This week's events promise to be sequentially nail-biting, shocking, fascinating, and slightly scary.

Tuesday
Election Day: The College Democrats and Republicans will have watch parties, and so will pretty much everyone Bwog knows. We'll even cover some of that. Eveningish @ all over the country.

Wednesday
Blackwater: J. Cofer Black, VP of the infamous mercenary corporation, will be speaking. No matter what he says, it ought to be an interesting event, considering Columbia's political leanings. Bwog will be covering this event. 8:00 PM @ Lerner Cinema.

Thursday
Mind, Memory, and the Actor: Oliver Sacks is at it again, this time on identity and neurology in the mind of an actor. 6:00 PM @ Miller.

Friday
Scary Sushi Night: CJS will have all-you-can eat sushi for $7. Bwog isn't sure what's scary about that. 7:00 PM & 8:00 PM @ Party Space.

College Democrats and Republicans gather in same room, give each other silent treatment.

Wait, being an English major is worthless?!?

Camels roam streets, Spec reporters kissed by llamas, all just a few short blocks away!

Queer sex controversy at Barnard like you've never seen it before! As if you've ever seen it before!

Two female first-years were overheard bringing new meaning to "innocent until proven guilty" near the John Jay elevators:

Girl 1: "My dad works with one of the Duke lacrosse players who got in trouble."

Girl 2: "Really? Which one?"

Girl 1: "The really hot one."

Newsflash! Columbia was on Fox again today, for bringing the Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations to speak. A little Bwog inside scoop: he almost went the way of his President, when the Law School withdrew their offer of space. Fortunately for Towards Reconciliation, the Muslim Student Association stepped up by donating pre-reserved space in Lerner, and the Columbia Musical Theater Society very menschily agreed to silence their rehearsal in Roone (in exchange for free pizza from SDA). Bwog editor Chris Szabla has this extensive report.

Jawad Zarif has spent considerable time in the US; a graduate of the University of Denver and San Francisco State, he arrived in New York in 1982 to obtain a doctorate from SIPA only to discover the school did not give out PhDs (he retrospectively claims it was Columbia that channeled him into diplomacy). His address began, then, with an observation regarding notions of Iran Zarif had encountered in this country. "Iran is a misunderstood country in the US," he claimed. It is one with a long history, one that understands the fleeting nature of dominance. As such, it has been heavily influenced by the 200 years it experienced digesting foreign impositions -- including those of Iraq, which, he noted, launched its 1980s invasion with substantial foreign encouragement. The perception this foreign influence engendered, Zarif continued, was that Iran could not trust others.

Nevertheless, this lack of trust never meant, he noted, that Iran had any need or desire to act aggressively toward its neighbors -- it had no real needs outside its borders. In fact, Zarif asserted, never in 250 years had Iran really threatened or invaded another country, in contrast to Iraq's wars against Iran and Kuwait. In fact, it has been active in stablizing the region, as the consequences of instability had only pejorative consequences for Iran -- the millions of refugees it has had to accept from Iraq and Afghanistan, for example. Zarif noted that Iran had been active in stabilizing the government of Tajikistan, mediating the dispute between Armenia and Azerbijan, and helping create what he called an "acceptable government" for Afghanistan, and was the first country to recognize the new government in Iraq. Accusations that Iran was interfering in Iraq's internal affairs, he claimed, were the inventions of Washington, and are contradicted by Iraqis on the ground. Iran, he explained, naturally supports a government composed of the former opposition to Saddam Hussein, individuals it was the only government to support in earlier decades.