Debate: Let’s say that a debater doesn’t show up for a round. What this usually means is that I’ll trundle down to the room to not see the missing person for myself. Satisfied about their no-show status, I’ll tell the judge and debater who have been sitting in the room for at least the last fifteen minutes that I will declare a forfeit for the no-show and give the yes-show debater a bye, and that we’ll do it on our end in tab and the judge can now go back to the lounge for more donuts. Then I’ll trundle back to the tab room, erase the judge from the round, and mark the bye/forfeit. Then I’ll probably check things out with the no-show’s coach. That is the orthodoxy of the situation.
But here’s the thing. My original thinking on this was that the judge hadn’t actually heard anything, since no round had happened, so it made sense to remove them from the round so that they’d be clean for the yes-show debater later in the tournament. But after this happened last week at the Bronx, I began to have second thoughts. When I trundled into that room to not see the invisible debater, what I saw instead was two people who had sat together for at least a quarter of an hour and probably more. And in that time, regardless of how you would describe it, anything from icy silence to warm chitchat, these two had built up a relationship. Not much of a relationship I’ll grant you, but a relationship nonetheless. (I would add to this that I happened to know about this particular judge, who was a bit of a pedantic hard ass, although that doesn’t play into my ultimate thinking on the subject.) What I eventually came to decide was that it was better not to strike the judge. Who knows what happened in that one-on-one time? Yes, there may be one-on-one time in a normal round, when one team is way earlier than the other before the start time, but that is time the team that is present is polishing up and getting ready to speak. Once start time rolls around, the polishing is over, the yes-show debater looks up, and we’re into a twilight zone of—Who knows? The important question is, what is the judge thinking? They’re building up an animus against the no-show, sure, but are they also building up a subconscious animus against the yes-show, that lowly worm of a debater who’s making them sit there staring at the phonics lessons posters over teacher’s desk when they could be back eating donuts in the judge lounge? Or is the judge admiring the cut of the yes-show debater’s jib so much as to want to trade in their own kid for this one? As I said, who knows? Better, I think, now that I’ve reflected on it for a while, to eliminate any possible issues. Leave in the judge, eliminating any potential harm. Of course, this may or may not eliminate that judge from seeing that kid again in elims, depending on the tournament set-up, but that’s a different issue altogether. (Do you allow judges from prelims to judge them at all in elims? Do you limit it only to judges who have picked them up? There are options in tabroom. As it happens, there were no elimination rounds at the tournament in question, so that wasn't a point of contention.)
In the end, leave the judge, take the cannoli. There’s a new orthodoxy. It happens.
Books (Kindle edition): I just finished Stacy Schiff’s biography of Samuel Adams. I’ve read more than my share of American history, but I have to admit that a lot of what I learned here was new to me. Adams did not prepare a written legacy for future generations, so in the normal run of learning about the Revolution, one tends to hear more about those who did. On top of this, as much as not, Adams was sort of a backroom kind of guy. He had his moments in the sun, but they were few and far between. You first think of him as organizing the Tea Party, and then maybe that’s about it. From this book, occasionally one wonders about the means Adams used to attain his ends, and even sometimes what those ends might have been. Biographies are at their most interesting when their subjects are presented in all their human complexity. We contain multitudes. A good biographer lets us know that their subject’s multitude exists, and that those multitudes cannot all be understood by others. Schiff is that sort of good biographer, and the book is highly recommended.
Oh, and yes, Sam’s dad was a brewer. Sammy Junior did a bit of it himself, but I wouldn't say it was his day job.
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