Remember the famous scene in A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson’s character, Col. Jessup, bellows, “You’re goddamn right I ordered the code red!” Remember the stunned reaction of Lt. Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise? My recent experience wasn’t that…
How Charlie Kirk mastered the illusion of stump debates
Charlie Kirk did not invent the method of traveling “stump debates” or campus spectacles; that tradition reaches back centuries. But he did master a modern version of it by bullying underprepared college kids rather than engaging seasoned orators, scholars or…
Humor vs. sarcasm
In the summer or 1968, as a high school student, I attended Debate Camp at the University of Georgia. During that time, we learned the ins and outs of debate tactics and processes, and we practiced on each other. The…
What a debater thought about the vice presidential debate
Debates always get my attention. I was a high school and college debate student. I have studied argumentation for decades. While the format of the political debates is artificial and not really an actual debate, I will take what I…
Trump’s prophets ratchet up attacks against Harris after presidential debate
Some of Donald Trump’s evangelical supporters are ratcheting up their attacks against Kamala Harris in the aftermath of last week’s presidential debate, going so far as to compare her once again to “Jezebel” and calling the Democratic Party “demonic.” The…
‘Social media posts never change minds’ — and other lies I love to hate
Note: This article includes significant discussion of profanity. The previous record for most f-bombs and insults aimed at me in an e-message was from a graduate student’s mother who was upset with her adult child’s grade in my class….
No, there are not two equally valid sides to some issues
In the 1980s and ’90s, while I was teaching English, I also was a debate coach. High school debate is a lot of fun, primarily because the drama of teenagers is just as present there as it is on the…
What will Twitter’s $44 billion purchase do to theological discourse?
Imagine if the online theological discourse that led to the rise of Donald Trump and the conservative determination to use political power and misinformation to push their agenda on others was owned by a man rich and powerful enough to buy and control it for $44…
The futility of framing one another as progressives and evangelicals, devils and dummies
In politics, “framing” is the attempt to alter reality by selecting words, slogans and tropes that convince the public to see the other side in a certain negative way. As Robert Entman explains, “To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived…
Bill Nye schools creationist in debate
What do you get when you put a children’s-educational-scientist-teacher with a Bible-believing-Christian-creationist? Lot’s of confused adults. I just finished watching the almost 3-hour debate between humanist Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham and I’m truly confused. I’m confused not because…