Jan 21-22 — The Free at Concordia – Concordia Univ, Irvine (Irvine, CA)
Jan 29 — Back to the Beach Pt 2 – Mt. SAC (Walnut, CA)
Feb 4-5 — Sunset Cliffs Classic – Pt. Loma (San Diego, CA)
Feb 10-11 — Golden Cowboy Day 1 – Glendale Comm. College (Glendale, CA)
Feb 11-12 — Arizona Swing – Glendale/Mt. SAC (Glendale, AZ)
Feb 19 — Southern California LD Championships – Cerritos College (Cerritos, CA)
Feb 24 — PSCFA Spring Champs – Moorpark College – (Moorpark, CA)

If there are any omissions please leave information in the comments section.

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Senior NFA-LD

Bronze
Biola Univeristy Hilary Boerger
Palomar College Brandan Fletcher
Point Loma Nazarene University McKayla Carpenter
Point Loma Nazarene University Sydney Awakuni

Silver
Silver Irvine Valley College Ray Craig
Silver Palomar College Saxon Metzger

Gold
Biola Univeristy Sean Hansen
Point Loma Nazarene University Frank Daniel

Junior NFA-LD

Bronze
El Camino College Ashley Lanning
Mt. San Antonio College David Kim
Pasadena City College Alexander Ortega
Pasadena City College Shelbie Bradley

Silver
California Baptist University Matt Phillips
El Camino College Harrison Shieh

Gold
El Camino College Jonny Deatherage
El Camino College Thomas Tsai

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I will try to report breaks and any other information here as we go along.

2011 The Ray Dahlin Invitational
Open NFA-LD entries:
Chapman University – Tim Seavey
Biola Univeristy – Daniel Chiu
Biola Univeristy – Scott Alford
Point Loma Nazarene University – Sydney Awakuni
Saddleback College – Danny McAnderws
Mt. San Antonio College – David Kim
California Baptist University – Alex Lamascus
California Baptist University – Victor Rose
California Baptist University – Matt Phillips
California Baptist University – Richard Wickham

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From the IE-L:

THE NFA LINCOLN DOUGLAS COMMITTEE AS FORMULATED THE FOLLOW LD DEBATE RESOLUTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION FOR THE 2011-2012 DEBATE SEASON. PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY AND THEN CAST YOUR VOTE BY RANKING ALL FIVE OF THE RESOLUTIONS FIRST THROUGH FIFTH. YOU MUST RANK ALL FIVE IN ORDER FOR YOUR BALLOT TO COUNT. ( 1st counts as 5 points, 2nd counts as 4 points, 3rd counts as 3 points, 4th counts as 2 points and 5th counts as 1 point. THE RESOLUTION WITH THE HIGHEST POINTS WILL BE THE LD DEBATE RESOLUTION FOR 2011-2012 AND WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON JULY 1ST.

PLEASE RETURN THIS BALLOT BY MAY 30TH TO THE NFA PRESIDENT (LGENE9535@AOL.COM). IF THERE IS A TIE, THE NFA PRESIDENT WILL VOTE TO BREAK THE TIE.

______ A. The United States Federal Government should substantially change its military capability in regards to
the Peoples Republic of China.

______ B. The United States Federal Government should take action to protect U.S. legal rights in regards to the
Peoples Republic of China.

______ C. The United States Federal Government should significantly change its trade policy and/or practices with
the Peoples Republic of China.

______ D. The United States Federal Government should adopt an energy or environmental policy that directly
involves the Peoples Republic of China.

______ E. The United States Federal Government should substantially increase economic engagement with the
Peoples Republic of China
.
REMEMBER TO RANK ALL FIVE RESOLUTIONS OR YOUR BALLOT WILL NOT COUNT. RETURN THE BALLOT BY MAY 30TH.

ONLY ONE VOTE PER SCHOOL. NAME OF SCHOOL: ___________________________________________________

Let me start by saying thank you to the NFA-LD committee for their work coming up with topics. As someone who writes topics at many tournaments and often receives negative feedback I know it’s not an envious job.

That said, my initial reaction is that there are serious problems with all five topics. Off the bat I’d have to say C is the least worst =)

Topic A:

The United States Federal Government should substantially change its military capability in regards to the Peoples Republic of China.
I have no idea how in the world this topic could be limited. In what respect is our military capability “in regards to the PRC”?! Does National Missile Defense count? How about naval warships? Is the draft topical? Space militarization? I think this topic will also fall victim to effects Topicality EVERY SINGLE round. Unless we’re amassing troops at China’s border I think affirmatives would have to be effects topical. YUCK.

