Disgraceful - word of the day

In all my years in academia I never saw a performance as disgraceful as the one put on today by the President of Columbia University. Having invited Ahmadinejad to speak to the students at Columbia he proceeded to trash and insult him before he even had a chance to speak. Not only was this rude and as far as I know unprecedented, it was also rife with questionable assertions and downright falsehoods. And it was directed at Ahmadinejad personally, even to the point of calling him a petty and cruel dictator. It was an absolutely ridiculous performance. Since when do we invite speakers and then proceed to insult them before they even give their speech? Quite frankly, if I were on the Board of Regents of Columbia University I would question the ability of the President to conduct the affairs of the University. I believe the Iranians would, in fact, like to be at peace and would like to be friendly with the U.S. They have made advances in the past only to be rejected by Bush/Cheney. We are certainly not likely to achieve any diplomatic breakthroughs when our prevailing assumptions are that Iran is part of an axis of evil and their President is a petty and cruel dictator (which, when applied to Ahmadinejad is simply absurd). Unfortunately, the President of Columbia University presented us with a case study of the ugly, uninformed American who knows nothing of Iran or Iranian culture but doesn't hesitate to tell us just what is what in that ancient land where poetry was being written while we were still wearing the skins of animals.

Even the newspeople who covered the event performed disgracefully, some more than others. It truly was if all these people, both on the right and the left, were in possession of the absolute truth about Iran and Ahmadinejad and simply did not even want to listen. They made all kinds of claims which are at least open to question, and some that were just downright false. I was absolutely astounded at their willingness to accept as fact many of the very things that were supposed to be open for discussion. Given this universal negative attitude I think it was amazing that anyone would have invited him to speak in the first place (and of course there were many who did not want him invited). One woman even went to far as to claim the University was not the place to promote free speech. She seemed to believe that the only venue for such a strange concept was on a soap box in Hyde Park or a street corner. So much for free speech in America. I have no doubt Ahmadinejad will make lots of points at home and I suspect he might have made some here as well (if, that is, he hadn't made the bizarre claim that homosexuality doesn't exist in Iraq).


Then there is Bush's disgraceful treatment of the Israeli/Palestinian problem. For seven years he has done nothing of substance to bring about any kind of compromise or settlement of their differences. Not only that, he has actively promoted the Israeli side of the issue rather than trying to act as a neutral broker. It is too late now for him to pretend to that role. Indeed, it is too late for him to now claim to want to do something about this long-festering problem. So what does he do now that he is a lame duck President? He wants to convene some kind of mickey mouse meeting that is going to seriously consider the problems. According to Condi Rice (remember her) this meeting is to deal with substantive issues. I guess Bush and Rice think they are so clever they'll just wrap up this situation in the last few weeks of Bush's Presidency. I believe this is an absolute insult to both the Israelis and the Palestinians and I will be surprised if all of the proposed participants even show up for this token event. Bush's treatment of this issue has been truly disgraceful and his last minute attempt just underlines how disgraceful.

Let us not forget the performance of our snipers that, again, is truly disgraceful. It turns out they are allowed to "bait" the "enemy." They apparently do this by leaving bits of ammunition or bomb-making materials out where people can see them. Then if an Iraqi is foolish enough to pick it up they assume he must be an enemy and shoot him/her. Of course there is nothing to prevent any curious Iraqi, man, woman, or child, from picking this stuff up, so they all become fair game. Interesting that we are not allowed to bait bears or deer or other game animals but our troops can now bait human beings (Iraqis are human beings in case you haven't heard).

Finally, there is the strange and disgraceful case of Giuliani. It seems no event is important enough for him to turn off his cell phone. So occasionally, in the middle of one of his speeches, his wife decides to call. He obediently answers and tells her he loves her while his audience gasps in disbelief. I guess no one has ever told him how inappropriate this is. Why does this remind me of the movie, Born Yesterday?

LKBIQ:
"We'll tie Hirohito to the inboard magneto of an RAF mosquito."
Max Schulman (I think)