DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: Is Israel Oppressing the Palestinians? (plus: Hitler and karaoke!)

Two things: karaoke on Aug. 5 and an important debate on Aug. 13.

FIRST: Join me — and friendly ex Koli (whose birthday, like mine, is this week) — for karaoke at Iggy’s Karaoke, on Second Ave. between 75th and 76th St., tomorrow (Aug. 5), arriving at 8pm to claim tables to more easily sing when the karaoke starts at 9pm. I promise I’ll be there throughout and, DJ willing, will try at least a song or two I haven’t done before.

SECOND: Join me next week on Wednesday, Aug. 13 (8pm) as I host and Michel Evanchik moderates a Debate at Lolita Bar (basement level, 266 Broome St. at Allen St. on the Lower East Side, one block south and three west of the Delancey St. subway stop) on the crucial question:

“Is Israel Oppressing the Palestinians?”

YES: Muhammed Rum, creator of the film Jihad!
NO: Pam Geller, blogger at AtlasShrugs Hannah Meyers, formerly of the John Faso campaign, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and the Hudson Institute.

As Don’t Mess with the Zohan put it: they’ve been fighting for thousands of years in the Middle East, so it can’t be too much longer. Don’t miss the night we settle the issue once and for all.

And getting back to the topic of birthdays: today is Obama’s forty-seventh. I don’t know if he does karaoke, precisely, but, in a similar vein, it’s increasingly obvious he does self-aggrandizing demagoguery and should not be president. I’m sticking to my Bob Barr protest vote, as may some pivotal Ron Paul fans in key Western states, it appears. In any case, our problems are too deep to be settled by one election, and the time has come for radicalism — intellectual, not violent — and for focusing on deep changes over the long haul, I think.

Here’s an interesting strategic thought: Forget about the self-identified, pure-libertarian movement for a moment and ask yourself, “What if all the disaffected Republicans followed Bob Barr’s lead and defected to the Libertarian Party, even if they didn’t share all its beliefs?”

I know the LP purists would go berserk, but in the long run, I think it’d be a momentous positive development for the country. And the purists could look upon it as a massive teaching opportunity. If you can’t make converts out of people who’ve just flocked to your own party, after all, who can you convert? Welcome the disaffected and questioning with open arms, I say.

P.S. Alternatively, we can keep hoping for reform and improved efficiency from government — you know, government, that entity that hired a sociopathic man with a history since his grad school days of “homicidal threats, actions, plans” to be a high-level anthrax biodefense researcher? Yeah, that’s the entity that’ll fix the world and make society better by being smarter and more altruistic than the rest of us, you betcha. Us libertarians, by contrast, is craaaaaazy.

P.P.S. Evanchik discovered Iggy’s, by the way, despite its proximity to my own apartment — and it’s got a perfect stage and space with multiple lyrics monitors, restaurant-type booths, and a big fat song list.

Even my one gripe — that I didn’t find Peter Murphy’s “Cuts You Up” on the list — is probably something I should be grateful for, since if I’d found the song the last time I went there (with Evan Isaac, who also suggested this month’s debate topic, not to be confused with Evanchik), my perfectly innocent plan was to introduce the song as one by “my favorite Turkey-dwelling convert to Islam,” which might well have gotten me lynched by what turned out to be a bar full of rather ornery Armenians (who were still preferable to frat guys singing off key, I should add). One of them was even offended by Evan’s suggestion that Hitler was coldly dismissive of the Armenian genocide, the first time in my life I’ve encountered someone who wanted to be on Hitler’s good side.

Safer tomorrow to dedicate another performance of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” to all the libertarians and Canadians in the hizzouse, perhaps.