Please check out Rafi Pitts’ “Open Letter to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” at The Daily Notebook, here. Thanks.
Must-read
You May Also Like
Let's play chicken
Let's play chicken
A concatenation of unusual psychic circumstances compels me to consider one of the oddest giallos…
Glenn KennyJune 22, 2010
Department of Having Been Remiss
Department of Having Been Remiss
I feel like a bit of a blogging shitheel. I got a head's up about…
Glenn KennyJanuary 13, 2009
The DeNiro perplex
The DeNiro perplex
As part of MSN TV's' run-up to the Golden Globes, I examine the mutating mystique…
Glenn KennyJanuary 6, 2011
Just wondering, do the students and faculty of Columbia University in New York who so eagerly welcomed Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak under the rubric of diversity and intellectual openness care about Iran’s brutality?
Ahmedinejad was invited by one individual, the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, because of his substantial role in geopolitics. It’s quite a stretch to claim that he was “eagerly welcomed.” Given the enormous outcry on and off campus, I’d say that many students and faculty members cared a great deal about Iran’s brutality. It struck me not so much as an exercise in “diversity and intellectual openness” as a fairly pointless demonstration of free speech in America. Someone at the public speech passed out flyers that read: “Bollinger, too bad Bin Laden is not available.” Point well taken.
Hmm, “Frankie T‑shirts” posted the same comment on two different threads. I can’t figure out if he’s spam or a troll. I hate when that happens. Also, what the fuck do I, or this blog, have to do with Columbia University? Jesus.
Glenn, don’t act like you don’t know.
He’s a troll, but just in case he’s actually interested:
At that Columbia event, Bollinger introduced Ahmedinejad with a long speech exorciating him for Iran’s human-rights violations—seeing Ahmedinejad having to sit there on stage while Bollinger yelled at him was a real delight. And even more delightful was seeing him forced to face one hostile question after another, and have his answers openly laughed at (“There are no gays in Iran” got many hoots from the audience). I wager that Ahmedinejad has never been so publicly criticized and mocked, certainly never right to his face. It was a good thing, even a great thing, and more than a pathetic little troll than Frankie has ever done.
Sorry I inadvertently posted on the wrong topic, there is no spam involved. And Glenn, you have nothing to do with Iran, its leader, or Columbia, and I certainly never meant to suggest that. I was simply venting how people sit and listen to him. I could never, knowing his treatment of people in the arts.
But why am I a troll, exactly? This snarky edge could be redolent of A‑jad himself and the way he looks upon his enemies of society.
@ F. T‑shirts: Okay, you’re not a troll. I was just giving you shit for posting the same thing on two different threads, which is one thing that trolls do. AND for appearing to hold me to some standard that pertains to an event that I had nothing to do with and didn’t say anything about. Don’t mean to come off at all like Mr. A., but if I seem squirrelly it’s because I’ve had real troll concerns at other times. But no worries here. Per se. Ahmedinejad’s imperiousness goes WAY past snark, incidentally.