Important things since the last post, for instance, the Packers actually won an NFL football game. I didnt really see it, since I was at the Rochester debate tourney and all, but a win is a win is a win. The little football that I did see was some of Sunday and Monday night and while both of those games were okay, I will admit officially that the Vikings look scary good this season. I don't consider myself a hater, except to teams like Dallas and Washington and Florida State etc. and I have been admitting, pretty much since week two, that the Vikes are going to win the NFC North. But throwing three fucking 5 touchdown games is sick, like leprosy sick. I mean, yes, he has the Freak on his side, but dude was hurt for most of Sunday night and still the 5 tds come. Anyway, one of those touchdowns got PA's KFAN announcing played on Pump Up the Volume and I always feel like I'm getting mad indie cred when one of the KFAN crew gets national publicity.
I am not going to go on with any significant discussion of the other notable sports event which is occuring literally as I type, since it is going to be more and more interesting depending later on. As of yet the entire field at Yankee Stadium has not simply collapsed engulfing both franchises, nor did the negative areas of Boston (i.e. everything that is not Lumiere Restaurant and the Newton Marriot) unexplainably vanish. More to say about that later, at least hopefully.
The Rochester Debate thingy went alright, though it was far too similar, in my opinion to simply hosting two debate tournaments in a row. I mean I wasn't officially responsible for anything, but Katie was, and since I prefer to be with her whenever possible, when she was awake I was awake and when she was lugging shit around, I was also, for the most part, lugging shit around. It was tiring. I judged all the prelims, few of which bore anything besides a passing interest. I saw one affirmative which was about 2 hours of work away from being awesome, but besides that nothing interesting. I got out of most of the elims, with the unfortunate exception of finals in open. The good team from Vermont was debating the up and comers out of New School-Fordham and while there are three people in this situation who are relatively equally skilled, the one person who was not made the decision quite easy. Thank all that is fucking holy notably, since I was as tired as an assbear and not having to wade through the link debate on the Agamben argument made my night.
The NS/Fordham team is running this SUV argument (if you actually care to read about it you need to go to that link, save the attachment to the desktop, open it with Word, and go down to page 25, I am aware that this is way too much for a stupid aff summary, but take it or fucking leave it and then go fuck yourself) which, while I have some affinity for, has some nonsensical portions as well. I was trying to explain, but was apparently too tired to do so (see above re: assbear) something that I think is potentially dangerous. I mean, I probably shouldn't say dangerous, since I don't think anyone besides me would even think about this fact, but regardless, I think its something which makes them wrong. Basically, the beginning of the affirmative is a quote from some auto manufacturer explaining how they perceive SUV owners as insecure poorly hung rich guys. It lists all the things that SUV owners tend to think or believe, uncomfortable with their social status and marriage etc. While they aren't literally saying that all these things are true, it seems to me (at least from what I heard in the 1ac, the dude on the team suggested that they may be attempting to complicate this fact, but in hearing the initial presentation I didn't see how) that the remainder of the affirmative essentially confirmed these claims in more academic language. The first part of the case was about how SUVs serve our purposes in securing security, how they attempt to guard us from a destabilized and frightening world by making sure that at the very least our cars give the impression of unyielding strenght. The problem is that the authors they use for the impact part of the aff (just traditional threat con shizz, Dillon and Campbell) explicitly criticize this kind of gestalt psychology. The problem is that the things they are describing, the way security functions, and international relations operate, are structural. They aren't determined on an individual psychological level, if they were the terror talk argument would be empirically denied, threats could be proven real.
The fact that Kim Jong Il (I assure you that should be "IL" and not "the second" as Katie and I once heard an extemper call him) has some individual neuroses which makes him a "threat" doesn't justify American security policy. If someone's psychology proved they were only constructed as a threat, that wouldn't prove the argument true either, it just wouldn't prove it wrong. Fundamentally, you don't deal with the psychology of the question because you can't control for its contingencies and in utilizing the examples that may favor you, you ultimately justify the methodology itself. How bout a completely unscientifically phrased example: take something like the crude conception of "penis envy." It may be the case that most or all of the people who have the symptoms of such a "disorder" have small penises. The point however, and everyone from Freud onwardshas emphasized as such, is that this correlation is irrelevant, structurally the puzzle fits and only in understanding it from the point of view of its structure can we ever begin to deal with it. If a person "suffering from penis envy" turned out to have a monster schlong and you had accepted this psychologism you would be blanked, you couldn't treat them because you had already discounted any possible diagnosis. There you have it, my first irrelevant debate blog of the season.
I will likely have something to say about television sometime soon, especially since tomorrow is the season premiere of the West Wing. I am ps-izzedy-psyched, both for the series itself as well as the proximity it represents towards the OC season premiere as well. My final note for this day will be a mad props shoutout to both Kate Marie Baxter-Kauf and her mother, whom I briefly doubted at the grocery store, when I was told of the Kauf family tradition: a bowl of candy corn mixed with spanish peanuts. For some reason my feeble human mind was unable to wrap itself around the truth that struck me upon my first bite, ITS A MOTHERASSFUCKING SALTED NUT-ROLL. Since the Salted Nut Roll is both a delicious piece of candy and the best sexually suggestive candy name in the business, I think its clear how much this rocks. Go mix 1 part candy corn with 2 parts peanuts (either spanish or simply salted) and dig in. Crank it up fuckers.
Peace,
MB-K
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