the zen mastery of Marshawn Lynch

The Seattle Seahawks--this blog's Super Bowl favorites--are blessed with two of the greatest talents in football. One has talk to match the game; the other is all game, no talk.

I refer, of course, to Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch.

Sherman recently made waves for a post-game tirade that sent shock waves through Twitter, woke up a bunch of dumb racists, gave some pundits the vapors, fired up a million op-eds on the State of Sport, launched at least sixteen sociology lectures on otherwise dull college campuses, led to an eventual apology, jazzed up an already-hyped Media Day, and is probably still echoing in Centurylink Field at this moment.

Lynch, on the other hand, garnered a since-retracted $50,000 fine for not talking with a microphone in his face, and then turned a mandatory Media Day appearance into a series of zen koans.

No, really:

It was legendary. It’s like he was speaking in yearbook quotes. “I’m just ’bout that action, boss” single-handedly got me fired up for Super Bowl. “I ain’t never seen no talking win me nothing” should be our answer to stupid questions everywhere. “Lay back, kick back, mind my business, stay in my own lane” is the American Dream and should be printed on money.

And in the end, the only thing I’ll always remember from my first media day is the one guy who talked the least, and someone I never actually saw in person. For an event that makes no sense in 10 different ways, that’s pretty much perfect.

Since Marshawn Lynch is likely to be the Super Bowl MVP (you read it here, though I doubt first), I offer him some epigrams to deploy at the post-game presser.

"Whereof one cannot speak, one must thereof be silent."

--Ludwig Wittgenstein


"The wren
Earns his living
Noiselessly."

--Issa


"Silence is more eloquent than words."

--Thomas Carlyle


"The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about."

--Saskya Pandita

Pick any one, but just one, Marshawn. You're welcome.

And Go Hawks.

you are going to die

You are going to die.

Don't be scared. (Unless you are Shakespeare's greatest waffler.)

There are two basic options, vis-à-vis the outcome.

a. You'll stop existing as your body returns to the earth. If you live on, it's in your offspring, others' memories, history books, legacies, ineradicably embarrassing blog posts, and the repurposed carbon fragments for which the future thanks you and your corpse.

b. You'll continue existing as your soul departs for the afterlife you deserve. Actually, maybe you should be scared.

Regardless, you are going to die.

So don't worry whether your children's produce is organic.

how to parametricize an LD resolution

One of the hot buzzwords cropping up in debates about the "environmental protection versus resource extraction" resolution is the matter of parametricization.

If your browser red-squiggly-underlines the word, like mine does, it's just as confused about parametricization as you are. And, even if you know what it means, you may not know the way to make parametricization fit within a traditional LD round.

Definition
Parametricization is fairly straightforward. A debater, usually the Aff, wants to limit the ground of the debate--how much she has to defend or advance--so she changes the parameters. For instance, rather than argue a general principle that the environment should be prioritized, the Aff specifies a particular country or issue--Niger's uranium extraction, for instance, or just uranium mining in general--and then talks about the benefits of affirming in that instance. This is often a straight-up plan; if not, it's a quasi-plan, discussed in terms of Util impacts and/or solvency.

The word comes out of Policy Debate theory, as LPNelson explains:

Parametric analysis when applied to debate makes the resolution a parameter for the debate and is what allows the affirmative team to choose one example of reform/change (thus creating the plan-focused debate we’re all familiar with) within the bounds of the resolution.

Contrast this with the traditional view of LD:

Resolution centered debate, however, is what you will see if you participate in things like Lincoln-Douglas or Public Forum debate. This is where instead of having plan-focused debate, ALL of the argumentation in the round is about whether or not the resolution as a whole should be affirmed or negated – meaning that all examples in the round need to be typical of the resolution in its entirety (which is why occasionally you’ll hear LDers accusing each other of “parametricizing” the resolution).

More on this problem later.

