Prince Charming

I got this from O'C while I was doing Districts. It made my day.



Districts is the most amazing of tournaments. You arrive on Friday morning and start doing paperwork, and at 5:00 Friday you stop doing paperwork long enough to announce who won what, then you eat Indian food and go home and collapse. Sunday I should have got everything ready to send to Ripon but I just didn't have the energy. Instead, we went down to Westbury and picked out the Little Trooper.



Looks to me as if he'll be terrorizing debaters before you know it. He's due to arrive at the chez toward the end of April.

Anyhow, back to Districts. First, there's getting all the congress stuff started. There weren't too many changes; I moved one or two people, and somehow I left out Scarsdale's star Policy debater, but other than that, we started almost exactly on time. I gather that the cloning of an army of Joyce-Turners proved to be rather controversial. Some congressfolk, it seems, when faced with wacky stuff, respond by going into a snit. Better to handle it like a pro. Accepting it on face value is probably the best way to get past it. It's like when you have to debate someone who hasn't got a clue. Treating them like a pro makes them feel like a pro and makes you look like a superstar. Treating them like a schmuck makes you look like a jerk while making them look like victims. You will win, but at what cost?

While congress was happening, Emily and I finished coding the cards and getting all that organized. By the time congress was over, we had a very swift transition into the regular tournament. My paperwork switched at that point, first, to bookkeeping, then to loserkeeping: as soon as anyone dropped from the tournament, I entered their results onto the yellow sheets that NFL requires for each person. Endless... When I got a chance, I tabulated the congress results, although Charlie and Joe did a couple of the houses' preferential ballots. We're getting good at this. By the time we all retire, we'll be able to do it in our sleep. I also have to go through all the congress ballots and sort out who gets how many points for speaking. As always, a couple of people didn't open their mouths for 5 hours, but I was pleased to see that the Jolly Ts wouldn't shut up. Even the novices spoke their piece. Well done. And McLean and Harrison got to be best P.O.s. Excellent. McLean even qualled in congress! Good grief.

So Saturday progresses with occasionally my overseeing round creation and pretending to remember the preferences for who gets the byes or something like that, but mostly I continue to enter results. Then there's the entering of the final rounds, which is my responsibility, which I do with Kaz. Because of the all the double- (and if you count congress, triple-) entry stuff, the letters of intent must be consulted every 2 seconds. Considering that the winning duo preferred their individual events, we had to wait forever to push the first domino. I even called Ripon to doublecheck, just to make sure that the rule was, if you do a team and individuals, and you both qual in and prefer your individuals, you can do those instead of the Duo. There was a situation as the results arrived in almost every event, where there were dependencies on at least one other event. One never knows, does one, as Fats Waller might say, until the end of the end of the end. Then the awards. Since Emcee and Hush qualed in PF, and Katie and Spencer as well, and Katie and Emcee were also doing well in LD, there was lots of ba-zing and ba-zang there, and when all was said and done Ewok managed to qual. Amazing. Scarsdale was rocking all weekend, and qualled about umpty and a half mill before the final bell was rung. We got out of there around 5:30, which was a little later than usual but not terrible.

Note to self: tell these yabbo judges next year in the explanation letter that they are required to judge for the whole tournament. There is no obligation that ends when your own stinkers are eliminated. Au contraire, the fewer rounds you are in, the more likely you can judge. #(*&$^ judges!

Of course, all of this pales against the most important news, that CLG is now dating either some soap opera character or the lead singer of Aerosmith. I'm not quite sure which, but she didn't seem to be worred about any medical issues, so I'm assuming it's the former.

Districts, schmistricts, I'm going out to dinner

I spent all last night filling out bloody cards for Districts. They still need codes, but I'll do that Friday morning. I need a break. A little of Zephs' duck confit, perhaps... Maybe I'll see you there tonight!

Judging is going to be a bear this weekend. We have at best the bare minimum. Joe V managed to scare up a few neutrals, but everyone seems to have other plans or lives or something, and all the dangling of money has done nothing for us. I mean, how else do ex-debaters make money in college without having to do any work? Who is our competition, anyhow? Oh, well, what are you going to do? Jersey is also having its districts, with the same problem, so at least we're not alone. Maybe everybody's at spring break or something, which always scares the hell of me. The last thing I want to think about is debaters gone wild. Thousands of policy geeks and LD nerds actually venturing out into the sun. Could we even recognize them without their pallor? Speecho-Americans, on the other hand, well, it's always spring break for them, isn't it? Anyhow, no judges means wheel out your parents. That's what they're there for. Any wonder why I worry about LD and the old handbasket? Do the math. If parents and coaches judge districts, finals comprise debaters who've won ballots from coaches and parents. Versus if pomo majors judge districts.

Quick. Define legitimate. (Unless you're a Jolly Tar. In which case, quick, spell legitimate.)

Some day I would like to go to NFL finals. When I'm unemployed, that is. I can't imagine giving up a whole week of work/vacation now, but if I was already looking for ways to fill the empty hours other than shopping for the best bargain in egg-slicers as retirees tend to do, I'd be there in a heartbeat. I'd love to go to the district chairman meeting: that HAS to be the most exciting group of Americans since last year's Eeyore look-alike contest. Then there's the extra-curricular events. O'C's guided tour of Cinderella's castle. Getting thrown out of the casinos with the Nostrumite. Climbing the Eiffel Tower with CLG. Of course, usually the tournaments aren't in Orlando or Vegas or Paris (although, let's face it, there is an Eiffel Tower in each of them), but in West Whoopee Cushion, Arkansas, so maybe I'm expecting too much. The thing is, I'm always pissed that we can't go ride the Beast when we go the TOCs, but they're only open while we're debating; weekends only. I'd go early for a really top of the line wooden coaster. Not to mention Son of the Beast... If I knew in advance I wasn't judging all day, I'd dump all of you and head north and line up.

The next time you hear from me, my season will be officially over, except for TOCs and a couple of final meetings. I'm putting the golf clubs into the car as soon as I get rid of the districts trophies. If you want me, you'll find me in the woods, looking for my ball. But don't worry. I'll no doubt keep blogging. Having nothing to say has never stopped me in the past, so why would that make any difference now?

My Yahoo is going bonkers

Every time I take an action with my mail, I have to reload. And it doesn't matter which browser I use. Hopefully it's just an office thing; I don't have the patience to Apple-R all night as well as all day.

Which brings us to Muppets: A Cautionary Tale.

I think of this every year at Districts time. Once, many long umpty-umps ago, when Districts were back at Lakeland and I was a fresh young coach full of hair -- okay, I was never coaching with any actual hair, but that is not the point of this story, so don't be distracted by that. Anyhow, at this Districts tournament there was a girl running an LD case about the Muppets. For the life of me I can't remember what the resolution was, but her case was intended entirely as a joke. And it was very funny, no doubt about it. And it was also one of the most unethical and nasty things I have ever seen. The reason was simple. It was her last tournament (although her rationale doesn't matter) and she just wanted to have fun. But for everyone else at the tournament, well, it was a qualifier to Nats. It was a big deal. It meant something important. By her running something stupid, she theoretically became a walking bye, except that she actually managed to pick up a round or two, which meant that she lasted way past her expiration date. And here's the thing. The last person she hit, who picked up over her, never would have picked up in that late a qualification round under normal circumstances. WIthout going into all the gory details, as a result of this girl and her Muppets case, I can state with all honesty that the end result of the tournament was skewed. The people who did qualify were certainly capable enough, but if it hadn't been for the Muppets, someone else entirely would have qualified. On face, Muppets Girl probably just thought she was having a good time, but she was seriously hurting the chances of other people to qualify. I judged Muppets Girl in a crucial round, and I dropped her to a debater who simply could not have won under any other circumstances. I was pissed as hell, then further pissed later when I realized that the effects were deeper than I had originally thought, and still pissed today, about a million years and a lot of hair later, because I do not believe that this sort of thing has gone away.

Moral: If you are not going to be serious, don't come. If you go to a tournament, you must do your best. If you throw a round, or all your rounds, for any reason, you are probably hurting someone. It is an unethical action, and if you do it, you are doing something wrong. Debate is very much a game, sure, but it is a game with rules. If you do not wish to play by the rules, you are not really playing the game. If you think it's a joke, why bother? Stay home instead. Watch the Muppets on TV. They're on DVD. You'll love 'em. And that way, you'll be letting the people who care get the results they deserve.

Needless to say, last night at the Chez I told my novices to keep their mouths shut in Congress if they weren't serious, and that they should seriously attempt to do some Pffft, to get a feel for that interesting new activity. I repeat the caution here, for them and anyone else who might think that Muppets is a path worth traveling.

Congress

Last night I sorted through the Congress data for Districts. For some reason Congress requires the least amount of "official" paperwork from Ripon. This is good, because Congress is something I know absolutely nothing about, which means that the possibility for screwing up would otherwise be all that much higher than the rest of Districts.

What I do is make two lists, one of Senators and one of Reps. Simple enough. Then I divide the Reps into 2 groups, breaking each school in half, because having over 30 in 2 houses means we send 2 Reps. First, of course, everything is arranged by school, which is how I initially receive the info. I type it into Excel, one cell of name, one of school. Then I copy the names and sort them according to first name, and that gives me a random list. Then I make a little chart that looks like the room we'll be in, and I copy a person to each spot in the room. Voila, a seating chart, which we print up and which works as a "ballot" for the judges. Every time someone talks on Friday the judge will give them some points, and then I collect all the points and put them back into a list in Excel, now completely arranged by school (it doesn't matter about houses or senate anymore) and send that to Ripon so that NFL points are entered into the Great Book of Whocares. Much more complicated is the process of electing the winners, which is done by preferential balloting. First, there's a list of nominees, which usually includes just about anybody who opened the old mouth over the 5 hour stretch. Then everybody ranks them. Then we do this thing in tab where we find the firsts, the seconds, the thirds, etc., in order, which is sort of like 20-card monte, and best done to a reggae beat. This is the one part I do guarantee that we get right (we do it as a duo, and occasionally a three-o--it's the hottest ticket in district tab); if we say you won Congress, well, by jiminy, you've won Congress. If we say you've earned 13 points, on the other hand, well, by jiminy, you've earned somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 points. Grumpily Dukes says that earning her first Diamond meant the most to her of all her accolades, because it represented so many student accomplishments. I don't disagree, but a few points lost in the mists of vagueness won't change all those wonderful years leading up to the event.

