In which we slip the coin back into our pocket, so to speak

Maybe it’s just me, but are the recent PF topics going a little further off the skids than usual? I was all gung-ho about reparations, especially since the LD community seemed to want no part of it. But the immigration topic is absolutely perfect—for LD in 1996. Does PF have the philosophical wherewithal to seriously debate this topic? And am I the only one who’s noticed, shall we say, a little (okay, a lot) of negative backlash lately on standardized testing? We’ve got whole school districts staying away in droves. Is there someone out there looking to flip Pro next month?

No topic is perfect (although there does seem to be a loose correspondence between the number of words in a topic and its undebatability). I don’t see me coming up with any better topics, although I might at least phrase them differently, and I probably wouldn’t suggest beating the dead horse of standardized testing. I don’t think there’s any great lesson to derive from this except the most elementary: In a world where the coin flip matters, as in, you know you’re probably going to lose if you’re on a given side of a resolution, there should be no coin flip. The NCFL canned it. Our local CFL canned it, as did our late lamented MHL. I don’t know how the NSDA feels about it, but the minute they can it, it’s dead. I think most of us are just waiting for it to happen. How can anyone defend it anymore? I have to admit, it seemed like a good idea at the time, adding a bit of the unexpected into the game, and theoretically mixing things up where, on this topic you might want to go second, and on that topic you might want to go first, regardless of the rez, and from there all the other permutations of position and side would be in play. But that isn’t what’s happened. Winner picks the side on which there is often a presumed advantage, and loser refutes. I wouldn’t necessarily always want to go second myself, on the assumption that I’d much rather put out a whole bunch of offensive material than have nothing but the burden of batting down somebody else’s offense on a topic weighted in their direction. But what do I know? Anyhow, in a world where no topic is perfect, being compelled to defend both sides over the span of a tournament makes sense. For that matter, in a world where all topics are perfect, being compelled to defend both sides over the span of a tournament makes sense. Why should PF not be like every other debate activity in that respect? Let’s face it. The experiment is over. We should put the coin away now and move on. (Or more to the point, we should shut down the coin-flipping app, which is what the world has come to. A coin-flipping app? Seriously?)

Meanwhile, if this is Wednesday, where is Nostrum? Well you might ask. Latest word from Cambridge is that the lads are definitely committing themselves to what they’re calling NCOC. On my end, I’d better clean up the house and get it ready for company. In other words, I’m on it. I keep getting this promotion from my site host, telling me that for the miserable cost of $5 a month, I can have a site that doesn’t look like something the cat dragged in. I’ve asked my cat about it, and he admits that he is cautiously curious about it. I’ve got another weekend off coming up. Imagine what I could do with all that free time!