That damned (or more specifically, that #%&!*) Emcee caught me on the old Greeley quote. I admit defeat, and will henceforth refer to the school by the nickname of its community’s most famous residents, to wit, the Carpetbaggers. Not that the Carpetbag High team is exactly champing at the bit, though. Last time I was there they had a roomful, whereas yesterday they had a handful. There’s always one or two serious folks who are self-motivated, but the school has never been able to get any forensic traction beyond a few individuals. This I ascribe this to the lack of a coach. How can a school get traction in the activity with only marginal knowledge of it, and no money behind it, and no teacher/administrator pushing for it? Carpetbag High is a good school with a serious student body getting into good universities, and it’s not as if they are lacking in the niceties of extracurricular activities. Debate just isn’t one of them, or at least not seriously. Over the years I have talked to Carpetbag parents and principals and teachers and, of course, students, and until all of these factions are aligned, and the moon is in the second house and peace will guide our planets, I don’t think there’s much that can be done. I wish them well, and I’m always happy to drop by, but I just don’t have anything to offer beyond that.
Meanwhile, some members of the VCA will recall my gingerly dancing around a local hate crime issue that took place not so long ago. As a matter of policy I avoid discussing touchy topics here that the administration of the school may be addressing it its own way. The last thing they need at difficult junctures is some mosquito buzzing around them making noise and causing trouble. Still, time has passed and March-April is what it is, so Tuesday night the Sailors and I had at it. With or without their own experience, and without addressing pure what-do-I-run debate thinking, it is one seriously interesting subject for discussion. It’s one of those subjects for which everyone wants to put their oar in the water (an apt metaphor for my team of naval specialists), and they did. At its core, the question is what, if anything, substantively separates two otherwise identical actions, when the only difference between the two is some social (antisocial?) abuse. That is, what is the difference between graffiti that says you’re a dork, and graffiti with a swastika that says you’re a dork? The answer does not, I think, lie in the frame of mind of the graffitist. If that were the case, we could simply say that we can’t convict people for their thoughts, and we could all go home. The thing is, it’s not their thoughts that are the problem, it’s their actions. Absent issues of culpability, which may or may not apply, there are legal consequences to illegal actions. We didn’t dig incredibly deeply at our session, but the digging we did was quality. Unfortunately there won’t be all that many opportunities to debate this resolution, given its position late in the year. Still, whether or not it debates well, it certainly brainstorms well. I like that in a resolution.
On the other hand, I have no handle at all on the March Pfffft rez, nor did anyone else except Termite, who plans to run that any action taken within a democracy is inherently just. I point out his strategy now so that potential judges can save themselves the bother of having to listen to his case, and can simply mark their ballots for his opponents early and take a nap for the ensuing half hour after getting that particular judging assignment. Then again, cooler heads may prevail between now and the Termitian witching hour, and he might find a slightly different approach to the resolution, if he does actually debate it. Whichever. Next week it’s all chezzes and no school meeting, for no particular reason except to vary the terrain. One chez will concentrate on those political primaries (except maybe we’ll tie Termite up outside where he can do no harm). And the novices do need a chez of their own, since as yet they’ve not checked out the homefront and been attacked by Tik (pronounced teek), so I have a novice-only chez for one of those nights. Then it’s a little time off for all and sundry thanks to Presidents’ Weekend and winter vacation, and then, as I’ve pointed out, qualification season begins. I have the Goy information ready to go, and a memo from them explaining what to do; all I have to do, I think, is do it. As a matter of fact, maybe I’ll go do that now. Wait a minute. Click here, here, and, uh, here. Okay. It’s done. The New York State NFL District Tournament is now live for registration. The next step is seeing how it tabs. I’ll think about that tomorrow.
Last night I plugged away on the Scarsdale data. Getting it into E-TRPC is no big deal; tabroom.com creates simple text files from which the data is uploaded. But some things need to be sorted manually, namely which divisions the judges are in and which rounds they’re not showing up for and their ratings, and the names of the contestants need to be churned because otherwise you won’t know there’s a duplication of a code until the point you issue the schematic and Goombah High JJ is either J. Jonah Jameson or Jack Johnson, and I promise you that Jonah will always go to Jack’s round, and vice versa, and neither will tell you that they’re both on the schematic the same way until round thirty-eight, at which point the only way to sort it out is to throw both of them out the window. Now JV is sending me email updates as people drop or transmute, as they inevitably do at the eleventh hour. I lay awake last night figuring how to pair the theoretically single-flighted rounds so that some of them aren’t (single-flighted, that is); it’s easy enough to do inelegantly, but at this stage of my career elegance is everything, at least in tabbing. Nothing worse than all those unsightly written-in changes. But, with E-TRPC, what you get is what you get. And never get me wrong. No amount of carping on my part will ever undermine the fact that I love having the program, and the Rich Edwards deserves sainthood. But then again, no amount of sainthood on the part of Rich Edwards will ever get me to stop carping. I’ve got a blog to run here.
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