Justification
In progressive LD, many debaters will run parametricized cases without any additional warranting; however, in a traditional tournament, this is likely to meet with resistance. Some debaters use fairness as a warrant, claiming that the vastness of the topic literature makes it impossible to run a "general principle" case, while others claim that parametricizing is about the educational value of debating things as a policymaker, especially given the real-world context of the resolution. (This tactic seems less apt when the resolution is written more abstractly, such as, say, "Resolved: the spirit of the law ought to take precedence over the letter of the law," which isn't inherently specific to any nation, agent of action, or other context.)

Problems
This is where things get a little dicey for the parametricizer. Unless LD rids itself of the "general principle" language and the explicit prohibition of plans (the NSDA, formerly the NFL, says they're a no-no), then a parametricized case is dependent on judges who ignore or flout the rules.

Furthermore, a parametricized Aff won't clash with a general-principle Neg, a situation I saw develop several times in January. Beefing up mangroves for the potential solvency benefits offers little inherent defense against, say, a rights-based Neg talking about minerals, fish, and timber. This leads to three (or more)-pronged Neg attacks in the 1NR: a topicality theory shell, followed by a disad, followed by an alternate framework and case structure. Good luck defending all that in the 1AR.

A Proposed Solution
I think it's fair to parametricize within the traditional context of Lincoln-Douglas as long as the resolution can still be affirmed as a general principle, avoiding unnecessary topicality debates.

One is to consider the range, scope, and magnitude of impacts. For instance, in the environment vs. resource extraction resolution, it's empirically verified that among developing nations, China, India, Brazil, and Russia own a relatively large share of carbon emissions, due to their growing industrial output and larger populations. Secondly, the impact of carbon emissions is huge and potentially catastrophic. Thus, a Util-based argument focused largely on these four nations has enough of a potentially large impact to justify affirmation as a general principle, in a way that, in contrast, ending uranium mining in Niger can't--at least, not without tenuous link chains and the tactical disadvantages described above.

Another strategy is to include an argument for why a particular scenario is typical of a wider pattern, making the parametricization more of a "focal point." For instance, given the example of Niger above, it'd be easy for the Aff to spend a paragraph rhetorically linking the situation to a wider context, given that Niger isn't the only developing nation (or even the only African developing nation) to have problems with foreign corporations extracting critical resources. This strategy precludes Neg responses of "cherry-picking" or "hasty generalizations," as it functions more as a "case study." The weakness is, once again, the potential lack of clash against a more general Neg.

In sum, not all parameters are created equal, and there seems to be fair ways to carve up ground within the traditional rules, ethos, and style of Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Bonus Question
I recently heard a debater say, theoretically justifying her parametricization case, that 50% of the developing nations / environmental topic literature is about...

a. Brazil
b. China
c. Russia
d. India

Wrong. Uganda.

improving borscht

The other day, we made borscht. Well, beet soup, really, as "borscht" has a certain charm that "beet soup" just doesn't merit. Our beet soup may have had flavor, but it had no class.

We used Slate's "You're Doing it Wrong" recipe, which is fine, especially the lemon juice part, although it takes longer to cook the beets to puree-able softness than L.V. Anderson (no relation) lets on.

The real secret to delicious beet soup: let it sit a day in the fridge after cooking. Lazy flavors taste better on the palate. Cheese, aged beef, wine, borscht, all the foods that lounge on the sofa and won't even get up to find the remote so they're watching infomercials at three in the afternoon, not even Judge Judy. Sloth makes taste.

(Don't eat sloths. Wrong noun.)

Since L.V. Anderson could improve beet soup through good old fashioned gumption, I figured this Anderson (no relation) could do the same. So I grabbed an armful of spices from the cupboard and sauces from the refrigerator, donned a hazmat suit, and got to work.

Here are the tasting notes. In all cases, I added a dash or a drop to a tablespoon of otherwise unadulterated soup.


Sriracha ("Rooster Sauce")
Do you like spicy beets? You could probably learn to like spicy beets. They taste like regular beets, only spicy.


Cinnamon
"Tastes like fall." Serve with turkey and deep-fried political angst. See also: Parsley.


