Fordham Road, The Bronx — Today, the recently elected Vice Premier of the Peoples Republic of the Bronx declared Hugo Chavez Day on February 15, 2008, which is expected to be the coldest day of the winter season in the fledgling republic. To celebrate the tethering of Venezuela with its semi-autonomous New York borough, Venezuelan officials took out a full page ad yesterday in The New York Times (left).

“Uncle Hugo has bestowed upon our brethen the divine love of the martyrs through this benevolent gift that heats our hearts as well as our homes,” said Sub Commadante Ferdinand Pacheco from his headquarters in the shadow of Yanqui Stadium. In Tampa Bay, Bobby Abreau, otherwise known as the Venezuelan Viper, was one for four as the Yanquis crushed the Devil Rays on their way to clinching a playoff berth for the 13th consecutive season. ”Yes, Hugo will be here for the celebration. And he has promised to kiss a black baby and wear his red shirt!”

For the first time in years, residents of Spofford Hills, a housing cooperative in the South Bronx, won’t feel the winter chill inside their building. “This year, there is heat. In years past, forget about it. This building was frozen!� said Celia Martinez, a 74-year-old grandmother who lives in the housing cooperative. Martinez’s good fortune is a gift from Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s leftist president. See story in the INDYPENDENT, a free paper for free people

Above - motorcade of Iranian President Ahmadinejad speeding out of Columbia
to the westside highway, 3:05 PM, 9/24/07. Photos by Mark Rose.

The Iranian leader is a ”pettty, cruel dictator” according to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger who humiliated his guest with blistering opening remarks to the point that Ahmadinejad claimed to be the victim of cheap insults. If Ahmadinejad expected an easy PR op at Columbia he got a rude surprise with Bollinger relentlessly on the attack, dismissive, incredulous, and accusatory.

Bollinger was under intense pressure to justify the invitation to the Terror of Tehran (I do not think Ahmadinejad craves a repeat performance) and he earned his stripes as a ruthless interrogator while still upholding the core tenets of free speech in a democracy. Even Bush grudgingly approved of the visit. (Media descends on Columbia, 9/24/07, below)

Security was tight all around the campus, side streets were blocked off but the heated discussions and interviews could not be stopped. Nothing like a murderous Iranian madman to stir up the passions of a college campus and force enemies to face each other.

It is the U.N. that brings this particular terrorist thug to New York, and we should be thankful for all the terrorist thugs we have drawn to our great city over the years because of the U.N.  They force us to confront our fears, measure ourselves against our enemies, question our values.  And they offer unbeatable international life-or-death theatre that is tinged with a New York flavor. Idi Amin, Hugo Chavez, Nikita Kruschev, Yasser Arafat have all performed here on the Great White Way of Sabre Rattling Propaganda.

One day in the 80′s I was walking down Broadway, midtown, when traffic was stopped by a phalanx of police to allow a caravan of limos and security vehicles to drive down the center lane,  lights flashing.  Suddenly the whole procession stopped and out popped this bald guy with a red splotch on his head. It was Mikhail Gorbachev, flush with detente, wanting to press the flesh of theatergoers. 

In 1960 Fidel Castro, in the U.S. to give one of his classic four hour speeches at the U.N., met with Malcolm X at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem.  Castro was in Harlem because he was thrown out of his midtown hotel for rowdy behavior. “We’ll sleep in the U.N. garden or in Central Park!” Fidel threatened but then he was enticed uptown by people who embraced him. There was no accounting for the “bosomy blondes” who visited Castro at 2:00 AM and 3:30 AM, the rum runs for his entourage of 85, or the live chickens the Cubans supposedly killed in their rooms for dinner.

And these dictator/performers say the darndest things.

“The press plays a connecting role. It provides information and can serve as a channel for promoting current thinking,” he said. “The role of the press is to disseminate moral behavior … The press can be the voices of the divine prophets.” – Ahmadinejad to the National Press Club 9/24/07

Related PRBlogNews story: Holy War at Columbia

You get jaded living in New York but still, it is not every day that the President of Iran comes to your neighborhood. This is the holocaust-denying, America hating, nuke bomb building, evil, despicable madman who was denied entrance to ground zero (“Access of Evil� decried the NY Post ) and should rot in hell, according to a vocal contingent of politicians, religious groups, self-righteous academics and others who want to draw a line in the sand where free speech begins and ends. They are appalled that we should hear whatever evil sputum might dribble from Ahmadinejad’s mouth and insist he should be denied any opportunity to speak to us directly.

I live eight blocks south of Columbia University and spend a lot of time in and around the campus. Columbia has a strong presence in the surrounding neighborhood – through people, culture, commerce and real estate. Columbia is not a walled off ivory tower; the community flows through it, the higher reaches of the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the lower reaches of Harlem are strongly impacted by it. Columbia has a long history of progressive academic struggles and social confrontation that persists today, with strong dissention concerning the University’s current expansion plans into the community.

My first sight of Low Plaza, the area in the center of Columbia where Monday’s demonstration is scheduled, was when Mark Rudd and Bernadine Dohrn were exhorting students to shake the very foundations of the institution to end the Vietnam war. You see no such urgency or commitment to protest today. One day before the ringleader of the Axis of Evil is scheduled to appear the great majority of students are lolling about enjoying a fine late summer day, more concerned with iPods than a holy war.

On the periphery, spilling out on to Broadway, is where the action is. Incensed local Jews who are understandably angry and want to ban Ahmadinejad argue with those who want to hear what he has to say and have an opportunity to question him directly.

I am in the latter camp. If he wants to condemn America and Israel, fine, let’s hear it. Maybe this is all a PR stunt but is it any worse than George Bush proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” before another 3,000 American troops die in Iraq? Ahmadinejad wants to answer questions, meet with 9/11 survivor families, he has repeatedly challenged Bush to a debate. He desperately wants to connect (has he tried Facebook?). How evil can that be?

We did business with Saddam Hussein before we decided to war against him. Nixon had the foresight to reach out to Mao. Reagan reached out to Gorbachev. We don’t have to love or even understand our enemies but we will never get anywhere unless we are speaking to them.

As a signal that the United States would like to engage in dialogue Bush should offer to go to the University of Tehran and answer questions directly from the Iranian people. It is harder to demonize someone you see up close and personal. It is impossible to connect through  threats and rhetoric and condemnation delivered from great distances. Officials at Columbia should be praised for bringing Ahmadinejad to the University.