Dr. Hans Blix...and other celeb lectures.....

Dr. Hans Blix spoke at UCI, as part of the Chancellor's Distinguished Fellows Series.

This was one lecture I wouldnt have missed, especially having missed the lecture by Jose-Maria Aznar a few weeks ago. Happened to hear about the Blix lecture over lunch, so went for it with VR (no RM, that one's not in Irvine - somewhere else in the US!). Was uncanny, coz just this morning I read Sunil's post on the Top-10 things about being a graduate student in the US, and one of the things he had listed was the fact that we could "attend brilliant, informative seminars anywhere on campus".

I have attended seminars/lectures by quite a few interesting (and eminent folks) here at UCI. The best ones were His Holiness The Dalai Lama, and Dr. James Watson. His Holiness has a boyish charm, that is kinda disarming. I hold him in very high regard- after all he's an amazing person, a Nobel Winner, a father figure to this people, and a whole lot more.....

Dr. Watson ofcourse is a bit of joker - the eccentric absent-minded scientist. The meeting was sort-of informal, so maybe he wasnt too serious.

Dr. Blix is one of the most erudite speakers I have listened to. I dont know how well folks remember him, but he was the top weapons inspector for the UN and pressed the case for NOT going to war in Iraq on the basis of the faulty intelligence. But then we know what's happened.

Although the talk was about serious stuff - "Controlling Weapons of Mass Destruction - Lessons from Iraq", he interspersed it with quite a few jokes. I was surprised to hear that the US intelligence agencies actually wiretapped the offices and homes of Dr. Blix as well as those of his colleagues, for whatever reasons! He lamented the fact that if only the intelligence agencies were used for the right purposes! A fair bit of the lecture was devoted to elucidating on how to avoid a nuclear flare-up in Iran and North Korea by using carrots instead of sticks. He spoke about the usual suspects like the NPT, the 5 nuclear powers, India-Pak, AQK et al.

My friend Aida happened to ask Dr. Blix a question about the implications of the carrot-approach. He responded jocularly, referring to how Gaddafi had become a "good boy" in the eyes of the US, now that he had come clean on his nuclear program and had turned over stuff to the US. And he hoped that those in question also become "good boys" in the near future!

Overall he (just like all of us) hopes that things dont really get out of hand. But then I doubt either of the two contingencies that might arise would be an attractive proposition, as it's just a black hole for GWB. It's just that sometimes a one-track mind leads to a mess. We all know the truth...or so we think....

All in all a very interesting day....

So that's that.....


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