Holy Moses

Wow.

What a difference. The Objectivists went all out and so did the university.

I just left the MSU meeting in order to get to Davidson early enough to be sure to get a good seat. Approaching, I quickly realized this was not going to be the same type of event, for a number of reasons.

- They have metal detectors. Not the big ones...individual wands. Every inch of the body gets a once over, and I had my pants hiked up by a sedulous security guard just to make sure I wan't pulling a Richard Reid. They searched my backpack and it took five minutes of consultation with the security experts to determine whether I could bring in my longboard.

- There are more security guards here than outside Buckingham Palace...or at least more than I've seen at a USC game and that is saying something. The one closest to me in the lecture hall had to get permission from his sergeant to let me plug in my laptop. There are event staff, security staff, DPS officers, and then a bunch of vaguely intimidating (in the most lovely and loony kind of way) Objectivist club members with plastic badges.

- They are way organized here. They've got all sorts of materials from the Ayn Rand Institute and various articles free for the taking. More impressively, at the entrance table is a stack of about 500 copies of Atlas Shrugged. For free. I took two and they told me to take more. These guys are good. Real good.

- Walking into the lecture hall, the first thing you see is an enormous picture of an Islamic woman, in full burqa and headscarf (hopefully, I'm not being redundant). Oh, and she's holding a poster that says, "Freedom go to Hell." Yeah. Whoof.

- There are some antagonists in the crowd. Another alum of the Daily Trojan just walked up, operating under the tacit assumption that I was a liberal (as she described me), and let fly with a diatribe against Daniel Pipes, one of the featured speakers. Just before this she had asked me what I thought of the MSU event. I replied, "Boring." That took some fast talking to smooth over once I realized where she was coming from. Funny how people simply assume that if you're "smart and well-educated" (her words to describe me), you must be liberal.

- Attendance looks to be comparable to the MSU event, but in a larger room. Sorry, Objectivists, perhaps a little more advertising would have come in handy...though apparently there are quite a few people at the MSU event who are planning on arriving late...we'll see how that goes.

I'm taking a break to head to the loo. More later.

P.S. No pizza at the MSU event. I'm really hungry now.