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Andy's latest dart, targeted at Peter
O'Byrne, inadvertently clarified his off OGD email to me of 4/6/05 assuring
me cavalierly that "...you will not be among the judges at the Miami WOC in
2008." He now asserts that he, "... will be part of a committee whose task
is to ensure that only credentialed judges, in good standing in their home
countries, get a judging opportunity in Miami." He further makes
disparaging remarks about, "... a bunch of untrained wannabes." This
relegates judging eligibility to the realm of politics, whereby a single
individual, say Fuchs, can declare another by whim, say me, no longer
in good standing thereby nullifying his own prior testimonial to the
WOC about my qualifications to judge, with Andy cheering from the
sidelines.
Andy, I have had a successful career in
Science and have less a compulsion to judge orchids than you have to judge
judges. Three years in advance you feel called upon
to enforce your own arbitrary standards as to who judges, who does
not. Three years in advance the WOC is placed in danger of being hijacked
by authorities more concerned about exercising their own
political power than in promoting the study of orchids. Your pompous
judging standards make no provisions for orchid expertise with rarer
species, such as the Phaius homboldii judged "Grand Champion" at the Dijon WOC,
nor the criterion, explicitly stated at the WOC in Malaysia, of having judged in
several international shows.
Three rounds of Vanda judging at the WOC
imply more about the disappointment of Fuchs with the first round
than about the incompetency of the judges. I have served on a
particular judging team at the South Florida Orchid Society and was appauled at
the intercession of Fuchs to urge us to consider his own entry for more
awards than the team originally conferred. Is this the direction that
judging reform should take? Who watches the watchman? If current
"WOC judging is, so poorly thought of," as you state in your email to me, pray
tell by whom, other than by you and Fuchs. "JUDGE NOT, LEST YOU BE JUDGED
YOURSELF."
Bert
Pressman, Ph.D.
Professor
Emeritus, Univ. Miami
V.P.
of nothing
Orchid
Aficionado, Coral Gables
Florida
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