Now Everyone is Talking About "The Great Debaters," but Global Debate Had It First

Every debate group imaginable is getting on "The Great Debaters" bandwagon. That is easy. It seems like a great movie with great stars and an inspiring story.

And it is nice that everyone now knows about it.

Regular readers of GLOBAL DEBATE http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/ would know all about it.

Stories from August 20, August 31, October 21 and December 6 have kept GLOBAL DEBATE readers informed.

If you want to know the real deal first, subscribe.

I don't feel quite so comfortable blowing my own horn so often, but I could not resist it on this one.

A Pause for Travel

I am on my way to the other side of the world. I fly tomorrow to San Diego, then I head for Mexico until early next week. I need to work on my keynote speech for the World Universities Peace Invitational Debates in Malaysia. Then I will fly to Kuala Lumpur for the WUPID, which promises to be an exciting and inspirational event. I will report on the event as it happens.

After that I will do some vacationing in Southeast Asia. I hope to have internet, but one never knows. I will post stories when I can.

I will end up in Thailand where I will be reporting on the World Universities Debating Championship to be held at Assumption University in Bangkok. I should have lots of internet access there.

After that a bit more vacation and then back to the USA in January for the new school semester and back to the routine.

Be patient, and I will do my best to report on the news from the world of debate while on the move.

Thanks to those who read this. Visitation stats are starting to rise and I appreciate your visits.

Send me news of debate events where you are so I can promote them.

alfred.snider@uvm.edu

The next news will be from Mexico.

A Pause in the Global News Flow

There is, as a matter of fact, a pause in the flow of global debate news. Here are some of the reasons:

• The Asian Debating website has really slowed down lately. After a lot of stories now we have one or two a week. I know that Rashedul Hasan Stalin is involved in organizing a tournament and is a very busy person, but I hope he does not lose his enthusiasm for his blog because I use it and enjoy it.
• Colm Flynn's World Debating Website has been having server troubles. I assume that this will pass, but it is another important debate news website that I enjoy and use.
• Some other news sources (I won't name them, don't want to be critical of god efforts) have switched to using bulletin boards that I find harder to check. They are also difficult to post to because I have to formally join them, which I would prefer not to do.
• Some listservs I use have been very slow or else full of irrelevant nattering that is of no news value, such as flame wars and fantasy sports posts.
• Finally, I have been on the road and just returned from Yale, so even Global Debate has been slow since Thursday. I plan to make up for that today.

So, that is my read on the situation as October ticks away and we head towards November. Thanks for reading this site, probably the least read of all my websites.

Trying to Refine the Stream of Debate News

As each month goes by I post a lot of debate stories at Global Debate http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com. Last month I posted 60 stories, or about two per day. This post represents an attempt to improve on the news stream and how I choose things for inclusion.

There are some items which should not be carried because any fair addition of them would totally flood the system. These include:

• Stories in the local press about how XYZ high school did in the local tournament;
• Blogs of specific teams talking about how they did at a tournament;
• Local league announcements and business;
• Local tournament invitations and results.

On the other hand, there are stories I should probably continue to carry (and perhaps increase), such as:

• International tournament invitations and results;
• News about international debate organizations;
• News about debate appearing in new sectors of society;
• News about debate appearing in new and unexpected countries;
• New kinds of competitions and organizations;
• International debate rankings;
• Information about new instructional resources;
• Debate related things that are hard to believe;
• News about debate being staged and presented in new ways;
• International conferences and meetings related to debating;
• Reports from the debate frontiers and front lines;
• Other new and interesting things that will certainly happen.

I will be adding an infrequent editorial from time to time. Do not worry, it will be clearly marked as such.

I will also be restructuring the news feeds on the side of this page, which is where I get many of my stories.

I want to salute my fellow debate news gatherers who are a resource and an inspiration to me, such as the World Debating Website at http://worlddebating.blogspot.com/ of Colm Flynn as well as the Asian Debating Website at http://asiandebating.blogspot.com/ of Rashedul Hasan Stalin.

New Sources for Debate News

August was a tough month for me due to the conclusion of the four week World Debate Institute session and then the need to relax a bit and recover. Well, the recovery wasn't to bad, and it was nice, but now September is here, the school year has started and my mind returns to the task at hand - promoting debate.

During August I learned of a few more news sources that I can use. I do not use them everyday but I look into them at least once a week.

One of them is a fairly comprehensive blog search that Google now offers. This looks all throughout the blogosphere and finds debate related stories. Most of them are just students chatting about their debating experiences, but some can be quite informative and revealing.

Another source has been the comprehensive search system hosted by Rasheful Hasan Stalin at the Asian Debating Website at http://asiandebating.blogspot.com/.
This site has a lot of keywords and a lot of news sources (they look like Google robots) that then turn up a list of the top four or five stories once you check a keyword. This has bit been that productive, but I do turn up some stories every time I look through it.

Two other thing I will do this month are change the keywords and searches on this page as well as fire up a number of Google reader machines to try and locate those few stories that are still eluding me.

This website will continue to be on that works. It is not so much designed for you to use (although you are welcome) but is designed to gather news to use in other places, specifically on the Global Debate Blog at http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/.

Debate News Sources Proliferate

The purpose of this website is the use of the news feeds on the right. I survey them daily and take stories for the Global Debate Blog. Once a month, however, I do post some commentary here about the process of gathering news about debating.

Since I moved to blogspot.com with the Global Debate Blog http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/, other sites have also come over and started doing the same sorts of news circulation that I am.

One is the World Debating Website http://worlddebating.blogspot.com/ organized by Colm Flynn. He has been running a different blog site and I think was also attracted to the ease of using Blogspot. The site has a lot of good information but tends to have a preference for information about international parliamentary debating. There is also a nice news feed at the site that I check out regularly.

