You say either and I say it's spinach and the hell with it

Thinking about Caveman reminds me about Relativism, which may be the underlying convention of modern thought, for better or worse. Most of history, actually most of human existence, has been the seeking of the objective truth of the reality around us. Lately we’ve been taking a more “whatever” view of reality, as if there may not be any objective truth, or at least no way for any two of us to agree what that objective truth might be. That this is counterintuitive and perhaps pure sophistry never seems to bother anybody, because the counterintuitive sophist relativists counter that relativism explains away our intuitions as biased at best and deranged at the worse, while the objectivists (i.e., everybody not in the philosophic professions, to wit, 99.999% of the universe) don’t give a rat’s patootie. And it is an interesting question whether any two of us perceive any one thing exactly identically. Given my post-contemporary approach, and my claim that science and philosophy ought to be, ultimately, identical, my answer is yes. Unfortunately I can’t prove it. Yet.

The Regis CFL tomorrow will be a blockbuster. Sometimes I think these CFLs and MHLs are underappreciated. I mean, we put a hundred or two hundred debaters into action on pretty much every week there isn’t a competing regional invitational (and occasionally even when there is a competing regional invitational, if that invitational has nothing for younger competitors), which is an awful lot of forensic churn for very little buck. I’ve gone so far as to suggest that the MHL be free, but that would eliminate trophies, and the prevailing wisdom is that the low cost for the value of swag (all the money does, indeed, go into supplying tin) is worth it both for the competitors and the administrations, both of which see the taking of tin as an elemental part of any competitive activity. Anyhow, we’ve got maybe 250 of New York’s Windiest going at it tomorrow, and the weather report is agreeable, so it should be fun. And we won’t have those pesky Speecho-Americans to slow us down, which is always a problem at CFLs. Last week at Newburgh we had awards starting at 5. That has to be the gold standard of efficiency. We’re shooting for 5 again tomorrow. Anyone who gets in my way—obdurate judges, confused parents, lost debaters—will face the wrath of Menick! Slow me down and I guarantee you there will be Baudrillard books in your stocking this year, you spalpeen. See how you like that!

After that, I look forward to a week off; even the Day Job knows when not to bother. I’ll be seeing relatives, debaters, in-laws, friends, and Sweeney Todd (and note that this list was not prioritized, otherwise Sweeney would have probably come first, or maybe tied with my daughter, who I know places Sweeney higher than seeing me, the little serpent’s tooth). I’ll read science fiction and play Zelda and clean up the chez office and edit some photos and do a lot of cooking and prep Caveboy (the condensed Parsippanic version of Caveman) and generally entertain myself and others. Sounds quite soothing. I can’t wait. But of course, this being a relativistic universe, you have no idea what I’m talking about.