Research, smoke and nukes
Debate team prepares for national tournament in favorite hideout
Michael Mayday
Issue date: 3/18/10 Section: News
It's 11:46 on a Saturday morning and the debate team has been at work for two hours.
Junior Will Cooney notes the time and calls for a lunch break. He asks debate coach Jeremy Christensen if he would like any goods smuggled from Saga, Inc.
Christensen says no.
Every day for the past two weeks, save Sundays, the debate team has been preparing for their showdown at the National Parliamentary Debate Association's national debate tournament in Lubbock, Texas starting March 18.
After a six-week absence from the debate world due to budget constraints, the preparation has been intense. Practice debate rounds have been added to research time.
Research time entails finding any articles focusing on national or international policy, finding both sides of the issue, the arguments supporting it and - more often than not - discovering how the issue will end in either nuclear Armageddon or the extinction of the human race.
The eight members of the elite traveling team began their final research push Friday evening for three hours.
"The problem is most of the things we end up debating are things that happened within the last two weeks," Christensen says.
Christensen began Friday's session with an outline of what needs to be done: cases on prisoner rights, Iran, net neutrality, immigrants, the Google-China power struggle, smart grids, cap and trade policies, banking regulations, filibusters and information on the impact of Diamond Creek, Idaho on rare metals. He doles out the responsibilities and retreats into his office to build cases.
Soon, the room fills with the furious clicking of keyboards as each debater scans articles, magazines, government reports and videos in order to craft their cases. Coach said don't worry about quality; worry about quantity.
"Just get the cases done," Christensen says.
Cooney finds an article on the eventual prevalence of nuclear weapons thanks in part to the political instability of Pakistan and the North Korean sale of a nuclear power plant to Syria in his issue of Foreign Affairs - a good impact for a round.
Junior Will Cooney notes the time and calls for a lunch break. He asks debate coach Jeremy Christensen if he would like any goods smuggled from Saga, Inc.
Christensen says no.
Every day for the past two weeks, save Sundays, the debate team has been preparing for their showdown at the National Parliamentary Debate Association's national debate tournament in Lubbock, Texas starting March 18.
After a six-week absence from the debate world due to budget constraints, the preparation has been intense. Practice debate rounds have been added to research time.
Research time entails finding any articles focusing on national or international policy, finding both sides of the issue, the arguments supporting it and - more often than not - discovering how the issue will end in either nuclear Armageddon or the extinction of the human race.
The eight members of the elite traveling team began their final research push Friday evening for three hours.
"The problem is most of the things we end up debating are things that happened within the last two weeks," Christensen says.
Christensen began Friday's session with an outline of what needs to be done: cases on prisoner rights, Iran, net neutrality, immigrants, the Google-China power struggle, smart grids, cap and trade policies, banking regulations, filibusters and information on the impact of Diamond Creek, Idaho on rare metals. He doles out the responsibilities and retreats into his office to build cases.
Soon, the room fills with the furious clicking of keyboards as each debater scans articles, magazines, government reports and videos in order to craft their cases. Coach said don't worry about quality; worry about quantity.
"Just get the cases done," Christensen says.
Cooney finds an article on the eventual prevalence of nuclear weapons thanks in part to the political instability of Pakistan and the North Korean sale of a nuclear power plant to Syria in his issue of Foreign Affairs - a good impact for a round.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Reynaldo Alejandrino
posted 6/21/10 @ 6:31 PM EST
Just a thought for the experts on global warming: How 'bout thinking out of the box for once and showing us all some proof - hasn't the earth's orbit changed pulling us closer to the sun & causing all these sudden changes? Isn't this a probability to consider which greatly causes direct impact on climate and weather changes? Compared to all the world's quantum emmissions & green house effect put together? For one thing, these so-called pollutants have been with us and mother earth for quite sometime to suddenly cause some harm and change our weather. (Continued…)
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