Soy Sauce
Accentuates the potatoes, says Stef. I notice extra savor, but little more. Should beet soup have extra savor?


Tapatio
A warmer, smokier spiciness. Not bad, but not exactly delicious.


Worcestershire
Little difference in flavor, but I'm just proud of the fact that I can type "Worcestershire" without having to check the label, and that I can pronounce "Worcestershire" properly, as I am a chimney sweep.


A1 Steak Sauce
It is impossible to tell when A1 Steak Sauce has gone bad. Pass.


Nutmeg
Beets taste beetier with nutmeg.


Mustard Powder
Gives borscht a fruitier complexion. I'm not sure why I included mustard powder in the tasting; it's not really a reach-for spice in the Anderson house.


Ginger
Spicy, of course, and bright and zesty and prone to bust out an accordion.


Sage
Not good.


Tapatio, Soy Sauce, and Pumpkin Pie Spice
A bonfire by piles of fallen leaves. Hot cocoa. Brisk mornings and first frosts. Football on the television. None of this has anything to do with beet soup. All of this has everything to do with beet soup flavored with smoke, salt, and love.

do the rules of LD actually matter?

This post is aimed at my Washington state colleagues, but you're welcome to read it, too. It's about something I first considered three years ago, when invited to Washington state's premier progressive debate tournament. Since then, the past has become the present, and the present keeps scrolling down to the future.

Where are we now?

We're at the point, when responding to a resolutional analysis based on interpretations of the NFL's Competition Events Guide--parallel burdens, burden of clash, burden of resolutionality, fairly banal, but necessary in these random times--a judge writes on the ballot, "I don't care about the LD rule book."

Now, I'm guessing this judge was oversimplifying for the sake of clarity, and wasn't advocating total adjudicative anarchy. The LD rule book, after all, is why we have prescribed times, and I haven't heard of any judges allowing Aff or Neg filibusters.

But... then... why not? If debate is about "fairness," defined nebulously and warranted empirically, and ultimately up to the interpretation of a judge with a 4000-word paradigm (no offense, Matt Z, just giving an example), and if the time skew is real, why not call for any given judge to throw out the standard times as a micropolitical solution?

The fact is, in varsity LD in these parts, the rules are becoming obsolete. (At least, until debate hipsters make the old school cool again.) At worst, they are unknown; at best, unenforced. Consider some of the rules for Washington State LD. For instance, when was the last time you heard a debater give a proper source citation?

b. The first time a particular piece of evidence or source is used, the speaker must give the author, publication, date of publication, and pages. Once the source/author is used in the round, then the citation may be shortened to author, page, and year.

Or did you know that...

Lincoln-Douglas debating encourages the development of a direct and communicative delivery style. Emphasis is placed upon the issues involved rather than strategy in developing the case. The statement of the topic is a RESOLUTION OF VALUE rather than of policy. This results in emphasizing logic, theory, and philosophy while eliminating "plan" arguments.

At the Puget Sound invitational, I was mildly surprised to hear a debater run "plans required" theory, which is about as opposite to their elimination as you can get. Never mind "tradition" or "ethos;" any time a Washington State judge votes for an LD plan, an angel gets its wings clipped.

Oh, and spreading? The WSFA isn't going to have it:

Because of the time limits, a wealth of evidence cannot be used, but research by good background reading is necessary.

No brightline, I know, but a principle that is as trendy as parachute pants.

My point isn't to defend the utility or justice of these particular rules, but to point out that they are actually rules.

That is, if we're going to enforce them.

We have two choices: we take the rules seriously and educate judges who don't know them or don't care about them, or we change the rules to fit the evolving event. As a coach concerned with educating his students and preparing them for success in LD, I'll adapt to either scenario. But both require change and commitment. We can't accept the status quo.

We have to care about the rule book.

a closer look at the LD time skew

What follows is an analysis of particular empirical evidence for the fabled "time skew" in Lincoln-Douglas debate.



