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Re: point man/merger

> On Tue, 27 Feb 1996, Michael Miroslav Korcok wrote:
>
<Deletion of Korcok's diagnosis of my intelligence and mental state>
> >
> > i have also stated my position publicly that we need to proceed with due
> > caution.  an NDT adoption of the CEDA topic with an early release date
> > seems to me to remove almost ALL motivation from NDT's willingness to
> > talk "merger".  the scenario spins out thusly:
> >
> > the NDT debates the CEDA topic.  tournaments remain largely separate.
> > there is crossover:  NDT schools send 3rd and 4th teams to CEDA
> > tournaments on occasion, while CEDA schools send 1st and 2nd teams to
> > NDT tournaments.  the CEDA national championship remains open to all
> > comers and many come.  the NDT remains on a bid-district-bid system.
> > some CEDA schools are invited, but not many.  the NDT workshop system
> > remains intact.
> > possible, Mr. Bryant?  likely, i think.
>

Well, gee, I guess I ought to give up, because Korcok is so much more
brightly lit than me, but I'll give it a shot.

1. No evidence.

    Korcok exchanges a few posts on NDT-L and believes he can predict
the future. Aren't we lucky? What the hell, we should immediately hire
him to predict the future of CEDA in all policy questions.

2. Wrong link

    I'm not advocating merger. Why not try a common topic? If your
(paranoid) predictions spin out, I'm sure CEDA has the capability of
extricating itself from a failed experiment.

3. Erects new barriers

    Now Korcok says that we should avoid common topics because it
won't really solve the workshop problem. What else will we require
from organizational cooperation?  World peace and a private
ivory tower for Korcok?

4. Contradicted by everyone with feet in both organizations

    What will it take to appease Korcok's fears? Daily now we are
seeing not just a couple, but literally dozens of NDT folks say that
they are willing to do whatever it takes to bring the two
organizations together. Korcok see this as simply a means for NDT to
complete it's domination over CEDA without any return benefit. Use
your common sense - who's the paranoid? For godsake, Ede Warner is
apologizing with the fervor of religious pentience for past mistakes
and all Korcok can do is digress into mathematical workload
projections.

5. Any impact is not uniquely disadvantageous.

    What if we grant Korcok all of his arguments? How are we any
worse off? So what if common topics don't solve all of the
differences between organizations? How would CEDA be hurt? The only
thing Korcok seems able to advance is the old Steppian mantra about
how we have a moral obligation to keep the "CEDA tent" as broad as
possible. In reality, we all know that some debaters work all year
round (including a number of Cornell debaters) and some never do
anything, no matter what time of year it is. Speaking as a coach of
small schools who managed to do well for over 15 years in NDT, we
were damn happy to have a mid-summer topic release. It was the
primary reason we were capable of clearing at early tournaments.
Individuals unwilling to commit to work will always find reasons to
leave the activity. I sure don't see Cornell scaling back their work
effort. Why should the burden of keeping the "tent" open fall on the
rest of our backs? Korcok wants a late release because he feels the
status quo best preserves his enormous-sized squad's capability of
writing more reverse voter blocks.

I find Korcok's arguments weak, deliberately shrouded in mathematical
ambiguity and so self-centered as to be hilarious. Do any of you
really think that his primary objective is to keep CEDA open for
everyone? Remember, even Joe McCarthy said that justice was his
primary objective. I really think Korcok's vision of a broad tent for
CEDA is one that preseves his seat at the top.

Let CEDA vote on this. I feel confident that the people in this
organization are capable of choosing what they feel is best. Saying
that you are for merger when you are concurrently demanding that we
delay movement toward the lesser step of common topics is akin to my
southern ancestors' proclamation that they were for racial equality
as long as those uppity blacks didn't expect any changes in Southern
traditions.

Another dim bulb waiting to explode (and w/ even less respect),

bear
Michael "Bear" Bryant           Internet: mbryant@central.weber.edu
Director of Forensics           Home:   801-399-4253
Department of Communication     Office: 801-626-7186
Weber State University          Fax:    801-626-7975
Ogden, UT  84408-1605           AOL:    MWBRYANT@AOL.COM
                                Prodigy:UHMH64C@PRODIGY.COM
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