The Fitzmier-Mancuso Lab at Work

Ovais

Chip is Not Hip

Alex Cue Ball

Ivie

Cobs

The Big (Marc)

Kunal

Dan

Evan (closeted serial killer)

Osahon

Eve

Good Golly, it's Molly

Mason

Maximus


Rambo

Mike (honorary member)

Debates, Debates, Debates...

Practice rounds are continuing at a furious pace. Here are some pictures.

Eli (Centerville) and Ovais (Chattahoochee).


Chip (The Heights) and Alex (Olathe Northwest)


Eli (again, the camp's version of camera-hog John McCain)


Kunal (Stratford Academy)


Observers


Prepping in lab room.

Announcing: Faculty Demonstration Debate!

Ladies and gentlemen, for your entertainment pleasure, the Miami Debate Institute is excited to make the following announcement:

This Friday, July 14, at 7:00 p.m. in Upham Room 1 the following Faculty Demonstration Debate will take place:

First Affirmative: Alan Coverstone



Second Affirmative: Sarah Spring



First Negative: Daniel Fitzmier



Second Negative: "Dreamy" Todd Lantz

College Debate Forum!

Tomorrow night, Wednesday July 12, the Miami Debate Institute is sponsoring a forum on college debate. Students from both workshops who are possibly interested in pursuing debate after their high school careers are welcome to attend.

Faculty members representing a wide variety of college programs will offer information about their schools, debate squads, financial aid opporutnities, etc. The faculty panel will include college directors, coaches, former debaters and current debaters. After the panel presents their information they will take questions from the audience.

The forum will take place in Room 2 in Upham Hall at 7:00 p.m.

Maybe you'll end up on the Miami Debate squad...

Miami Speaking Skills Sessions!

Ten nights of sweaty fun - and hard work - are almost over. Dozens of the students at the Miami workshop are taking advantage of working with all faculty members in groups and individually in these optional sessions in the evening. Debaters intensely work on their speed, clarity, vocal variance, emphasis and speaking stamina.


After long days at lab, library, practice debates and lectures, these students amazingly choose to commit more time outside of their formal curriculum to getting better.


Speaking for the entire faculty, we congratulate these students on their tremendous commitment.



Two more nights to go - tonight with Ed Lee and Nicole Serrano, and tomorrow night with Paul Strait and Brett Wallace.

Risen Spring Practice Debate Schedule - Weds.

Weds 10 AM
Rm Aff Neg Judge
18 HS FR Risen
131 ZL GY Spring
364 CL KP Serrano
Bye QK

Weds 1:30 PM

18 GY HS Risen
131 KP ZL Spring
364 QK CL Wallace
Bye FR

Full Negative Disclosure Mandatory

Lectures on the internet

Some of the scholars lectures are now being podcasted and are available on the internet. Happy listening.

Friday night.. and pirates arghhh

The Risen Spring lab had a fun filled friday night. We went uptown and got dinner and sat out in the park and ate while we discussed strategy. We also saw the premier to Pirates of the Carribean 2 which was .. well you should see it and make your own conclusions. Here are some pictures

Bill Shanahan Lectures

Bill Shanahan of Fort Hays State came yesterday to lecture about Kritiks and Kritiking. Steve introduced Bill as the most influential person in college debate in the last 25 years. This introduction readily proved correct as his lecture showed why he was so innovative and influential. I learned alot and I think everyone did. Good times.

Risen/Spring Finishes Wave One

The Sophmores successfully created two awesome affirmatives that will roll through the camp tournament. The Medical Reserve Corp aff will draft those lazy doctors into emergency preparedness. The Coast Guard aff provides incentives to Coast Guard recruits in order to safeguard our ports.

LET THE PUBLIC TAKE NOTICE!!!!!

Let it be known to all involved in the debate community that Brett and Paul herby challenge Nicole and Ed in a policy debate. There are two conditions. They can either

A) Go neg against our TIPS aff (which will of course necessitate them supporting terrorists)
B) Pick an affirmative and we will go neg.

