This weekend was the lovely Nebraska Invite Tournament (NIT) for high school debate (and probably speechies but they don't count as people). I found the joint with five minutes to spare... and then proceeded to sit on my duff for two rounds (out of the four).

Mkay.

I got my reading done and started a new book. Not a terribly productive Saturday but some forward motion.

The first found I got to was a Millard South vs Millard West round.

Prelims were panels of two folk while finals were panels of three. Odd.. but workable. MW ran a case centered around a book and author I never heard of. "The Plague" by Albert Camus. Okay.. so the crux of the case was in light of how this fictional book outlines one man attempting to help those dying of the bubonic plague it has inspired the two debaters to step out of their ivory towers and treat everyone with compassion.

Okay.. I've heard of worse "advantages"... Also notice how this was only tenously connected to the topic of "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase social services for persons living in poverty in the United States." Of course MS wanders passed an easy win but instead started attacking this glorified book report. They said words.. indicted the author because he failed to put an "A-rab" in his novel... and how it is supposed to be about French Colonization of Algeria. Okay.. I didn't really catch any of that in the cards.

More words were spread out and I found there to be no disadvantage to *not* running the plan and the if at the end of the day these two have their epiphany and stop running the case the more happy I am.

This upset the two MS coaches... Dana was less than pleased and Dylan was outright pissed. Cest la vie, right?

Many hours after the tournament was over and I was attempting to get a nap in The Silverback calls me up (with what I can only be Dylan in the background)... He sounded a bit angry or altered and proceeded to yell about how I made a bad decision... my fat ass is the worst judge ever.. how stupid I was... how could I vote against the Truth?! (when asked what this Truth was he kept yelling it was the TRUTH!)...

Basically all sorts of claims sans warrants but the rant continued. I am unclear how I was supposed to interpret the round in any other fashion and eventually I was hung up on.

I crawled back in to bed and had to reminisce about the afternoon with a very angry Brad M trying to figure out when we became relics because we refused to budge on the decline of actual policy debate to a level of shoehorning in some random philosopher at 400 words a minute for eight minutes and only having a tenuous connection to the topic. It seems both of us have been told by respectable coaches and friends that when in a three person panel, team so and so "really wasn't going for out ballot - just the other two". Wow.. it was funny for a bit now it is becoming insulting.

There was a time that I would leave a debate tournament and be stoked about something I heard where I would read up on an author or topic... now I leave with an annoyed headache and assistant-assistant-debate coaches calling me to inform me how wrong I was.

It would have been mildly amusing if the phone call was a joke, but the ferocity and inability to reason (though partially blamed on impairment) pushed it past a joke and into being insulting. Here's a good buddy of mine so wrapped up in this douchebag shadow of the activity - I loved and spent over fourteen years engaged in - he is flying off the handle on some decision and claiming some how it was my problem his two mouthpieces couldn't convey the argument.

So with that I think I will do the final decent act and not return next year. The people are great to hang out with... the topics are interesting.. but the way to engage those topics is just repugnant. Sadly I will not have a Soh-crates aware from MW... but I have my Ulrich Award.