Storytime
Johnathan has become quite entertaining during dinner. Here you can witness him making up stories and reading us some scary books (from his hands)…
Author Archive
Johnathan has become quite entertaining during dinner. Here you can witness him making up stories and reading us some scary books (from his hands)…
Now that I’ve been judging at tournaments for a short amount of time, I feel that it is only fair to myself and those that I comment on to divulge some personal feeling of the sport. When I joined collegiate forensics (speech and debate), I had no idea what I was really getting myself into. Really. After my first tournament I was hooked though (hey, quarterfinalist in debate helped). In the past two years I’ve never been on such a fast-track of shifting ideas, but as always there is a price.
After my last tournament as a competitor I was so relieved that I wouldn’t have to look at anymore ballots that criticized my speaking and performance. I realize that the goal is to become better, but I think it just wore on me. I also realize that I have lots to learn, but because of the move, I decided that I needed to learn the other side of this game: judging. I must say that it wasn’t what I expected either. Just like when I first forced myself into Public Speaking 101, I also purposefully positioned myself to become a critic, at least for a short while. What I wanted to learn from it was how to have a certain power and wield it responsibly. For those of you reading that haven’t participated or observed a forensics tournament, the judges really do hold an air of authority that is recognized by the vast majority of the competitors. Undeservingly I undertook the challenge, and it has been an awesome learning experience. Once again, the debate community has impacted my outlook on life. Still, now that I don’t carry the nervous tension of someone who is going to deliver 30 speeches over the weekend, I carry the burden of explaining to talented peers that their performance wasn’t as good as the others. That was the challenge that I didn’t expect.
And for the record (and the point of this entire post): Everyone who has stood in front of me to speak this season has deserved my 1.
[tags]forensics, speech and debate, debate[/tags]
I saw another post regarding this call to action via online publishers. I would agree that it just doesn’t make sense to leave adult content behind a stupid link that reads, “Over 18?”. Yeah, I wonder how many kids are going to click on the other one? Do we leave PlayBoy magazines sitting on the counter at the local convenience store? I think not. The clerk at the counter can and will verify your age before handing you your favorite copy with Paris Hilton on the cover. If websites are to be regarded as an online representation of a brick and mortar establishment, then they should be held to same standards of identification before the burden is pushed onto non-technically savvy parents.
Blogger Power: Safeguard the Web for Children
Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information.
[tags]blogger power, Internet, child protection[/tags]
The Global Rich List sure showed me an interesting perspective on my own personal standing. My projected salary when we make the move to Phoenix will put us in the top 0.96% of wealth in the world (and I’m not going to make that much). It certainly put some things into a new light since we were just discussing finance this evening.
[tags]global rich list, poverty[/tags]
As of late I’ve been stuck in a very focused train of broad ideas. Nihilistic in a nature, yet looking to a higher power for answers. The one thing that I’ve settled on is that I don’t have them, and people with age do — If I listen. The trouble is that I still find myself somewhat socially awkward, especially with strangers, so I don’t posses the courage to just walk up to an elderly person and say, “Would you mind telling me your life story?” The thing is that I truly want to know. I’m convinced that if everyone over 70 wrote their memoirs (and everyone else read them) that the world would be a better place. Life just moves to quick and if we don’t stop, we don’t learn.
Stay with me… I have a point.
Today, at the bus stop, I was approached by a kind looking old woman with a walker-on-wheels-with-a-grocery-basket-thing. She stopped, looked at me, and then said in a very quiet voice, “Can I tell you something?”. I was rather intrigued so I nodded and leaned in.
“How does an astronaut cut his hair?”, she said. I shrug.
“Eclipse it!”
And she walked away. So that’s it then. After all the years that she has seen, she felt it was necessary to share a joke with a stranger waiting for the bus. I loved it. I think I’ve found the meaning of life.
[tags]jokes[/tags]
I should probably get an automatic A in my first class with the University of Phoenix for successfully breaking Adobe’s DRM on my class eBook. Is it too much to ask that someone in the BSIT program might like to read the book that they’ve legitimately been given access to on something other than Adobe Acrobat in Windows XP?
Well, 3 days later and countless numbers of packages (well, maybe a dozen), and I finally found a way to patch Ghostscript so that it would convert a PostScript file back into an unencrypted PDF. Here’s the process:
Open the PDF in Adobe 6.01 with Windows (unlock it)
Print to a file using any PostScript printer
Using Linux now, run ps2pdf on the .ps file and viola!
Of course, without the patch, ps2pdf will just vomit all over the console and tell you that it isn’t allowed to convert an encrypted PostScript file. Too bad.
At least now I can read in peace.
[tags]adobe, pdf, drm, postscript, ghostscript, university of phoenix[/tags]
I don’t care much for television. Too much of the same and not enough thought put into it. As such, I’m typically out of touch with the latest pop-culture. I can’t name any films in the theater this week, I don’t know about the new Britney Spears hit (wait, is she still around?), and I have no idea when the television season opens and concludes. I have to ask myself: “Ben, who do you look up to? Y’know, to get starstruck?”
