Monday, September 24, 2007
Daily Douchebag: Lee C. Bollinger
DOB: ???, but he's old and pretty busted...I wouldn't hit that mess
Occupation: lawyer, president of Columbia University
Hometown: Santa Rosa, California
Current residence: somewhere Morningside Heights-ish in New York City (he used to always be the next on the list for my Fresh Direct deliveries when I lived on 125th Street)
Douchebaggery: All of New York City is in an uproar because Bollinger invited Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, crazy, Members Only jacket-loving president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to visit Columbia. Politicians have denounced it, half the city is protesting, every morally righteous blowhard at Columbia and Barnard has his or her panties in a twist, and, more importantly, the tabloids have been having a field day for the past week. Surprisingly, the greatest paper ever, the New York Post decided to take a break from Ahmedinejad Madness on the cover, but I'm sure they'll be chiming in tomorrow when he decides to visit Ground Zero even though Mayor Bloomberg told him to suck it when he asked for an official tour. Luckily, the Daily News isn't tired of busting on Columbia's invitation (or "invitation" as the Daily News puts it, as presumably the quotes means that something far more sinister than a friendly world leaders forum is going on):
Good thing some pissed-off people saved their Post covers from last week to turn into the awesomest protest signs EVER:
Anyway, apparently I don't take myself or my belief that Ahmedinejad is a crackpot seriously enough, so everyone else is protesting, which I considered doing only to provide some comic relief. I figured that running into the forum topless and wearing my strap-on would do the trick. I totally saw Not Without My Daughter, and even though Sally Field never did exactly that (I'm pretty sure that scene got cut out of the part where she escapes with her daughter through snowy, terrorist-filled mountains to Turkey, which is a shame), the movie led me to believe that those Iranian Shiite fundamentalists get bent WAY out of shape whenever women expose any flesh or betray any hint of empowered sexuality. Unfortunately, unlike these lazy fucks with nothing better to do than whip themselves up into a frenzy of sanctimonious anger and march around campus all day expressing this via chanting and posterboard signs, I have a full day in lab, I can't go down to the main campus and try to fuck with Ahmedinejad in the fashion I would prefer. It's just as well, because Bollinger has enough drama on his hands, which brings me to why he's my Douchebag of the Day.
I would normally applaud Lee Bollinger for courting controversy and, like the First Amendment-defending lawyer he once was, pointing out that sometimes living in a free society means listening to people who are offensive assholes like Ahmedinejad even though you don't like their message or agree with it. However, while having Ahmedinejad here in the first place and then defending it in spite of almost universal condemnation was a bold move that I applaud, today I opened my inbox to find that under it all, Bollinger is a true tool of a college administrator at the end of the day. I'll translate this pussified, hey-everyone-settle-down e-mail for you since, as president of the Science Geek grad students and having been in schools filled with administrators like these for the past 20 years, I'm fluent in bureaucratic mumbo jumbo:
From: Lee C. Bollinger (officeofthepresident@columbia.edu)
To: everyone at Columbia including razzy@razzy.org
Subject: Thoughts on Today's Forum
Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
I would like to share a few thoughts about today’s appearance of President Ahmadinejad at our World Leaders Forum. I know this is a matter of deep concern for many in our University community and beyond. I want to say first and foremost how proud I am of Columbia, especially our students, as we discuss, debate and plan for this highly visible event.
TRANSLATION: I read the Post, people, and TRUST that I've gotten all the online petitions you all so zealously filled out, so I know you're all pissed. Now just simmer down, so I can compliment you for being royal pains in my ass from a PR point of view.
I ask that each of us make special efforts to respect the different views people have about the event and to recognize the different ways it affects members of our community. For many reasons, this will demand the best of each of us to live up to the best of Columbia's traditions.
TRANSLATION: Don't bust this shit up like you did the fucking panel discussion with those Minutemen border patrol vigilantes a few months back. That shit was on the news for a week! You have no idea how much spin doctory I had to pull on that one. All I have to say is, thank God I'm a lawyer and I bust out some persuasion when need be.
For the School of International and Public Affairs, which developed the idea for this forum as the commencement to a year-long examination of 30 years of the Islamic Republic in Iran, this is an important educational experience for training future leaders to confront the world as it is -- a world that includes far too many brutal, anti-democratic and repressive regimes. For the rest of us, this occasion is not only about the speaker but quite centrally about us -- about who we are as a nation and what universities can be in our society.
TRANSLATION: Hey, assholes! Censorship is what they do in Iran, you dumbasses. And this is for a class. A CLASS, people! If you don't like International and Public Affairs, then major in math or art or something.
I would like just to repeat what I have said earlier: It is vitally important for a university to protect the right of our schools, our deans and our faculty to create programming for academic purposes. Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most, or even all of us will find offensive and even odious.
TRANSLATION: Again, you retards, did I mention this was for a CLASS? Just because you losers don't like doing integrals doesn't mean we're taking that out of our calculus classes. Just deal with the fact that homeboy is the president of Iran, so who better to be a guest speaker for Iran class? I'm just sayin'...
But it should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas, or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices.
TRANSLATION: Now it's time to use some vague civil liberties-related blah blah blah to remind you that you're all being a bunch of free speech-suppressing losers. Who's like Hitler now? OH, SNAP!
The great majority of student leaders with whom I met last week affirmed their belief that this event, however controversial, is consistent with the values of academic freedom we share at the center of university life. I fully support, indeed I celebrate, the right to peacefully demonstrate and engage in a dialogue about this event and this speaker, as I understand a wide coalition of our student groups are planning for today. That such a forum and such public criticism of President Ahmadinejad’s statements and policies could not safely take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here. The kind of freedom that will be on display at Columbia has always been and remains today our nation’s most potent weapon against repressive regimes everywhere in the world. This is the power and example of America at its best.
TRANSLATION: Don't get violent. And for the love of God, quit complaining to the Post about me; I'm a better American than you are. You dumb bitches all just got OWNED! You better ax somebody."
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
I would have a lot more respect for Lee Bollinger if he just flipped up his middle fingers to everyone and shouted a resounding "FUCK YOU ALL, I'M RUNNING THIS BITCH!" instead of sending this long, boring I'm-proud-of-you and America-is-great letter to everyone. And I'd also have a lot more respect for him if he was honest about meeting with "student leaders." I never got an invitation to that and like I said, I'm the motherfucking student prez of the nerds on the medical center campus! Why wasn't I fucking consulted about Ahmedinejad? My opinion would have obviously been of great importance to the planning and orchestration of this event, and it was a SERIOUS oversight on Bollinger's part that he forgot about it and just sent me the same bullshit e-mail that he sent to the rest of the nerds whom I benevolently rule ("rule"=provide beer, pizza, and discounted movie tickets to). Clearly, not only is Bollinger unattractive and unable to admit what's really on his mind, but he's incompetent as well. Fool.
Labels: correspondence, Daily Douchebag, free fucking speech, grad school bullshit, large exclamatory font, NYC, politics, tyrannical rulers, United States of Asskickery
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Bollinger claims that there is some important relationship between the invitation that was issued to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Columbia’s commitments to the free exchange of ideas. What is this relationship? Do the aforementioned commitments require the invitation? If not, and thus not inviting Ahmadinejad is also consistent with these commitments, then what was the reason for the invitation? Moreover, that ideas can be exchanged at all is an acknowledgement of the fact that ideas can be debated and analyzed without the presence of particular proponents of the ideas in question. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ideas can be debated, analyzed and otherwise exchanged without him, what was the reason for the invitation?
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# posted by 
: 9/24/2007 11:33 AM
: 9/24/2007 11:33 AM Links to this post:
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