Page 194 - The First Fifty Years

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188 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW

ODDMENTS
“Mistakes Have Been Made” (U.S. Grant, 1876). Abraham
Lincoln’s greatest appointment, himself a far better president
than high schools currently acknowledge (when they teach
American history at all), apparently coined that phrase in a
message to Congress admitting to scandals during his
administration. Likewise, in these essays, surely mistakes were
made, owing to the seemingly infinitesimally small span of time
available to gather, assess, and relate 50 years of HLR history
that might otherwise have been lost entirely. As to any and all
such errors, message cjoyce@uh.edu. This address, at some time,
necessarily, will go dark. Please hurry with corrections!
Romance at the Review. Perhaps a series best discontinued
for now. Future liaisons? Cokes in the Commons? Smooches in
SOS? Only time, and happily not these authors, will tell.
What 40-Something Doesn’t Need a Facelift? Or so the
editors of Board 44 must have thought. From 1:1 to 15:5, Houston
Law Review’s covers had featured cream colors with golden
accents. In the middle decades of its first 50 years, the Review
had become the blue-gray haired lady of grandmotherly
remembrance, complete with font big enough for failing eyesight.
In the final decade (the subject of this concluding essay),
however, HLR’s cover magically regained its creamy complexion,
sporting UH-appropriate red accents and a trim new font. So
contemporary (a relative term, if there ever was one). Thus
tightened and lightened, now with attractive Cougarish
highlights, 44:4 was the new 15:5.
Clever Is as Clever Says. And now for the very last of the
prize-winning titles to appear, decade-by-decade, in the first 50
volumes: James W. Christian, Robert Shapiro & John-Paul
Whalen, Naked Short Selling: How Exposed Are Investors?, 43
HOUS. L. REV. 1033 (2006). No doubt, here as elsewhere, a
picture would be worth a thousand (law review) words. In this
instance, however, the reader simply will have to imagine.
Final Score and Final Judgment, In re: Dueling HLRs.
Throughout these essays, the authors have apologized so often,
with such justification, to so many. Now we offer a final nostra
culpa to Harvard Law Review. We meant no harm. It was just
too easy. Houston always has been a striving place, where only
merit mostly ever matters. The women of Houston Law Review,