The New York Sophist

This is my first attempt at liveblogging, which I take to mean a form of blogging with little editing and little attention to refinement, with the trade off bringing more attention to the moment, the impressions and the time in which the thoughts come to you. 11:15AM – Why do judge briefings fail to ever mention the idea that the most persuasive team should win? Too many concerns about the technical rules and the issues facing the judges as enforcers of rules for a closed competition instead of the judges as interested audiences that are evaluating what is persuasive, how arguments are interacting, and how proof is established (or how it hasn’t been). Questions about max of speaker points, or whether or not the closing government can have their own model seem to me to be facing the wrong direction, or encouraging the wrong sort of activity. The briefinig should be to encourage judges that they can do this, not to discipline judges into a particular “arbiter of the rules” model. I’m going to try to check myself today in my appeals to technical reasons while judging and see how I do. I hope to turn attention to quality arguments in situations not toward “so and so team broke the rules.”

1:15 – Amazing Mediterranean lunch in the sun. Delicious, even though they only let me take one falafel. Everyone is awaiting the draw. I watched a Vermont debater eat honey while being threatened to post debate videos that I have not yet posted.

4:15 – First Round was rather tepid. We all had different rankings, and I don’t feel I did the best job in adhering to my new adjudication standards. However, the judges who are not familiar with BP are really fantastic. Further evidence that the release from technical requirements is not only liberating and fun but good for making decisions based on persuasive reasoning rather than rules. Good starting motion though: This House believes that the US should make aid to Israel dependent on freezing settlements.

6PM – Second round I judged with two great judges. Great round, high quality. The motion: THB the US military should create separate divisions for openly gay members of the military. Good opening prop from two guys from Alaska I’ve never met. They ran it hardcore, total separation with gay commanders. Solid. I dug that debate the most so far.

7-ish: Wow I am total fail at this. Just had a great conversation with Rose from Pan-Pacific about her tournament in Hawaii next February. Sounds awesome. Debate on the beach. Amazing. Time for another debate.

9:30 – Rough debate. I tried my best in my tired stupor and my desire for a whiskey to muddle through some helpful pointers for the teams, all of whom seemed pretty new to the format. I think I was allright. I really hope I was, I seemed a bit confused.

10:16PM – Sitting at the bar with friends having a whiskey, updating the blog. Teams doing well. Tournament amazing. Happy to be in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. And feeling incredibly happy to be a part of this developing circuit.

So I don’t really like this. What do you think? Perhaps going back to more cogent and reviewed posts. I don’t like this.