“Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,”

“You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated,”

Columbia President Lee Bollinger
Breitbart/AP

I was, without a doubt, in the minority by saying that I thought it was a good idea to let Ahmadinejad speak at Columbia. Here is a little more from the Breitbart/AP piece.

Ahmadinejad smiled at first but appeared increasingly agitated, decrying the “insults” and “unfriendly treatment.” Columbia President Lee Bollinger and audience members took him to task over Iran’s human- rights record and foreign policy, as well as Ahmadinejad’s statements denying the Holocaust and calling for the disappearance of Israel.

During a question and answer session, Ahmadinejad appeared tense and unsmiling, in contrast to more relaxed interviews and appearances earlier in the day.

That is really the kind of thing I was hoping for. I was hoping that this appearance at Columbia would make Ahmadinejad look bad and that the press would report it that way.

Ahmadinejad was wanting to make this whole U.N. visit an infomercial. He was trying to make it a big P.R. campaign.

I have not seen any video from the Columbia appearance so, I can’t really judge for myself yet but, from what I’m reading, Ahmadinejad did not do himself any favors.

The controversy over the Columbia invitation and Ahmadinejad’s desire to visit ground zero seemed to have had some positive effect. The Daily News had this headline, “The Evil Has Landed” and I am seeing coverage of protest (mostly people against the Columbia speech though). Maybe, the Ahmadinejad outrage level has been increased by all of this.

What is your opinion, leave some comments; Was the Columbia speech a good thing or a bad thing?

I was listening to Wes Montgomery whilst writing. It strikes me that I somehow forgot how truly remarkable a guitarist he was. He played with his thumb and that is one of the things that separates him. A lot of guitarists try to play octaves like Wes did. If you try to do it with a pick it doesn’t work. It sounds tinny and out of tune. Danny Gatton came as close as anybody to the Wes sound on octaves. Gatton would put the pick in his mouth, play octaves for a while and then, grab the pick again to play single note lines. Wes would go back and forth effortlessly between the octaves and single note lines and the tone would not vary. Lee Ritenour plays with his thumb and I’ve heard him do stuff that was scary good. Larry Coryell is another guy that seems to be able to invoke the Wes thing. I guess that’s the point though; it is the “Wes thing”.

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