Theoretically, I was judging.

Ya gotta love the Harvard tournament. I mean, y'all come here from the proverbial four corners, you pay through the nose for the tournament and motels and food, you're lucky if you get to even touch the hem of the garments of anybody who breaks, and still you come, year after year, undeterred, battered and bruised but still full of pluck. I was shocked—shocked!—to see that the tournament was still this popular after so many years. By now I figured everybody would have wised up and gotten their pluck out of there, but what do I know. Never underestimate the value of a brand name, eh?

I ended up judging LD for the Mite. LD, unlike Harvard, has changed a bit since I've been away. Nowadays, no one debates anymore, they just theorize about what they would say if they were debating, and they tell you why, because the moon is in Pisces or something, you have no alternative but to theoretically not only drop their opponent but also eliminate his family, friends, school and place of origin with a barrage of tactical nuclear weapons. Back in my day, we had these things called resolutions, but they seem to have gone the way of the mullet. (Which would make an excellent philosophy book title, I think: "The Way of the Mullet." Baudrillard should have written that one while he still had the chance.) Anyhow, I managed to get through it. Blocked against the Mite's Tennessee Williams team, of course, but there were enough other gay writers with schools named after them in the field that I more than got my fill. Way to go, guys (although I am a little ambivalent about Jean Genet Prep)!

Anyhow, I can't say that I liked everything that I heard, but I got paid to hear it, so who am I to complain? You want to debate about whether value/criterion structures are intrinsically abusive to one-eyed hermaphroditic students from Idaho, you go right ahead. I'll vote on it, but I won't be happy about it.

I gotta get me my own debate team. Then I can solve the problems of the world. And speaking of debate teams, the whole point of this message is to let you know that Episode 3 is on the books (audio or pdf), concerning a couple of members of the Nighten Day team Once again that seems to be the high school that will be the focus of the story, or at least our story so far. We'll see.