I've been tinkering with the listings on the right, which you may have noticed if your life is truly empty. Nothing major, but adding and subtracting the odd entry. Burgers, for instance, who is now posting about once an umpty-ump, is demoted for doing school work instead of entertaining his old high school coach. Sorry about that. On the other hand, I have added a couple of good theme park blogs; I'm not wild about the average yabbo's emptyheaded meanderings (I have enough of my own), but these are a cut above. Worth looking at, if you're interested in the subject.

A chez tonight on Pfft for Districts, then back to Districts paperwork tomorrow night. Then again, a lot can be done Friday morning during Congress. And meanwhile I've got to finish the rough draft of Businessman so that I can devote some time to S&S. Meanwhile, I'm reading Why Buildings Stand Up, which is about just that. You'll be happy to learn that the arches at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower are purely decorative, and that there is only one Eiffel structure in the US (structure used in the architectural sense, the thing that holds a structure up). Crappy prize if you can name it. Personally, I couldn't. (And no, it's not the Bumpidome.)

Catholic card-throwing

CFL Grands is a tournament of card-throwing. You can set the brackets easily enough and figure who debates whom as the day progresses, but it is impossible to automatically assign judges because there's simply not enough of them. We've tried to trick the computer into doing it, but it just won't happen. Which means that you print out all the cards of the debaters and pair them, then you print out all the judges and see who can judge which rounds, and then do it again because of the double flighting, and if you're lucky, it all works out. We were lucky Saturday. But it is time-consuming, because you always miss the blocks or that they've already judged this yabbo on that side, and so forth and so on. Plus we're all together, speech and debate, in one big tab room, laity, nuns and everything in between, and everybody's going about their individual business trying not to bother anybody else, which limits the amount of Led Zeppelin you can blast out of old Grandpod to keep up the flagging late-day spirits. Meanwhile JV was charging his mini all day, which made the two of us look like the least up-to-date iPodists in America. Considering that it was a Scarswegian who, in one of those strange j'accuse moments, asked me how I could even listen to music on something that old, we made sure to keep the door barred and the windows shuttered. Perish the thought we get caught listening to our Liberace albums on old equipment.

The tournament had its usual ups and downs. The odd fire alarm. The odd judge (and boy, was this one *odd*), the odd drama. We did not qualify any of the Jolly Tars, I'm sorry to say, although we were a hair's breadth away. One crummy ballot, dang it! Oh, well. At least I got to find out that one of our debater's mother, a former Enron employee, is not under indictment. I hate it when the parents of the JTs are dragged away in chains. It makes finding judges so much more difficult.

The reporter yabbo I meantioned a while ago was apparently there, but he's decided that the smart scoop is in policy. The theory is that this is always the case; they see policy rounds and they are so intrigued by their incomprehensibility that they figure that they're the story. So be it. I really didn't want my picture on the cover of Weekly World News right up there next to Bat Boy and Hillary Clinton, if you want to know the truth. I value my privacy. That's why I don't even have a blog.

I collected bunches of Districts stuff while we were there, which I started sorting out yesterday. Aside from the one packet I lost, I'm in pretty good shape! Numbers are a little down, but we have a couple of new schools replacing some of the old ones, so things should be okay. I'll talk more about this shortly.

And finally, I've committed to teaching Simulacra and Simulation in April. Before you suggest that this is akin to Pat Robertson teaching Darwin, I hasten to point out that Caveman is quite favorable to the old Baudriloo, in a manner of speaking. He is a much better writer than, say, Derrida (but then again, so is Pip the Wondercat). And he writes about fun stuff like Disneyfication. And the non-existence of reality. Of course, if there is no reality, will it actually matter if I give the lecture? Will anyone even know whether I gave it or not, regardless whether they're there when I give it? This lecture may be the coup de grace for the season. It will certainly be the coup de grace for M. Baudrillard.

"Mr. Menick Builds His Dream Rez"

News from the Nostrumite: He's in a state of permanent depression because his mother-in-law has come north for an extended visit to help care for the Nostrumette. On the positive side, this gives Odelie some free time she so desperately needs, but on the negative site, Nostrumom-in-Law has definite ideas of her own about the way things ought to be done. "She's especially down on Pecksniff," the Mite tells me. Pecksniff is, of course, the Nostrumian Applehead, way too suspiciously following in the appellational footsteps of Pip the Wondercat if you ask me; couldn't the lad come up with his own cat-naming conventions? Anyhow, Nostrumom-in-Law firmly seems to believe that Siamese are evil, and that Pecksniff will come in the night when no one is looking to steal the baby's breath. "How do you steal a baby's breath?" the Mite wonders. Good question. One envisions Si and Am from Lady and the Tramp, looking over their new domicile... So for the foreseeable f, the old Peckaroo is locked out of the nursery. Apparently Nostrumom-in-Law has no brief against the Nostrumutt, on the other hand. The geriatric pooch, who is according to my reckoning about 138 years old in people time, simply lays around all day and grunts in his sleep (much like a number of debate judges I could name, except they do it during rounds), so he's hardly a threat. Anyhow, things continue to jump in Cambridge. I'm happy I'm in New York.

According to the comments, O'C always agrees with me. Of course, I find that most disagreeable. I was hoping that he was going to have his team run that there's no such thing as juveniles, that teenagers are simply an invention of the American government. Because that is incorrect. In fact, it is Dick Cheney who is an invention of the American government; teenagers on the other hand are quite real. Except for Termite, who is an invention of Dick Cheney. But seriously, folks, having judged a hundred and umpty-ump rounds on this topic back in the day, the point is not whether juveniles exist, or whether the government is able to exactly define them, but whether people of a certain age are culpable for their crimes. Simple as that. And if you ain't eating that particular Wham, then you ain't eating the resolutionary ham.

Tomorrow is CFL Grands. The number at the moment is 22. Usually we're at 18. I would really really like to hold to 22, because the more we have, the easier to assign judges. Vaughan and I will be shadows of ourselves in any event by 6:00 tomorrow night. I've printed out a list of all the LD topics going back to '79 for a discussion of the Modest Novice with EDM, but the more I think about it, the happier I am with Civil dissing.

And Districts stuff is pouring in, although my fax machine got blocked, so it's more like 90% of Districts stuff is pouring in. I'm glad I sent very clear instructions to everyone what to do. That's why everyone keeps asking me what to do. It's not just the Jolly Tars who ignore my every utterance, it would seem. So do the collected coaches of the northeast. If they don't watch out I'll come in the night and steal their breath while they're sleeping, the yabbos! Ich bin Der Chairman! You will listen when I speak!

Piffle.

Annals of culpability: committing suicide in self-defense

Curiously enough, I did make a comment Tuesday night about whether one was guilty of murder if one committed suicide in self-defense. On the other hand, I never once said that New York borders Ohio, unlike our former Westchester DA, so I'm not totally losing it.

As for whether or how much I'll judge at TOCs, mentioned in some earlier comments, at the moment it is uncertain whether they'll use MJP again, which, if they do, is my ticket to Starbucks. You've got to love reading the Sunday Times in Kentucky with a gallon of latte and a muffin the size of Termite's head. But if there is no MJP, given the ratio of judges to students, everybody will have at least 8 rounds off, which still means gallons of latte and Termite-sized muffins. CLG simply thinks I've simply written bogus paradigms to weasel out of judging, but this presupposes that I even *have* a paradigm above and beyond doing my best to pay attention to what's said, and not being interventionist; i.e., if you run something idiotic, it's up to your opponent to point it out, not up to me to drop you for it if it sails right over your opponent's comparably idiotic head. My favorite paradigms are the ones that are longer the Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Anyone with that much time on their hands to write out how they'll respond to something they haven't heard yet is someone you do not want to be alone with in a classroom late at night without which you have first consulted the local list of sex offenders (although in these cases, it's probably more of a wishlist).

O'C mentions in his comment running a K on Mar-Apr that the idea of "juvenile" is a recent social invention, and therefore, presumably, we can't treat them differently from adults. This is, of course, simply running that society is unable to establish age boundaries, which is about #2 on the list of bad ideas for aff, although calling it a critique does, at least, get you off the hook of having to debate the round, which is what most Ks are about anyhow, while making you sound sooooo "progressive" and cutting edge. O'C seems to like the argument, for some reason. No doubt he also believes that it is merely a social convention that we don't let three-year-olds vote, and that all social conventions are intrinsically wrong. Let me see. Not burning suspected witches at the stake is a social invention that, if I'm not mistaken, is only a little older than recognition of juveniles as not being adults. Correct me if I'm wrong, but world opinion pretty much holds nowadays that children do not equal adults, and that special treatment of juveniles is enlightened. Maybe I missed something when I read Roper and all the flap from Nino about consulting foreign courts... Anyhow, I love that social convention must be wrong per se. I mean, all culture is social convention, isn't it? Or at least the choices that a people make as groups in defining their culture is their selection among social conventions. Short of not having a culture, some choice must be made, so unless the act of choosing or the possession of culture is intrinsically wrong, social convention is neutral.

Oh well. I don't mean to attack OC here; I prefer to do it in person. Or on SFW. Nor do I wish to list all the bad arguments on a resolution, as I prefer at least at the beginning of a rez's life for people to run them against my team, which is usually prepared to bat them down and get to the good stuff. Arguing that juveniles don't exist, or shouldn't exist, or that adolescence can't be socially defined because any one kid doesn't magically become an adult on his or her 18th birthday is just silly. It's not what the resolution is about, or what anyone interested in juveniles charged with violent crimes wants to hear as rational discourse on the subject.

Rational discourse on the subject. That's what it boils down to, doesn't it? Of course, the word discourse has been co-opted by some modernists and pomos as a concept, or more to the point, dismissed as a possibility, but communication of ideas in aid of understanding and addressing an issue -- that is rational discourse. Perish the thought that LD should somehow fall into that category. Communicating ideas in aid of understanding and addressing an issue? Menick, what kind of dinosaur are you, anyhow?

Jeesh.