The Context
I've heard several theory shells that rely heavily on time skew arguments, all sharing the same warrants. For the uninitiated, "time skew" is the idea that in LD, the Negative has an unfair time advantage in the 1NR--7 minutes to run all sorts of attacks, disads, theory shells, meta-ethics, a prioris, interpretive dances, killer bee swarms, whatever--that the Aff simply can't respond to in the 4 minute spittlefest known as the 1AR. Compound this with the 6 minute 2NR, and the measly 3-minute 2AR in response, and the modern LDer feels significantly cramped while affirming.

Often, the "fairness" portion of the shell's standard appeals to an empirical fact: at the Tournament of Champions in LD, the Negative has won over 50% of the ballots.

This, of course, raises all sorts of questions.

* Is this a historical trend, or the result from one tournament?
* If one, what was the resolution? Would its own presumptions and associated judge biases cause the skewed results?
* If it's an identifiable trend at the TOC, what is the root cause?
* Do judges have a contrarian bias that favors the Neg? (Good luck answering this one in a mere blog post.)
* What if it's abusive tactics that actually create the problem?

These questions, of course, presume that the statistic is true. Is it?

To find out, I crunched the numbers myself, because I'm the fact-checking sort.


Methodology
I used the 2011-2013 LD results, based on the first six rounds, presuming that this would provide an even number of Aff-Neg opportunities for each individual debater, with the exception of 2011, which had 8 rounds for each. I counted each by hand, double-checked, and then ran the results through a spreadsheet. I eliminated two 2013 ballots, as they were both forfeits, one on each side, which doesn't significantly alter the results or the conclusions. Of course, I didn't count byes.


Results
Out of 772 preliminary round ballots in the past 3 years of competition, 345 went for the Aff, or 44.7%. Negs took 427 ballots, or 55.4%.

Before we declare the skew to be real, we have to account for the margin of error. For a sample of this size, at a 99% confidence interval (i.e., only 1 in 100 results could be explained by pure chance), we would expect an error margin of +/- 4.57%.

Thus, the lowest "expected value" for the Aff is 368 ballots, or 47.7% of the total, while the highest is 404, or 52.3%. Any result within this range isn't far enough away to be anything but intriguing.

But the actual total, 345, is well below the range. Even being optimistic, the Aff has won only 94% of the times they "should have" won, while, at worst, they've won only 85% of the times they "should have" won at the TOC. (Consider also that the skew would be stronger in the 2012-13 tournaments, which went 7 rounds in prelims, as roughly half of the debaters had one extra round on the Neg.)


Interpretation
The time skew is statistically significant. The numbers indicate that at the TOC, the Neg picks up at anywhere from 1 to 3 extra ballots per round.

What causes the skew, though? The simplistic answer is the seeming structural disadvantage of the 1AR, described above. But this is a bit like saying, "Honda Civics built in the mid-1990s spend more time in the shop than other similar makes from that era, and are thus defective," when an equally plausible explanation is that that Honda Civics are preferred wheels for crazy drivers who YOLO their way through life / the Interstate Highway System.

In other words, the TOC's emphasis on progressive, spread-based tactics has potentially created the skew, whereas it may not be a problem in a more traditional form of LD.

We might be on firmer ground if we compared results to NFL tournament preliminary rounds to draw firmer conclusions. (Maybe that'll be the subject of a future post.)


Takeaways
First, never uncritically accept a statistic, even one as potentially intuitive as this one.

Second, if the timeskew is inherent--or, as TOC tactics are now mainstream in many regions, will eventually become ubiquitous, which at that point may as well mean it's inherent--then I propose a solution: 6 3 7 3 5 6 2. Give the Aff an extra minute to work with in the 1AR, and turn the 2AR into a voters-only speech. I think it's elegant, workable, and fair. (I typically have a high opinion of my own ideas.) I'd love to hear of a tournament trying it, and getting enough data to draw meaningful conclusions.

Third, if you're running a theory shell using the TOC data, here's an easy citation.

ANDERSON: "In the past three years, over 55% of TOC elimination-round LD ballots went to the Neg, a statistically significant advantage."

