Back in the saddle again

Back to it, I guess. There is something to be said for a little time off, however, both from debate and the DJ. Visits to a couple of museums, a real movie theater, some nice dinners out where the topic of juvenile justice is never raised, no hiring judges or encumbering debate funds or the like. I didn’t even bother updating the Bean Trivia questions after depleting them at the last Sailor meeting of the year. I just went with the flow and relaxed. But now that’s over, and as I say, we’re back to it.

I’ve begun reading cases for Jan-Feb, being quickly reminded that the issues have really not changed since the last time. I’m reminded why I like the topic: there’s a lot of there there. One thing that came up was the idea that one can isolate a part of the whole and not merely ignore the rest but dismiss it, but that doesn’t make much sense to me. The JJ system exists to distinguish the young from the old, following an idea that for some reason the young deserve a different flavor or retributive justice than the adult. Retributive justice has nothing to do with the literal “charging” of someone with an offense. The decision to charge as an adult or a juvenile is based on how one wants to deal with the offense both in trial (asserting that the offense was committed) and in punishment (payback for the offense). You can’t pretend that the difference in punishment is inconsequential because punishment is, de facto, the consequence of a guilty verdict. You don’t have to argue about the punishment, as there’s plenty of other meat on these bones, but you can’t pretend it doesn’t matter because, ultimately, it does. Anyhow, that’s just one little wrinkle, and certainly not a trend (I hope). We’ll see. As I’ve said here and earlier, to me it’s the need to prove or dismiss that difference between young and old when serious offences are committed. It’s a great real-world, and debate-world, question.

And yes, O’C did join us for Christmas. I always enjoy lining up the odd person of the Jewish persuasion for a nice dinner of roast ham, and if O’C isn’t an odd person of the Jewish persuasion, I don’t know who is. There was the presentation of the DiDeAd pins, a couple of games of Catan, some creative play with Legos (in which we learned that the mechanical O’C thinks that making flags of all nations is somehow the point of all those moving parts, whereas others in the group were being seasonal and making mangers or Santa Clauses—I would have at least expected an X-wing fighter or something)—in short, all the usual holiday pastimes. Kate had a friend from S.F. who had to leave Monday morning and who spent a lot of time waiting on the phone for airline reps to tell him that he was living in a dream world (this was during the blizzard working its way up the coast), but mostly it was fun and games.

But the fun and games are now over. Cases are due. Tournaments are happening. The second half of the season is officially here.