There is a real world out there somewhere

When there is a topic like Mar-Apr, where there is regular discussion played out in the real world on a regular basis, and people have perfectly well settled opinions, and some people believe in juvenile justice for violent crimes and some don't, and all of them bloviate on it ad infinitum, it is curious that this sort of discourse never actually makes it into many debate rounds. This despite the fact that the reason the resolution was chosen is exactly because of its moment (that's the 3rd def of the word in Web 11, by the way, and not a typo). The minute John Lee Malvo was arrested, the topic was hot again.

Of course, in debate rounds, you'd think we were arguing the color of angel wings.

This is an easy topic. Either you argue that adolescents are culpable as adults, or they are not. I mean, you certainly believe one or the other in the real world, and there are certainly plenty of people who believe the opposite of what you believe, and the reason for either belief is one's opinion of adolescence per se. These opinions, which are based on fact and/or observation and/or some other warrant, are what should be argued first and foremost. This is Lincoln-Douglas debate, where we're supposed to be getting to the right or wrong of things. Why is it right to fry John Lee Malvo? Or, why is it wrong?

But, of course, that's too easy, and good luck getting any rounds where the two sides debate that rightness or wrongness. As usual there's all the predictable muddleheadedness afoot. There's the rights protection on the aff, for instance. I have nothing against rights protection for people charged with violent crimes, but in those instances there are two possibilities: you did the crime, or you didn't. If you didn't do the crime, you should not be convicted of it, and I guess one could build an aff around innocent juveniles having a better chance of getting off via adult due process, but that would be one hell of a cockamamie way of looking at the rez as a whole because, well, it's only a part. And, let's face it, we don't really want innocent adults getting convicted either, so while it's perhaps an attractive line of analysis if you don't think about it too much, it really doesn't go anywhere useful overall because it's non-unique as we say in the trade. It doesn't answer the real issue, why should juveniles be treated this way, or not? It's ends-based but only given one possible end when there are in fact two, i.e., the charged person is guilty and convicted. At this point, the weasel rears the ugly head, and the aff seems to want to run that the word "as" does not mean "with." That is, you will be punished as an adult but not with adults. This is, of course, negative ground, because it concedes that there is a difference between juveniles and adults, and worse, it attempts to undermine the negative strategy which will of necessity address punishment. So here's the problem: If the aff is running negative's punishment material, what can the neg do? Of course, this is bad debate on two levels. First, it's bad because, as I say, it concedes negative ground, and any good negative can beat it down with a stick in CX and bury it in the rebuttal. Second, it's bad because it is a conscious attempt by the aff to cheat his way into winning. It's an unreasonable position if one expects there to be a counter-position.

Of course, that never stops anybody. In a way it's like arguing that non-citizens should be given the right to vote; you all remember that chestnut. That is a meaningless position that simply cannot stand in any intelligent discourse on the subject; nonetheless, it was regularly argued and regularly defendable as arguable, despite the fact that it categorically contradicts the concept of non-citizen. The thing is, find some stupid thing that wins and argue it and win. That's what debate is all about, I guess.

I say this coming off an attempt to discuss anti-K argumentation, which turned out to be hard to discuss in a vacuum. The novices haven't been that exposed to it, I'm afraid. Oh well. They'll grow up soon enough.

The War against Bologna

As in phogna bologna, of course. (If it wasn't for words, I wouldn't have anything to say.)

Tonight I've decided to go with Refuting the K. I wrote this document last year as a more practical approach to the material in Caveman, and it's posted on the private files area of the team website, but I've never actually gone at it at length. It should be interesting. I don't think the novices have had much direct exposure to any of this stuff, but that's because they've been floating in the amniotic fluid of the novitiate. When they pop out next year into the varsity real world, they'll need to be prepared.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much other protection for them. I'm curious how much this stuff will be flying this year, and since I'll probably judge at least a round or two at TOCs, I guess I'll find out. I happily heard little at the Lex RR when I observed (although there was some wacko source material, but you can be wacko and traditional at the same time, or at least blend the two, and when you do, you takes your chances), but that was about all I observed all year. Too much time spent in tab rooms. But I got the impression that last year's TOC wasn't terribly avant garde. It's amazing how theories sort of stand aside when there's real gain to be had. It's one thing to run wacko stuff offline, when you've already got your bids or at RRs. But at the actual TOC, to run something controversial that could lose you the round when a more conservative argument would have won it, well, you don't see much of that. These people aren't running wacko material in order to lose, after all. I maintain, of course, that they're usually running it in an attempt to win unfairly by encircling the round in a miasma of intellectual hooey that judges have either demonstrated in advance a prediliction for, or which is so confusing but which sounds so hifalutin that they don't want to look like an idea so they pretend to understand it.

Anyhow, Refuting the K tonight, and some final thoughts on Mar-Apr. I think I'll keep having meetings for the foreseeable f, since I have a lot of stuff in the Cur that we haven't covered yet. I mean, what else do any of us have to do on Tuesday nights? It's not like we could be golfing or anything.

Cats

We have put down a payment for a new Siamese. The cat is from Long Island, as is O'C, but we're not going to let that stop us. He or she will be arriving at the chez in April. We haven't exactly picked the actual kitten. There were umpty-ump of them, relatively indistinguishable, but we sort of indicated a desire for a seal point female. Or a male. Or a chocolate point. Or a blue. We were, obviously, quite clear about our preferences. Anyhow, by next season it should be well trained to attack anything that even thinks about running a kritik.

Fordham put on a nice show for us Saturday. Easy to get to, good grub, plenty of rooms, a working elevator. I could learn to like that. The competition was, at least as far as I was concerned, a way for the novices to get a feel for the new topic, which they will be debating at States before too long. When all was said and done Ewok sent me this long lament about culpability, so I gave in and wrote something out, and I haven't heard a subsequent peep out of anyone. I have either settled the issue once and for all or been so off the mark that they're considering jumping ship and doing Dec from now on. Hell, I'm considering jumping ship and doing Dec from now on, for that matter: why should they have all the fun?

We discussed the Modest Novice with Regis. EDM seemed willing enough, but preferred a different topic, viz., civil disobedience. I'm fine with that, so he's going to discuss it with the heads of the other Manhattan families, and maybe we can seal this up Saturday at Grands.

High point of the weekend, other than meeting the new cat, was listening to my Rockabilly Vol 2 album on the trip down Saturday. I really expected Termite to break out any minute into a counter-rendition of My Gal is Red Hot, Your Gal Ain't Doodly-Squat, but mostly he sat and stared out the window. Come to think of it, the entire trip was the most I've heard him not talk since I met him, in both directions. The silence was profound, and even more blessed by its rarity. I'm going to carry Rockabilly Vol 2 with me everywhere I go from now on! Emily did profess some wonder that on another trip I sang along with Rocky Horror Show. What did she expect me to do? Play it and *not* sing along? I mean, just because her grandmother was scandalized by it doesn't mean that I am. But maybe I should be. Okay. New rule. No doing the Time Warp at meetings anymore.

Whatever happened to Fay Wray?

9

Needless to say, the Nostrumite is in a state of permanent depression over his new roommate, if the Nostrumette can be referred to as such. "I don't know where babies come from," he says--and I'm not going to be the one to explain it to him--"but wherever it is, it's really far away, so they arrive completely jet-lagged. I don't know what time zone she's from, but it isn't Cambridge. She sleeps for an hour, eats for a minute, screams for an hour, poops for a minute, then goes back to sleep again for another hour. And you want me to believe she isn't from really really far away?" Sounds like an LDer to me, but I'll let him draw his own conclusions. In any case, everyone is home and doing fine and, I guess, adjusting to EST.

So some yabbo in the UK reads this blog? That really demonstrates an excess of time on the proverbial hands. Anyhow, the answer is simple enough. Doing the arithmetic always results in a number divisible by 9. Which is, to some extent, a most magic number. With any number divisible by 9, as you know, adding the digits of the number = a number divisible by 9, and vice versa. So, if I just rattle off 1443627111114, knowing that these digits add up to a number divisible by 9 make it a given that the number itself is divisible by 9. Try it. It always works. Lovely. Only Alex explained it correctly (offline), although he writes in Vout, or L33T, or whatever. Since I only speak English, and that only on occasion, our communications are doomed to conclude with me urging him to invest in a spell-checker.

O'C can't judge Districts. He claims he has conflicts, but I claim he's working on a program for HBO Institute called "Sucky Sophs" which is intended for prospective sophomores who go 0-5 at every novice tournament, and who want to learn how to pick up the bye in the random rounds so that they won't look so pitiful on the second day of the tournament. I could be wrong about this, though.

If you're wondering, my DVD recorder is working wonderfully. I've been collecting classic films from TCM. I've done this in the past. I've collected classic films on a Betamax, and on a VCR. I've bought classic films on DVD. Usually the same films. I never watch them, I just collect them. Some day, when I retire, I will catch up on the complete Mickey & Judy. And the Duke. And the brothers Marx. Some day, when I'm awfully low...

Crappy Prize to anyone who can explain this to me

http://trunks.secondfoundation.org/files/psychic.swf

Continuing apace

There's been a lot of back-and-forth lately about LDEP stuff with Smilin' J and company. I guess the goal is to have something by TOCs (an obvious and important goal). It's hard to report what exactly is happening, but it doesn't look bad. I keep pushing for short, sweet and simple. Then again, I always push for simple. People always understand simple. And all things can be presented with simplicity it you work hard enough at it. When news breaks, anyhow, I'll let you know.

I thought I'd do Districts last night but I did Mr. Businessman. So sue me.

A new schedule is flying around the circuit, with dates of all of next year's tournaments, mostly. There's a couple of confusing areas, but we're closer than we usually are, and at a much earlier date. I did, at some point, almost commit to hosting a division of Pffft at Bump. I was thinking of taking up to 10 rooms at the high school and seeing how that works. Of course, I'd be taking them at the expense of policy, but so it goes. Local policy these days is so far down to seeds and stems that cutting back their numbers at Bump actually makes sense. I mean, there will be plenty of slots for the teams that are still extant, but simply put, I can make more money with a room of double-flighted Pffft than I can with a room of single-flighted Policy. Do the math. Plus a flurry of correspondence not that long ago among the policy honchos didn't exactly make me want to be their happy host ad infinitum. Curiously enough, they complain that the northeast has no policy TOC bids. I've run a tournament with 40 or so Varsity teams for 10 years, regular as clockwork. Work with me? Na'ah. I'm the enemy. So, I'll be the enemy. You heard it here first: in the not too distant future, I foresee a Bump with three divisions: Varsity LD, Pffft, and a nice big Novice LD division (as Newburgh used to have). Not in 2006, but 2007? (Yeah, I know, I should keep my mouth shut about this stuff, but when have I ever done that?)

