Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

This Monday, at Columbia, a man will be giving a lecture. A man of some renown, one widely disliked, even detested in the circles in which he moves. Many believe he's a dangerous lunatic and not to be trusted; some even say that he could represent the greatest threat to Western civilisation in our times.

Oh, and the President of Iran will be talking, too.

Yes, somehow, in one of those bizarre twists of fate that make me think the universe really does have a sense of humour, I will be lecturing on campus on 9th and 10th century Japanese court politics at roughly the same time as Mahmoud Ahmadenijad gives his lecture elsewhere on the campus on, probably, something along the lines of how he'd like to kill all the Jews. Yes folks, what didn't manage to happen last year will come to pass, your friend and mine the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran is coming to speak at Columbia. I imagine that the scheduling conflict will affect attendance; but hey, Ahmadinejad can just wait until I'm good and finished.

I really did give this some serious thought, but, given the heavily Jewish demographics of the Upper West Side, I was genuinely unable to think of anyone alive on the face of the planet at the moment who could possibly elicit quite the reaction that ol' crazy Mahmound will no doubt get. I thought John Ashcroft was an explosive choice...let's see what happens tomorrow. We'll have Campus Security, the NYPD, and the US Secret Service swarming all over the place tomorrow, there's a massive anti-Ahmadinejad demonstration scheduled for 11:30 a.m., the whole campus will be locked down except for two gates, and only then to CUID holders. Even allowing for all this, it would not surprise me greatly if somebody still decides to do something stupid. Watch this space.