Looking at the college policy debate resolution makes one thing very clear: The national community of debate practitioners in American policy debate have no interest in bringing in audiences for their debates. This is a debate practice that is solely and totally focused on itself. Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase statutory…

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E3 is a conference where all the new games for the next year are announced and displayed. Everything looks pretty great from my perspective as a gamer. From my perspective as a rhetorician, something else was presented: a budding literature of human extinction. The new games at E3 all seem to address one begged question…

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Everyone is, deep at their core, what they express. Actions speak louder than words. These ideas are very old, and very real, in the way we size up the value of others. Institutions and people are evaluated, positioned, and judged based on expression. What we say, what we communicate, is seen as a direct line…

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Upsetting Composition Commonplaces by Ian Barnard My rating: 3 of 5 stars Interesting book that takes some sacred terms in composition theory (audience, objectivity, voice, etc) and critiques them from the lens of whether or not teaching is in line with composition theory and pedagogical approaches to writing. After admitting several times in the course…

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The University of Southern California is a very, very pretty place.  Aside from the inevitable technical issues on the video call – why can’t any university just make it easy to do this? Everywhere I go there is a camera that isn’t connected, microphones and speakers that are not connected, logins and other security measures…

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A lot happened yesterday that involved good food and wine and a boat. I didn’t have the time last night (because I went immediately to sleep) to download and have a look at the videos I took of the boat but maybe I’ll do it tonight after the conference.  Had an amazing dinner yesterday at…

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the race is on! Who will get to LAX first? Flew in pretty early and arrived around noon. The last 30 minutes of the flight we were involved in a drag race with what looked like an American Airlines flight? I have a few of these photos but I think one really is enough to…

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Thankfully this semester is over and I can slowly, over time, forget the terrible course that I just “taught.” In trying to figure out what went wrong I’m looking for various theoretical explanations. I want to avoid any and all explanations that blame the students, I.e. “You didn’t spoon-feed them the material,” “Where is your…

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