Isothermal Community College???
You need to update to the latest revision of SMF message board software; the one that screens unverified submissions for transparently fake names.
Google. Check it out some time. http://www.isothermal.edu/
Actually, I had already checked the Wikipedia page. It says: "This... tertiary education institution article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it” , but I'm not sure I can. I'm one of those guys who, when a clerk says to me, "Can I help you?", sometimes responds, "I'm beyond help". Regrettably, that Wikipedia page is beyond help.
It seems that the Isothermal Community College took its name from a peculiar, local thermodynamic weather phenomenon, which is sort of like Miami calling itself the "Hurricanes"... except that we all know what a hurricane is. As a one time engineering major, I've retained sufficient rudimentary knowledge of physics to enable me to digest the Google Books excerpts regarding the term “isothermal” from, "Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics" by S. R. DeGroot and Peter Mazur. While neither Messrs. DeGroot or Mazur are on the Isothermal Community College faculty, if any ICC (?) graduates (??) ever want to undertake advanced studies in the thermal hairstyling – a subject that ICC does presently teach – then perhaps they can be persuaded to serve as mentors.
In fairness to any hair-styling majors there who cannot explain the temperate climate they enjoy in their isothermal zone, I've never met any Georgetown debaters who can definitively explain the meaning of, “Hoya Saxa”, either.
According to the most current “subscriber” list posted here, NDT debate now has just 76 eligible schools. That's down from over 600 participating schools in 1963, according to Newsweek, and about 85 last year. That same issue of Newsweek further reported that debaters in 1963 were seen as talking too fast and over-relying on “expert” evidentiary citations. Regrettably, they are guilty of that this year, too.
NDT debate has problems that admitting more Heidegger-based programs won't make go away. They each get you another $50 to $150, and additional warm bodies at the district tournaments, and most likely some token integration (disclaimer: I am a white male), but they also dilute the value of, and the ROI on, the 50,000 or so citations that the mainstream, mega-programs accumulate and develop.
What's worse is that, because of Mutual Preferred Judging, you can't even risk discussing improving NDT debate, since if any of you say publicly that you would like to discourage some aspect of contemporary debate that some consider to be banal, but to which many other programs are committed, the proponents of such change can get downranked into judging obscurity and their teams retributively persecuted into oblivion.
Take disaster DAs. Please! A few years ago, I read a suggestion that judges should not consider disaster DAs unless they include at least one card from a credible or plausible authority associating the plan's direct effect with the disastrous outcome, e.g., unless a debater produces a card that says that some policy maker or analyst is concerned that replacing stop signs with flashing red lights might increase the likelihood of nuclear war, then the judge will not consider any Rube Goldberg chain of events that would theoretically result in that increased likelihood.
What would happen to the MPJ ranking of judges who publicly indicated an aversion to disaster DAs? Or what would happen if a judge declared that a card or citation will not be considered as proof of an argument unless the debater explains after reading it how it tends to support the argument? Would you want such a judge judging your team? Maybe, maybe not. For many, it would depend on whether all judges agreed to disfavor the same practices as one another, all at the same time. But for now, it looks to me like coaches can't risk even discussing bringing debate back to reality without being vilified for so speaking.
Michael W. Toland
