A sense of perspective

There has been a lot of verbosity, exaggeration and outrageous use of rhetoric to describe the impact of hubby's mistake last weekend.

It has been called horrendous, amazingly bad and so forth...

Folks, people getting raped, killed, mugged and discriminated against are amazingly bad.

Making a mistake that prevented someone from debating really sucks.

Having a system by which debaters with winning records aren't allowed to advance to elimination rounds is bad.

Having a system which doesn't break brackets, and thus forces someone to stop debating at nationals when they didn't lose a round is bad.

Having to debate a team you wouldn't otherwise have debated at that time in the tournament is unfortunate. It isn't the end of the world, it isn't really even all that unfair, as the team debated had the same record as the team they should have debated. Further, the way the bracket was calculated is one of THREE logically equivalent ways to determine the match.

and... it was only the end of the world because the team lost.

Maybe the best thing to come out of this hassle is that I now see the true character of the coward/enabler/coach. I've seen the temper tantrums and hysterical behavior before, but this one is just beyond my ability to overlook it.

So -- while the debater and coach in question don't have a sense of perspective, perhaps they've given one to me.

thanks guys...