O’C must have awakened in the middle of the night last night with the MHL Workshop on his brain, because the next thing I knew I was barraged with emails. Whatever. The agenda hasn’t changed much, but we have moved a few things either hither or thither. I was going to confirm everything over the weekend, but this is fine. It fills up the empty hours.
His insomnia also held for some questioning about the handling of the Circuit/Traditional/Newcomer paradigm for coach ratings of judges preparatory to MJP. He and Dunay (who apparently also couldn’t sleep, or maybe Japonica was offering its legendary midnight buffet) pointed out that a couple of people were ranked as circuit who were unquestionably traditional, and I also talked to someone off the reservation about this. I think some folks might have interpreted the designation circuit as someone having circuit experience, rather than circuit affinities. What I’d like to see is a set of clearly separated categories that anyone looking at them would say, oh, that’s me, and then anyone doing their prefs (short of looking at the paradigms) would say, yeah, I want that kind of judge as my 1s. Suggestions welcome. This is the first time out with this, after all. We’ve got MJP hacked, but now we need to get everyone on board with it, otherwise it’s just a tool of the (circuit) devil.
Come to think of it, I was insomniacal myself last night. Had some DJ stuff going through my mind, enough to motivate me down to the computer to work it out. Plus I had to, for the umpty-umph time, collect paperwork in aid of the Aged P’s Medicaid application. Trust me on this: the dadgum guv’ment is out to git ya. On the positive side, reading Infinite Jest on the Kindle makes looking up the footnotes easy as pie. Plus reading Infinite Jest on, well, anything, will occupy the mind for at least, oh, a day or two. I’m hoping to finish in time for next year’s Big Bronx, but I may be way too optimistic.
The march to the Pups is now a raging footrace. Confirmed the hotel, doublechecked the bus, chivvied a few Speecho-Americans to get their damned medical forms in my hands sometime before I have to rush them to the emergency room, etc., etc., etc. MJP open, I’ve been tweeting (although once I tweeted through the wrong account—it’s been a while), people are pestering me about their bills. Ah, September.
1 comment:
Ah, the Village People. May it never be necessary to destroy them in order to save them.
Regarding traditional and circuit-
I do appreciate your efforts in this regard, and I think your asking people to rank their judges in categories is probably the best approach-
It may also have to do with how people imagine themselves to be versus how others perceive them. These days, someone who graduated from high school in 2009 may well be 'traditional' in the minds of some, to say nothing of people who graduated college in 2009.
Which poses the question 'traditional compared to..."
I myself am certainly comparatively traditional, hard as it is for me to embrace that level. But that is an oversimplification, as I do embrace RVIs as a means to combat what I personally view as problems with circuit-style debate- mainly because I am desperate to have a flow-based reason to vote against the aforementioned circuit-style debaters. Regardless of the merits of my position, is probably not that traditional a stance.
Still, I don't have much of an alternative. It is better to have people describe themselves than have others do it.
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