Get ready for for this one: word has it that Columbia alumnus/right-wing writer David Horowitz plans to make an on-campus appearance sometime between October 22nd and 26th to spearhead "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," an event put on through the Terrorism Awareness Project. As a special treat, Horowitz plans to bring conservative talk show host Sean Hannity (who did this this little number a year ago) along with him to give us a speech all about Islamofascism. Details have been floating around here for awhile now, where a long list of speakers during the nationwide event include Rick Santorum (UPenn, Penn State, Temple) and Ann Coulter (Tulane, USC).

In a Monday blog post, Horowitz denounced the ISO's Thursday evening event "Using Racism to Sell War: The West vs. Islam?" calling the event a message from "leftwing flak-catchers for America's enemies." In his next post, Horowitz refers to the Muslim Students Association as "a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas and is funded by the Saudis and is part of the Islamo-fascist jihad," generally speaking.

Brace yourselves?

As the anniversary of the physical attack approaches, Bwog correspondent Alex Weinberg reels from the mental attack of 9-11 conspiracy theorists.

September 11th is fast approaching, and, like swallows returning to Capistrano, 9/11 conspiracy theorists are emerging from their basements and taking to the streets to let you all know how dumb you really are. For those who've never enjoyed their presence, just head outside for a stroll: you'll see them marching everywhere from Church Street up to our very campus, happily forcing flyers and DVDs into the palms of unsuspecting tourists. Their predatory packs are hard to dodge and impossible to miss.

Rather than promoting a political or social cause, conspiracy theorists are here to sell their story that September 11th was a lie. To them, airplane collisions could not have toppled the Twin Towers, and something else must have led to the unprecedented destruction. Let me just say that I take deep offense at this idea. Conservative commentators often deride 9/11 conspiracy theorists for their lack of patriotism or compassion or whatever, but I think this is a far too easy way of thinking. Instead, I hate them for the much more substantiative sin of being stupid and loud. To me--a structural engineering student and longtime supporter of skyscrapers and skyscraper-related causes--they might as well be protesting against evolutionary theory or the abstract notion of time.