National Communication Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL.

NCA is a huge convention that brings together communications Professors from across America. It mostly takes the form of panel discussions where experts in a variety of communications fields present papers, but it also involves forums for debate coaches on all the major US circuits and acts as an important recruitment window where schools recruit graduate students. NCA started early for us as we met Sam at the Hilton hotel and walked to the main convention centre where we briefly with met the member of the committee who had helped organise our tour. We left them to work on the selections for the reciprocal tour to the UK that will be happening in the spring. While we waited for Geoff form DePauw (so Alex could be reunited with the jacket he had left in Indiana) we read through the titles of the hundreds of presentations and symposiums that were held over the four days of NCA and in the process learned some exciting new words such as ‘hetero-normative’. The professional nature of debate coaching and the difference from the UK was once again acute; one seminar was all about ‘The Role of the Ballot in Debating’. In fact some papers were so well named we were inspired to submit our own titles for next year. Look out at NCA 2008 for: “Re-Imagining the Anglo-Normative Dichotomy: A Post-Colonial Journey through the spectrum of a fractured Americana”

Unfortunately the legendary Northwestern coach ‘Duck’ (Scott Deatherage) was in hospital so there was some confusion as to what to do with us. After a Bond-esque rendezvous with a Northwestern graduate student we solved the problem by going to a very nice restaurant with Sam for lunch – and a few nice traditional gin and tonics. During lunch duck phoned and we were soon checking ourselves into the very nice ‘W’ Lakeshore – while Sam was off to Slovenia to teach at the IDEA academy.

That evening thanks to Gordon Mitchell we were taken for dinner with lots of University of Pittsburgh Alumni and faculty to honour Robert Newman and celebrate his 85th birthday. Newman studied at Corpus Christi College in Oxford after a chance encounter in a dinner line during World War II and is one of the most respected communications academics in the US. He wrote seminal books on Evidence and how it was used to justify the attacks on Hiroshima. The dinner conversation was truly fascinating and the after dinner speeches were incredibly moving. Robert ended the evening by reminding us of the manner in which evidence was abused during the infamous McCarthy witch-hunts and the ongoing need for vigilance in holding our governments accountable.

Debate 28: Loyola University, Chicago, IL.

Loyola was to be one of our most fleeting stops. We arrived into a very cold Chicago and checked into our hotel the Millennium Knickerbocker, something of a downtown institution where JFK and Al Capone had both stayed. We had a brief walk up Michigan Avenue (the main shopping drag in Chicago also known as ‘The Magnificent Mile’), and made a stop at GAP to purchase some scarves to keep us warm. David the coach from Loyola then picked us up and we drove the 25 minutes up the University which is in northern Chicago right on the lake. The debate was at 4pm and we opposed the motion ‘This House believes the USA should join the ICC’, in 30 minutes we managed to cook up a fairly reasonable case and enjoyed the debate which was attend by about 40 people. David and the Debate Team took us downtown to have Chicago’s famous deep-dish pizza (think pizza in pie form). The coach from U. Miami who is also a also friend of David’s joined us and we bantered about how the last time we had seen him it have been about 40 degrees warmer. After dinner and a few drinks we went to the Palmer House Hotel and met our manger Sam who had just arrived for New York to attend the National Communications Association Annual Conference.

Debate 27: Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, IN.

We were handed over at the local McDonalds to Seda a graduate student, who delivered one of the best opening lines of the tour – ‘Are you comfortable with a woman driving?’, which considering we were about to spent the next two hours in a car with her and neither of us can drive, was an intriguing question.

Seda is from Turkey and is studying psychology at Purdue Calumet, so having informed her that she was the best Turkish driver we had ever driven with – we both discovered this summer that Istanbul taxi cabs are lethal – we soon got down to a healthy discussion of Turkish politics, the PPK, Iraq and the EU. Before long the two hours were up, we had arrived in Hammond, Indiana and changed time zones - without leaving the state! After a brief stop at the university where we met our debating partners (Perdue doesn’t have a team so we were each paired with a undergraduate majoring in communications) we were dropped off at the hotel to be greeted in our room by a welcome basket full of goodies! That evening Michael (one of the debaters) took us for dinner at a Thai restaurant and we turned in for an early night as the debate was at 10am the next morning…

The debate was a feast of pomp and ceremony on a scale we had yet to see! Small American and British flags had been placed in the grass lining the route to the building the debate was taking place in were 250 people showed up at 10am. Flags adorned the stage, we were trumpeted in to the hall, national anthems were played and the moderator wore doctoral robes. But best of all Hammond’s Deputy Mayor read a declaration from the Major declaring this day in the history of Hammond ‘British Debate Day”. The debate itself was on unwarranted surveillance –, it was a good debate and although Alistair’s “You are free to do what you want including makes bomb, but when you do could you please let the government spy on you” line was ok, Alex eventually carried the slightly more sensible side of the motion. Many photographs and an autograph signing session followed the debate – then it was off to lunch at Cracker Barrel, another American institution.

