Point of Information

May 19: Georgiana Hays Invitational at Prospect

jthorpe — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:33:49 +0000

It’s been a long, competitive debate season, and it has finally come to a close. However, to finish off the year, Prospect High School’s Speech and Debate Team cordially invites all debaters to the Georgiana Hays Invitational, taking place at Prospect High School on Saturday, May 19. Georgiana Hays was an English teacher and debate coach who led Prospect’s forensics program to nationals twice before retiring. In this last competitive tournament featuring the best debaters in the nation, it is only fitting that her name should grace the trophies.

The Hays Invitational is open to all Parliamentary debaters, open or novice. Registration for teams and judges is online at http://www.joyoftournaments.com/ca/prospect-spring/ . There will be at least five single-flighted rounds, including hidden-elimination finals. The top two teams and speakers in each division will receive awards, while third, fourth, and fifth will receive honorable mentions. Results will be posted live to our website at http://phsdebate.weebly.com/georgiana-hays-invitational.html and to the POI website as well.

For those of you that want to know the exact rules, Parli will use a 7-7-7-7-5-5 format—no laptops in prep (we will have free wi-fi available between rounds); Points of Order are OK in the rebuttals, but POIs are not; everything after round 2 is power-matched; if there is an odd number of teams in a bracket, we’ll insert a swing team.

For full information, please visit the Prospect Debate website or Joy of Tournaments, or contact us at prospectdebate@gmail.com. See you on the 19th!

Lampert’s Lateralities #2 (Video Debrief)

Iain Lampert — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:12:06 +0000

PART I:

PART II:

Enjoy, friends!

I apologize for the watermark. I spent a lot of time trying to merge what amounted to 30 clips together, and I ended up downloading Wondershare DVD Slideshow Builder to do just that.

For those of you unwilling to watch it the whole way through, the teams in question ended up being…

Bishop O’Dowd AD
Bishop O’Dowd CD/CZ
Bishop O’Dowd VD
Cleveland/Valencia LH
Granite Bay NW
James Logan AM
Los Gatos GS
Lynbrook UK
MVLA SS
Saratoga AC
Windsor FJ

In what order, though? Watch, and find out!

2011 – 2012 Final National Rankings

jthorpe — Sat, 05 May 2012 05:33:49 +0000

The rankings have been updated. Welcome to the four Oregon teams that have cracked the top-twenty and congratulations to all of you fantastic parli debaters for a tremendous year.

Also, let POI know of any errors. Some teams in the rankings are listed with only one name since a partner was not listed in the CHSSA packet, so, if you could, please provide us with any missing names.

Top 20 Unique Teams:

1. Los Gatos SG (Silverman & Gilbert) 49.775
2. Windsor FJ (Fauss & J. Jeffrey) 40.7
3. Saratoga AC (Agrawal & Chiang) 36.35
4. Bishop ODowd CD (A. Carson & Dierkx) 32.975
5. Mira Loma ML (Mecklai & Leibenhaut) 30.55
6. Lincoln BW (Lane Burton & Eliot Woods) 26.575
7. Bishop ODowd ZV (Zepeda & Vegis) 23.625
8. Redmond WM (Lilianna Wagner & Conor McCue) 23.225
9. Windsor SJ (Steiger & P. Jeffrey) 23.2
10. Windsor FZ (Foster & Ziedrich) 23.1
11. Sierra Canyon HS (Hariz & Shokar) 22.875
12. Lake Oswego KX (Kwartler & Xu) 22.65
13. Bishop ODowd PA (Perl & Accinelli) 22.3
14. Gunn NO (Oyer & Neff) 22.275
15. Evergreen Valley KP (Khan & Park) 21.575
16. Leland NW (Nguyen & Wu) 20.2
17. Gunn YA (Ye & Atlas) 20
18. Sprague MO (Jeff Metzger & Devon O’Donnell) 19.925
19. Lincoln LO (Mason Lam & Rose Owen) 19.225
20. Esperanza CC (Chang & Chin) 19.05

Top Ten Clubs:

1. BISHOP ODOWD 206
2. WINDSOR 161
3. LELAND 118.5
4. LOS GATOS 99.5
5. SARATOGA 72.5
6. PENINSULA 63.5
7. MIRA LOMA 61
8. SANTA ROSA 57.5
9. ANALY 54
10. LINCOLN 51

Lampert’s Lateralities #2 (Poll)

Iain Lampert — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:50:06 +0000

Hey-o!