It's a jungle out there

We have begun the hunt. We are stalking a new cat.

This is not as easy as it seems, at least not if you want a traditional Siamese a la Pip. I don't really like weasel-looking cats, if you know what I mean (and I could name a few weasel-looking debaters to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, but it's probably not a good idea to test the limits of net slander against minors so late in the season). Fortunately there's the internet, and one can track down a cattery or two on Long Island, which as far as I'm concerned is like tracking down a cattery or two on Mars. Long Island? I mean, people from Westchester simply never go there. They've stopped providing visas, if I'm not mistaken (O'C made the last certified border crossing). But we are hoping nonetheless to venture forth Sunday morning to look at a litter. Could there be a Wondercat Junior in the offing? Watch this space for more details.

Last night's chez should have finally shaken the novice mental cobwebs. After about an hour of going point by point over what the aff isn't, which pretty much eliminated everything everyone had already come up with, we suggested what it maybe is. Given that the aff is, intuitively, the easer position, I am once again convinced that the easier position is always the harder one.

I have made the States motel reservations. Now all I need is the name from Dave of their speech judge (if any), then we can sort out the driving issues. For that matter, I have to sort out driving for Saturday. And figure out why there is a form at the Hendrick Hudson Academy for Piccolo Prodigies that no one seems to believe exists (for parents driving other people's kids). And figure out Districts driving. Life was easier when buses were cheaper, as Aeschylus used to say.

Tonight I definitely work on Districts, sorting out the Jolly Tar entry, and figuring policy. I got a call Monday from the trophy people checking on some details; the good news was that, since they thought I needed the trophies in the middle of April, their call was early enough to get things finished on schedule. Some idiot gave them the wrong date, apparently. The fact that I am that idiot is beside the point; they should have known better. Anyhow, all's well that e's w, so that's set.

And here's a tip on how to make my day. They cancelled my dentist appointment today. Huzzah!

Nothing major

As in, not much happening except odds and ends.

As my request for novices to send paragraphs explaining their aff and neg positions for Mar-Apr proved almost frightening, I went on to request simple sentences on each side. Still scary. It would seem that our Sailors think mostly that juveniles are inherently guilty of all crimes with which they are charged, and should be hung by the thumbs in the public square. And the reason for this, which is what I've been trying to get at? Your guess is as good as mine. Debate them this weekend at Fordham; maybe you'll find out. When you do, let me know. Curiously enough, the negs all think that these wacky kid criminals (of the rez, not the Sailors) are somehow different from adults. Wouldn't the aff argument be, logically, that they are somehow NOT different from adults, and all you'd have to do is pick a somehow? But what do I know? I'm only the coach.

These novices are a pretty scary group, all told. And speaking of which, there seems to be some Speecho-American newbie who is just signing up for the Speech listserver now, and who doesn't know how to sign up for tournaments. Or so say his plaintive emails. And I thought our folks were unique... I told him to go to a meeting and talk to someone. Good advice, but who knows if he'll follow it?

I started moving paper around last night for Districts. I've got to figure out what, exactly, the HH entry will be. The judging is pretty damned thin on the ground, and I haven't been able to hire anyone other that CLG and maybe half of Justin, so it's going to be tough to cover much of anybody, much less extras for the tournament as a whole. Dave will judge, though, so that helps. I'm afraid it will be up to Scarsdale and Iona to fill up things up to the rafters. You'd think the promise of a day off from school would do the trick for the Jolly Tars, but not even that seems to be working except for a couple of the more cognoscenti delinquents.

The chez tonight will mostly be on the floor, since Kt the Spamless Goddess of Silence took half the furniture. No more futon (I almost typed no more tofu). No more red comfy chair. Hard times, indeed. On the bright side, that will encourage them to leave early...

There's a round robin up in the Brandeis area toward the middle of April. I'd go if it were, well, not up in the Brandeis area toward the middle of April. The problem with post-Districts stuff is that, for all intents and purps, the year is over, and one isn't all that motivated to go to unexpected new venues. As it is, I don't think I'll be able to swing going to CatNats if we do qualify anyone, but I am going to try. We'll see. Then again, the qual does come first, eh?

Pick a card

So we did Regionals with pure index cards, which is about the only way you can do something that small, especially when you're putting the novice bye into the jv pool. You can just get so creative in TRPC, and then you're done, whereas if you actually know what to do without any software at all, your worst-case scenario is simply that you have no software. Once upon a time, of course, all tournaments were done with cards. And in a way not only do we do Regionals with cards but also Grands, with double-flights and three judges and total madness from the get-go. Aside from me and Kaz and Bacon, there probably aren't many card throwers around anymore; I only learned in the twilight years when the Mac version of TRPC couldn't really do MHLs that well. One thing about being a dinosaur; you do know how to eat the leaves off of trees while standing in water up to your knees while being attacked by velociraptors.

At one point at Iona Joe broke the news to me that he and O'C were going to be on the TOC committee but not me. I had heard that JWP was making changes from Kaz, who didn't know if she'd still be on herself, so I was hardly unprepared for this (and I've been sort of an inexplicable member anyhow, no question about it). But more interesting, Joe acted as if I might be upset by it. Curious. Let's see. I'm the person on the committee who thinks the TOC is the most evil influence on LD and should be eliminated. Remember, "If the TOC didn't exist, I wouldn't invent it"? I have spent the years I've been on the committee appalled by the politics (for instance, I watched the evisceration of the Bronx in what can only be deemed an alternate universe while the outsourcing of bids to universities has continued unabated and unwarranted). And the annual lunch is a social event that I have often found positively painful; my only consolation is that the people I have had to make conversation with have had to make conversation with me in return. In the word of Pseudolus: "Free!" I have felt like a hypocrite since day one; let Joe and O'C feel like hypocrites for a while.

And I know you're wondering: Pip is back on the premises. Kt the Spamless Goddess of Silence relinquished the Wondercat on Saturday, and although he is still roaming the place complaining (I think he misses Stripe), the presence of novices at tomorrow's chez should put paid to his concerns that all may not be right with the world. He didn't even have to help me set up the DVD recorder; it was the proverbial piece of pie. Now all I need is something to record.

Coming up: making reservations for States, the last salvo of LDEP, and praying for divine intervention with my novices debating Mar-Apr. My guess is that only the former will be successful.

It's a Nostrumette

I have received my first cell phone text message ever from anyone other than my phone service supplier. Odelie's labor ended last night at about 2:00 a.m. and the Nostrumite became the proud father of a newly minted female. A name is still TK, as we say in the trade, but "the Nostrumette" will do nicely for me for the foreseeable future. (Fade to Billy Bigelow: "As you walk through... etc etc etc.")

I can't top that one, folks. See you at the atheisting. No, wait a minute. Odelie will have something to say about that. What's about halfway between an atheist and an Episcopalean?

Yep. You got it. An LDer.

Names changed to protect the innocent

Why do I bother? The journalistic yabbo gave us enough personal info to steal his identity and take this plane to Cuba, Termite has outed himself as Paul who doth not protest enough about his transgressions if you ask me, and O'C claims that his email is on every debate website in America which I don't doubt for a moment.

I shoulda stood in bed.

What I realize I haven't done, what with being out of the country, is prepped more for Districts. I know that doesn't sound like much to you, but you try it some year, you ungrateful cur. I'll sort it out over the weekend, print up the latest manuals, estimate some numbers for Joe V to buy the evening's gruel, etc., etc., etc. At the same time, I have to figure out my new DVD recorder. Ask not why I bought this, but I just couldn't resist. I'm claiming that this is how I'm spending my winnings from this year's SuperBowl office pool. (I did tell you I won, didn't I? Again? It's just plain skill, of course.) The question is, how does this weld into the stack of equipment already there? The 2 VCRs, the DVD player, the speakers, the PS2, the cable box, the TV. I pulled out a box of random electrical gear from the basement, the detritus of previous setups, in preparation for an hour I'll never get back again. And you've got to wonder what the point is, given that I really never watch all that much. I just like the technology, I guess. I'm assuming that I will have Pip back to help, assuming I do this on Sunday. Kt, the Spamfree Goddess of Silence, has been caring for him, and I think I'm picking him up after Regionals, although confirmation of this or much of anything is as rare as a serpent's tooth. (No, wait a minute, that's King Lear, and it's daughterish but—Yeah, you got it.) I miss him. I keep seeing him around the house, but he keeps not being there. Must be one of those Fuseli gothic nightmares I picked up at the Tate...

Meanwhile, the snow is snowing, the wind is blowing, and I'm headed to the dentist in a minute to fix the tooth I chipped chewing gum on the way to the UK. Very tough gum, that. I'm starting to fuse back into NYC time; maybe tonight, I'll clean up some of the pile of crap that's been accumulating on my desk and even get back to BusinessMan (for which I need a better name). We'll see. If I leave the stormy office early, definitely. That, or set up the DVD recorder. Whichever looks like more fun for a snowy evening.

Every debate tells a story

That's one of my favorite subjects, the narrative of a debate round, and we talked about it last night. Or more to the point, I sort of croaked on about it in a jet-legged hoarse voice and people were either entirely asleep or entirely rapt or entirely wondering when I was going to stop so they could get the hell out of there. I am reminded of Ewok's comment that if I were a regular teacher, the students would think I was a you-know-what (that seven-letter A word that, no, is not "arrogant," if you needed any further indication that math is not among the top skills of the legendary Sailors). Of course, he pegs it on the smarter/funnier line, but I digress.

A debate round is definitely a story. It is peopled by characters, and one must do one's best to establish oneself quickly as the hero of one's tale. We talked about how to do that. But the real story is the narrative of the round itself. It begins with exposition (although, as a dinosaur, I think beginning with an epigram is a good idea; hell, M. Dick begins with umpty-ump point three of them!), i.e., definitions plus a quick explanation of what the story will be about (I am going to achieve such and such a goal, and this is how I shall go about doing it, AKA values and criteria). Then the story begins. The debater who at any time in a constructive forgets the narrative of the quest for the value and wanders off on some other subject, Shandy-like (I'm still irritated that Termite thinks you can see the movie of TS and that this will somehow be the equivalent of reading the book, but I digress), is losing track of the story. The audience, the judge, loves a good story, and loves good story-telling. Milk that for all its worth.