Failure to respond to this challenge is clearly an admission of their inferiority at debate, lab leading, and overall lack of courage.

FIRST WAVE OF EVIDENCE COMPLETE

The Wallace/Strait lab, despite being behind in the RedHawk Bee, pulled a full half day ahead of the Lee/Serrano lab in finishing the first wave of assigmments. The Terrorist Information Prevention System Affirmative, Negative, and Terror Talk Kritik (ironically, labee Jack Bauer wrote the terror talk file) were completed at at precisely 4:04 pm.

Hubris made us think that we had also completed one of our negative assigments a whole FOUR days early, with Catie printing out the index for the Foucault Kritik at 5:01. However, upon inspection by both Paul and Brett, there seemed to be no Shell or 1nc written for the kritik, making it substantially more difficult for it to be run in a debate round. It should be complete though after another research session.

The Politics disad, similar to the GOP right now, is slightly in disarray. Jack Abermoff i think stole some of our political theory internal link cards. These problems are expected to be fixed by the time the negative file is due on July 5th.

Redhawk SW Politics lecture

Brett and I discussed the complexities of the politics disadvantage with our lab for four hours. Hao took notes on his laptop and has emailed me a copy, which I have attached below.

------------
Politics DA’s
- This DA links to any plan that affects either the political agenda or an imminent election
- There are many different kinds of politics DAs that talks about the agendas during in Washington
Bush Good DA
- Uniqueness – X will pass now
- Link – Plan stops X from passing
o By spending Bush’s Political capitol so can’t pass X
o Bipartisanship – democrats and republic are working together, and plan breaks that
o Popularity – plan destroys the president’s popularity and he can’t pass X
o GOP Unity/Base – plan destroys the GOP base and agenda X can’t pass
o Losers Lose – when the plan gets FIAT in Congress, would Bush sign it?
o Specific Congressperson
o Flip Flop
o Lobbies
Impact – X is good

Bush Bad DA
Uniqueness – X won’t pass now.
Link – plan causes X to pass
- olive branch/concessions/horsetrading
- winners win – if bush gets a victory, then everyone will think he is a winner and build momentum
- popularity
- specific congressperson
- rider
Impact – X is bad

Midterms DA
The plan affects the Congressional elections in Nov. 06, and the party it helps is bad/good
Link stories
- premise of coattails – GOP depends on Bush
- issue stealth – GOP can steal that Nat’l Service Issue and garner strength from it.
- Base strength – GOP alienates conservative base
Types of Impacts
- post-election Agenda
- pre-election lashout/action
o just doing something before he is out of office

Tips for regarding Politics DA
- don’t disrespect it because you think it’s a load of crap
- don’t become overly dependent on it
- it will be a necessary strategic option on the National Service Topic.
o Politics cards are easy to find and cut – now is a good time to learn how and practice.
o Many affs this year are going to spend money or push PC and very easy to find political DAs.
Topics for Politics DAs
Agenda Items
- Immigration Reform
o Bush has put his political clout behind reform efforts
o Strong conservative opposition exists against the senate’s compromise immigration bill
o Internal link evidence is strong now
§ Bush needs every bit of PC now to pass this bill
§ If you can find good internal link arguments, you have a pretty solid DA
o Impact areas: Economy, Terrorism, Agriculture, Population Control, etc.
- Recent legislative events reflect Election-year politics
o Gay Marriage Amendment and Flag-Burning
o Many spending Items are delayed until after November
o Bush Administration has cleaned house
- Midterms
o Most political analyst agree that the GOP will lose ground in November
§ But how much and where? Is it enough to lose enough power and give it to the democrats?
o Republicans are beginning to distant themselves from Bush
o Bush lacks any victories in his domestic agenda - could national service be his opening?
o While Iraq is the most important issue, what about wedge issues? Swing voters?