First, congratulations to Windsor and Los Gatos on their terrific runs at the state tournament! I met both teams over the last weekend, and DIZZAM are they good.

I’ve been absent from POI recently, probably because I’m unable to handle the shame of thinking there’s educational merit in debating pop culture (oh, dear, did I just open that can of worms again?), but Commissioner Thorpe has been shining the Lampert-Signal (it’s an overlarge open-handed gesture) in the inter-night sky for some time. You know what THAT means: I’m supposed to talk into a microphone for another ten minutes.

I don’t want to address any of the month-old arguments from the Stanford thread about topic selection, or the arguments about coach prep from the SCU II thread, because my coach (Armand, of course) is telling me as I write this that arguing about what topics we ought to debate will make girls dislike me. And, since I’m not about to pull a Santorum and offend a potentially large portion of my constituency with any political references, I want to focus on something else entirely…

Which high school parli teams are the best ever?

I’ve had the conversation before with Artem, Ben Morris, Coach St. Amant, and Nick Hall. Everyone has different answers, and my opinions aren’t fully formed yet.

So, I’d like YOUR input. Below, you’ll find an open-ended poll. Please take the time to answer it with the five best teams you’ve personally seen. Then, please explain why you chose those teams.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NLP7GJ3

After I have a significant amount of information, I’ll record a breakdown of the top ten teams ever in parliamentary debate (with the most colorful commentary as I can provide).

Cheers,

Iain

Parli Survey Results

Artem — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:25:24 +0000

The results of the Parli Debater Survey were unveiled and discussed at the TOC General Assembly.
And now they are being released to the entire parli community!

Student Survey Results (permalink)

Coach Survey Results (permalink)

Thank you to Bryan St. Amant for putting together the survey.

College Connection

Artem — Tue, 01 May 2012 07:00:05 +0000

It’s SIR season, so let’s continue last year’s discussion…
Where were you accepted?
Where are you going?
What about your teammates?
Anyone planning to continue debate in college?
Anyone planning to come back to high school parli to judge, coach, etc.?

a list of all college debate programs in the United States
list of debate leagues

Windsor Wins ‘Er! State Champions: Jason Fauss & Jonathan Jeffrey

Benjamin Morris — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:41:18 +0000

Finals
Windsor FJ def. Los Gatos SG

In a rematch from MLK finals just over 3 months ago, the team of Jason Fauss and Jonathan Jeffrey defeated the team of Adam Silverman and Christina Gilbert from Los Gatos. More details will follow shortly.

Semifinals
Windsor FJ (1431) def. Mira Loma ML (1435)
Los Gatos SG (1440) def. Sierra Canyon HS (1434)

Quarterfinal Pairing/Results
Windsor FJ (1431) BYE
Los Gatos SG (1440) BYE
Mira Loma ML (1435) def. Bishop O’Dowd CD (1444)
Sierra Canyon HS (1434) def. Saratoga AC (1448)

Quarterfinal Participants
Windsor FJ (Jason Fauss & Jonathan Jeffrey) 1431
Sierra Canyon HS (Chris Hariz & Ameek Shokar) 1434
Mira Loma ML (Keizra Mecklai & Jeff Leibenhaut) 1435
Los Gatos SG (Adam Silverman & Christina Gilbert) 1440 [Will Bye to Semifinals]
Bishop O’Dowd CD (Audrey Carson & Nathalie Dierkx) 1444
Saratoga AC (Shauray Agrawal & Justin Chiang) 1448

Round 6 Results
Los Gatos SG def. Saratoga AC [2-1]
Windsor FJ def. Cleveland RT [2-1]
Bishop O’Dowd CD def. Gunn ON [2-1]
Sierra Canyon HS def. Claremont YDL [3-0]
Mira Loma ML def. Redlands KK [3-0]

