Bollinger's Blunder Teaches Bad Lesson - Opinion

So there's an opinion piece in the Spec today about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's potential talk at Columbia. For those of you who weren't aware, The Dean of SIPA invited him to come speak this past Friday, but he wasn't able to, supposedly because of security reasons.

I think it goes without saying that everyone was up in arms over the whole thing. We had the "Ahmadinejad's an evil dictator and letting him near our campus is wrong" camp facing off against the "free speech is vital, even if the guy's an evil dictator" camp. It should be obvious which side I support, but if it isn't, I'll just say it straight up: There really isn't a single good reason why we shouldn't have had Ahmadinejad speak here.

The thing is, talk is just talk. It's not like Ahmadinejad wanted to parade his army down college walk, rounding up the Jews and summarily executing them. He's just talking, so what are we so afraid of? It seems as if the students opposed to him speaking are terrified that his rhetoric will turn them into anti-semitic supporters of nuclear terrorism. Or perhaps it's the condescending version and they're afraid that the his rhetoric will turn their stupid classmates into said anti-semitic terrorists. Either way, it's an embarassingly pessimistic view to take towards students who supposedly number among the smartest in the country.

But today's opinion piece is slightly different. Here, the author argues that we already know where Ahmadinejad stands and don't need to hear his speech. This is correct, to an extent. We do know where Ahmadinejad stands and that many of his beliefs are so contrary to our own that it seems as if there is no way he can justify them. Still, I think to simply call him evil and dismiss his views is fruitless. Evil is an easy word to label someone with and ignores the fact that the things people believe all stem from somewhere. It's not a question of understanding Ahmadinejad's beliefs, but understanding why he has those beliefs. Once we understand where his hatred comes from, we may be able to address it in a productive way. We tell Ahminadejad that he must change his ways, but there's no reason for him to listen to us if we don't listen to him too.

I Wouldn't Be Very Good at My Job if I Did...

Dude! New Casino Royale Trailer!

Okay, so maybe that beginning scene is a little incomprehensible (why does he say "considerably?"), and I'm a little concerned by the whole "I love you, bond girl" subplot... but whatever, that movie is going to kick ass! (and she's probably gonna betray him or something anyway.)

Yarr!

This is that time every year where I remind everyone that September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and then I post a link to the holiday's official homepage.

YARR!

On my Sudden Obsession With Reading For Pleasure

So I just finished Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy a few days ago. I read the first two, The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, as a fourth grader but I never finished the series because the third book, the Amber Spyglass, wasn't even out yet. When I finally got The Amber Spyglass years later, I had forgotten all the events of the first two installments and decided to reread them before diving into the third. This was high school, though, so I was both busy and lazy and, as a result, never got around to reading the series. I vowed to actually read the three books this summer, especially since I'd come to learn that they are actually even more sophisticated than I could have realized as a ten-year-old.

And they are.

The brilliant thing about His Dark Materials is the way it doesn't follow all the standard cliches of the fantasy genre. There are no elves or dwarfs, no dragons, no great wizards throwing fireballs around. To me, it seemed more inspired by fairy tales than traditional Tolkien-esque fantasy. The best part is that when Pullman does take some standard fantasy cliche (like witches or angels), he mutates them into something entirely different. At the same time, Pullman infuses his stories with a certain amount of realism. Very little of the fantasy is over the top in a way that causes one to question it. Taken together, these aspects of the story give the reader the impression that Pullman's version of the old standbys are truer than those that we've taken for granted; his witches are what witches are really like and everything else is just the embellishment that comes with centuries of legends. Nevermind that those legends began millenia before Pullman was born.

I can't say I loved the ending, though. Considering the whole series is about trying to understand this mystical substance called Dust, it was a little annoying to finish the book without a true grasp of what exactly it is. I still don't understand exactly why Dust leaving the world is so bad, except for the strange alien race that relies on the Dust to survive. I'm still trying to grok the books, and I don't want to give away too much for people who haven't read it yet, so I think I'll stop talking about it now.

In my efforts to really get the series, I've decided to read Milton's Paradise Lost. The trilogy's title comes from a line in Paradise Lost, and Pullman cites the epic poem as one of his greatest influences. Generally, I find that most artists aren't really self-aware when it comes to listing their influences, but I figured now was as good a time as any to read a book that's kinda part of the western canon, even if it isn't part of the Lit Hum syllabus.

Conveniently coinciding with this decison, this morning I found a really cool website called dailylit.com. Basically, they took a huge number of awesome books from the public domain and then set up a system that allows you to pick a book (or more than one, if you're hardcore) and get bite-sized sections of that book emailed to you daily (or less than daily if you aren't so hardcore). I think it's a really good way to read one of those books you've been meaning to read without stressing out about it. After all, it only takes 5 minutes to read one day's section, but it also keeps you going by sending new ones each day.

I've already signed up for daily emails of Paradise Lost. If anybody (do I even have any readers yet?) wants to join in, I'd love to have someone(s) to discuss the poem with.

Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" Probably The Most Covered Song EVER

So undoubtedly you've all heard "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. It was everywhere this summer: the radio, TV, concerts, some other places. But what you probably haven't heard are all of the obscenely large number of covers that various musicians (both professional and amateur) have recorded. And there are a lot. I know I've been playing it on my guitar for a while now, and I'd heard Nelly Furtado's awful, awful verson, but I could never have imagined quite how many different versions there are. Luckily (or unluckily), the people over at Slate compiled a linked list to help solve this problem. So go forth and be shocked and entertained.

Personally, I think the Raconteurs one is actually really cool and have been surprised by the quality of all the home recordings. Billy Idol's rendition, on the other hand, should probably be used as a form of torture.

This actually reminds me of another link I found recently, namely this guy playing an acoustic version of Hey Ya!, which I also used to cover back in the day. I don't know what kind of wacky ass band Obidiah Parker is, but I'll humbly admit that they take my acoustic version to school, even if the somber feeling kind of falls apart at the end. Also, splicing it together with the actual music video footage = priceless.

Steve Irwin Fans Exact Vengeance on Sting Rays

Even if I were so upset that I decided the only reasonable action was to seek out and destroy sting rays, I'd have no idea where to find them or how to catch them.

(Link in Title)