Politics DA

Always have a strategy because everything leads to politics
Always have good impacts.
You’ve got to be ready for it on the Aff.
Know the research when you are the Neg
Do updates for both sides.

Search Terms:

“Bush”, “congress”, “house”, or “senate”

Find good idea

Find big impacts

Big internal link

Impacts that do with
- trade/economy
- treaties
- energy
- environment
- relations
- taxes

After finding a good scenario, find uniqueness, but isn’t too determined, but has a fight.
Search terms “uphill battle” “hard push” “hard” “politically controversial” “vote counts”

Two types of uniqueness:

U. Issue specific (example: ANWR will pass)
U. Link specific (example: Bush has political capital)


Warrants given multiple scenarios must be specific to the effects of the plan.

Links

Most generic
Popular Unpopular - Congress
- Public
- International
- Lobbies
o Business
o Environmental
o Labor unions
§ manufactoring
o Old people (Advance Association of Senior Citizens)
o ID politics
o Teacher’s Unions
- President
- Military

If it is an aff that the business lobbies like and they’re going to support it if there is an aff that they already like.

Lobby debate within the link debate. Lobbie comparison
Example: which has money, which has split views, etc.


Congress
Republic and Democrats
- want to say republicans key or democrats key
- “swing vote” people who aren’t ideologically in line with a side.
Public
- not very strong, doesn’t always affect politics
- if the public doesn’t like the aff, there can be an affect, but if they like the aff, nothing’s going to change in the legislative.
International

President
- Political Capitol
- Flip flop
- Vetoes
- XO’s

President Credit/Blame
- steal
- push
o congress/comities push
- signs/veto
o gets link to Bush Good
- media focuses every piece of legislation upon Bush
Focus Link
- focus on one type of legislation vs another. Time spent on other legislations
- can be awesome
- cards, bush must "focus like a laser"
Military
- veterans will lobby a lot on the Armed Forces affs
Link Evidence
- date is very important.
- Bipartisan support <= question it
o Doesn’t always mean all republican and democrats are agreeing with each other.
- difference between senate and house of republicans
- Bush has never vetoed

Internal Links
- GOP Backlash because Bush was flip flop
- Winners win – bush thinks he’s winning, and public looks at him as a winner, perspective argument
- Concessions – olive branch and
- horse trade – interference with another agenda and even if they are opposite work together to get things to occur
- bipartisanship support
- partisanship – causes controversy
Impacts
- impact calculus
o time frame
§ if extinction or nuke war came before the plan was implemented, then the plan’s pointless
§ harms in long run is never positively true
o probability
§ compare it from your ! against the Aff’s !
§ no risk of offense
o magnitude
§ make aff’s impacts look like nothing
- systemic – sure to happen, but might be small, but doesn’t matter because it is positive to happen and on going.
- Opposite is probabilistic, may or may not happen.
Watch out for internal links to strong impacts that are usually bullshit. Take out the i/l.

Impact turning is rough because the Neg has their file ready, but do so if you are desperate for offense.

Politics are the most realistic. The only reason we have voting through legislature is due to the fact that the PC has the affect on passing things

AT: Bad Arguments

Bottom of the Docket
- the list of bills and when they are going to be voted on
- The plan is the last or next thing on the Docket
- Answer by “normal means”.
- 2AC clarification and makes them conditional
- Not topical
- Destroys ground
- And limits because of the timeframe.
- Words in the resolution, resolved, must occur.
- Say: It is future fiat and that is illegit, due to take out on ground, limits, and not topical. Bad for education because it destroys politics DAs

Immediate (Fiat takes out the link)
- FIAT magic wand. No expenditure of PC.
- Causes bad debate of the Neg to read a card just saying that the Aff has no PC and therefore the plan can’t pass. This forces the Aff to fiat and not have to expend any PC.
- This argument is very unreal world.
- Effects of the plan happening, and others are happening of the plan.
- AT: this is irrelevant because Bush can still lose.
- The whole point of the game of debate is to argue the process and the effects of the Plan
- Doesn’t mean things magically happen, and you don’t debate about the process
Not being in session
- if you cut a card when the bill isn’t occurring
- Congress hasn’t been in session, and the date is the same in the political world if congress hasn’t met or voted on anything. Therefore the agenda won’t change until the next session.
- Special session argument, is when bush can push for such a session he should have enough PC to pass the plan anyways.