Topic B:
The United States Federal Government should take action to protect U.S. legal rights in regards to the Peoples Republic of China.
While I hope that I’d be proven wrong I have no idea what this resolution even means. What are U.S. legal rights in regard to the PRC?! Is this trying to capture the pirated DVDs/intellectual property rights debate? If so, talk about blah. I guess it could deal with how U.S. citizens are handled in China – but really, what can the U.S. do to protected legal rights with the PRC?! Again, this would be effects topicality – ie, the plan would do nothing to protect U.S. legal rights – only by an effect of the plan would China do something. So imagine we say “to protect U.S. legal rights the U.S. is going to park a bunch of warships of China’s coast!” Well, that does nothing in and of itself to protect U.S. legal rights. Instead, only by an effect of the plan would it become topical. I also think this topic would be tremendously boring and probably not have a lot of case areas.

Topic C:
The United States Federal Government should significantly change its trade policy and/or practices with the Peoples Republic of China.
This topic could work and probably has the best chance of winning the ballot. We change our trade policy with PRC – ok, that’s cool. There are a few different trade policies we have and an affirmative could pick which area. I’m not sure I like the inclusion of “and/or practices” as I have no idea what that means… except that maybe the affirmative can deal with areas outside the traditional scope of “policy” and into “practice.” I’m not sure if that’s contextually defined in the literature or not…

Topic D:
The United States Federal Government should adopt an energy or environmental policy that directly involves the Peoples Republic of China.
At first glance, this really has to be one of the worst topic wordings I have ever seen. I have no idea what “an energy or environmental policy that directly involves the PRC means.” Does this mean we get to enjoy a year of multi-actor fiat?! The only thing I can possibly think of is the debate over the Copenhagen Climate change conference where the US and China were duking it out. But would the affirmative plan have to read something like “The US and the PRC will agree to…” – talk about destroying negative ground – if both countries are acting where would the disadvantages come from? You’d probably have to run other countries as DAs – ie, a “Russia DA” or something. I guess a counterplan of “going alone” would be valid in this case but I highly doubt that would have as much solvency.

Further, the “or” in the resolution is just absurd. “Energy” policy and “environmental” policy are two distinct areas. We could have an entire year on one or the other. Including both just makes things more confusing. So I can have my energy affirmative and my environmental affirmative… yuck. Finally, as mentioned earlier, the “or” invites silly topicality arguments. What happens when an affirmative case involves both energy AND environmental policy?! You’d be hard pressed to find any energy affirmative that didn’t also involve environmental policy. Is the affirmative extra topical if they do both?

Topic E:
The United States Federal Government should substantially increase economic engagement with the Peoples Republic of China
This is the topic that is closest to the one suggested in the topic paper however it leaves off the last part “on one or more of the following issues: trade, economy, environment.” Thus, it’s a bit more limiting by focusing on economic engagement only. My only concern with this topic is that I’m not really sure how we are not already economically engaged with the PRC? It seems like we do lots of trading with the PRC already and it seems like this topic may have been more appropriate years ago. Even on the Cuba topic there were debates over constructive engagement already happening with Cuba (!). I’m not sure how much more substantial increase we can do as an affirmative.

I’m also concerned about negative disadvantage ground here – if we are already economically engaged than the standard 1AR answer of “empirically denied” would seem to have a lot of weight. IE, the negative says if we do the plan disadvantage X would happen (say, war with Taiwan). But the affirmative answers that we didn’t see the war before when we increased economic engagement so the disadvantage is empirically denied.

Based on my initial reading which I hope will be changed by doing some initial research and hearing your viewpoints is that none of the topics are really stellar. If I had to rank the topics that would be:

1 – Topic C – trade
2 – Topic E – economic engagement
3 – Topic B – legal rights
4 – Topic A – military capability
5 – Topic D – energy or environment

but really the only two options I have any confidence in are C and E. B, A, and D would all be listed #5 if I could.

Your thoughts?

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Register for the tournament at forensicstournament.net by Tuesday April 26. The NFA-LD part of the tournament is held on Saturday, April 30.

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… The NFA-LD committee has just finished receiving results from the 2010-2011 coaches NFA-LD survey that was sent out two weeks ago to all active NFA member schools. Apparently, preliminary results indicate that a majority of debaters have decided against engaging the substantiative issues of the mental health topic all year. Beyond one or two cases debaters have generally resorted to topicality arguments instead of key issues identified in the topic paper for last year …

I won’t quote the whole thing detailing what’s going on this year – just read it on the IE-L or watch this video message from the committee. I must say that I have to agree based on the word on the street. The real issue though is the course of action the board has decided to take:

Therefore, we stand resolved that in order to debaters to really learn about mental health policy in the United States (AND NOT OTHER COUNTRIES/PLANETS!) we are hereby suspending all balloting for the 2011-2012 topic. Instead, we will repeat this topic for next year in the hopes that debaters will really research the 3-4 case areas available to them and not only 1-2.

