Chomsky

Noam Chomsky came to give a talk on campus a few weeks ago and he is probably one of the most respected figures in this school so demand, as you can imagine was massive for a ticket. I went online 15 minutes ahead of time on the ticket request site and waited. At 10 AM on the dot the site crashed. When it came back 20 minutes later it announced that all tickets have been allocated.

Soooo.... there's this thing called the "returns queue" where you stand and hope to get a seat on the off-chance that somebody will not use their ticket. I wanted to make sure I got there in time because, well, this is Chomsky. The lecture was at 6:30 so I got to the queue at 1:00. Which was good because there was already a couple from Scotland in line in front of me! Fast forward five and a half hours and I, along with three others (including the couple), managed to get in. Some reporters hadnt showed up so my seat was amazing. Best in the house. Waiting for five + hours pays off!

The talk itself was good. Chomsky reminds you of a very old, very wise, but slightly kooky grandfather of a friend of yours. He talked about how the US (and the rest of the world) constantly ignores human rights but the highlight came when a man asked him why he didn't join their movement to expose 9/11 as a hoax set up by the US government.

His response (paraphrased): "You people need to stop sending me letters. I get thousands of letters a month from people like you. I am not an engineer nor am I an architect so why are you asking for my opinion on this? If you are asking me to take eight years out of my life to get a doctorate in building engineering so that I can give you my professional opinion, I can tell you, that's not going to happen. Send your letters, which by the way draw on evidence that no one takes seriously, to the MIT engineering department. Not to me!"