Another is the Asian Debate website at http://asiandebating.blogspot.com/
which is organized be Rashedul Hasan Stalin of Bangladesh. A very active debate promoter, this site is designed to "see debate through the eyes of Asia." Given how explosive the growth of debating in Asia has been recently, this is an excellent idea. He and I have cooperated and shared links and publicity, and I congratulate him on his work.

I am glad to see this taking place.

First, we are not competitors. We are all trying to promote debating and share information, and the better job we all do the better off debating will be.

Second, we can help each other. Stalin sends messages to a variety of listservs about his stories. I used to do that every month but got harsh emails from some people who didn't want to hear about debate events in the USA (hello Australia) so I stopped. I will occasionally send some emails to some lists if I think a story specifically interests them. Stalin has also sent a number of emails about my stories from both the Global Debate Blog and other sites I have, such as Flashpoint Television http://flashpointtv.blogspot.com/. I look forward to meeting Colm in Malaysia later this year and hope to strike up a cooperative relationship.

Third, I sometimes will take a story from them. I cannot say that they do the same from me, and it might just be that we find the same story, but we have had some appear on the Global Debate Blog and then on one of their sites. No problem. I usually will take a story from them if it is also circulated by email (like Stalin's Tibetan Buddhism debating story) or if it just looks too good to pass up. However, if it is marked as an "exclusive" I will not take it, with an example being the Red Mosque of Pakistan debate story http://asiandebating.blogspot.com/2007/08/cnn-bbc-aljazeeras-red-mosque-of.html.

Fourth, someday I want to have a discussion with them about how they find stories. We might want to exchange some tricks of the trade as to how we find out content. For me it is often the first thing I do in he morning as I troll for debate stories. This website is one that I use to find some of them. We shall see.

In any case, another month down (July) and a lot more debate stories to circulate. I have been pleased with the number of debate stories available during the northern hemisphere summer, so it looks like we can sustain a 12-month news cycle.

Good luck to all of these stalwart debate supporters.

A Working Website - It Gathers News

This site uses Google robots to find news stories on a global basis that may be relevant to debates and debating in an educational and competitive sense. Some of the search terms may be a bit broad and some irrelevant stories slip through, but it is better to have a few irrelevant stories than to miss important ones. Articles can be found on the side of this blog about debate in general. These can be surveyed to get a sense of what is happening, but of course only a part of the story.

This website is part of a working family of debate websites. This one gathers news more than distributes it. The best stories are then picked for the Global Debate Blog and for other uses.

Here are some of the other debate websites that I manage. Please feel free to visit them.

Debate Central
Main page http://debate.uvm.edu/
Learn to Debate
http://debate.uvm.edu/learndebate.html
Video Instruction and Debate Video Library
http://debate.uvm.edu/watch.html
Purchase Debate Training Materials
http://debate.uvm.edu/ee.html
Debate Related Books We Endorse
http://debate.uvm.edu/shoptext.html

Global Debate Blog
http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com
Old Global Debate Blog
http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/doctortuna/Blog/Blog.html

DebateVideoBlog
http://debatevideoblog.blogspot.com/

Instructional Programs
World Debate Institute Summer Program (USA)
http://learn.uvm.edu/wdi/
International Debate Academy (Europe)
http://debate.uvm.edu/idas2007.html
Asian Debate Institute (Korea)
http://debatekorea.blogspirit.com/

Other Websites
YouDebate (list of debate videos elsewhere on the web, such as YouTube and GoogleVideo)
http://youdebate.blogspot.com/
DebateNews (Google robots find debate in the news)
http://debatenews.blogspot.com/
Lawrence Debate Union, University of Vermont
http://debate.uvm.edu/ldu.html
Voice of Edwin (Lawrence Debate Union Newsletter)
http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/LDU/Voice%20of%20Edwin/Voice%20of%20Edwin.html
Flashpoint Debate Television Program Videos
http://flashpointtv.blogspot.com/

Non-Debate Websites
Alfred Snider
http://alfredsnider.blogspot.com/
Alfred Snider Photo Albums
http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/travelpix/Welcome.html
College of Music Knowledge Radio Downloads
http://collegeofmusicalknowledge.blogspot.com/
Reggae Lunch Radio Downloads
http://reggaelunch.blogspot.com/
Alfred Snider Calendar
http://debate.uvm.edu/tunacalendar.html
Alfred Snider News Links
http://debate.uvm.edu/news.html

Debate Stories Continue in the Summer

The debate stories keep on coming, even with the school year over in the USA.

There will be a huge swamp of stories indicating how teams do at various tournaments, such as NFLs, IDEA-NJFL, NCCFA, etc. Other stories will cover various summer debate institutes.

Then, of course, there will be a lot of coverage of political debates.

The articles on the right update themselves every day, so check it out.

Make comments to suggest new keywords to use for searches.

Scroll Down the Page

...and look at the news stories on the right.

Check out any that strike your interest.

Please suggest new search terms that may be useful.

Usually the hits we get are from:
-Local newspapers covering debate activities.
-College and university newspapers covering the activities of their team.
-Blogs by people who are involved in the activity.
-Media news about debate on television, in documentaries or in the movies.
-Reports from countries where debate may be a newer activity and the press is featuring it.
-Press releases put put out by schools or teams.
-Websites created by new debate and forensics organizations.
-Websites built by individual debate organizers.
-Other stories too diverse to mention.

Please leave comments about other search terms you would like.
-Unexpected sources.

Debate News Page Begins

There are many stories about debate activities that are produced every day in the global infosphere. Check them out and be aware using this site. New search terms are always welcome and accepted.

Just check out the lists of stories on the right.

Please leave a comment if you have more ideas for search terms.

Check out stories in more detail at
http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/