The negative, of course, has his or her own story, which begins in previews during CX. Nothing like a little teaser, eh? Then on to telling a counter story, again with a statement first of the aim of the quest, then on to the quest itself.

In the refutations, of course, the art of story-telling matures. You have to pick and choose what to emphasize and what to de-emphasize. Sometimes there's just basic business that has to be dispensed with, arguments that no one ever wins, and then there's the arguments you think you can win on your side. A good storyteller concentrates on those arguments, because those will ultimately make the best story. In the 1AR, the aff does likewise. Then, of course, in the NR, neg does it again.

Which leads to crystallization. The presentation of the voting issues is, in fact, a reiteration of the story. You show how your side of the story is the correct one. You do this by going back to the beginning (the constructives) and drawing a line from there through the refutations out to the end, and the achievement of your quest/goal/value through the struggle of your criterion. Don't tell me it happened, show me how it happened.

High drama indeed!

And all of it is predicated on certain ideas that are always true. Certain ways to present. Certain ways to pick up all judges, not just the [fill in the blank] judges. The need to break when you're down two, which can only be done with high speaker points, which rely on great story-telling.

Speaking of which, some yabbo called me up yesterday claiming that he was trying to write an article on debate. We chatted amiably for a while (or, more accurately, I alluded to the burial places of a number of forensic bodies while his call-waiting kept clanking and he surfed porn sites or something) and I invited him to this and that event coming up. I did start a book once on debate, but I got side-tracked. By debate. I might go back to it some day, using this blog as notes (unless someone like the Nostrumite steals all these notes and writes a book himself, the dog!). But I'd like to see an interesting article or something now, especially since LD is in what seems to be a crisis mode. The journalist in question seemed to want to write about policy, for some godawful reason, so I told him that Grands would be his ticket there, but my guess is that, if he has any sanity whatsoever, 10 minutes of polician speed will send him screaming into a nice warm LD round with three parent judges and a partridge in a pair tree and all like-a that, as me grandmother used to say.

Outstanding issues:
Whatever happened to LDEP? I'll write the ps that be and find out.
The Modest Novice? I'll talk to Eric next weekend about that. The Manhattan territory is the last buy-in that is absolutely essential.
Nostrumite, Junior? If you can count (quick, how many letters in "arrogant") you'll know that the lad's little dividend is coming up any minute now. Nothing yet, is the word from Tennessee Williams High School, where the entire team is atwitter. (We've got a twitter or two on our team, but that's another subject entirely.)

And I keep coming back to this. A MOVIE IS NOT A BOOK. In our school district, it is not unusual for English teachers to screen films of the book assignments. I realize that. But I loathe it. This is like showing paintings of flowers in a botany class instead of the real thing. I like Monet, yeah, but the poppies seen from a real plant and maybe a microsope are not about the play of light on the pond at Giverny!

Jeesh.

Checking in

Give me a minute here. Reentry takes longer than you think. For the moment, just some random thoughts.

1. See Billy Elliot, the musical. See the movie, for that matter, if you haven't already, but that's not what I'm talking about. (For those of you in the know, if there were a book, you could also read that, given that all media are interchangeable in certain eyes, but that's an issue for another day.)

2. Don't read The Half-Blood Prince. Not that it's bad, really, but not much happens, give or take the obvious, and if you want all sorts of new stuff, you'll apparently have to wait till the climax. On the other hand, reading Harry in the UK adds a certain charm, I must say. So does reading Wodehouse on golf.

3. Figure out a way to eliminate spam. Please. Talk about clogging the old mailbox. I did get some really superior phishing posts on the old AOL account while I was away, though. I like to figure out where the error is and I enjoy it when I'm especially stumped. I entered O'C's social security number into a couple of the best ones.

4. I sent out umpty-ump requests for Districts judges and have startlingly received quite a few fewer than umpty-ump responses. Jeesh. We're going to have to ask O'C again, I guess. Worse things have happened, though. He likes when I sit in my comfy chair at the chez and give the "Engage!" command.

5. No judges have turned up for speech at Regionals, so I guess they're giving up the ghost, given that tonight is the deadline. This is not good, but I can't imagine what one could do about it. Whatever happened to rabidity? We used to have Speecho-Americans you couldn't fight off with a stick! Those were the golden years.

6. I thought there'd be at least three new versions of the iPod released while I was away. Jobs has been sleeping on the job, I guess. Or his employees have been sleeping on the Jobs. Or something.

7. Wallace & Gromit is perfect for an airplane. And probably anywhere else. I really didn't think it would work for a whole feature, but what do I know? Pass the cheese, what.

8. Fortunately I prepared material for tonight's meeting before I left last week, because I plan to be asleep on my feet in about 45 minutes, when the jet lag usually kicks in.

It's been swell

I'm packing up, which isn't all that hard to do given that I'm not away that long. Mostly, as I've said, it's issues like what to read and what to put onto the Nano rather than what color socks. Although socks will be something of a necessity; it's as cold there as it is here, more's the pity. Oh, well. Winter is winter, and I'd rather be in London to visit the queen than in Cortlandt Manor watching Dora the Explorer reruns.

No, I don't watch Dora the Explorer, either in reruns or in the original. Jeesh.

I love the fact that everyone on the Hudwarts team believes that someone else's parents will judge. It just doesn't work that way. As in States, for instance, where our one parent can cover 4; it's interesting how everyone thinks they know who the 4 will be, now that we've got the one parent. Yeah, right. For that matter, for all I know it's 1 to 3; I haven't seen the invite yet. And we haven't filled up the Grands list yet, probably because of that same judging issue, although Termite thinks his unqualified dad can judge. I don't know where some of our other stalwarts are. Maybe they're just less stalwart than I thought, despite the fact that our varsity all have a good chance of going to Chicago. Oh, well...

On return, and back at meetings, we'll attack such lovely subjects as, Debate as Story, Logical Fallacies, How to Research, and that old favorite, Scots Poetry reading. Pass the tatties, lass. We haven't done Scots poetry in a dog's age, and it was quite the hit in its day. It's time to bring it back. And I've been trying to hire some Districts judges, mostly for the tournament at large (Districts eats judges and spits 'em out fast). I've really got to think Districts when I return. I've sent out the announcement, but there's all sorts of prep work. And post work. Oh, well, it's the big bucks and all that make it worth the hassle.

I'll bring you back a banger.

Oh joy. Oh rapture.

Noah actually thinks I'm right about something (see previous post). Gainful employment must be going to his head.

Meanwhile, I am in the throes of doing things like deciding on airplane reading (Harry, yes, Delirious NY, maybe) and what would be the perfect electronic toy to buy that I don't already own so as to pass the empty flying hours, mostly because not only have I ground to a halt, but so has the debate universe. I mean, I guess the poor schlubs up at Harvard still think things are happening, but everyone knows they're just throwing their money into the Harvard team's coffers in the biggest scam since that very first coach decided that ziti was suitable food to serve at debate tournaments. There's the steady trickle of LDEP stuff, but I'll let them resolve themselves while I'm away, and if nothing has happened, I'll try one more barrage before heading off to the dinosaur burial grounds. I'll need to talk to a couple of people directly about the Modest Novice. And States? Well, we didn't expect anything this year, and since no one from HH will probably even go, I won't worry about it much. I sent an update to the entire team yesterday in an attempt to energize them to find judges/chaperones, but there was no immediate response. I am going to have to do some serious hiring for Districts (not to cover us, but for the tournament in general), and I'll start that this weekend. Otherwise, it's just cleaning up the crumbs.

On the positive side, some of the Jolly Tars are heading down to NYC to research tomorrow. Normally they would go to a library, but given the nature of the new topic, they're just heading to Chelsea to attempt to mug tourists to see what happens when they get arrested. This will allow them to run a post-performatic critique, and I'm all in favor of it.

O'C is still not responding to me. I guess he's been sucked into the mother ship via his Intergalactic Network Chip that OMG purchased for him. He's probably happy up there with all the other trekkers. (And did I tell you I was watching Firefly? Why did this show go off the air? Jeesh.)

Special entry: From the guy who thinks he won Newark 3 times

Comment to blog post from yesterday that was too long, according to Blogger:


I honestly can't remember the last time I heard you talk broadly about
a debate topic and agreeing with EVERYTHING you said; I must be
slipping in my old age. Jeff Hannon, who was the kid in finals my
senior year at Harvard who, when a cell phone rang a minute into his
1AC interrupted himself and said, "telephone?" (he was one of my Nova
boys.) In every round, he used to basically fall asleep during the
negative's speaking time and get up cross ex and ask, "so what don't
they understand?" And he was like a big fourth grader and it was
clearly the most intelligent question anyone was forcing. He'd just
ask the same thing over and over again, kind of like asking one of
these semi-pubescents arguing statism critiques "do you really believe
a single word of this you little 16 year old blessed soul?" No kid in
debate can say that they're meaningfully different from adults.

