Our Young Hero Returns...
Huzzah! Yesterday was the Ethics Bowl, and boy was it a blast. I will now give a complete description of the events, from our departure to our return.
Friday, April 11, 4:30 PM PST
Mood: relaxed. After packing, I have spent the remainder of the time until departure playing Dynasty Warriors 4 with my friend Aaron. Most relaxing.
Events: I arrive at the HUB to meet up with the other bowlers, representing three Whitworth teams: The Deontological Devils (my team), Bill Clinton's Missing Conscience, and the Moral Majority. After shooting Zemke with a lemon-squeezer, we call a truce for the remainder of the trip. It would be unseemly to have to shoot him every hour on the trip. All participants are there, save for my fifth team-mate, who is sick, but hasn't called anybody, or done any research on the cases I assigned to him. This ruins my otherwise good mood, at least for the moment, as it means that I won't have to deal with him. Unfortunately, it means I will have to be the bearer of bad news for my team-mates and have them do an extra case each in one night. They won't be happy.
Friday, April 11, 5:00 PM PST
Mood: recovering from dismay at my team-mate's flakiness.
Events: The departure. I ride with Wyma, Atwood, Matt Grover, Zemke, and Julie Striker. A good bunch to travel with, lots of interesting conversation.
Friday, Apil 11, 5:45 PM PST
Mood: things are looking up.
Events: We stop in Post Falls, Idaho for dinner at a local Godfather's Pizza. Hilarity ensues as we all sit around the table and swap stories, jokes, views, concerns about the upcoming competition, etc. Good times are had by all.
Friday, April 11, 8:45 PM PST
Mood: content
Events: We have entered Montana, and what a surreal place it is. Every place has a casino, even the gas stations. At this point, we are all in need of taking a much-needed piss. We stop at a road-side casino/bar/cafe/gift shop. There, we find a massive array of cheap Pakistani knock-offs of famous swords and the like. On an impulse, I decided to buy a wakizashi (Japanese short sword) with a Highlander-style dragon hilt. Zemke gets a hunting-knife/skinning-knife set. Thus armed, we re-embark upon our quest to arrive in Missoula. Interesting point: We are now in the infernal Mountain Time Zone. It's really one hour later than what we think it is. Thus, it is really closer to ten o'clock. Fun for us, but not for our compatriots who have gone on ahead and will be waiting for us at the hotel for a while. Keith's van has difficulty with the hills and cannot make it higher than 68 mph.
Friday, Apil 11th, 11:00 PM MT
Mood: tired, but happy
Events: Arrival in Missoula, Montana. Due to weird reversed directions, we end up going the wrong way. We turn back around and figure out that the directions, for some reason, assume that we were coming from the east. Thus, we reverse it, and find our way to the hotel. We unload, and proceed to get our room assignments. I am rooming with Zemke, the other philosopher, whilst Atwood and Grover room with Andrew Strait, another religion major. Unfortunately, the hot-tub closes at midnight, so we are unable to relax in that manner.
Friday, April 11, 11:30 PM MT
Mood: Tired, nervous, eager
Events: We all convene to discuss our cases and strategy. At this point, Heather, one of my team-mates is not too confident in her ability to argue the marijuana case from an ethical standpoint, so I step in and swap with her. I tell her that because Dan is gone, I can't simply re-distribute her cases to the other team-mates, plus his cases. That would not be fair. I tell her that she is just going to have to go up there and present if one of her cases comes up. That gives her three cases. I then proceed to search out my other two team-mates, Miranda and Jenny, to work out a distribution Dan's two cases. Miranda accepts hers with some resignation, and Jenny hers with some outright hostility until I explain the situation. Realizing that everyone is going to have the same amount of cases to present, she accepts as well. Thus, our case distribution looks like this:
Will: Marijuana, Athlete Violence, and Student Government
Miranda: Police Brutality, College Enrollment Standards, and ROTC
Heather: Day Care, Makah Whaling, and High School Academic Standards
Jenny: Neglect, Zoning Ordinances, and Sperm Procurement
Saturday, April 12, 12:45 AM MT
Mood: tired
Events: Having met with my team-members and prepared statements and the like, Zemke and I decide to turn in. We have to be at the university at 8:00 AM for the opening festivities and the like. Zemke sets the alarm for seven, and we hit the sack, trying not to let the giggling of the girls next door distract us from our slumber.
Saturday, April 12 7:45 AM MT
Mood: tired, foul, angry
Events: The alarm did not go off. We would not have woken up had Keith not poked his head in to inform us of the time. This was followed by long streams of invective directed specifically at the infernal alarm clock from both Zemke and myself as we hurriedly readied ourselves. If there is one thing I hate, it is having to rush to get ready. Fortunately, we are able to clean up quickly and get all our belongings out and ready to go. We load our bags into the van, and take off.
Saturday, April 12, 8:15 AM MT
Mood: tired, hungry, nervous
Events: We arrive at the University, finding that the commencement and such has already started, but not the rounds themselves, thankfully. We catch the tail end of the opening speech, and are there just in time for the random assignment of teams. The Deontological Devils are team number 3. There's no turning back now.
Saturday, April 12, 8:30 AM MT
Mood: nervous, excited, hungry, did I mention nervous?
Events: Round 1. We faced off against the Cougar Club from WSU. Now, it must be noted that these guys were some of the nicest people we met on the trip. I left the competition with serious respect for them. They were friendly, good sports, and used valid forms of arguement. The cases that came up were two of Heather's, Day Care and High-School Graduation standards. She was nervous, but she knew the cases better than she had thought, and did a splendid job defending her position and articulating her thoughts. It also meant she got 2/3 of her cases done in one round. We won the round 36 to 28.
