Let's see what's skakin' over at you-know-where

I have little to report of my own today, which means it’s time to visit WTF and see what’s up with them.

Hmmm. Ryan Hamilton has celebrated his 21st birthday. I’m not surprised that the event has taken place, but I am rather concerned about what year it occurred in. I thought Ryan was at least about 35, give or take a few weeks for spa treatments. According to this report, he’s a mere sprat. No wonder he’s always complaining when Legionnaires and their ilk besmirch college students. If I can do the math correctly, RH is still one himself. (Note to the VCA: whenever I am being vituperative against college students, do not include Hamilton in that number. On the other hand, when I am being vituperative about 35-year-olds, that is obviously the code for Ryan Hamilton. Just so we’re clear on that.)

The TOC has published it’s list of people no longer likely to be possible fathers of Anna Nicole’s baby judges for final round at TOC. Unlike previous years this hasn’t drawn too many attacks, despite the fact that I’ve seen just about all these people’s bones on display at the Jurassic exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. The issue is not digressive vs traditional so much as people who are still around late on Monday who have ever heard of Lincoln-Douglas vs the kitchen staff at the Ramada dining room. People do tend to leave for home during the last day, except for those who feel they may have horses in the race, or who simply traditionally stay the extra day, and a couple of years ago JW was apparently literally in the kitchen offering $20 a head to anyone who’d sit through finals, so that explains this list more than anything else. Of course, if this group of people were not to be considered about as good as it gets, then we really are in some sort of serious trouble in LD Land. It will be fun to see them split 7-6 or whatever.

I also see that O’C is putting together next year’s calendar, an admirable venture. (Hint: everything is the same as this year only a day earlier, in the way of all calendars and fixed events like high school tournaments, except after February, because of Tik-pronounced-teek’s birthday.) Apparently Easter is way early next year (sometime during Christmas vacation) which will throw all the March qualifiers into a tizzy, but the norm should remain, uh, the norm. Which is, in most respects, normal. I do understand, however, the Big Jake is moving to Cleveland on the day after Thanksgiving, but everything else should be status quo antebellum. (Will he comment on that out of fear that someone might actually believe it? Place your bets quickly on jimmenick.com/parimutuel/whatwillocdo.html.)

There is also now a new website, Forensics Online (http://forensicsonline.net/index.php), now operated by the NFL. Not really new, actually, but under new management. If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em? The site is about as volatile as [insert your own comedic image here for some really non-volatile thing]. I’m rather taken by this Jason character’s final farewell, which has been front and center for a couple of weeks now, mostly because I never heard of this guy, and there’s an early eulogy plus a photo. I like this guy’s looks. I might put him on my next run of WWMD tee shirts.

Back on PCB, meanwhile, there have also various lists of milk carton runaways round robin participants for the upcoming weeks. Round robins are an interesting animal. Like the all-girl RR down in Texas, they exist for complex purposes. Most tournaments exist, let’s face it, as fund-raisers. RRs tend to exist to some extent as more-fund-raisers, but also as promotional vehicles for the fund-raiser tournaments. Also they are quality boosters. If you have an RR and invite people or schools you perceive as top drawer, they will stay for your regular tournament and their presence elevates the level of your normal event. In Iowa’s case, I think the RR is as much a vehicle for their institute as anything else. There’s nothing wrong with any of this, of course, and it makes sense, but there does seem to be a proliferation of these things lately. If there were a handful throughout the year, they would be sort of special (although, no doubt, they’d draw on mostly the same group of $ircuiteers). But if there’s one in every Middlesex village and town, they lose a little of their currency. On the bright side, as I’ve said recently, ESL’s promotion of all debate lately, and not just pure $ircuitry, means that all of these venues are getting their moment in the sun, and the glow of any one venue, including TOC, is dimmed by having to share the light. This is a good thing. At the point where more people (other than the high school students) are reminded that we are talking about high school debate and can see its appropriate position in the universe, we are better off than if we submit to endless hagiographies and the like.

But then again, when it comes to hagiography, in this very entry I’ve sent to the Vatican the names of Ryan Hamilton, the TOC finals panel, the goombah who used to run FOL, and everyone who’s running a round robin. If any of these people start performing miracles, poor Benny the P is going to be a very, very busy man.