For dinner that night we were taken to ‘House of Kobe’ a Japanese restaurant where they cook al the food in front of you with much ceremony. The next morning Seda drove us to the train station to take the train the 45 minutes into Chicago.

Debate 26: DePauw University, Greencastle, IN.

We arrived blearily eyed into Indianapolis after our flight via Chicago. Geoff who is the debate coach drove us to our hotel in Greencastle. DePauw is a small liberal arts college a lot like Kenyon, except on a slightly bigger scale. On the first evening we went for Steak with the team, Geoff and his two daughters. We returned to the hotel to find it had a free DVD library and selected ‘The Fan’ – a fairly awful sports movie with Robert De Nero and Denzel Washington, before we watched the end of the Indianapolis Colts lose to the San Diego Chargers (a comment relevant to those who follow this ‘American’ Football game).

The next morning Geoff took us for an authentic breakfast at an old rail-stop and for a walk around an old quarry that the university purchased for $1 and turned into a nature reserve. We then visited Geoff’s argumentation class where we debated two of his students on the motion, ‘This house would rather be witty than pretty’ – it was a fun debate, much of it at the Spice Girls expense. For the record Alex and Alistair do not have tickets for the LA reunion concert.

The main debate event took place at 4pm and was well attend with about 80 people; we took on the DePauw team in opposition to the motion ‘This House would scrap the Olympics’. We had done the debate several times before so had our arguments well rehearsed and we were able to carry the vast majority of the audience and save the Olympics. After some press interviews we were taken to Marvin’s – which is a local institution for DePauw students. The walls are covered with pictures of DePauw students around the world carrying large signs that say ‘Marvin Delivers’, one of the most famous pictures shows students with a large painted banner bearing the slogan in Red Square during the 1980s. Just after the photo was taken they were promptly arrested as the authorities thought Marvin was a missile delivery system! We enjoyed the house special of garlic cheeseburgers (GCB) before retiring to watch another and altogether better film, ‘Gridiron Gang’ with the Rock coaching a prison football team. We were thoroughly inspired.

The next morning we drove to West Lafayette for brunch at the famous XXX dinner, we had a little time before our drop off so Geoff took us to the sight of the Tippecanoe battle, were we picked up some very nifty Native American whistles…

Debate 25: Kenyon College, Gambier, OH.

Arriving in Columbus we noted that it was slightly colder than it had been in Miami – in fact it was much much colder! Jesse a student at Kenyon College picked us up at the airport– the college is a very selective liberal arts college with only 1,700 students, many of which are from the East Coast or Chicago. The debate program is student run, but the tour has been coming to Kenyon every year for the last 10 years. In the car to Kenyon we discovered that on this very small campus we were competing with a speech by Margaret Atwood at the same time as our debate - not to mention Saturday night drinking…

We arrived late on Friday night and were taken for dinner and then for a proper student Friday night out – with warm up drinks and then a bar crawl to all of the bars in town (two – Gambier is a seriously small place). We were able to sample local beer from Ohio before the evening became very strange. We discovered Jesse had spent a term in Edinburgh at the university, interning for the SNP at the Scottish Parliament, as well as drinking in all Alex’s locals. Moreover he had stayed at the same apartment building as Alex whist living in Washington D.C. Then Alistair met a girl who had just graduated form his high school, Latymer in North London and was now at Kenyon on a scholarship – while Alistair was coming to terms with this random excitement, Alex was introduced to several people who had spent last year in Oxford and discovered several close mutual friends. We had several more drinks before returning to our delightful cottage on campus where we were living.

On Saturday we walked around campus and were taken for a lunch of ribs at a small restaurant outside of town. During the drive we passed several Amish wagons and homes. That afternoon we took advantage of Kenyon’s new $80millon sports centre – which was built thanks to a very generous alumni donation. We taught Jesse the basics of cricket before we played some basketball.