Saturday, April 12, 10:00 AM MT
Mood: nervous, but confident in my team's ability to respond
Events: Round 2, and perhaps the toughest round we would face all day. Our opponents were the Sophists from the University of Montana. These guys were slick, and our cases were not easy ones, either. We had Police Brutality, which Miranda responded to, and Athlete Violence, which I presented. The actual question was one, though, which had never been mentioned in the case overview, about the responsibility of coaches and athletic directors for the crimes of athletes. Miranda had a tough time defending against the Sophists, who were all on the debate team, and it showed. Her defense was valid, though, and afterwards, we discovered that one of the judges happened to be the local sherrif, who sympathized with the opinions expressed by the Sophists, which might have colored his judgement just a bit. Athlete Violence was a difficult case to present upon, and I did okay, though I felt quite shaky on it. In the end, though, I made some good points about the question, and made some tough calls. We pulled out of the debate, with a respectable score of 35, though it not enough to top their 37. In a tough case, we scored decently, though, and prepared us for the next round.
Saturday, April 11, 11:30 AM MT
Mood: ready to rumble
Events: Round 3, in which we came together to put together a stunning performance. Coming off our disappointing performance against the Sophists, we knew that they would probably be the toughest team we would face that day. Considering that we still scored respectably, we were ready to go for a win this time. Our opponents were the UM ROTC team. Our cases were Neglect and Marijuana. As the responding team's representative for the marijuana case, I was able to put together a true moral argument in response to our opponents' scientific, statistical argument. That went well. The coup de grace came, however, in Jenny's presentation on neglect. She put together a case so complete, and so compelling that she received the highest score we had seen in some time, scoring a perfect 10 from one judge on her presentation. When the scores came up, we were thrilled: we scored a 41 out of a possible 45! This brought our total score up to 112, which was enough to qualify us for a spot in the semi-finals! JEAH!
Saturday, April 12, 1:00 PM MT
Mood: elated, excited
Events: The announcement of the semi-finalists. As I mentioned before, we qualified along with the Sophists, Almost Ethical (a team from U-Dub composed of grad students), and the Nerdinators (another University of Montana team). After the announcement, we decided to go get some lunch. We went to this local cafe-type place called "Food for Thought." It was okay, though it was just the health-food type stuff that doesn't really fill you up. Plus, there was a noted girth of bean sprouts on everything.
Saturday, April 12, 2:30 PM MT
Mood: Ready and waiting.
Events: Our semi-final opponents are the Nerdinators. These guys are slick, witty, and utterly fallacious in their approach to ethics. The round is basically one long equivocation and ad hominem on our team, and the judges don't seem to notice. It is in this round that the limitations in the Ethics Bowl format become readily apparent. The responding team only gets one opportunity to speak, and after that can make no more defense of their position. The Nerdinators utilise this to the fullest, throwing all sorts of attacks on character and equivocating like mad. Our first case is College Entry Standards. Miranda puts together a good case stating that higher education is not a guaranteed right. The Nerdinators equivocate this to mean socio-economic discrimination and go on to advocate BOTH universalism and meritocracy, which, as Miranda points out, are mutually exclusive and contradictory ideals. However, this appears to go unnoticed by the judges, who are clearly impressed by the style of the Nerdinators. Our second case, on Zoning Laws around the University is one that also does not go favorably. We are arguing a position that is not popular, while the Nerdinators argue one that is quite popular. They use fallacious appeals to sentiment, emotion, and the like to sway the judges. NOT COOL! Unfortunately, it works, and they advance to the finals.
Saturday, April 12, 4:00 PM MT
Mood: bitterly disappointed by the judges, but eager to see the Nerdinators trounced.
Events: The final round. The Sophists vs. the Nerdinators. The cases: Makah Whaling and ROTC. In the Makah Whaling case, both teams display staggering ignorance of the actual events the case describes. They can't even pronounce Makah or Neah Bay. Sad, neh? I'm like, "And they can't even do this in the final round? I could kill in this one." Once more, the Nerdinators unleash a fury of ad hominem equivocation, which seems to sway the judges. In ROTC, the Nerdinators put forth a consequentialist argument all the while denying that it is a consequentialist argument. We think that perhaps they have shot themselves in the foot, but the judges give them the benefit. The Nerdinators end up winning first place, the Sophists take second, Almost Ethical takes third, and we take fourth. All in all, not too bad. We have made the semi-finals, and are only defeated by lousyness. As team captain and sole remaining representative of the Deontological Devils (the others went home earlier), I accept the trophy. Zemke and I go back to the car and put on our normal clothes.
Saturday, April 12, 5:45 PM MT
Mood: tired, triumphant, bitter, happy, and everything in between
Events: We depart from Monatana. It is the same group in the van except for Julie's absence. We talk all the way back about a myriad of things. Atwood suggests a steakhouse that used to be a brothel in a mining town in Idaho. We leave Montana, and the infernal Mountain Time Zone.
Saturday, April 12, 5:45 PM PST
Mood: tired, hungry
Events: We cross the Montana border, and begin looking for Atwood's steakhouse. We don't find it. Hunger sets in and cannibalism becomes a viable option. We keep driving.
Saturday, April 12, 7:45 PM PST
Mood: Hungry
Events: We elect to go to the Outback Steakhouse in Cour d'Alene. We don't get seated until about 8:15, but that's okay. I order a nine-ounce tenderloin. Damn, but that's good. Thus sated, we resume our journey.
Saturday, April 12, 11:20 PM PST
Mood: tired, sated
Events: We get back to campus. I'm tired, and I get my stuff back in and go to sleep. All in all, a wonderful trip! I'll try it again next year, I think.
Will out.