Fourth, if you're running against a similar theory shell, and wish to debate the point, here's another easy citation.

ANDERSON: "It is possible, and even likely, that spread tactics themselves are the root cause of the skew, which may not exist in more traditional LD clashes."

Hint: don't run this if you're the one who started the ruckus by spreading.

Meanwhile, I'll be speeding down the freeway in my tricked-out Civic. Or in the shop getting it fixed.

#YOLO?

a blog reborn

I'm back.

I should say: we're back.

I never anticipated reviving decorabilia, but with my wife's encouragement and blessing, and with (slightly) fewer professional obligations these days, and with a brain full of ideas and a need for an archive of interests and experiences--not to mention an LD program at CHS that's undergoing a renaissance--I have every reason to blog again, and no good reason not to.

Here are a few photos that illustrate how much richer and amazinger my life has become in the past three years.

These cherubs are Miranda and Keira. They're 11 and 10, full of energy, wit, and charm. The pumpkins are nameless.

This is Carsten, the newest addition to the family. At nearly sixteen months, he already knows everything.

And, of course, my wife Stefanie, whose smile captured my heart from the first. She's a co-founder of Olympia's only doula triumvirate.





For its biggest fans--high school debaters, my family, and various flotsam of the wide open Internet sea--decorabilia will be pretty much the same as it always was. I may update the look at some point, and you may see ads popping up--if you didn't notice, I have three kids whose tuition is being banked daily--but the heart and soul of the blog will never change. It'll be as random and as insightful as I can make it, or it won't.

Here's to new beginnings and second chances, resurrections and reincarnations. Here's to thinking and writing and experimenting. Here's to love and family, which matter more than any of the rest of it.

Here's to an unknown future, a future that once again includes this blog.

4521 and done

If you hadn't already heard via Twitter, this is the official announcement: I'm getting out of blogging. Thus endeth decorabilia.

I started blogging seven years ago largely for my own benefit. Over time, the landscape changed: I began debate-blogging, which drew my time away from other topics, and turned me into a national expert in LD. Along with that honor came a gigantic obligation, an obligation I can no longer fulfill. I simply don't have the time to blog consistently anymore, and I don't want to keep readers hanging on in expectation of posts that will likely never arrive.

Life changed in even greater ways: in those seven years, among all the other events both amazing and banal, I got married and was divorced (there the passive voice is intended), living out a life lesson in failure that I might have taught my students. In these seven years at CHS, I took on more and more responsibilities, and am now English department chair, debate coach, APEX online coordinator, Powerful Teaching and Learning facilitator, unofficial tech support guy, and... I can't remember what else.

Most important, my life has radically and profoundly changed for the better. In the last six months, I met an amazing woman, Stefanie, with two lovely daughters, Keira and Miranda. Now, married again and a father for the first time, life is more exciting and busy and rewarding than I could ever hope or imagine.

I don't bemoan the loss of blogging. Instead, I'll celebrate the time I'll have to share with my wife and kids, and to explore the personal pursuits I had largely abandoned, including reading and writing for fun. It's been a while.

Thanks to my readers, especially debaters, who've made it fun and intellectually stimulating. For current and future readers, I won't erase anything. The archives are still there, with all kinds of advice--just click the labels. I'll someday string together all my LD thoughts into one gigantic post for your information. That someday will be soon, when I can finally catch my breath.

4,521 posts. This is the last.

Thanks and good night.

robopocalypse delayed

Robot apocalypticists often presume that artificially intelligent beings will be all-too-eager to cooperate to destroy humanity. Which is why this video is so reassuring.

[via Mark Frauenfelder]

not for the squeamish

Though it gets flippant when discussing the philosophical implications, Jesse Bering's piece is a nice (nice? not the right word at all) introduction to the many and diverse kinds of parasitic twins.

thoughts about animal rights

The first post about the animal rights resolution has sparked a lot of great questions. Rather than try to answer them in the comments, I'll tackle them here, all at once, and see what other thoughts I can add.