Your thoughts? Read more information here.

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Here are the six choices:

1. Agriculture Policy
2. Banking Regulations and Oversight
3. Higher Education
4. The Middle East
5. U.S./China Foreign Policy
6. U.S. and International Free Trade

BALLOT FOR VOTING ON TOPICS (voting ends April 6; NFA member schools may vote).

Over the next few days I’ll share my thoughts on each topic. Nick Matthews (UCLA) submitted one this year (U.S. and International Free Trade) so perhaps he’ll post his overview? They all look very interesting for next season!

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1. Novice NFA-LD (7)
2. Junior NFA-LD (14)
3. Open NFA-LD (37)

Good luck to all the competitors.

Novice:

Point Loma Nazarene University – Novice NFA-LD – Ben Carney
Point Loma Nazarene University – Novice NFA-LD – Brian Bentley
Point Loma Nazarene University – Novice NFA-LD – Emily Shaffer
Pasadena City College – Novice NFA-LD – Alex Campise
Orange Coast College – Novice NFA-LD – Nobel Truong
California Baptist University – Novice NFA-LD – Daniel Urban
Los Angeles City College – Novice NFA-LD – Jetta Kahn

Junior:
Biola Univeristy – Junior NFA-LD – Jake Millar
Biola Univeristy – Junior NFA-LD – Daniel Chiu
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Betty True
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Brittany Jones
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Courtney Grove
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Haley Strickland
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Jason Morash
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Patricia Realini
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Sara Khatib & Nobel Truong
California Baptist University – Junior NFA-LD – Richard Wickham
California Baptist University – Junior NFA-LD – David Carpio
California Baptist University – Junior NFA-LD – Corey Keirns
Glendale Community College, CA – Junior NFA-LD – Tayra Quinones
Orange Coast College – Junior NFA-LD – Matt Rodriguez

Senior:
Irvine Valley College – Open NFA-LD – Jason Hong
Irvine Valley College – Open NFA-LD – George Talavera
Concordia University Irvine – Open NFA-LD – William Prier
Concordia University Irvine – Open NFA-LD – Stirling McKenzie
Concordia University Irvine – Open NFA-LD – Robert Maxwell
Concordia University Irvine – Open NFA-LD – Nicholas Townes
Concordia University Irvine – Open NFA-LD – Jonathon Cottrell
Biola Univeristy – Open NFA-LD – Jenna Fredericksen
Biola Univeristy – Open NFA-LD – Amy Scofield
Biola Univeristy – Open NFA-LD – Corey VanHuystee
Biola Univeristy – Open NFA-LD – Jonathan Hensley
Biola Univeristy – Open NFA-LD – Scott Alford
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Bear Saulet
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Richard Ewell
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Sydney Awakuni
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Tony Liu
UCLA – Open NFA-LD – Dwayne Melendez
California State University, Los Angeles – Open NFA-LD – Andrew Silverstein
Point Loma Nazarene University – Open NFA-LD – Daniel Nadal
Point Loma Nazarene University – Open NFA-LD – Ian Sharples
Point Loma Nazarene University – Open NFA-LD – James Wilson
Point Loma Nazarene University – Open NFA-LD – John Morris
Point Loma Nazarene University – Open NFA-LD – Maclean Andrews
Point Loma Nazarene University – Open NFA-LD – McKayla Carpenter
Moorpark College – Open NFA-LD – Allison Bowman & Priya Rajan
Orange Coast College – Open NFA-LD – James Delahoussaye
Pasadena City College – Open NFA-LD – Ashley Mendez
California Baptist University – Open NFA-LD – Alex Lamascus
California Baptist University – Open NFA-LD – Victor Rose
Glendale Community College, CA – Open NFA-LD – Armond Aivazyan
Glendale Community College, CA – Open NFA-LD – Sarah Sherwood
Moorpark College – Open NFA-LD – Priya Rajan
Santa Rosa Junior College – Open NFA-LD – Max Humphrey-Calou
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Aubrey Manahan
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Mark Faaita
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Shannon Meredith
El Camino College – Open NFA-LD – Morgan McNally

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2011 Southern California LD Championships
Open NFA-LD Round Finals
.Affirmative Negative Room Judges
Moorpark AB v. El Camino RE SS 315
1.Eric Garcia – IVC
2.Cindy Phu – PCC
3.Kevin Castleman – OCC
4.Sherana Polk – OCC
5.Jason Hosfield – Palomar
6.Brandan Whearty – Palomar
7.Marc Oimet – Palomar
.
UPDATE: Congratulations to Moorpark’s Allison Bowman for winning 1st place! And to Richard Ewell for 2nd place at the tournament. See you all next year!

UPDATE: Full Result Sheets available here.

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