The debate that evening was on the subject ‘This House would lower the age of drinking to 18’. We were arguing to keep it at 21. Jesse debated with a fantastic Classics professor who is very popular on campus for his eccentric lecturing style. Despite competing with Attwood and her Booker we got a good turn out and the debate was very funny. After we were finished we went to a very smart frat party and sampled their beer and then we walked down the hill on which Kenyon sits to a 21st birthday party. We took to the beer pong table and were able to win four games in a row much to the frustration of some more experienced and notably more sober team. Although it should be a note for the future that playing beer pong out side, wearing black tie in temperatures just above freezing is not a great idea. The only downer on an otherwise awesome weekend was leaving while slightly groggy at 7.30am to take out flight to Indianapolis via Chicago…

Debate 24: University of Miami, FL.

We had both been looking forward to our visit to Miami. The iconic South Beach, Will Smith song and promise of sunshine have all made this a regular tour stop for the UK Team. The U. Miami campus is in the very luxurious Coral Gables suburb of Miami – with the buildings themselves being in a white almost Bauhaus style. The debate took place in the school Book Store (an enormous shop that sold just about everything you can imagine in the school’s green and orange colours) and was on the motion that, “Hard Power is better than Soft Power.” It was a unique setting and we both enjoyed the (rather heated) debate and the intimate audience.

We were offered the chance to have dinner at Hooters (a patriarchal restaurant chain that thankfully has only made it as far as Nottingham) but declined and opted instead for a charming local bar by the marina. We ate outside and kept up the great British tradition of discussing the weather, noting that ‘inclement weather’ in Florida generally means pretty mean hurricanes!

The next day we mailed another box of tour memorabilia to our beloved manager Sam in Ithaca and headed to campus to teach a Persuasive Communications class. As ever, it was fantastic to interact with the American students and we may also have taught a future NBA star – six foot nine Anthony King. Watch this space!

Dave, the U Miami Debate coach, drove us down to South Beach were we waded in the Atlantic Ocean and played a few points of ‘Air Volleyball’. The photo below has been short-listed for the ESPN College Sports Photo of the year:


After all that excited we relaxed in one of the Art Deco Cuban bars that line Ocean Drive, sipped mojitos and ate some tasty Cuban appetizers – it was a good time to be a member of the UK Debate Team! That evening we dined at another American institution – The Cheesecake Factory. It’s hard to describe the menu; it’s basically a book with hundreds of combinations of salads, sandwiches and pastas and three pages of various styles of Cheesecake. Feeling rather bloated we headed out into Coconut Grove – a happening part of town – to experience our first Miami College Night. Continuing our strong tradition of beating the Yanks at bar sports, we entered a local Foosball Tournament (tempted by the chance to improve our record and drink free Corona!) and managed to battle our way, against the odds, to the semi-finals. Several beers later, and a 30 minute drive to an out-of-town shopping mall to find a pool-table (that was unfortunately closed) we retired to bed happy that we had spent a November day wearing shorts…

Debate 23: Nova Southeastern, Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Nova Southeastern is a very nice modern campus (complete with splendid palm trees!) situated just outside Fort Lauderdale – the university was originally just for graduate students with big Law, Medical and Business Schools but now has a growing undergrad program. We arrived into Fort Lauderdale late in the afternoon and checked into the very nice Sheraton Suites Hotel. That evening we were taken for very good Cuban food before going for drink with Alistair’s cousin Dana who although originally from Alberta, Canada now lives in Florida. The next morning we took part in a classroom visit where we talked about inter-cultural communication, something that is especially relevant in south Florida.

The debate itself took place in the art gallery of the new university library, the largest in Florida (by size not by collection!). It was well attended and was on the topic ‘THW negotiate with terrorists’. Nova does not have a formal debate team but the two gentlemen we went up against, although novices – provided us with stiff opposition and we thoroughly enjoyed the lively debate. Afterwards several professors commented on the proceedings. That evening we went for excellent Lebanese food and then drank cheap Jamaican beer in the hotel bar. The next morning we completed our visit with another class-room visit and a lunch with the Dean and some faculty.

STOP PRESS: We have just discovered that Mitt Romney (one of the Republican front-runners in the 2008 GOP Presidential Primary race) spoke at Nova Southeastern just hours before our arrival. It's good to see that we are on the same campaign trail...