First, a reader writes,

[If] we were to affirm, would major corporations such as McDonalds and Burger King be in violation of these rights, and if they were, would they be shut down by the government, costing thousands of people their jobs and adding to the country's unemployment rate?

This is one of the most critical points in this resolution: it doesn't define the nature or scope of animal rights. For all we know, animals could only have negative rights of a fairly limited extent, such as the right not to suffer cruel and unusual treatment. (It may seem morally strange to allow a person to kill and eat something, provided it doesn't suffer while alive, but that's just one of the morally strange things about trying to blend carnivorous and animal rights.)

So, unless animal rights include a "right not to be killed," we simply can't answer the question.

Next, reader nesh asks, "Didn't we as humans create this system of justice that the resolution speaks of?"

That's a great question that won't find an easy answer. In this view, rights are socially constructed. They're invented by humans, for humans--but this also makes rights a matter of human whim, changing with times and cultures. This gets tricky quickly, leading to cultural / moral relativism, and slippery grounds for disapproving of moral horrors like murder or rape.

Even if rights are human constructs, does it follow that animals are excluded from rights-talk? Not necessarily. There may be a good reason--a utilitarian or pragmatic reason--to extend rights to animals so that all humans benefit. More on this later.

A less constructivist approach is to argue that rights exist independent of human thought, but are discovered by rational actors, much as mathematical concepts exist on their own plane, waiting to be plucked out by mathematicians. Humans might disagree on the nature of rights, but they can't merely construct them. Animal rights could exist in a like manner, waiting for the first John Locke of the dolphins to squeak out a treatise. Even if such an event never occurs, however, a creature that can articulate animal rights--a human being--already exists, and can potentially assign those rights to animals.

An anonymous reader writes,

I do not like anything on the aff side... people will say that there are animals with "near human intelligence" and like arguments. This is not a good argument on several levels... First, that only occurs in certain cases. Not a true reason to affirm, and secondly if they were so smart they would protect their own rights

Giving animals rights for inherent reasons--they're intelligent, they can suffer, they're cute and fuzzy--is only one approach. Another is utilitarian, as I mentioned above: when we assign rights to animals, we protect their welfare, which not only improves their lives (and the environment), but may make us more moral as human beings. To wit, a person who treats animals with respect is more likely to treat humans with respect. (The opposite may be true as well; stereotypically, it's the psychopathic serial killer who's cruel to animals at a young age.)

Furthermore, an ethicist like Peter Singer will argue that the same reasons we defend the rights of defenseless, pre-rational human babies can be extended to the defense of non-rational animals.

As a different anonymous reader writes later on,

As for the justice approach, you're gonna have to be specific about the definition of justice, or what justice really is and what it applies to. Is justice a human-only concept? If we talk about justice and its benefits, is it utility for humans only? and if it is or isn't, why?

Amen and amen.

I'm running out of time at the moment, so I'll stop there for now. More questions, and concomitant answers, coming soon.

Resolved: Justice requires the recognition of animal rights.

The September / October 2011 Lincoln-Douglas debate topic has been released:

Resolved: Justice requires the recognition of animal rights.

It's a fairly straightforward sentence with a lot of deep philosophical implications, and is a great way to start the season.

To get started, here's a thought-experiment.

An alien spaceship descends on your hometown, bug-eyed spindly-legged creatures emerging from its bowels. "Great," you think. "This is gonna be great." You've always wondered whether there was intelligent life elsewhere in the universe--and here it is, practically knocking down your door.

Actually, it is knocking down your door, and vaporizing your furniture, and corralling you and your family into cages, until you're whisked off to some distant galaxy, ostensibly to serve as entertainment for Emperor Garthron of Planet X.

You try to reason with your captors. Their eyes are blank with apathy, however; they cannot hear, nor can they understand your rudimentary bleating. They ignore your gestures and are unfazed by your scribblings. Your actions are meaningless to them, beyond the detached interest of idle alien curiosity.

