The New York Sophist

This is the final round from the U Mass – Amherst Tournament held last weekend (this debate happened yesterday actually!). The motion is: this House would legislate against embedded journalism.

The teams are:
OG – RIT
OO – Cornell
CG – Hobart & William Smith
CO – St. John’s University

I’ll post a comment in a bit with the final ranking from the judging panel. Nicole Colston is the Chair of this round.

Thanks to Sam Nelson of Cornell University for sharing this great article with me over the weekend.

I love public controversies that involve religion and politics in unusual ways.

Here’s one of the semifinal debates from U.Mass. Amherst this past weekend. The motion was This house would establish a DNA database of all citizens for the purposes of criminal investigation (or something close to that).

here are the teams involved:
OG – St. John’s University
OO – Cornell University
CG – University of Vermont
CO – St. John’s University

I’ll post who went through to the finals on the comments so that you can watch it, make up your own mind and see if your decision matched that of the panel. Eric Barnes of Hobart & William Smith Colleges is the Chair of this debate.

We’ve finished 2 debates and breaking for lunch. So far a good tournament, except I can’t get the wireless to work. So you are reading this later than normal. I was thinking about starting a video podcast about tournaments but haven’t started filming anything yet. I think I’ll film a couple of debates today and see what they look like. I have to test the micro laptops abilities in transferring video from the flip camera anyway so that will be the test. Next prelim I’ll film and try to put it up later tonight. You know how tournaments go though so don’t hold me to it too rigourously.
Very good sandwiches and vegetarian chili for lunch. So far we are running on time and everyone is finding the debates enjoyable. I’m twittering the motions if you want to follow me ? my Twitter name is “stevellano.”

Narrowly averted disaster when I somehow lost the driver for my wireless card ? it’s now reinstalled after great frustration and some kindness from Umass students with wireless laptops that work. Too bad the wireless codes dont work for me yet. Still trying! But I will have internet at the hotel later so I’m not sweating it.

Its later now, and all 5 debates are done for the day, but we have 2 break rounds tomorrow. I’m eager to see the draw! More tomorrow for now its time for sleep. I didn’t film the prelims but will definitely film tomorrows last prelim.