Debate 22: The University of the Cumberlands, Williamsburg, KY.

We started this stop with a visit to the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the USA. It was a very moving experience for both of us and we thoroughly enjoyed having our photos taken with the life-sizes model of the famous Colonel. Jay Bourne (not related to Jason Bourne – but neither of us believed him!) the debate coach at the University of the Cumberlands checked us into the fabulously grand hotel, which the university owns and operates. It was very plush and included some rather bizarre frescos. That afternoon Jay and the debate team took us to visit a local waterfall, which at it’s peak is the second widest in the country – though on this occasion it was looking rather empty. We ate dinner at a restaurant in a local lodge resort and were very pleased with our local fried catfish.

The next afternoon, after a much needed lie in, we were taken to the main campus for the debate on the motion: “This house believes the US would be better if it looked more like the UK”. We opposed in one of the most amusing debates of the tour so far – it was more of a stand-up comedy competition than a battle of sophisticated rhetoric and analysis, but the 80-strong audience all seemed to have a great time. That evening we were able to sample genuine (non-KFC) Kentucky fried chicken at a dinner with faculty and our debating opponents. We had an extremely interesting discussion about a recent controversy involving a student at the University of the Cumberlands who was expelled for coming out on Myspace. It became clear, as has been the case at a number of schools we have visited, that the University administration’s policy does not necessarily reflect the more nuanced views of students and faculty. We adopted for a trip to the cinema to see the new Russell Crow and Denzel Washington movie American Gangster. Alistair enjoyed the film more than our last outing, though he was concerned at the manner in which the urban drug scene was glamorised.

After a delightful breakfast in bed Jay and the team picked us up for a Sunday of rest and recreation. We drove across the border to Tennessee and entered the Smokey Mountain range. Pigeon Forge is an incredible town just outside the boundary of the National Park and has been described as the ‘Vegas of the Mid-West’. We were privileged to sample a few of the attractions on offer – including Nascar Go-Karts, Indoor Sky Diving (we went to one of only two places in the country you can do this!) and Laser Tag. It was the 10th Birthday that neither of us ever had and we both felt exhilarated by the end of the afternoon.

We said goodbye to the debate team and drove with Jay to his Uncle-In-Law’s Lodge. It was a rather chilly evening by the time we pulled up at the beautiful cabin, but we did have a beautifully clear view of the starry skies. Jay’s wife (Beth-Anne) and 2-year-old son (Ethan) cooked us a delicious meal and we all spend the evening watching an Englishman called Bear on the Discovery Channel running around various remote places in America taking his clothes off and eating wild animals. It was great to be back in a family environment and the evening ended with a test of our American assimilation in the form of a Who Wants to be a Millionaire? board game challenge. Although our pop-culture knowledge wasn’t always sufficient to answer the $500 questions, Alistair proved very adept at winning $1,000,000!

Debate 21: The University of Western Kentucky, Bowling Green, KY.

After another early start (4am!) we headed to Portland Airport for a flight back to Texas. The flight was clearly popular with other celebrities and sporting icons, as Asaffa Powell (the fastest man in the world over 100m) checked in with us. We are now pretty used to the Transport Security Administration’s procedures and the flight to Dallas was very smooth. After a quick bagel lunch we transferred to our flight to Nashville, Tennessee. An hour and half later we were welcomed to the state by giant signs in both English and Japanese (apparently Country and Western music is a big deal in Japan and attracts thousands of visitors a year) and went in search of our luggage. This proved to be rather more problematic than we had hoped as only one of our three bags had made it from Portland to Nashville. The staff at American Airlines were very helpful and were able to tell us that one of our bags was now in Alabama and one was in Atlanta. Our hosts at the University of Western Kentucky had arranged for a driver to pick us and he drove us across the border to Bowling Green for our next debate. Western Kentucky has an extremely well developed Parliamentary Debate and Individual Event programme and is a regular stop on the US Tour. We faced the school’s debate coach and a graduate student on the motion: “This house believes that hard power is better than soft power”. The debate was well attended and we were pleased that one of the Professors thought that our jokes were an improvement on the last few years. After a tasty meal in a local Serbian restaurant (there was a large influx of Balkan emigrants to Bowling Green in the 1990s) we retired to bed, exhausted and still lacking all our belongings…

Debate 20: Portland State Univeristy, OR.