If you want to know, the most effective argument I found was
predicated on this evidence from an author I can't remember who wrote
a very good quote explaining why VIOLENT people, regardless of age,
are not amenable to rehabilitation. Frankly, the neg (if that's the
"treat them like adults" side) can't argue about retribution because
that criterion for punishment gives a pretty clear mandate. I
remember reading that just punishment has four attendant criteria that
can be deemed more or less important that one another in debate and
also ranked, lexically, as it were (this was always the best part of
punishment topics.) The thought experiment where you consider whether
to harshly punish a man in his mid-90s who's two years away from death
and is, for the sake of the thought experiment, both repentant and
assured never to commit a crime again, is hard to answer in harsh
terms, specifically given that the punishment proposed in the original
incarnation of the thought experiment is between jail time and
consignment to a deserted island (which is obviously meant as a trick
because the point is that he's basically denied of pleasure but he's
not a threat to anyone, just like the presumptively reformed criminal
(who may have been a very bad kid when he shot that pregnant lady)).
The evidence in support of the state's ability to rehabilitate people,
even those who are said to be climinically amenable to treatment, is
fairly weak but there's good reason to critique it in light of the
quality of the attempts tried. And all of that said, there was an
argument that you alluded to in your overview that I thought was very
important for the negative but it was hard to make convincingly
because it was so simple that it seemed almost wasteful to devote a
lot of time to it. Since I think trying and punishing kids like
adults means housing them in the facilities (the argument for the
right to affirm while housing kids in separate facilities was that
they could still receive adult-like punishment but there were at least
two responses: first, that's ridiculous. No matter how savage they
were on the whole, it would be impossible where adults relate to
soulless teennagers the way they might to an adult on death row
(people who'd committed the same crime.) Basically, to separate kids
would be separating them on the basis of their juvenility, meaning
that, a priori (there's no other way to put it...), kids were not
being treated like adults if incarcerated separately. You couldn't
affirm the resolution that women should be treated like men in the
criminal justice system by observing that they should still be house
in separate facilities on the basis that men and women can't live
together, at least in prison.)) I mention all of this because the
evidence on what happens to kids in hard core detention who are housed
amongst adults is really disgusting. I thought I had this really good
part of my case where I read the universally accepted statistics on
the relative likelihood of rape, abuse, dropping the soap, and then
"analytically" explained in mathematical terms what that meant on an
hourly basis for kids versus adults. Given that, as a criterion, its
pretty easy to argue that no matter how bad the bad guy, it's always
worse to convict one innocent than to let ten to go free; accordingly,
subjecting equally guilty people to egregiously different punishments
isn't worth it because of the injustice done to the relatively less
innocent (yes, the cases are not perfectly analogous but I'm sure you
can see a relevant parallel.) So this point could've been really
effective in "turning" the aff case, since violent adults are no worse
than kids who kill Crips , then consigning the kid to an equally long
period behind bars wherein, and I'm not just pulling this out of my
ass, 9 times more likely to raped and absurdly likely to deal with
more than mundane work in the laundry room or even hammering out
license plates, seems pretty cruel. It would be like putting, at
minimum, androgynous people, let alone women, in the same facilities
as most sexual predators, let alone generally bad people. I thought
the point was good, too, because it did what good negatives on the
capital punishment topic did: point out some inherent problem, not
even gross Oz episode, with the affirmative and then just ask, "so
what's the point?" Capital punishment, to me, is ultimately stupid
because it's pretty useless and, at least as a policy, there are some
pretty big downsides and my feelings about this topic are the same,
though.

I always flipped aff, though, and, with the exception of the very
beginning (Newark being the biggie), I lost on this topic but I always
thought I got screwed and not just like I always got screwed (everyone
knows that if I lost I got screwed but the degree of legitimate
bitterness was slightly different from case.) If you can get one
point across, tell those NFL people that it's retarded that the two
most popular topics are debate by an overwhelming minority of
debaters, since they're in March-April (#2) and Nationals (#1). Who
thinks of this shit?

----

We return now to our regularly scheduled blogger...

Winding down

I sent out the JJ topic materials last night; a ton o' stuff to sort through. It was fun reading the names of the old debaters at the time, and seeing the cases they were running. And interesting to figure that all the old problems will return to haunt us. There are so many ways to argue the rez poorly, and a lot of ways to argue it interestingly, and with any luck, the people doing the latter will be able to avoid the people doing the former, but as always with that, it's Good luck, Charlie.

Jeff, having taken umbrage at being accused of looking like a debater, from a post roughly as old as my socks, claims that the novices now not only read this blog, but that one of them even has it bookmarked! Will wonders never cease! Next thing you know, NoShow will turn up at two meetings in a row, and I'll have run out of bile fodder.

I thought next week was a full break for them, as it is for me, but there is school Wed thru Fri, the poor dears. I was hoping they'd use the week off to pretend to research (except, I guess, for Jeff, who would simply look like he was pretending to research, and the bookmark guy, who would take the opportunity to do all sorts of other exotic computer-agey things, like maybe attempting double-clicking). Oh, well. Maybe they'll learn something in school.

I did start writing up the BusinessMan lecture, but it's going to take forever to make it intelligible. Talking is one thing, writing is a whole 'nother thing altogether. Which should not be such a great appercu for a forensics coach, but I do suffer from a slight case of Debate Dementia (and don't say you haven't noticed), so forgive me this once. And speaking of forgiveness, or debate dementia, if O'C really expects me to photograph my tin, he will test my software. (Parse that, you spalpeen!) Of course, he'll never know my concern because he never reads this blog--he's too busy posing for the cover of Atlas Shrugged, which is the only explanation I can come up with for that bizarre picture of him on the VBI advertisement. "Who is Jon Cruz?" Hmmmm. You could make a slogan out of that!

Jersey has chimed in favorably on the Modest Novice. Mostly that leaves the families running the New York territories to make it a reality. Somebody'll have to make 'em an offer they can't refuse. And if you're interested, we're going to pair the third round of Grands hi-low, which makes a lot of sense to me. It used to be hi-hi, which means the top two hit, and it wasn't unusual for one to put the other out of qualification, even though they clearly both deserved it. Now it's like a short invitational tournament, where one round can't ground you. That is as it should be. We are trying to qualify the best, after all, not just have them knock each other out of contention.

Juvenalia

Last night we dug deeply into the new resolution. I share the following with you (and, yeah, I mean you, you base spalpeen) in the hopes that it will increase the quality of your discourse. Although honestly, there won't be much debating of this sucker by the Jolly Tars. I mean, there's Grands, of course, but States doesn't look likely (they've got no judge) and, well, Districts is just filler...

So anyhow, first there's the question of what a juvenile actually is. In a round, there should be no question about the existence of same. Society clearly defines juveniles for all sorts of activities (voting, marriage, driving, drinking, etc.), so there's no great claim that the state of not being an adult doesn't exist or is somehow culturally insignificant. Arguments that hinge on your somehow changing on your 18th birthday are, in a word, inane. The rez is not asking if you change your stripes on a birthday, or if you're a chrysalis emerging on some pre-ordained day on which you are capable of emergence. Society makes this sort of arbitrary determination every day, you chump, because it has no mechanism to do otherwise. Nor is the rez asking us to evaluate if 8-year-olds should be tried as adults, because we don't need any evidence whatsoever to know that 8-year-olds are not adults. The rez wants to know what to do about that indeterminate group, viz., teenagers. They seem to be capable of taking responsibility for their actions. But are they indeed fully responsible? That's what you should be arguing. Anything else is just sophistry, and not even good sophistry at that.

We talked a lot about the difference of the juvenile justice system and the adult justice system. And the natures of tried and punished, both of which are required by the rez. We talked about the relevant cases in the US (e.g. Roper) and how, I guess, the US is presently neg (which says nothing about either side being right or wrong). We pointed out why the topic, while not referring specifically to the US, should be argued in a US context (because reasonable discourse on the subject requires knowledge of the concepts of "tried and punished," which one can only conclude will arise if we concentrate on the US; if one side talks about Ugabugaland, and the other side talks about Ix, there is no reasonable discourse possible because there is no common ground, but once reasonable discourse DOES ensue, then that discourse's conclusions can be applied to any arena). But mostly we thought about what makes all the people on the team different from me. Seriously. They're all juveniles; I'm not. So, what is it about them that theoretically makes them less culpable for their crimes. Answer that question well, and you win the aff. Disprove the statement, and you win the neg. And lordy lordy, this is one evidential topic, because intuitively I look at two debaters standing there arguing with (at least some) maturity about whether or not they are mature, and I believe completely that they are easily capable of understanding culpability, so you'd better have some serious facts or figures to overcome not my prejudice but the immediate clear evidence of my eyes and ears.

Anyhow, I'll send out the old background info tonight over the listserver. I won't update from the old JJ topic, since there really isn't much difference. There are some references and links in my notes that are outdated, though, and I will expunge them. And you, you spalpeen, now know how to think about Mar-Apr, so you can save a few bucks buying old cases from LOL. Hell, I'll send you my notes for nothing if you want more (and I even include a bunch of case positions, among which the Empty-V is a classic pre-pomo from back in the day when bizarre cases were a noteworthy event).

A Scarswegian Idyll

Irons in the fire? Let's see. There's the States fracas. There's the LDEP fracas. And there's the Modest Novice fracas (although that one hasn't drawn any flies yet). It's been a busy year, eh, mate?

So how was Scarsdale, anyhow? Well, we have the continuing issue of squeezing a relatively large team into a relatively small bus, which was not ameliorated by Mr T's car dying in the Montrose shopping center. He claims his car just doesn't like debating, since this is not the first time he's had this problem. On the benefit side, I was able to send him off with the bus early Friday night while we continued to tab away, so worse things have happened. To be honest, I like these little buses, because the seats have more leg room than the big ones, plus if necessary there's plenty of room in the back to dump stuff. What more could you ask? No room for the teeming millions of Scarswegians or whatever to travel along with us, but you can't have everything.

Tabbing Scarsdale is an interesting challenge. First of all, there's the varsity division, and its judges. Then there's the novice division, which has in its judging pool all of the varsity judges, plus all of the varsity debaters who are able to judge. Then there's the Pfft division, with its small pool of very quickly sullied judges. What you have to do is, first, pair and assign the varsity. Then you pull out the extra adults and funnel them into PF and out of the novice pool for that round. Then you assign the novice judges, making sure that you're alternating the varsity students, i.e., giving them at least one round off after a round on so as not to overload the poor darlings, except in the break from rounds 1 to 2, where anything can happen. Then you find the varsity judges that are in both divisions and you change their novice room to the same as their varsity room. All of which adds up to a lot of work. And not a lot of Jack, if you know what I mean. But it all worked with only a couple of hitches, usually when we had to sub in a judge, which is why all judges need to be in all the right places at all the right times, because subbing is a royal pain and leads to issues, especially when a judge can be in any or all of three divisions. But seldom are all judges in the right places at the right times. The brain damage that affects many of them who, for some reason, forget to pick up ballots but go to rounds anyhow, is baffling, especially since this is usually former TOC people. The minds go, I guess, once they reach college. Then there's the parents who disappear. Literally. I mean, where can they go? And don't they understand that we would all like to disappear, and doing so really isn't an option?

Aaaarrrghh!