Link Shields

Teflon President
- nothing sticks to him
- he can deflect blame from anything
- flip flops are inevitable
- “turn shields” makes you win on the link debate. Ex. Public doesn’t matter, lobbies don’t matter.
1NR to go on the Politic DA
- avoid CX (but you want to be questioned about something you know you know you are right)
- more prep time for more evidence comparison.
- They make answers to the DAs
- Add more impacts
- More impact analysis

Red Hawk keeps learning!

The Red Hawk Institute spent yesterday listening to speaker position lectures. In true multi-media fashion, Paul Strait and Brett Wallace gave exciting power point lectures on the 1a and 2a that incorporated movie clips from the CSTV documentaries on college debate. 1A's learned such important lessons as building a 1AC to be clear and persuasive, to include well warranted cards, and to build 1ar's around fundamentals like embedded clash, selecting key arguments, time allocation, and efficency.
2A's learned that they are the captain of the aff ship, the core answers to make to every off case position,and how to effectively prepare before a tournament.

Later in the day, Sarah Spring gave her power point lecture on "The 1N: or how I learned to love the 2N." 1N's learned how to effectively prep for 1NC's by assembling the core parts of the speech before the 1ac even begins, and then how to write case "pimps."
Finally, I gave my lecture on the 2N where I discussed how to create comprehensive negative strategies, how to effectively use the 1AC cross-x to win the debate, and the principal of vertical depth.

All four lectures had a few common themes - "readers beat speakers," or the idea that preparing speeches in advance will make you a better debate; speed is your ability to communicate arguments successfully to a judge, or the idea that you can only go the speed that still allows you to be clear, persuasive, and flowable to the judge; "the 2 is captain of the ship," or the idea that 2a/2n control the direction of the debate, although the 1 should not be brushed off or belittled; funny jokes! (although, I am apparently the least funny since I had to ASK people to laugh at this - http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30931)

This morning we had an amazing lecture from Dan Fitzmier on the functions of fiat and kritiks. Afterwards, students got to discuss specific kritiks, as well as generically winning on and beating kritiks, in their 6-8 person seminar groups.

Red Hawk Aff Deadline approaching

With less than 24 hours to go until our aff files are due, the hard working Red Hawk students have decided to take on major negative assignment research as well. The kids have already started to work on such negative assignments as Foucault, politics, States CP, Inflation, and Topicality. Research coordination has been a breeze since kids can turn in files via the Miami Debate provide flash drives. These flash drives practically write the files themselves!(As evident my Chips work habits with his laptop) Here are some pictures of the kids working hard at the library and the dorm.

Scholars Fitzmier Lecture

Dan Fitzmier gave a incredibly helpful lecture today on critique on the topic. I learned alot and I think everyone who was there gained alot of knowledge about critical debating.

The lecture was followed by speaking clinics in which we worked individually on a very hard K, Derrida. I think the success of the lecture was displayed in how well everyone did in giving a practice 2NC on the K.

A few lucky students got to give demonstrations of the 2NC to the whole group.

Miami Speaking Skills Starts Tomorrow - Thursday

Dan Fitzmier and Steve Mancuso will be hosting the first "Miami Speaking Skills" session - held for an hour at 9:00 PM in the basement of Dodds Hall. There will be opportunities for signing up for individualized work, as well as the group projects for developing speaking skills.

Through the course of the workshop these sessions will be offered 10 times, with rotation of all faculty members so students can work with every one.

The Skills sessions are optional, for students who are seeking an edge at developing their speaking skills.