How would you convince one of these aliens that their behavior is unjust, and that they've violated your rights?

Or would you even bother to try?

Clearly, your rights exist regardless of your ability to articulate them to an outsider. But what if the situation were reversed, a la District 9? Would intelligent aliens have rights?

Or, more to the point, what if animals find themselves in the same position regarding their human neighbors?

How wide is the circuit of our moral concern? Should it include organisms of different species?

Why do we care about animals?
Suppose you feel anger or sadness about recent reports about whales' susceptibility to industrial toxins. Your sentiments could arise from many sources: appreciation of the whales' beauty and power and intelligence; pity for their helplessness; respect for their unique place in nature, or for divine mandates for environmental stewardship. You could also take a different tack, highlighting their instrumental value--for instance, their essential role in the oceanic ecosystem, or their utility as a food source.

The last makes the problem particularly acute. It's tough to concede rights to something you might grill on the barbecue. Here the culturally arbitrary nature of our attachments becomes evident: some folks dress up their dogs in funny clothes, while other folks eat them. (And if dogs have a right not to suffer, why not whales?)

How do we define "animal?"
Dictionary.com (based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary) gives us at least three workable definitions.

1.any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli: some classification schemes also include protozoa and certain other single-celled eukaryotes that have motility and animallike nutritional modes.

This scientific definition would set up an interesting affirmative:

All humans have rights.
All humans are animals.
Therefore, some animals have rights.
Thus, we affirm the resolution.

The second and third definition are much narrower:

2. any such living thing other than a human being.
3. a mammal, as opposed to a fish, bird, etc.

The former sets up a distinction between human rights and animal rights, which is the traditional manner of thinking about such things. The latter is even more restrictive, making it so the affirmative would have to defend rights for whales and grizzlies and gibbons, but not for lobsters, snakes, or chickens. (Serious efforts to grant rights to apes and to cetaceans already exist.)

Which animals would have rights?
The definition chosen points to a potential answer; other arguments might revolve around distinctions based on sentience or intelligence.

Which rights would these animals have?
Hard to say. In Spain, for instance, non-human apes have rights of life and freedom from suffering.

Where do rights come from?
If they come from God, we may have to turn to some kind of scripture to answer the question.
If they're inherent, we have to figure out whether they're inherent in animals.
If they're social constructions, we have to decide whether our society admits nonhumans.
If they're contractual, we have to wonder whether non-signatories are covered by the contract.
If they're legal constructs, we have to determine whether the law assigning rights to animals is wise.
If they're a matter of utility, we need to know whether a life with animal rights increases utility.

Recommended Reading
The SEP's entry on the moral status of animals.
Lawrence Hinman's list of relevant links and resources.

As always, your ideas and questions are critical. Fire away in the comments.

Note: this is a slightly modified repost of the topic preview from last year, since, following custom, the Sept/Oct topic is the least popular top choice from the 2010-2011 list.

barbecue tour photos: part deux

[first installment here]

the fast and the furious

Johnette Howard of ESPN has written a fascinating summary of the triumph and travails of Oscar Pistorius, the path-blazing runner who might get a shot at the Olympics, as well as the controversy created by his technologically facilitated racing. Even the scientists disagree as to whether Pistorius' prosthetics give him an unfair advantage. Quite the paradox.

is your car winking at me?

Problem: your car isn't flirtatious enough.


Solution: eyelashes!

Linnenkohl gets his shot

Congratulations to Capital grad Alex Linnenkohl, who was signed by the Chicago Bears to a 3-year contract, getting a shot at center. The Olympian reports:

Linnenkohl, who finished his college career last season as one of Oregon State’s all-time best centers, signed a rookie free agent contract with the Chicago Bears on Tuesday afternoon, fulfilling his longtime dream of getting a chance to play in the NFL. He was one of two undrafted centers signed by Chicago, joining Mississippi State’s J.C. Brignone.

“This is all I’ve ever wanted,” Linnenkohl said Tuesday from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill., where the Bears will begin training camp Saturday. “It’s pretty surreal right now. It hasn’t really hit me yet.”

