For anyone who attended the UAA Cabin Fever debates tonight looking for a quality performance, they were certainly not disappointed. Both sides put forth clear and concise arguments in favor and opposed to the motion that “Anchorage should bid to host the 2022 Olympics.”

Now although all four teams were obviously of a high standard having advanced from the first round, by no means were they so near each other in skill as to make it a close call. It was very obvious by the time the closing statements were made that there were two teams who clearly established themselves as the superior debaters.

The opening proposition members Jonathan Stinson and Matthew Stinson of team Your Friends, the cosmonauts were an obvious choice as well as Jason Cline and Ryan Mckee of Dick Cheney is my hero. If only one team could advance then the decision may have been somewhat difficult, but as for the top two, the result was apparent to nearly everyone in the audience. These two teams had made fewer mistakes by far, laid out superior arguments, won the majority of verbal jousts, and were simply better in nearly every way than the two remaining teams throughout the debate.

The judges apparently decided to ignore reality however; they not only need to see an optometrist (as Cline quipped during the debate in reference to the short-sided fiscal policy of supporting the motion), but an otologist as well. Rather than giving the nod to team Dick Cheney is my hero, they decided to turn the expected result on its head and give the green light to Clayton Dale and Adriene Slaymaker of Team Slaymaker.

With one declaration of the victors, the judges revealed themselves to be lacking in any credibility. The decision was an utter sham; analogous to the 1988 Olympic boxing match decision between Roy Jones Jr. and Park Si-Hun. It could be argued that Dale did respectably, but not nearly well enough to pick up the slack for his less than impressive partner. Slaymaker left several questions by the proposition unanswered, had somewhat flimsy arguments in the area of homelessness and literally froze for a considerable portion of her speech, even going over the time limit due to long pauses and lack of any fluidity. Despite the numerous problems displayed by Slaymaker, the judges still for whatever reason decided to pass her team onto the finals.

With the less qualified team advancing, we all lose. And now we are left with serious questions about the integrity of the result that need to be answered. Many of us will press the panel until they at least attempt to justify their very evidently flawed decision.

Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.

Cabin Fever blog with videos

 

 


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