A Few quick hits from this weekend

First of all, grats to Mahoney and company from St. Marks. y'all run a tight ship.

Second of all, grats to all the sophomores I saw at the hoedown. Lots of very good debate, especially given everyone's experience level. I've been to that tournament 3 years in a row now and I'm always impressed by the quality of debate.

I think I've got a new pet peeve now for kritik debates. I think that when it comes to "X is socially constructed," I think that the response of "X exists, dummy" is consistently under-utilized. Lots of K's rely on the idea that some facet of the other team's story is some sort of construction, and it seems like such an intuitive (and in most cases, winnable) answer that, no, it turns out that this thing is really real.

It seems like it's the new trend to try to answer the k by out-weirding it. Talking about fools and knaves and stuff. I like my kritik debates like I like my coffee: simple and a little bitter.

Threats exist? hell yeah they do
Suffering exists? all over the place
Mental illness? see it. believe it.

that's just a few examples. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm a tool of the system, but I'm far more likely to trust an expert in the field who publishes in peer reviewed journals than an academic who uses too many hyphens.