… and you have to wonder if it’s despite – or because of – the outcry against his appearances across the country. Of course, that’s not to suggest the right-wing comedian/showman/political agitator has to rely on the kind of paid ringers who used to picket racy movies in the old days to lure a bigger audience. Milo Yiannopoulos is his own best advance man and probably knows it.

His reputation precedes him, endearing him to the right, infuriating the left and pretty much guaranteeing him a sellout crowd. Controversy is his schtick, as we were reminded when ColoradoPolitics.com’s Joey Bunch first reported last month that the gay Yiannopoulos’s “Dangerous Faggot Tour” was coming to Colorado.

He had faced by-now-ritual opposition from assorted student groups prior to his standup routine Wednesday night at the University of Colorado at Boulder; there even were some arrests at the event. The campus crowd has been just as divided at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in anticipation of his appearance there tonight.

As in Boulder, student activists in the Springs have been demanding that the appearance be canceled. As The Gazette in Colorado Springs reports today, though:

Following a shooting of a protester during Yiannopoulos’ appearance at the University of Washington last Friday, UCCS Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak said in an email to students this week that university officials have “heard from many people again asking us to cancel.”

“As a public institution, the University of Colorado respects freedom of speech, and we may not refuse Yiannopoulos an opportunity to speak when a student group has invited him to campus,” Shockley-Zalabak said. “We have consistently said that Yiannopoulos does not represent the University of Colorado’s ideals, and we will continue to denounce his tactics.”

Read the Gazette’s full report for more on that. And for more on the phenomenon of Yiannopoulos himself, check out Bunch’s December story; here’s that link again.