Teams in Round 6
Gunn ON (David Oyer & Jeremy Neff) 1415
Windsor FJ (Jason Fauss & Jonathan Jeffrey) 1431
Sierra Canyon HS (Chris Hariz & Ameek Shokar) 1434
Mira Loma ML (Keizra Mecklai & Jeff Leibenhaut) 1435
Redlands KK (Hochan Kim & Gia Karpouzis) 1438
Los Gatos SG (Adam Silverman & Christina Gilbert) 1440
Claremont YDL (Pranay Yeteru & Storm Dowd-Lukesh) 1442
Cleveland RT (Adam Revello & Leo Tuchman) 1443
Bishop O’Dowd CD (Audrey Carson & Nathalie Dierkx) 1444
Saratoga AC (Shauray Agrawal & Justin Chiang) 1448

Round 5 Results
Saratoga AC def. Mira Loma ML (in) [2-1]
Los Gatos SG def. Windsor FJ (in) [2-1]
Sierra Canyon HS def. Windsor JS (out) [3-0]
Gunn ON def. Los Osos GL (out) [2-1]
Claremont YDL def. Windsor FZ (out) [3-0]
Redlands KK def. SOCES KS (out) [3-0]
Bishop O’Dowd CD def. La Jolla HP [2-1]
Cleveland RT def. Esperanza CC (out) [2-1]

Teams in Round 5 (COMPLETE)

La Jolla HP (Milan Halgren & Ram Prassad) 1402
Esperanza CC (Wesley Chin & Samuel Chang) 1405
Gunn ON (David Oyer & Jeremy Neff) 1415
Sherman Oaks CES KS (Farhan Kabir & Cameron Silverberg) 1418
Los Osos GL (Francesco Guerreri & Reggy Long) 1429
Windsor FJ (Jason Fauss & Jonathan Jeffrey) 1431
Windsor JS (Peter Jeffrey & Mariah Steiger) 1432
Windsor FZ (Patrick Foster & Ivy Ziedrich) 1433
Sierra Canyon HS (Chris Hariz & Ameek Shokar) 1434
Mira Loma ML (Keizra Mecklai & Jeff Leibenhaut) 1435
Redlands KK (Hochan Kim & Gia Karpouzis) 1438
Los Gatos SG (Adam Silverman & Christina Gilbert) 1440
Claremont YDL (Pranay Yeteru & Storm Dowd-Lukesh) 1442
Cleveland RT (Adam Revello & Leo Tuchman) 1443
Bishop O’Dowd CD (Audrey Carson & Nathalie Dierkx) 1444
Saratoga AC (Shauray Agrawal & Justin Chiang) 1448

Topics:
1a: Actions of corporations ought to be held to the same moral standards as the actions of individuals.
1b: A just society ought not have the death penalty.
2: Rick Santorum is the Republican Party’s best choice for Vice President in the 2012 US Presidential Race.
3: USFG should forgive all Federal Student Loans.
4: The use of unmanned aerial vehicles in combat is unjust.
5: Arizona Immigration Law violates the US Constitution.
6: The minimum tax rate on personal incomes above $1 million dollars should be increased in accordance with the Buffet Rule.

Round 7 (Partial quarterfinals): 1:00PM Sunday
Round 8 (Semifinals): 3:15PM Sunday
Round 9 (Finals): 4:30PM Sunday

Competing Teams (Incomplete)

SOCES SK (Cameron Silverberg & Farhan Kabir)
Cleveland RT (Adam Revello & Leo Tuchman)
Sierra Canyon HS (Chris Hariz & Ameek Shokar)
Campbell Hall CL (Willy Clements & Gabby Wilks)

Lowell CW (Chen & Wong)
O’Dowd CD (Audrey Carson & Natalie Dierkx)
O’Dowd VZ (Cate Vegis & Marco Zepeda)
Windsor FJ (Jason Fauss & Jonathan Jeffrey)
Windsor FZ (Patrick Foster & Ivy Ziedrich)
Windsor JS (Peter Jeffrey & Mariah Steiger)

PV Peninsula PC (Liliana Pond & Claire Crossman)
South RT (Brian Ruben & Shreyas Tirumala)
PV Peninsula LG (Chelsea Lim & Crystal Gianvecchio)

Los Gatos SG (Adam Silverman & Christina Gilbert)
Notre Dame FV (Adrienne Furniss & Prerana Vaddi)
Gunn NO (Jeremy Neff & David Oyer)
Gunn AY (Joe Atlas & Sian Ye)
Monta Vista GZ (Kevin Guo & Matthew Zimmerman)
Saratoga AC (Shauray Agrawal & Justin Chiang)

Mira Loma ML (Keizra Mecklai & Jeff Leibenhaut)
Mira Loma OH (Alex Ozdemir & Hrachya Hakobian)
Granite Bay OH (Nick Ontiveros & Justin Habashi)

Meta #2

Artem — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:40:15 +0000

By "public use of one's reason" I mean that use which a man, as scholar, makes of it before the reading public. I call "private use" that use which a man makes of his reason in a civic post that has been entrusted to him.