A few of the college debaters, like Brett Wallace, may actually make an appearance and participate in the Skills sessions as well.

Red Hawk Bee Announced!

In order to establish a program substantially increasing the number of persons paying attention in lectures, we would like to offer a positive incentive based program.

Rules: There will be regular quizzes of about 10 questions that test your knowledge of the content of large group lectures and events. You may use any notes that you have taken.
On a regular basis, results will be posted on the blog that include
• The top point leaders
• The overall status of each lab
• The “DFL”
The DFL will then be required to do menial labor as designated by their lab leaders, for example, clean the lab room at the end of a lab meeting.

At the end of the institute, there will be prizes for the top point leaders.

Quiz 1 was based on Steve Mancuso's and Michael Risen's topic lectures and some name games. Below are the questions followed by the correct answers.

Quiz 1
Each question is worth 1 point. To receive credit, the answer must be 100% complete and accurate, as based on the information given in the lectures

1. Write out the high school 06-07 resolution
Resolved: The United States federal government should establish a policy substantially increasing the number of persons serving in one or more of the following national service programs: AmeriCorps, Citizen Corps, Senior Corps, Peace Corps, Learn and Serve America, Armed Forces.
2. What are the 5 parts of the Armed Forces?
Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, Coast Guard
3. True or False – Non-US citizens, who are American residents, are allowed to enlist and have full access to all positions in the Armed Forces.
FALSE (non US citizens may not be officers or have national security clearance)
4. True or False – the Air Force was founded after the Navy
TRUE
5. Which member of Congress recently introduced a bill to reinstate the draft again?
REP. RANGEL
6. What is the youngest someone may be in order to participate in any program of the Senior Corps?
55
7. What is the top reason that Americans do not volunteer?
LACK OF TIME
8. True or False – the Peace Corps does family planning and HIV/AIDs awareness programs that include, education, prevention, and birth control
FALSE (Peace Corps is not allowed to provide birth control)
9. What national service program has suffered such budget cuts that many speculate it may not exist in 2007?
AmeriCorps
10. What animal discussed during the name game was attributed with the unfortunate characteristic of exploding when dropped?
Tarantula (see http://www.zoo.org/mow/facts.html)

Only two students in the three week institute successfully got the resolution correct, including capitalization, spelling, and order of programs. Alexandria Fox-Mack deserves some applause for being one of those.

Scott Marchi has given himself the lead by being the only perfect score in the institute! However, there are half a dozen nipping at his feet with 9 points so far.

The Lee/Serrano lab is slightly ahead of the Strait/Wallace lab in points.

The DFL was Jeffrey Boxer, but he still has time to catch up, so don't count him out yet!

More quizzes and results after our second quiz, which will be based on the thorough Topicality lecture Ed Lee gave this morning, as well as the research lectures and the institute-wide Research Project.

Camp Starts!

Phew, we're still getting started but the first days of camp have been a whirlwind. Registration and the first night are under our belts and things are just about to get interesting.

Steve and Mike gave fantastic topic lectures this morning. Post if you have any questions for them. And I gave a lecture on how to research this afternoon.

At registration I took pictures of everyone. I'll post a few as a sampling of the picture fantasticness to come!

Security Deposit

At registration you will need to have a separate check for the deposit of $50. You will receive this money back when you turn in your key at the end of camp.

Sarah

Don't forget to bring the rec consent form!

Office Phone Number

The Camp office starting June 26th will move to Dodds Hall, the phone number there is 513-529-2957.

Sarah

The Rec Center

Hi all,

We just finished an agreement from the recreation center on campus to allow ya'll to use their facilities at a discount. The price is $5 a day, which is better than the normal $8.

However, if you want to use the facilities you must complete this waiver form which must be signed by your parents. I am creating a link to this document on the sidebar to the left.

Here's a link to the Rec center's mainpage www.muohio.edu/recsports

See you soon,
Sarah