I left the house on one of the muggiest days of the year so far in NYC just to get my TSA Pre sorted out. I documented the mass transit journey here. The TSA screeners really liked the Snap Specs and wanted to see how they worked but I deleted those videos in the interest…

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Bob Dylan, well known music troll, trolled the Nobel Prize committee by barely accepting his award for literature and then delivering a speech quite late that was nearly as odd as the speech Donald Trump gave on innauguration day. The two speeches are odd because they seem to get that there are expectations for the…

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    Responses to violence against government officials are perfect opportunities to recast the violence of the normal political process as peaceful, non-violent, productive, natural, and normal. Paul Ryan’s response to the shooting of congresspeople engaged in baseball practice is a masterful example of the power of rhetoric to craft a world where there is…

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Easing my way into summer often comes with a return to PC gaming. Been spending a lot of hours messing around with various games, graphics settings, and improving my machine here and there to make everything work the way I want.  There’s also a bit of thought or a suggestion that perhaps we should offer…

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We’re done with the USU Nationals in Denver and I have a few questions: What sort of competition is this? What is it that we are competing to be good at doing? Or saying? Or being? Is this more like baseball or art? Dance or track? Competitive cooking shows or American Idol? What’s the best…

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My last post was about the difference between an administrator and a teacher, and how easily those things elide into one another. After reading some comments on it, I was returned in my mind to my days as a high school teacher in Texas. Thinking about those days reminded me of an older idea, an…

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On the train headed to the Lafayette debates, sponsored by the French Embassy and GW in lovely Washington, D.C. A different sort of debate competition that I have enjoyed helping the students prepare for. During the run-up to all of this, as I have all semester, I have been interrogating why I am so frustrated…

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For many years I have been trying to hammer out this book on metaphors for debate as an educational practice. Competitive debate is, of course, tied up in there even though I know you refuse to believe you are participating in something educational (my own students call non-tournament debate events ‘learning trips’ – nicely diminutive…

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It’s raining, but four years ago it was sunny when I watched my mom breathe for the last time. Now I’m sitting here looking at reciepts  for pizza and taxis and filling out forms that prove that, yes, these were university expenses. And I think my job is so important and valuable. She wasn’t gone…

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I’m doing the tab for GW this weekend, and I regret it already. Tabbing makes me feel terrible on every level: I feel like I’m wasting my time, I feel like I am ignoring my students, but worst of all, when I look to the way judges are ranked and assigned in competitions, I feel…

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