In lieu of a long, wordy narrative, here’s my Thursday – which was super busy- through my Snapchat Spectacles. I have a long notebook page full of good posts so don’t worry, this isn’t turning into some sort of vlog depository. There will still be a ton of writing here.  It was just one of…

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St. John’s University Debaters and the 2017 British Tour Debaters pose after the first debate of the 2017 tour. For all of my criticism of BP the event we had on Monday night in Manhattan had me double checking the old inventory of what BP has that gives it advantage in reaching public audiences.  First,…

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Last weekend in Montana I opened myself up to all questions from the debaters. One asked, “How do you keep everything in your head so that you can recall it to be able to use it in debates?” This question struck me as being at the heart of debate and rhetorical education – the question…

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Weekends are not something I have thought about for much of my adult life. They were the times that I would go off to debate tournaments, the places where real education happened, the places where I could really feel like I was learning and doing something that mattered. Plus, they were really fun. It was…

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Didn’t think today would be a “day off” but it quickly became that as I slept in to the impossible hour of 9AM then proceeded to really do next to nothing for most of the day yesterday. I finally got around to some productive stuff around dinner, planning to hit the sack early for a…

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This is the first debate video I’ve shot with my new wide angle lens for my now ancient, but very handy videocamera. It’s a commercial camcorder, which, as anyone who has watched video on YouTube about making videos will tell you, is a terrible choice. Everyone says to use a DSLR or Mirrorless camera and…

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Well I finally missed one – it was bound to happen. Yesterday was a very long travel day and although I did have time to write while waiting for a flight in Denver, I just didn’t really feel like it. I ran out of cold medicine Sunday night, so I knew Monday would be pretty…

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To understand judging you need to buy one of those cheap anthologies of literary criticism, the dominant form of judging right now is New Criticism. I think I’ve finally found a way to teach debate that might have value that doesn’t make me nauseated before and after I’m done.  This is about teaching thought and…

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Here’s my most recent version of a talk I wrote about three years ago and have altered over time. This was the talk I gave at Cornell University on September 11, 2017. I thought it would be somewhat interesting to put a few of the recordings here for comparison.  I play pretty loose with a…

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What most of my flights look like Of all the things you could read in the world, why the London Review of Books? And why is it particularly important for those who practice debating?  1. Global Historical Context There is not one writer for this publication that is not an expert in the context and…

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