Idaho Conversation League

http://criggo.com/2010/01/28/lovin-those-acronyms/

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/archives/937?page=1 A Sun Magazine classic. Key Quote: “But keep in mind that in the United States almost nobody who reads, writes, or does arithmetic gets much respect. We are a land of talkers; we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most, and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers. It is very difficult to teach “the basics” anymore, because they really aren’t basic to the society we’ve made.”

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar, he shook the jar lightly.... The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.' The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. 'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recogn...

Beth and Ron had both had escaped from the mental institution in recent weeks, temporarily attaining the mythic freedom we often discussed in the sanitized atmosphere of our communal living room. Each of us had roommates in the open ward. Most were there for drug or anger-coping problems, but not me. No, I was there because my basketball dreams had deflated. The patients would sometimes play basketball in the dungy basement too; and there I still had much of the natural ballet flow with which I grew up. Mellaril stifled some of this; but the bigger problem was that I realized how doubtful it was that any basketball scouts would be following up on their scholarship offers, by peeking in on me at the drab mental institution. After several weeks of loitering there, I felt as if this wasn’t a place for me to make progress. So, I took a cue from Ron and went over to the nurse’s station to hang out for a final time. As the nurse dipped behind the partition to parse out a patients evening do...

A few decades ago, a good friend of mine, and his girlfriend broke up. They had been together for several years, and were quite close, but circumstances were such that it was time for them to split apart. They still had places in their hearts for each other though, and even after they moved to different states, they kept in touch once or twice a year. A few years passed, and they had not spoken for a while. Then one day, my friend received a letter from his old girlfriend’s sister. Before he even opened the letter, he sensed that she was no longer alive and the letter confirmed his sad intuition. Her next-door neighbor in a violent act murdered her, and I don’t know many more details than that. My friend has often been an eye-for-an-eye type of person. For several years, he actively petitioned the Governor of the state where she lived, pushing for the death penalty for the murderer. For a long time, I secretly disagreed with what he was doing and with his grim death-row outlook. Final...