Apparently overjoyed with his previous New York sojourn, our overseas pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (we even remember how to spell that from the last go-around!) is returning to our fair city to attend the U.N.'s General Assembly in September.

According to Mahmoud himself, he's coming around to "defend Iran's rights" and remedy the "unjust" Western way of administrating international organizations.

Zahra Khimji and Bwog editor Maryam Parhizkar write about a very long cycling trip with a very noble mission.

While in the United States people are constantly striving for ways to save the environment and stop global warming, Iranians too are striving for ways to promote peace environmental awareness. Somayeh Yousefi and Jafar Edrisi, an athletic couple who first met on a mountain peak near Tehran in 1998, are just such people -- this year, the Iranian cyclists began their journey to promote peace and environmental conservation, one country at a time.

Professor Dennis Dalton, well-known in the last few months for taking part in the recent hunger strike, introduced the event. "This word, peace -- that matters most to me," Professor Dalton said, while physically pointing to the word on the large banner hung on the table in front of the room. Dalton warmly welcomed the cyclists, stating that although we must work to resolve conflict that we had gotten into with Iran, "violence spreads like a cancer . . . we are plagued with that cancer now, and we must cure it."

Yousefi and Edrisi then proceeded to explain their mission, which involves cycling around the world and creating a "green line" of newly planted trees along the way to promote peace and environmental awareness. "No one will be living in a peaceful world without the environment," Yousefi, the English speaker of the two, said. Yousefi and Edrisi have been tracking every step of their trip and blogging whenever they have the chance. Starting from Iran, they have cycled through major parts of Europe such as Greece, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and have crossed the Atlantic ocean (by flight, of course!). As of today, the couple has planted a total of 14 trees, with 2 in New York State.

As if the fountains on Low Plaza didn't provide enough innuendo for passersby, a fifty foot "rocket" suddenly materialized between them this morning. Who, you may ask, felt starved for such salacious symbolism? Why, the College Dems, Repubicans, and LionPAC, who teamed up to inflate what's supposed to be, according to their press release, a "long nuclear bomb", placed in order to raise awareness about the dangers of a nuclear Iran, and to advertise a Thursday evening panel on the subject. According to Bwog's ever-vigilant staff, some of the organizers attempted to place the word "IRAN" on the missle itself, but had (for what reason, we're not sure) to take it down.

Those interested in the panel should note it will take place at 7:30 PM Thursday in Hamilton 602. Columbia professor Paul Richards, Paul Bracken of Yale, and one Herbert London of the Hudson Institute will be present, along with perennial Bwog favorite Richard Bulliet. The massive missile will remain afront the steps until 2 this afternoon.

-CJS, Photo by Sara Vogel

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.

In which film savant Iggy Cortez recommends a melodrama with honesty.

Like many Iranian movies, Bahman Ghobadi's beautiful and passionate A Time for Drunken Horses focuses its poignant narrative on children, a device some critics consider excessively manipulative, but which Ghobadi handles with honesty and an admirable restraint. The film follows a family of orphaned Kurdish siblings living in brutal conditions in the border between Iran and Iraq. Ayoub, the film's young hero, and his sisters make back-breaking sacrifices to support each other and their disabled older brother, Madi.

Their already difficult lives take a turn for the worst when a doctor reveals that Madi is critically ill and needs an operation to survive. His siblings become determined to raise the money in whatever way they can — Ameneh, an elder sister, agrees to marry an Iraqi Kurd if they agree to pay for Madi's operation (the groom's family eventually refuses, offering them a donkey they can sell instead). But Ayoub's dangerous struggles form the heart of the film, as he attempts to raise money transporting contraband goods with a group of ineffective smugglers. The film's enigmatic title is also the film's most absurd and potent image, referring to the smugglers' practice of spiking their mules' water with vodka, so they can endure journeys on freezing mine-infested fields and mountains.

Always up for controversy, Bwog perked up this morning at a Spectator headline declaring that President Ahmadinejad of Iran had been invited to speak at Columbia. We soon e-mailed Public Affairs Director Robert Hornsby to see if he could save a seat for us, and minutes later recieved this response:

"Event was never scheduled. - Rob H."

That confused us. Even more confusing is the recently posted Spectator web update, which tells of how SIPA administrators didn't have time to check with World Leaders Forum staff before inviting the Iranian leader, and in fact de-invited him because they couldn't mobilize enough security.

In the interim, a predictably indignant New York Sun article noted that the Columbia VP for Public Affairs denied last night that Ahmadinejad had been invited in the first place. And LionPAC posted signs all over campus inciting protest.

So, PrezBo. You could provide security at last year's World Leaders Forum for the presidents of Iraq, Pakistan, and Venezuela (although Chavez bowed out), but not Iran? Why didn't a normally media-savvy administration get its story straight?

And LionPAC, calm down. We survived when the Iranian foreign minister came a few years ago. Meanwhile, Bwog enjoyed this morning's presentation by the entire government of Papua New Guinea...