Thanks!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving day. So, thanks to y'all!

A family I got to know here in Houston invited me over for their family feast. I went there around noon and we all started out by watching the Tenessee Titans beat the c**p out of the Detroit Lions. Experts, that is to say my hosts and their football fan friends, said that this should come as no surprise: the beast team in the league was playing the worst.

So, after a while we thought that this meaningless pounding was not worth watching and went down to the kitchen to help out with whatever. Lucky for us, the kitchen was already crammed with family members eager to get close to the turkey, the two different types of stuffings, the countless number of pies and of course the cranberry souce. As I've come to learn, this specific dinner was an excellent sampler for different gastronomic ways and traditions associated with Thanksgiving throughout the country. The two different stuffings were representing Northern (Michigan) and Southern (Texas) traditions.

Since the turkey wasn't ready at the time, I thought I better not tease myself with just smelling the food I so looked forward to taste. I went upstairs again to see what's on TV and check my mail. I returned to watching football (the American version). The Dallas Cowboys were having the Seattle Seahawks over for what later turned out to be an equally unbalanced game as the other one was. Dallas has been known for its superb football team for decades and this time was no exception. The Seahawks were eating grass through the whole game and were punched out 9-34.

As I was watching the game, one of my hosts' grandchildren, Eleanor, who was about 3-4 years old, popped up right beside me in the armchair I was sitting in. This armchair was designed for one person, so this essentially meant that the kid somehow climbed into my lap without me noticing. We've never met before and she still thought she should show me a picture from last Christmas where she and her brother were climbing all over grandma and grandpa. I don't think I've ever seen such a friendly kid. Anyway, this friendship didn't last too long once her brother appeared with a wooden logtruck and some sort of loading vehicle. :)

I guess I owe a big thanks to my hosts, so this Thanksgiving, being my first, was truly a good reason to be grateful. Well, the coming exams and assignments will probably be less pleasant, but let's hope for the best. For now.

Live from Houston: Tulane gets crushed!

A couple of minutes ago the University of Tulane football team (yes, the American version) suffered a staggering defeat by the University of Houston Cougars 42-14.

But let's back up for a second.

Like a number of people, I always found travel to space something really mysterious, something breathtaking, a tremendous enterprise undertaken in support of the human kind's endless curiosity. Today I finally managed to get a closer look, if not at space itself, at least the stuff they use up there. Who do the astronauts call if they have a problem? Yes, its the Lyndon Johnson Space Center's Mission Control Room down here in Houston. As you'd expect, it was truly fascinating. And it certainly reminds me of questions I had and what I think most people have when on a quiet summer night their mind goes on hiking (after a few, or not so few drinks) while watching a gorgeous sunset but I'm not going to burden you with those. Sure, reality is not always so cheesy, but show me one person who has never started wondering about whether there is something else, something more out there. Clearly, seeing the stuff made for and used in space does not give you an answer. Still, their magnitude and of course the magnitude of the efforts they represent can easily become overwhelming. Especially, if the "space industry" itself adds some Hollywood sappiness to it like showing movies about how one can become an astronaut starting with the first phone call delivering the good news of acceptance to the moment the shuttle lifts off from Florida. Interestingly, the facilities were built during the cold war and thus were designed to appear as if they were a regular college campus on enemy satellite pictures. Unfortunately, the designers did not pick Harvard as the standard. Instead the buildings look like as if those were in the Soviet Union in the seventies. Although the exteriors are rather disappointing, the projects going on inside these buildings are out of this world. At least the planet. See pictures here.

Also, today was Homecoming. In fact, this whole week was about Homecoming. I still don't get it. But it meant a series of great programs, most of which I could not attend because of a final exam I had this Friday. The peak of the week was the Homecoming football game against arch rival Tulane from New Orleans. They sure got pondered tonight by the ever great Coogs. This game did have all the features you can see in a cheesy Hollywood movie but without the drama. There were gorgeous cheerleaders (and to my surprise some guys were also part of the cheerleader squad but they only lifted the girls to their shoulders every once in a while and lead the yelling of the audience). The university presented this years homecomig duke and duchess (instead of king and queen for reasons beyond my comprehension) and of course there was a huge tailgating party (basically a thousand people barbacue right outside the stadium). Sorry, I forgot to take my camera but I'll try to hunt down some pictures for y'all who are interested.

GO COOGS!

Live from Houston: History!

Both CNN and Fox News called the 2008 presidential election for Barack Obama. Although in recent days the news was all over with this election being historical no matter the result. When Fox News reported John McCain's defeat, I became absolutely certain.

Well, apparently this will not be like 2006 back at home. Even a couple of hours ago, while constantly watching CNN.com for updates through my late night class, I cautioned people about what has happened in Hungary in 2006. Tables can turn in an instant. They didn't here despite many people's hope down here in Texas. What actually came as a surprise (at least to me) was that the county Houston is in turned undoubtedly blue.

You have no clue how many people asked me if I voted. I constantly told them: had I voted, I'd be deported the next day for election fraud. I CAN vote. Just not in this country. :)

Btw, residents of Houston start going into a frenzy: constant honking and fireworks stir up the night. (Side note: the neighborhood I live in is mostly populated by African-Americans.)

What Politics Should Be About

If the campaign had been like this all the way long, maybe I wouldn't have been so fed up with it. Note to politicians of the world: you should replace your advisers with these folks. :D

Touché

... or how to hit the nail on the head.

http://www.pointsincase.com/articles/we-drunk-chick-united-states-america

Only 4 days to go...

... until they finally close the polls for the elections. Believe me, I've had it with them. No matter what I do I somehow get tangled up with this matter I so desperately tried to avoid. Not that I wasn't interested at first, but enough is enough. The law school has a number of big screen TVs scattered around its premises, which should be a good thing (especially if they had some Xbox 360s hooked up to them with "The Force Unleashed"). The fact that they always have CNN on them may also be a good thing, normally. But not in an election year. No matter when I take a glimpse on these monitors I always see Wolf Blitzer on trying to shove some insignificant little piece of political news down my throat. [Note: not that Fox News would be any different.] You could say I always have the option of not watching (and believe me, I try not to), but they have all the vending machines and the in-house Subway deli right there. Going starving is simply not my style so instead of engaging in a hunger strike I simply snivel about it online.

The other thing people seem to have stopped bearing in mind (or they never realized it at all?) is that with the elections coming to a close voters no longer respond to sensible arguments. They've already picked their "star" and will under no circumstances reconsider their choice. Even if a candidate would admit to something like foreign policy should be decided upon how many Russians you can see outside your window or that neither of them were born in the United States, it simply wouldn't change a thing. What does all that remind me of? How about 2006. How about partisanship at its peak. How about the distorting effect of mass media. How about people simply being stupid. [Oh wait, its their constitutional right! But at least they should know when to stop arguing with each other.]

Bottom line: I've had it. Luckily, one of our professors was smart (?) enough to put a final exam 3 days after Election Day. This way I can easily get out of invitations saying I need to study. Which I really do. Even though constitutional law is a huge part of the exam, the U.S. election system is so complicated that they don't dare teaching it even to law students. So at least I don't have to study that. Not that I haven't heard enough of it already.

One of my professors said this in a class a couple of weeks ago about a specific legal principle (and it was of course intended as a joke):

There's no divestment here but we still call it a divestment. But isn't that dishonest? NO! Consider it a polticial matter.