We drove north to Portland on Tuesday lunchtime, where we met Chris Richter who is the debate coach at Portland State. PSU is an urban university with a campus that occupies a corner of downtown Portland – it has around 25,000 students many of which are part time or older students. The debate team does exclusively British Parliamentary style debate and travels regularly to Canada and around the Northwest to compete in competitions – the team had just returned from Hawaii.

On the first afternoon we visited a waterfall and had some excellent sushi for lunch. The sushi made a nice change form the meat meat meat diet of Texas. After being checked into our hotel room we were given a free afternoon in Portland. It was fantastic to be in a city again were you could walk around and people in trams, buses and on foot seemed to out-number those in cars. We took the opportunity to visit Powells which is the worlds largest bookstore and has over five floors. Alex was able to buy several books about Gladstone for his dissertation that are not available in Britain. We then visited the Nike Store and the Apple store to take advantage of the 0% sales tax. We both came away with new Ipods – plus Alex now has shoes which talk to his Ipod in order to provide a synergy of music/running/motivating/statistic generating exercise.

The evening’s debate was ‘This house believes that media consolation harms democracy’. It was a BP debate with four teams and turned out to be very funny. After the debate we went drinking with the team, one of who was celebrating her 21st birthday. We visited a number of cool bars, including one in an underground tunnel and another on the 30th floor of a very swanky office building with panoramic views over Portland. The next morning (after breakfast at Starbucks) we took the tram to the Pearl District and both got our haircut, which in Alex’s case was slightly over due! That afternoon we took part in a radio debate about the British monarchy and a brief interview about our tour.

Click here to listen!

We then headed to a nearby restaurant where we sampled some fabulous Pacific seafood with a few glasses of the Oregon wine that we had learned to love. As it was Halloween (a MAJOR holiday in the USA) we donned some impromptu costumed – Alex was a Scottish Lobster, while Alistair pulled off a convincing James Bond – and headed to the debate team’s Halloween Party. A very enjoyable evening ensued and we sipped beer, listened to the live band and played the cult children’s game ‘Apples to Apples’ with a variety of zombies and one very convincing Twiggy…

Our post-modern interpretation of Halloween...

Debate 19: Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR.

The West Coast

We left to Texas for colder and reputedly more liberal climes – arriving in Portland late in the evening. We then drove the hour and a half to Corvallis, in central Oregon. Next morning Amanda one of the Graduate Assistants drove us to Newport on the coast where we could throw rocks in the Pacific Ocean and truly say we had travelled ‘from sea to shining sea’. Whilst in Newport we took the chance to sample the local chowder and marine science centre (octopus ahoy). Our last visit of the day was to the Rouge Nation brewery – one of Oregon’s best-known local beers. We resisted the temptation to become members of the rouge nation but Alex did invest in a rather fetching lobster hat. (More about that later..)

The evening debate was on the motion ‘This house believes that religion is responsible for modern day terrorism’. It was an interesting debate and one from opposition that we were ultimately able to carry the audience for another British victory. The debate was well attended for a Sunday night and as has been the case on a number of occasions we were both impressed with the quality of the floor debate. One former solider who had served in Iraq in the first Gulf War gave an especially memorable plea for people to understand how important religion is to people who feel that they have no way of improving their material lot and how manipulative terrorist groups have been at exploiting this human suffering.

We were given Monday off so it seemed prudent to go wine tasting as Oregon has a burgeoning reputation for producing some excellent wines. We piled into Amanda’s car and set off with Travis (another Grad student) at the wheel and one of his friends James (who didn’t drink but came along to provide moral support) completing our foursome. We had all seen the film ‘Sideways’ and were looking forward to a day of self-discovery and high jinks. Our first winery was a small family operated affair called Red Hawk. As we worked our way through their wine list (Pinot Gris to Merlot, with a charming Dessert Wine to finish) and looked out across the vineyards, we thought of friends and family at home (and at work/school/lectures!). Amanda beautifully captured the “Kodak moment” below…


The next stop was rather different. Gone were the panoramic views, replaced instead with an enormous gift shop. Although the wines here were more expensive by the bottle (and we had to pay for samples) it was hard to take them seriously given the assortment of tacky wine coolers and CD’s featuring soothing Whale calls that surrounded us. The nice lady at the tasting counter (also the gift shop till) seemed rather proud of the fact that the winery was now making most of its money by exporting tropical fruit wines to Japan, but we declined the chance to sample the garish looking bottles and instead headed to our next stop, a downtown winery that had one numerous awards for its berry wines. After much deliberation we decided to sample the Triple Berry, which although flavoursome, probably wouldn’t find it’s way onto a dinner table in Islington or Edinburgh… Our final winery of the day was one of the most famous in Oregon and certainly the most serious. From the comfort of the outdoor viewing deck we toasted our hosts and agreed that wine tasting actually involves rather a lot of wine drinking. By 5pm Alex tasted toast and cranberries in almost everything that passed his lips…

