In which various bits and pieces are reviewed, including the rearing of golf's ugly little head

PJ is someone to be listened to on the other side of the MJP coin; you should read his comments on what I wrote last week. The jury is very much still out on whether MJP would shut down innovation (or, for that matter, shut down change that isn’t innovative). One thing that should be pointed out is that, for the most part, a debater’s first couple of years are at the hands of random judges, a virtual bootcamp of learning to adapt, so MJP only affects seasoned pros. And for that matter, all highly preferred judges are not the same: each is highly preferred in his or her own way, hence all those paradigms. And all prefs are not 1-1, heaven knows…

This last weekend was without debate for me, and I don’t think I missed it. Saturday I played my first round of golf of the season, and wasn’t even terrible, although I wasn’t exactly good, and I couldn’t move my back for the ensuing twenty-four hours. Then yesterday we went into NYC for lunch with Kate, which was quite good. I did get bulletins along the way from the Sailor Speecho-American contingent at the NYSFL annual hoo-ha; not all of us had the weekend off, in other words. We broke one and got an honorable mention for the others, so nothing shabby there, I’m happy to say.

Next weekend will be roughly the opposite in terms of debate intensity, with the NDCA tournament running from Friday night registration to breaks on Monday. There’s been some discussion of the number of rounds; Bietz, with his anti-neg bias (so to speak), requested the eight rounds to even everyone’s opportunity to debate the dreaded aff. I think we’re even changing the name of the side from the Affirmative to the Dreaded Affirmative, complete with DAC, 1DAR and 2DAR. My research on this subject, as discussed on TVFT, supported Bietz’s position when addressing the strongest debaters. The problem is that there’s an immovable awards ceremony after our seventh round. One solution was to break 24, including lots of 4-3s, allowing folks on the bubble one last chance to debate neg. I’m not sure how this has been adjudicated; it’s up to the board of the organization. Either way, it’s a lot of rounds…

Also, I was comparing notes this morning with Tim Averill, with whom I’ll be tabbing PF at TOC. I think he was worried that I might not be up to the task, but I assured him that I’ve been down that road a time or two. I mean, with no MJP and no side restraints it will be the proverbial walk in the park. The only problem with that is that, historically, TOC weekend is also the weekend that the university fertilizes the grounds, thus making a walk in the park a little less…floral?