This year’s TOC added two experimental features – the General Assembly and the Polygon Round. Here is how it went:

The General Assembly was attended by approximately 40 people. Topics of discussion ranged from prep time rules to pros and cons of critiques to strategies for expansion to privilege in debate. One topic of discussion – side bias – later turned out to be largely a moot point. At CalCup 2010, Gov only won 30% of the ballots. We are, however, happy to report that at CalCup 2012 that number jumped up to 49%. Nevertheless, most debaters continued to flip Opp.
Several straw polls were taken during the General Assembly. A majority of attendants supported replacing coin flips with pre-assigned sides. 62% of participants supported changing the tournament name to “Parli TOC,” 19% of participants wanted to go back to “California Cup,” while another 19% of participants agreed with the current name – “TOC for the California Cup.”
Those who were not able to attend the tournament can listen to an audio recording of the General Assembly here.
I hope that such general assemblies become a regular feature at tournaments and enable the debate community to govern itself in a more open and democratic fashion. A general assembly need not be organized by a tournament director – all it takes is some downtown at a tournament, a space to sit down in a circle, and someone to call a GA and facilitate.

There were two Polygon rounds. Both used the topic “The US criminal justice system should utilize corporal punishment,” and both tested the “flex time” format.
The flex times rules are as follows:
1) the speaker order is as normal
2) each side has a total of 19 minutes, which it can split up between its 3 speeches in any way it chooses to
3) it can also use that time to prep.
In the first round, the speech times were:
PMC 5:00
LOC 8:10
MGC 7:30
MOC 6:30
LOR 4:00
PMR 5:30
In the second round, the speech times were:
PMC 2:45
LOC 7:00
gov prep 2:40
MGC 5:50
MOC 4:50
LOR 5:40
PMR 3:45

Artem

National Champions: Los Gatos Takes Home The California Cup!

jthorpe — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:59:22 +0000

Full results for the Tournament of Champions

Los Gatos’ Silverman & Gilbert defeated Saratoga’s Agrawal & Chiang in the hard fought final round of the most competitive Tournament of Champions for the California Cup on record. Agrawal & Chiang affirmed the resolution “Greece should leave the Eurozone” while Silverman & Gilbert opposed.

The ballots were split 3-2. Judges Domalewski, JR Birlew, and H. St. Amant voted in favor of Los Gatos with McGuinn casting her ballot for Saratoga. The floor vote went 21-8 in favor of Saratoga.

Christina Gilbert won the TOC’s top speaker award. The debaters voted adjudicator Helaine St. Amant the top critic award.

Los Gatos takes possession of the California Cup for one year. The California Cup is inscribed with past champions Bishop O’Dowd AD and MVLA SS. Los Gatos SG will be added to the list of winners of the most significant prize in high school parliamentary debate. Saratoga was awarded The Goblet, the trophy for second place.

The Tournament of Champions for the California Cup is hosted by the Bishop O’Dowd High School Debate Team. A one-day race for the cup opener is in the planning stages for September 2012. All non-graduating debaters participating in the 2012 Tournament of Champions are invited to Bishop O’Dowd High School to compete as part of the 16 team field.

Lake Oswego Wins The Oregon State Title!

jthorpe — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 02:00:15 +0000

Lake Oswego parli duo Joel Kwartler & Robert Xu defeated Oregon parli powerhouse Elliott Woods & Lane Barton from Lincoln High School to win the Oregon State Title.

A hearty congratulations to Lake Oswego from POI for this impressive victory.

POI is in discussion to stage a regional Pacific Northwest POI parliamentary debate tournament at the University of Oregon some time in the fall. POI rules would be in play, the field capped, and only qualified judges allowed.

Packet
Final Results