That evening we were taken for dinner with the Communications Faculty and the Debate Team before some of the students foolishly challenged us to pool and table football in a trendy bar downtown. Although we had certainly picked up a very liberal vibe in Oregon it was fascinating to hear from the students that in fact in the rural East of the state there is a great deal of social conservatism – so much so that the state constitution was amended in 2006 banning Gay Marriage. We headed to Portland intrigued and still slightly tipsy…

Debate 18: Trinity University, San Antonio, TX.

Having been picked up Jarrod Atchison and sampled some delicious Cajun cooking we continued down to San Antonio for our next debate. Jarrod was a policy debater of some renown in the 90s and is now in his first year teaching and coaching the debate squad at Trinity. He is trying to expand the program from a small policy team to a much more inclusive squad that also covers public debate. This was the first time the tour had been to Trinity – which is a small but very well respected liberal arts college which constantly ranks very highly in lists of US schools.

Jarrod immediately won us over by putting us up in a beautifully appointed flat just off the campus. The debate itself was also in an interesting room with floor to ceiling windows that looked over San Antonio – we proposed taking US troops out of Iraq in 60 days. In opposition were Jerrod and Martha who is a 6”2’ Basketball player. This was Martha’s fist debate and she and Jerrod put up a spirited defence of the issue.

For a full review of the debate please refer to the report in “The Trinitonian” – the independent student newspaper on campus

The next day was a truly delightful rest day. For Brunch the debate team took us to a local burger joint that is apparently a popular stop on political campaign trails. The local speciality was the “Macho” Burger, which as you will note from the photo above, was larger than Ali’s head!

Jarrod took us to see the site of the famous Alamo – where a small band of troops from around the world defended Texas’s independence against a massive Mexican army. We had Margarita’s at a bar on the picturesque River Walk (a man made river lined with restaurants that snakes its way through downtown San Antonio) and enjoyed more tasty BBQ – although Alex was rather shocked by the size of his appetizer! That night Jarrod and his wife took us to the local cinema complex where we watched the new George Clooney flick – “Michael Clayton”. Alistair was generally deemed to be over critical and snobby about the film, but we all had a good time and enjoyed the large buckets of popcorn on offer. Later that evening as we sipped beer and watched Comedy Central in our little apartment we were both struck with how nice it would be to stay a few more days, but life as Debating Rock Stars is tough and the next morning (after sampling the best Breakfast Tacos in the country) we were dropped off at the airport to catch our flight to the west coast.

Debate 17: Baylor Univeristy, Waco, TX.

We drove to Austin via the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library, which was fitting considering we had just left the care of the LBJ debate society. We had a quick look around before being transferred to our next host Matt Garber for the drive to Waco - a city famous for three things: the 1993 siege, Dr Pepper and Baylor University. Matt and the debate team took used to lunch at a local café/restaurant, which is famous for catering for G. W. Bush at his nearby Crawford ranch. Several pictures of George/Condi and Bush Senior adorned the restaurant’s hallway.

Baylor is a large, very rich and very conservative Christian university. The campus is very well appointed finished all in matching red brick and mock spires. The debate team were very nice and that evening we opposed the motion ‘TH supports US military action in Iran to prevent nuclearization. Both the speakers were from a strictly policy background (Baylor won nationals for policy several times in the 70s and 80s) - but were able to adapt to the format quite well. It is probably a sign of the current Administration’s unpopularity that even at one of America’s most conservative universities - only miles from Crawford – our gentle to heavy mocking of Bush and the Neo-Conservative ideology went over really well with the audience. In the end it was a clear win for the Brits after an interesting Q&A. We were pleased with the excellent turnout of nearly 200 students. After dinner we were taken for steak (what else in Texas!) – which turned out to be among the very have sampled to date! A robust discussion about some of Baylor University’s admissions policies really brought to light how diverse opinions can be on American campuses…

In keeping with our lifestyle the stop was only to last 24 hours and the next morning we were back on the road and heading south.