. Over the weekend I’ll sort out whatever other odds and ends remain loose, including a bunch of email discussions that need to be addressed. And I’ll sleep in. Twice. And cook. And take naps. And sit by the fire with a cat on my head reading Kant. (My cats are notoriously fanatic about their Kant, and read him every chance they get.)