What follows is one of those I-knew-him-when's: Back in 2006, I appeared on the same stage as Linnenkohl in an improv comedy show. The papers always report his work ethic (second-to-none) and his determination (at only 303 pounds, he's small for a center), but what they miss is his quick wit and killer sense of humor.

Best of luck, Alex. Strike that: do what brought you here, and keep working hard. If you get a Superbowl ring before the Seahawks do, I won't even complain.

"wear it humbly"

In my time, I have twice grown a full beard, once for a competition, and once for a fundraiser. My barbaric exploits are nothing, though, compared to those of young Burke Kenny, beard champion at 26:

The 26-year-old Olympia resident recently returned from the World Beard and Mustache Championships in Trondheim, Norway, where he took first place in the "full beard with styled mustache" category. He won the same title four years ago in England, when he became the youngest international facial-hair champion....

The international competition featured about 20 categories. The Americans brought home six gold medals, and four of those were grown by men from Washington state, Kenny said. Besides Kenny, they were Bruce Roe of Bremerton, who won for Hungarian mustache; Craig "Rooty" Lundvall of the Everett area, who won for full beard natural; and Keith "Ghandi Jones" Haubrich of Seattle, who won the freestyle mustache category.

What is it that makes the Evergreen State such a haven for bearded folk? Could it be the 58-degree rainy weather in July?

the barbecue tour

Things have been awful quiet around here, and for good reason: I've been on the road, enjoying the best barbecue the country has to offer--and some outstanding natural beauty along the way.  Since the state figuring most prominently in my plans has more in the way of smoked meats than scenery, I'm focusing on the culinary experience, calling it my Barbecue Tour.

Why a gastronomic excursion through the heartland? Because I love smoked meats, and because I need to gain weight.

I'll add more photos as I take 'em.



Added: More photos from the new Nikon.

the LED bulb has arrived

As Farhad Manjoo explains, a company called Switch Lighting will soon ramp up production on an LED bulb that looks as warm and inviting as an incandescent--at a fifth of the energy costs.

On average, an incandescent bulb lasts about 1,000 hours—that's about a year, if you keep it on for about three hours a day. Electricity in America also costs about 11 cents per kilowatt hour (that's the average; it varies widely by region). In other words, a 50-cent, 60-watt incandescent bulb will use about $6.60 in electricity every year. Switch's 60-watt-equivalent LED, meanwhile, uses only 13 watts of power, so it will cost only $1.43 per year. The Switch bulb also has an average lifespan of 20,000 hours--20 years. If you count the price of replacing the incandescent bulb every year, the Switch bulb will have saved you money by its fourth year. Over 20 years, you'll have spent a total of about $142 for the incandescent bulbs (for electricity and replacement bulbs) and less than $50 for Switch's 60-watt bulb.

Getting Americans to give up incandescents won't be easy, even with their 2014 phase-out. Migraine sufferers have a reason to be concerned: up until now, the least expensive viable option, compact fluorescents, were a known migraine trigger. As far as we know, though, LEDs are a safer alternative.

Now, if only they could find a way to salvage the Easy-Bake Oven.

Guerilla Running's 4K Moon Run / Walk, Saturday, July 9th

On what promises to be a completely awesome evening, Guerilla Running is hosting the first ever 4K Moon Run / Walk this Saturday, July 9th, at Capital High School, to benefit CHS's Debate Team. I hear that 200 women have signed up to race, earning custom-designed sterling silver necklaces and post-race pampering.

There will be a raffle with great prizes from Olympia businesses, including The Alpine Experience, 510 Interiors, BeHive Massage Therapy, and Nathan's Performance Gear. Swing Wine Bar Cafe will provide desserts for the runners, served by volunteers including Debate team members.

Saturday night at 8 p.m., come watch, hang out, buy raffle tickets, and enjoy the race. If you'd like to donate prizes, cash, or time, feel free to contact me.

See you at the race!



Need more info? Check it the Facebook page.