Spike Lee vs Daniel Taub

Type those names into Google (or Bing, but who the hell uses that unless you still use Microsoft IE and haven't changed the default?). Anyway, I doubt there are any results with both of those names in it. My point is, I went to see both speak this week knowing they were very different. I knew their respective presentations would be much different. I could not have imagined what I got though.

Spike Lee at Burt Kahn Court was pretty much full. The Black Student Union promoted like crazy, and it was a requirement for a lot of classes, mine included. If it wasn't, I would have been at Taylor Mali..that's for a different post though. Spike was so boring. So uninspiring. So cliche. So dumb. I was expecting something really off the wall. Something to provoke like Spike does. Instead his lecture sounded like a bunch of stuff you could read off of inspirational posters in your high school guidance councilor's office. His Q&A was a bit better, and everybody's mood seemed to be saved by his impersonation of Michael Jackson's voice and by the hilarious back and forth with the kid who asked to sit with him at the Knicks game the next day. Still, it was a waste of an evening.

Daniel Taub, the Principal Deputy Legal Adviser of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, talked to a room of about 40 people. About 15 of them were students. About 5 of them were undergraduate students. Not only was the talk less abstract, but had a clear direction, less cockiness in its delivery, and more weight in its message. It was a shame less of the Quinnipiac community was in attendance for it. Mr. Taub often represents the Israeli government on United States national media outlets as well as representing Israel in various negotiations with Palestine. As an interested party in international human rights law, United State and Israeli policy, and government at large, I got way more out of the Daniel Taub talk.

I'm still not sure how I feel about a certain point of Spike's talk. He said by 2035 the US census bureau predicts while Americans will no longer a majority race compared to all other races in the US. Okay, all well and good. Just a fact that shouldnt really cause a reaction of any sort from a person unless they saw life through a racial lens before all else. The BSU cheered.