The Thing About Debates

 I sat and pondered over this story in the afternoon.

I was pretty lucky in high school....there were zero debates.  Going through college?  There were no debate classes offered.  

I had a professor who brought up...with his college in the early 1960s....you had to complete one course in debate (didn't matter if you won or loss).  His suggestion was that people needed some form of debate training to at least sit through a debate and 'grade' the discussion.

Are townhalls debates?  No.  CNN and WaPo may argue on this point, but townhalls are supposed to be regular people asking a 20-to-30 word question, and some guy/gal claiming knowledge...giving his/her feelings and knowledge.

In this case with the national tournament of debates....isn't it a problem if you lay out topics, but then say you can't argue x-point?  Well....yeah, and it'd bother some folks by mandating you can argue things but only so far.

It'd be like you arguing over the Bible but being told that the Old Testament is off-limits.  Or, like a debate where you need to discuss trampy-women but you can't utter whore.  Or, like a debate on the fine aspects of alcohol, but you can't say any brand-names.

My general problem these days?  You have a lot of people who have a 8-minute attention span (even President Biden has shown that tendency).  So if you tried to explain something in detail, and needed 12 minutes....well....good luck with that.  The point will never get across.

The days where Lincoln and Douglas could debate for three hours?  My God.....no one existing in DC has the ability to deliver a one-hour competent piece, or give the 90-minute reaction on the return.  

Three Things I Don't Understand

 1.  Target (the store) has a team of people who buy the latest trend stuff, and market it (usually at the front-door).  Most of the time....it's $15 t-shirts designed for teenagers/juveniles.  

So this guy came along and sold them a design/look....that has to do with symbiology/imagery that you'd regard as devil-worship stuff (satanic).  Front-door market?  Yeah.

The Target team not really grasping the meaning or symbiology?  Yeah, I get this impression.  

People walking in and IDing the stuff as devil worship stuff?  Yeah.

Same management type folks as Bud-Lite?  Well....it just makes you wonder.

2.  The DeSantis 1st day web site for the Presidency? 

Crap.  It's something that you'd hire a 12-year old kid design.

3.  I think if you walked up to a hundred people on the street and asked them to define the word 'tramp'....less than one-third would give you 'something', and the rest would think it's a trick-question.  

How Civics/History Went Down the Toilet in American Schools

 Around the mid-1970s....I started to notice once to twice a month....the civics-history class had what I'd call a down day, and the teacher would attempt to have a current events day (to explain things to us).  

I commented on this trend in the late 1990s....to an American military member who had their two daughters in the military school at Ramstein. The response from the other person was.....this was now a guaranteed thing with a minimum of one to two days a week spent on current events....instead of civics or history.

Back around 2012, I got into another discussion with someone in the Pentagon that I worked with, and their kids were in the Fairfax, VA school district.  He figured that at a minimum of two days a week....sometimes even three days....civics/history was cut entirely and current-events-explaining was chief topic for that 50-minute period.

The current-events-explaining 'drill'?  Well....after a while, this guy had come to realize that it was more of a propaganda effort than any true explanation episode.

I would take a guess....presently....that whatever knowledge I left school with at age 18....the current knowledge base is probably around 60-percent of my level then.

Intentional loss?  This is what I ponder about.

Fourteen year old kid hears something via news or via a friend, and wants someone to stand there and explain this in eight minutes (his max limit of attention span).  In a group of 25 kids....figure at least six kids have such a question each day.  Can you get across the screwed-up nature of health-care insurance in eight minutes?  No.  Can you detail the reason why nine Supreme Court Justices exist?  No.  Can you explain abortion in eight minutes?  No. 

So what we have is a mini-dose of knowledge that doesn't do justice to the facts and reality.

You wake up on a Tuesday night, where the kid (13 years old) wants to explain how your knowledge of capitalism is 'fu*ked-up', and he learned this via one of the 8-minute lessons by Carl (the teacher).  You try to bring the kid back around to reality with a 16-minute dose of economics and capitalism....but lost them around minute nine.  

The problem here....if you start to really think hard about the mess....you've got a nation of 8-minute geniuses standing there, and unable to think in a coherent manner.  

Five Observations

 1. I went back to watch the Lakers-Nuggets game (23 May)....first NBA game I've watched in roughly ten years.

It was the first time I've had a chance to observe Nikola Jokic (center of the Nuggets).  I would readily say....his passing skills rate as five star.  He makes every player of the team look better.  

2.  DeSantis is geared for the run.  He has issues (same for Trump....same for Biden). 

Odd factor?  Well.....Bush II, Rove, Cheney, and Paul Ryan have endorsed DeSantis.  Normally, I'd say if all four were in this direction....there's something 'wrong' with DeSantis.  

3.  Oprah is still being floated as a replacement for Senator Feinstein (bad health).  

4.  California to 'ban' Skittles candy....over chemicals used in making it.  Other 49 states....full-speed ahead.

I expect bacon to be outlawed in California within three years.

5.  Political refugee status is now some gimmick of Americans who live in Florida and believe things have gone so badly....they may have to 'escape' the state.