Throughout all of this, Typhoid Mimi kept dropping by to cough and collect nostrums from the assorted hypochondriacs that tab rooms tend to attract, and we kept trying to play Text Twist, and good old Grandpod kept on chootling despite the fact that everyone else had Gen 5s and I really want one but I'm holding out for Gen 6 which will have a bigger screen (turn it sideways, Steve) if I'm any guesser of such things iPodian. And the Saturday puzzle was practically a gimme, so that was a bust. When I first started tabbing, these rooms were quieter than the Vatican on the Pope's day off, but nowadays they're louder than the cafeteria during ziti distribution. But it's probably more fun, and that's something, anyhow.

Meanwhile, results on the floor were interesting. HoraceMan, the superhero without any superpowers, managed to lose the toss: that must be the part that Noah was coaching him on. (Noah is coaching him? Poor HoraceMan. Poor Noah.) The Hardware Engineer placed 17th, which is always a thrill. Termite and Peanuts both broke, thus proving the value of a nickname early in one's career. Emcee and Matt broke in Varsity, while at the same time Javo was killing 'em up in Congress. Ewok managed to get a speaker award, pulling victory from the jaws and whathaveyou. All in all, a fine weekend for the good guys. We managed to unload the Bump candy, so now Dave is even again, or he will be tonight when I give him his check. And so we bid a fond farewell to--

All right. Bidding farewell was harder than you think. It was starting to snow when we left, so I told CLG ixnay on the Indian Ousenay, but as time and the car progressed, it got drier and drier and CLG sounded hungrier and hungrier, so I called Liz who said she was in, it was cold, Pip was on her lap, and she wasn't moving come hell or high water. Fortunately, la mere de la Claire relented--she had been telling young C that she would have to eat elsewhere because this was Unitarian Taco Night--and allowed the prodigal daughter into the house for dinner. I guess one of the Unitarians bowed out at the last moment.

And thus Scarsdale II is in the can!

I have seen the future

So I managed to judge a couple of rounds of Pffft on Saturday. With all the complications of varsity judging novices and adult judges in LD and Pffft, it was something of a busy tab room, although I have to admit there were no problems with not one not two but three iterations of the new software. Amazin', as we used to say about the Mets. I tried to zip a copy of the old file to O'C, but when I did I stopped hearing from him. By then he had probably had enough of me, the blizzard and Texas, in that order. So it goes.

My point, anyhow, is that I enjoyed the Pffft. The idea that you needed a little bit of evidence for your side but a good bit of knowledge to rebut, and that you focus on just a point or two made for interesting clash. And it's over before you know it. Hard to imagine them running a theory of Pffft argument, if you know what I mean (although someone could have no doubt argued 20 years ago that it would be hard to imagine anyone running a theory of LD argument). The Israeli topic is a hard one, by me a lot harder than a lot of the others I've seen, and I applaud those folks I watched who were debating it. Regis took the final; CLG and I were in agreement, as was our third confrere. If LD is going to go down the tubes, which seems more than likely at this point, it's nice to know there's something there to replace it with some real potential. Mix a little speaking ability, a lot of research, and a little case writing, and you've got something pretty good. You'll lose the philosophical underpinnings, but then again, in an activity that thinks that Derrida and Baudrillard are philosophers with more weight than [name any 20 off the top of your head], we may not be losing all that much.

Speaking of LD going down the tubes, let's see. Pffft has planted a flag at TOCs, so that's step one. Pffft is about to plant a flag at CatNats (where there is no dearth of parents to judge it). I'm thinking of doing Pffft at Bump (maybe putting aside 10 Policy rooms, which means another nail in THAT particular coffin). I'm getting seriously tired of hounding the LDers to provide parental judges to cover their entries. When a given tournament offers strikes, everyone inevitably strikes the people with Mr in front of their name, which only makes it even more likely that Mister won't show up next time, and certainly keeps Mister that much more inexperienced. LDEP and the proverbial call to arms is winding down to, at best, a call to fingers, and not many of them. I hold out less hope as each day progresses that this particular group will martial its forces and make anything happen.

And will I miss LD? I don't know. If I refocus on Pffft, it will mean there's plenty of Pffft around, it means the topic changes all the time, which I love, and I won't have to contend with speed or non-resolutional argumentation or bogus scholarship. Will I miss LD? Ultimately, it's really hard to say. But if I had to bet, I would bet that, miss it or not, I won't be doing it.

Uncharacteristic Sunday posting

But it is snowing, and I'm addressing odds and ends. And you look pretty odd around the end, so here we go.

And, Jeez, I toss out the mildest insult and everyone seems to go ballistic. (I was first going to say postal, and then I started thinking about various coaches going postal and was going to say something like, going Menickistic, except I wasn't going to say Menick, if you get my driftwood, but I decided that the libel/slander laws may not provide all the protection I would like to have, so I decided on ballistic.) All right. I give up. You've all read Swift in the original Greek. You've all read Huck in the original Latin. And you've all read Aristotle in the original Position. I'll never insult you in this blog again. (I'll wait till we're together, when it's more fun.)

So here's the message I just sent to the powers the pow in NY, NJ and Ma. I trust I didn't forget any...

---

A NOVICE PROPOSAL

This came up in a discussion a few weeks ago at
Lexington, and it seemed almost immediately to be a
great and workable idea.

One of the problems we always face with new novices is
that not only must we train them for LD in general,
but we also have to start them on the Sept-Oct topic,
whatever it is, followed almost immediately by the
Nov-Dec topic, whatever that is. The likelihood that
the way we train the novices will somehow be congruent
with the content of these topics is pretty small (at
least it always has been for me), and worse, you
barely have time for one before you’re onto another. I
don’t know about you, but I don’t like to even begin
talking topic to the novices until October, which
means that I’m talking Sept-Oct to them while trying
to brainstorm Nov-Dec with them and everyone else at
the same time. It’s a bad system.

The suggestion is that we pick a topic, and
henceforth, that topic is always the novice topic from
September through the end of November. This would
apply to the MHL area, the MFL area, NYC, and New
Jersey. And while I don’t think we cross paths that
early in the year, it would be great if the closer
parts of Long Island also joined in.

By doing this, we allow ourselves to develop a starter
curriculum about a topic that we know is good for
starting. We get to use that curriculum year after
year. We get to concentrate on whatever we believe we
should be concentrating on with our newcomers, without
the distraction of not one but two random topics.
Meanwhile, according to the natural evolution of
topics, the novices will certainly be involved in
discussions of the real Nov-Dec. And they will have
their chance to write and present cases for it in
December events. (We had originally thought of simply
having a novice topic through the end of December, but
there is a point at which we are stepping beyond the
bounds we can set ourselves—i.e., lots of us send
novices to Princeton, which would of necessity run the
national topic—and the novices do have to get into the
swing of things sooner or later, and the end of
November was “later” enough.)

Realistically speaking, we can do this if we all agree
to it. I can set this as the novice topic at MHLs,
Eric can set it throughout Manhattan. Lynne has the
ability to set it throughout Massachusetts (which is
important for the few but crucial crossover events in
November), Bill and Dario and co. can set it in
Jersey, and Bro John can implement on the Island.

At this point, we would like to get your thoughts on
this. I am very strongly in favor of it. If you like
the idea, suggestions for which topic, and exact
wording, would be welcome. Personally, I like
“Oppressive government is more desirable than no
government,” because I get to work out all the social
contract stuff that I like to give novices at the
beginning of the year. In conversations, other topics
have been suggested, but I don’t remember the exact
wordings (this is called selective memory; the only
one I remember is the one I like). If we all agree to
this, and if there’s no fly in the ointment that I’m
missing, and we can agree to a topic in the next month
or two, I see no reason why we couldn't begin this in
2006-7.

Old homeys

Noah dropped by yesterday. Now that Stripe is gone I guess he feels it's marginally safer to enter the building, although Pip did give him the evil eye on occasion. Got and gave various updates on various old-timers. One thing we didn't discuss was how he would be featuring pornmeister on his resume when he sets out for law school. I mean, do you lead with this, or put in on a special adults-only second page? My guess is that most law schools would see this as the perfect background for anyone wishing to become an attorney, but more I cannot say being that this is, well, a PG page. My daughter was originally scheduled to join us but now that she's joined the ranks of the gainfully employed (in a literary agency, a la Jared). she couldn't make it up from the city for the night.

We talked a little about novices (and I still have to work out my Modest Proposal for same, which does not include eating them, for the most part [and that's the perfect example of what I mean when I say, If you were smarter, I'd be funnier]). He suggested the idea of using MHLs as some sort of institute or training beyond just the rounds. Actually, he was positioning one's entire first year or two as non-competition-oriented. Interesting idea, worth developing. I'll get on it with, if you'll pardon a pun you won't understand, with all swiftness.

Speaking of which, what, if anything, do people read in schools these days? When I was recently talking about firing cannnons over the water to raise dead bodies a la Huck, I was regarded as more insane than the usual everyday insanity regard that I am used to... Although I do have to admit I never have understood how that cannon was going to do the job, so if someone can enlighten me on that, please go for it.

Off to Scarsdale tomorrow. There's hints of snow in the forecast for Saturday but I'm ignoring them until tomorrow, at which point they'll either be the Blizzard of '06 or minor showers and not to worry. Fingers crossed, yet again.

The Ballad of LDEP

The drama continues. A little while ago I got a copy of LDEP's Tournament Policies document. It's not far from what I was saying, but there were differences. And did the floodgates open? Na'ah. I got the impression that these folk, whatever they decide to do, will keep it sort of milquetoast, which is just not right. So, throwing caution to the winds, I followed up with this. At this point, they'd probably be happy to see me disappear completely from the LD universe. No doubt they're hoping that I'm one of those Good-bye LD, Hello Pfft coaches. Not yet, folks...

Last night I introduced "Businessman," the soon-to-be-famous lecture on how business works. This comes from seeing how many creative spellings of laissez-faire our novices were able to come up with in their Jan-Feb paragraphs, not to mention how many creative understandings. I would say I'm about 50% of the way there with it; all the material is there that I want to cover, but it wants better organization. I'll play with it for a while (that always keeps me out of mischief) until I can store it away until it's needed again. How can you argue Big Boxes if you don't understand Businessman, eh?