We all find role-models in society from our very beginning of existence. I witnessed this with our son, Johnathan, almost immediately. He learns not because we teach, but because he observes. The teacher is not doing the student a service by giving a lesson, but it is the student doing a service by listening and assimilating the new ideas into their self. I’m a relatively quiet person because, like my son, I prefer to observe and listen to those around me for a good length before injecting my own ideas. I may have to rethink this paradigm however because it may prove to be too risky of an endeavor now.
Debate has been an integral part of my life for the past few years. It has changed my very being, as far as I can tell, from the way that I communicate with my wife, to the way that I approach everyday situations. I find myself thinking in sub-points, using an oppositional line-by-line, and weighing the impacts of any given decision. My partner and I have done some rather remarkable things in our short time together on a community college team. We’ve learned this game inside and out, and beaten (and been beaten by) some of the toughest competition in this part of the country. When I was contemplating rejoining the team this year because of the high amount of last-minute drops, my ex-partner used a particularly effective argument: He told me that some of what he used to succeed was learned by watching me. A flattering remark, yes? Very much so. I didn’t realize it at the time but I can’t take credit for this. As a matter of fact, I was also emulating someone.
Even during our first few tournaments in the Novice division, my partner and I regularly competed into the elimination rounds. We slowly gained a reputation for our down-to-earth manner and our comedic antics. When our time came and we couldn’t secure the votes though, we were encouraged to watch the Open division, the “pros”, in their elimination rounds to see if we could learn a few things. I was encouraged by a much wiser and more seasoned member of our team to check out Willamette BW — Matt Bost and Logan Will. I had no idea what to expect, but I of course acquiesced and took the advice.
Fun fact about Ben: I’ve logged a play-by-play of every debate that I’ve been involved in starting with the very first round of practice in class. I don’t know why, but they’re all there.
I walked into that round as someone who had a handle on the world of debate — I walked out of that round a blank slate. I was starstruck.
From then on out, each time I was dropped out of the elimination rounds (except for those two times we took first) my first priority was to sit down for an experience of Willamette BW. As far as I was concerned, these guys were it. I hung on to every argument, every turn, every impact, every critique, and every plank of solvency. After seeing their rounds my fellow teammates would ask me, “So, who do you think won?” My first response would always be, “Well, I’m biased with them.” They’d laugh — but I wasn’t kidding.
I pride myself on my rebuttals. It’s one of the few things that I feel that I do fairly well, and it is absolutely one of the most important speeches in any debate. I learned how to give a rebuttal in the same manner that my son learned how to say, “Papa”. Unconsciously, automatically, and naturally. I learned by watching Logan Will.
At the Debate Workshop at Willamette University I learned even more about debate, and ultimately myself, from Logan Will. I attended the camp as a coach, mentoring our teams and learning more about logical theory and fallacy at the same time. It was a truly invigorating camp and I was actually sad that I wasn’t going to compete this year to use these new tools (irony is sweet). At the end of the week-long camp, a two-day tournament was hosted. Of course, the top two teams in the Open division were both from Willamette, and one of them was Willamette BW (with a 6-0 record mind you). The final round was to take place in front of the entire camp so that we could all witness and learn. I overheard a fellow debater ask Logan if he was going to “be funny” since he was competing in front of such a large audience. He just smiled and said, “We don’t do humor.” It struck me. Made me think about myself very hard. These two young men knew exactly what they could and couldn’t do, and they knew just where those boundaries lie. They didn’t need to prove themselves. They won the round with a landslide vote.
After the last debate that I watched with Willamette BW, I strongly considered asking Logan and Matt to sign my flow sheet of the arguments in the round. I stopped myself because I though it might be a bit strange. I mean, I’ve never even talked to them.
Instead, I looked forward to this weekend. Willamette University was holding a free tournament that Clark College was going to attend. This tournament was different though in that there were no divisions. To me that said two things: 1) I’m going to be raked over the coals, and 2) There is a chance I might debate Willamette BW. I envisioned myself giving a rebuttal that, rather than ask for an undeserving ballot, I simply thanked Matt and Logan for such a cordial learning experience. Upon conceding the round, I was going to ask them to autograph my flow of the round. I was going to finally have the courage to approach these men and shake their hands. I was going to frame that sheet — all part of the vision. Funny how plans have a way of changing when everyone least expects it.
Salem
Willamette to hold service for crash victim
November 28, 2006
A memorial service for Willamette University student Logan Will, 22, of Grants Pass will be at 7 p.m. today at Hudson Hall on the campus.
Will died from injuries suffered Nov. 22 in a car wreck on Interstate 5. Will was a senior majoring in politics and a member of the Willamette University Debate Union.
Family funeral services will be at 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Bethany Lutheran Church Youth Education Building in Gold Beach. Another memorial will be held at the Grants Pass Performing Arts Center at 5 p.m. Sunday in Grants Pass.
The family requests donations in lieu of flowers to be sent to the Logan Will Fund at Willamette University, 900 State St., Salem OR 97301.
— Ruth Liao
Thank you Logan Will, for the experiences that you’ve allowed me to share. Know that your life continues in the countless hearts and minds of those that you touched. I regret everyday that I didn’t gather the courage to shake your hand and tell you: You are my hero.