Seven Scenes From a Short Event

1: The newscaster hounded the girl under the camera light. "Don't you think this is an issue of free speech?" he said, drawing out the last syllable like a playground taunt. The girl calmly explained, in stops and starts, how, while she agreed with none of the Iranian government's policies, that it was important to her that these views be challenged in a public forum. The newscaster waved his cameraman away. The light that had hovered over them sank to the ground and swung out to the gathered crowd. The girl asked when she would be on television. "Maybe the 5 p.m. news," sighed the newscaster. "No promises." She didn't make the cut.

2: I nearly tripped as I flew down the stairs of Philosophy Hall, clutching my cell phone to my ear. A gruff voice answered my call. "Hi," I said. "I'm Charles Carey, editor-in-chief of the Federalist Paper. I got a note mentioning you were looking for students on the O'Reilly Factor?"
"Yeah," said the gruff voice. "What're your views on the visit and so forth?"
"I'm in favor of it," I said, launching into my usual defeat-of-ideologies spiel. I felt my voice slipping into well-worn cadences. I could've been describing how a paper wasn't going to be done on time, or why we needed $200 of sponsorship money for an event. I was making a pitch.
"Uh-huh," said the voice on the phone. "Well, we already got a kid from the B-school who opposes the whole thing. So for someone in favor, we need a real far-left sort of view."
"Uh," I said.
"So yeah, leader of the Federalist Paper probably isn't quite what we're looking for. Do you know any real left-wing bomb-throwers?"
"Umm," I said. "No."
I wound up on another show.

3: The allure is too easy to fall in love with. It's why the same talking heads make the inevitable rounds on "their turf," those lovable news programs for wonks with cable across the globe. You feel your chest puff out when they ask you about it. You stand straighter. You are important. Soon you feel important enough that your actual views begin to slide down a few rungs—it's now just a talking point, but so what? You are important, right? People will listen to you if you present yourself well enough and get your shots in—who cares if all the details aren't quite there? If you have to cut corners to make your message heard, at least that message is getting out there. That's good enough to justify doing it, isn't it? Isn't it? Or is that the argument Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes to himself before he comes up to a podium?

4: It was a new WBAR T-shirt—I'd changed into it coming back from another long meeting down at the station, and so when the woman with the strange box in her hand asked me my views on the subject outside of the 116th Street gates on Sunday afternoon, I was too distracted by the tag to notice her call the camera over. "Stop," she said as I slipped into a familiar rhythm. "Could you do that again on camera?" My friends next to me giggled. I gave my schtick again. "Great," she said. "Great. Watch for it on the NBC Nightly News. Tonight at 6:30. Maybe." I wasn't on.

5: I sat quivering in my seat in the auditorium. My hands clenched and unclenched around the tiny pencil with which I was to write out my views on the whole scenario. Behind us, in their own little pen, the media sat watching. From that distance, the clutches of cameras looked like a failed compound eye, each individual lens positioned just far enough apart to not give a picture of the whole. A friend calmly scribbled out a fantastic question on Holocaust denial, given the position of the special assistant to the Supreme Ayatollah that left no question as to the historical event's occurrence. I coughed up something about the Iranian Quds force in Iraq. Neither of our questions was asked.

6: It was Friday, going into Saturday, after the ticket-grubbing had closed. I sat sinking into a chair in a small lounge, digesting the contents of a splendid potluck extravaganza. On the TV, The Lives Of Others flickered in the dark, telling a story of courage against repression in a different time, of the power of art, and of great words. On the next couch over, a pair of guys held hands, smiling at one another. I felt my mind wander. Could this happen in Iran? Was it happening? How many men and women in Tehran were living this life, watching banned film or living banned lifestyles, in such danger?

7: This morning, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will wake up in the Hilton in Midtown, dress his usual best, and move to address the United Nations. The compound eye will finally swing away from our little slice of whatever we've got up here. Have we done well? Have we done enough? Have we done anything?

Chas Carey is a Columbia College senior majoring in
political science.
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Specopinion@columbia.edu