I updated the schedule yesterday with all the changes resulting from the Bump move. Interesting. I think I missed one or two things, but I'll get to them shortly. I more and more like Ridge on the Bump weekend, especially if they offer a novice division, which they've said they might. That does open up the first weekend in Jan for a possible MHL, too, and I haven't completely abandoned the MHL in December (although I've come close; that one's always tough). On the other hand, I've always wanted to travel in December, and have never been able to. Venice for Christmas! Or Santa Fe? WDW, before the crowds descend? Lots of possibilities, none of which existed when Bump was in the way. Not that I moved it to open up my vacation possibilities, but now that I *have* moved it, I'm not blind to the possibilities.

Oh, yeah. I sent O'C a link to, good grief, an R2D2 PotatoHead. This is getting ridiculous. I mean, PotatoHeads are taking over the popular imagination, or at least they're trying to. What's next? Karl Rove PotatoHead? Hillary PotatoHead? Mr. Peanut PotatoHead? The possibilities are, I hasten to point out, not endless. On the other hand, I can imagine a nice line of debate Bobbleheads. O'C Bobblehead. Menick Bobblehead. The ever-popular Soddy Bobblehead. There is definitely a market for them, as compared to, say, the O'C PotatoHead. I'd pay good money for an O'C Bobblehead, but I wouldn't give you the time of day for an O'C PotatoHead. But maybe that's just personal taste.

Money

This morning I met with an incredible number of people from the district to discuss the subject of budget-cutting. Ouch. We are not alone in being asked to trim down; we're only alone in that everyone else works at the school and I work somewhere else, so I'm not a party to the normal business process. Like everyone else, we've been asked to trim by about 10% next year. This year, of course, without Bump profits but with the cost of the trophies, we're hurting. Next year, with an eye on the ball, we should be okay. I will have to raise Bump fees a little to cover custodial costs (shades of Bigle X). And we will have to continue to keep a tight eye on unnecessary buses; apparently there's a form for parental transportation, and we'll get these for the future. All in all I can continue to report that the team has the strongest possible support of the district, but we are in the mix like everyone else and must face economic reality.

And how does Veteran's Day sound to you? 'Cause that's the next Bump. We have officially moved our weekend. Moving a debate weekend is like moving Peoria: it's a big deal. But we will no longer have to worry about snow cancellations, which is good, but we will now have to hit the ground running in September, which is nuts. Ridge can segue into the old Bump weekend, and maybe we can put an MHL on the old Ridge weekend... Anyhow, I'll need to do lots of planning over the summer, but my vacation will be over in June, and I can put the old shoulder to the wheel and get gwine from there.

Just a reminder. I hate Bump. All TDs hate their tournaments. Unless they're insane. Which means about half of the TDs hate their tournaments, if you do the math correctly.

Speaking of which, Joe seems to have a nice boatload for this weekend, with 2 divisions of LD nicely filled plus a decent contingent of Pfffters. I'm really looking forward to it, because of all the complications of playing with the novice judges who are in the varsity. 2 or 3 rounds each, nicely spaced, is the goal. Judging every round is too stressful. And I'd like to get into a round or two myself, as I've said. And I need to unload all the candy that Dave bought. Or Dan, as the district people refer to him. Close enough, I guess.

Newark

Newark has always been a good tournament for Hen Hud, combining as it does an invitational with an MHL, giving ample opportunity for anyone to try their hand at the old debate game. When I first started going, the invitational was much smaller than it is now, and we were dumb enough to come home late Friday night and go back again on Saturday, putting us into a state of virtually complete catatonia. Then I learned about the hotel. It was also one of the first tournaments I tabbed, and I can remember showing Dario the ropes as much as I knew them. I also remember what really happened those years everyone thinks Noah won the tournament, but I'll keep all that to myself.

This year I once again missed the invitational part in favor of the MHL, since I do have to run the latter. Four of the Sailors' finest managed to escape the clutches of the school by the skin of their teeth, and McLean managed to break his way through to Octos. As for the MHL, NoShow managed to take tin, and even showed up at the awards ceremony to pick it up! Talk about your never-ceasing wonders. This is the problem: these Mets people just have different priorities from the rest of us. Sometimes, like BenT, they even have different wardrobes. They inevitably have different email addresses, like ILOVEMETS, which looks to me like "I love 'em: ETs," but that's just me... I haven't been to a Mets game since the year they were formed, which was down at the Polo Grounds (am I remembering that correctly?). Since then I have been to a Yankees game and a Brewers game, one every twenty years without fail, and if Rose J-T ever comes back, I may even go to some other game, if my companions can ignore the kicking and screaming in the car driving over. Once I get there, just give me a hot dog and I'll shut up.

Then again, I shouldn't complain about sports. For the second year in a row I won the office SuperBowl pool. I am obviously quite the expert at picking blank boxes, a skill no debate coach should venture forth without.

Prior to rooting for my blank boxes last night, I worked up the Districts letter and sent it out, which is one more chore out of the way for the year. We did finish the final MHL of the year Saturday on a high, with some money in the bank and everybody geared up for next year. I love having the various UDL teams there; they do fill up a division! Of course, they also send in a new registration almost every day, but then again, no one sends in as many registrations per tournament as O'C. I've got my email filter set to automatically delete all but the last one unless there's abject apologies; we let the normal apologies go unnoticed, but the abject apologies are dipped in bronze and stored for the future, to be given away as double-octos awards.

Update: I saw Stefan and Lakeland now is looking at the first weekend of December for their all-policy tournament, alternating with Weston. This would be fine, as there would be no conflict with anyone; LDers could head down to Princeton.

Tomorrow night I give the famous (or what will become the famous) business lecture, and we begin brainstorming juvenile justice. Seems like old times, eh? I briefly looked over my old topic notes, which are voluminous. Who needs Victory Briefs when you've got a big hard drive? What do they charge over there at JD central, anyhow? I'll undercut 'em. Nobody beats our prices for old ideas and bad case positions! Send checks, cash, money orders, Muppet stamps, whatever. The only thing that's changed since the last time was the recent court decision, the one where certain SCOTUSians went ballistic over the idea that it was an accepted practice around the globe not to send children to sit on the lap of Old Sparky. Doesn't make it any more right or wrong, though. And you can commit a violent crime without mandating capital punishment. Anyhow, I'll go over all the old notes in detail tonight. Ah, the memories...

Stripe

Good old Stripe lived about twice as long as any other cat we've ever had.

We originally got him when Kate was about seven years old. She wanted a cat of her own, and had her heart set on a tiger striped kitten. So set, in fact, that she already had the name selected before we even saw any cats. We found an ad in the Pennysaver and followed it to a house where the closest we could come to a striped cat was the completely stripeless creature that immediately decided that he wanted to go home with my daughter. Since Kate had an almost perfectly good name picked already, it seemed silly not to use it. So Stripe joined the family.

Stripe did the job we had asked him to do. He was a great cat for a kid, and although he gave nothing more than a raised eyebrow to the kind of hijinks that Pip is so notorious for--this cat wasn't jumping in the air for anyone, thank you very much--he was the perfect warm body at the foot of the bed, or in your lap, or cuddled up with the other cats in the family. As my mother used to say, he had charisma (and, simply put, Stripe always used to favor my mother's lap at every opportunity). Eventually it was Stripe and Pip at the household pets, and Pip quickly proved himself more fleet and more powerful, but he always acceded to Stripe as the dominant cat in the household. When they played together, it was Pip who allowed Stripe to win. It was, as everyone knew, including Pip, the right thing to do.

In his day Stripe looked like quite the bruiser, but he was more hair than brawn. Still, he scared the bezooties out of a couple of people who weren't expecting him. Near the end, he lost a lot of weight, and there wasn't much left of him. When he sat in my lap this Sunday while I was reading the newspaper, the tiniest wind could have blown him away. According to the vet, he seems to have had a stroke; his system pretty much just gave up working.

There will be other cats. Pip will adjust to being alone for awhile, and then there will be a kitten from somewhere to shake things up. But Stripe will be remembered. He had a special fondness for debaters who were allergic to cats, although how he could detect these allergies was a secret he kept to himself. While Pip was doing tricks and seeking to prove his wondercatness, Stripe was comfortably watching, sitting on someone's lap, preferably someone allergic, and enjoying the show with the rest of us.

One of the things that makes humans human is their desire to connect with other creatures. We bring pets into our houses and treat them like one of the family. And when one of them passes on, we're sad. But happy, too, to have enjoyed all that wonderful company, and that connecting to a life not our own, a life not even like our own. Stripe was, almost from the beginning, inevitably referred to as Good Old Stripe. The only thing he was missing? The one thing a seven-year-old didn't seem to care about after the initial introduction: stripes.

Consult the relevant philosophers

That brilliant line is one of the Cardinal Virtues of writing a good case. I sort of sloughed it last week when I was going through meeting odds and ends, treading water so to speak, but its relevance was clear last night. In the demo round of Senor Matt v NoShow, one of these professors used some Nozick analysis on the individual to underly the concept of treating people equally, and the other professor sort of made something up. The Nozick seemed a lot more convincing for some reason. I mean, I'm not particularly a fan of Nozick, and I'm certainly not a fan of the authority of famous people saying it so it must be true, but either of these seems to trump pulling it out of the top of one's head. But that's just me.

The round was interesting enough personally, in that my flowing skills have really degenerated. Or maybe it's that my handwriting has degenerated. I've got to work on this more. I'll hit the floor at Scarsdale, at least, with great urging of the debaters not only to talk slowly, but if they wouldn't mind, to come to the back of the room and write it down while they're talking. That should be a big hit.

Meanwhile, I think we need a new Hardware Engineer. Last night we had no room, and the engineer turned out to be an imagineer (he'd imagined that he'd signed up for Scarsdale, for instance, despite any evidence of his doing so). I consulted with the Captains Emeritus (or, I guess, Captains Emerita, it's been a long time since I took Latin) and they made a great suggestion for next year that I'll almost definitely follow. Picking the HE is the most difficult job of judging, truth to tell. Anyone can brainstorm a topic. But picking a Hardware Engineer? That takes skill.

Which reminds me. No doubt there's a new resolution floating around today. I'm looking forward to it. Those of you who stumbled upon the great controversy at Ripon (the University of Wisconsin has banned pornographic snow scultpures) know that things can get pretty dicey in the cold country. And those of you who watched the Commander-in-Chief addressing the country last night know that things can also get pretty dicey inside the Beltway. I don't know about you, but I sleep better at night knowing that Bush is in the Oval Office. I mean, do we really want this guy roaming the streets?