ANST - looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, but its green

[Zimmermann, Lenny]

Valentyn wrote:
> What makes you think they've "fallen through the cracks"?  
> Most of us chose
> whether we wanted to fight heavy or light, devote ourselves 
> to A&S, or do
> whatever it is that we do.  I knew from Day 1 (or at least 2 
> or 3) that I'd
> never be King by fighting rapier...does that mean that Crown 
> Tourney should
> be held as a rapier tournament every other reign, because 
> limiting it to
> heavy
> isn't fair to all the excellent rapier fighters?
> 
> Not hardly.  It means that if you want to be King, you pick up rattan.
> If you want the award, you change yourself to earn it.  Making an
> award/title/station easier to get by altering the standards 
> detracts from
> the award more than it adds to those who achieve it.

I believe there may be a couple of assumptions here that several of us do
not agree with. First you suggest that individuals arguing for recognition
for something like unarmored combat are wanting to get the award themselves.
I'd prefer to suggest that we see OTHERS we feel deserve that recognition,
but we have no way to suggest they receive it, since it does not exist.
Please do not suggest that those for are only in this for self
aggrandizement. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth about the intentions of
those individuals trying to argue for righting what they perceive as a wrong
(even if it is a fairly minor one, in my opinion.)

Second is the assumption that adding that recognition for skill areas other
than those currently recognized would somehow detract or lower the current
standards. I would ask did that happen when the Pelican was added as a
Peerage Order? I don't believe any of us are suggesting that the bar be
lowered, only that other skills be included as allowable for recognition. Of
course if you truly feel that adding unarmored combat to the skills
recognized for Peerage (not necessarily Knighthood, mind you) would somehow
cheapen the current Peerage Orders, than that is a belief I can hardly argue
against, except as stated above that it has not appeared to be the case in
the addition of our Service Order.

Armored combat for determining our Crowns is a quite different story as it
has always been limited to that single skill, while the Peerage Orders
appear to recognize a variety of skills, except for those few not currently
recognized for whatever reason. I could just as easily argue that Crown
Tourney SHOULD be opened up to different venues, but that is irrelevant to
the current argument and I'd get lynched for it anyway, so I won't bring
that up. ;)

Honos Servio,
Lionardo Acquistapace, Bjornsborg
(Lenny Zimmermann, San Antonio)
zarlor at acm.org

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"A soldier uses arms merely with skill, whereas a knight uses them with
virtuous intention. Mercenaries may be excellent soldiers; but an action
which may be praised in a soldier may be blamed in a knight. For a soldier,
the goal is victory: for the knight, since he is ready to go, if necessary,
to certain destruction, the goal is honor."   - Pomponio Torelli, 1596.
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