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Christopher Hitchens interviewed ‘In Confidence’: Relevant and controversial to the end
08.12.2013
03:28 pm
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Christopher Hitchens was a prisoner of chemotherapy, when he gave this interview in 2011. As Hitchens explains, the worst part of his treatment for cancer of the oesophagus was the effect of “chemo brain,” where a mental fog impeded his reading and stopped him writing—which was intolerable as writing was central to his sense of self. Moreover, Hitchens adds with typical aplomb, he feared “chemo brain” made him boring.

Hitchens was rarely boring, and here, the writer, polemicist and broadcaster gives a good account of his life, career, politics and values to Laurie Taylor, for his series In Confidence. Even in the midst of his chemotherapy, Hitchens had lost none of his combativeness or desire to settle old scores.

“I hate the idea that somebody like Henry Kissinger is what, well into his 80s now, or Pope Benedict likewise, would live long enough to read my obituary when I had fully intended to be writing theirs and I make no bones about it. That’s why I don’t ask for sympathy because I’m not intending to dish it out.”

Hitchens died in December 2011, and while it is inevitable to say how much he is dearly missed, etc, I note that since his death, his writing has received a wider readership than it did during his lifetime. With this in mind, it is worth considering that rather than continuing to bewail the loss of such a great journalist and polemicist, it may be worth looking to those who are alive and writing today.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.12.2013
03:28 pm
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Christopher Hitchens staring down death: Interview on Australian TV
11.19.2010
10:35 pm
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I’ve always thought highly of Christopher Hitchens even when I’ve disagreed with him. As he deals with his own mortality, I now find him not only brilliant and witty, I find him inspirational. In this interview broadcast the other night on Australian TV, Hitchens discusses living (and perhaps dying) with cancer and his evolution as a thinker. Even with death lurking over his shoulder, Hitchens displays an amazing clarity of mind and fearlessness - a warrior.
 

 

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.19.2010
10:35 pm
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Hitch-22: The Christopher Hitchens Memoir
06.02.2010
03:32 pm
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Pot-stirrer par excellence—and Mother Teresa foeChristopher Hitchens, has a new memoir out.  For a man who seems to embrace his fair share of contradictory impulses, it’s titled, fittingly, Hitch-22, and just received a heap of praise in today’s New York Times:

Anyone who’s closely read Mr. Hitchens’s work—including his best-selling manifesto God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything—or seen him do battle on cable news programs, knows that he has a mind like a Swiss Army knife, ready to carve up or unbolt an opponent’s arguments with a flick of the wrist.  He holds dear the serious things, the things that matter: social justice, learning, direct language, the free play of the mind, loyalty, holding public figures to high standards.  His mental Swiss Army knife also contains, happily, a corkscrew.  Mr. Hitchens is devoted to wit and bawdy wordplay and to good Scotch and cigarettes (though he has recently quit smoking) and long nights spent talking.

Vanity Fair’s carrying a lengthy excerpt from Hitch-22.  In it, Hitchens recounts his friendship with Martin Amis and describes a typically cryptic telephone encounter with Thomas Pynchon.  And for a look at what topics might pop up during a long night with Hitchens, here’s a clip that touches on 22 of ‘em:

 
Bonus: Hitchens discusses Hitch-22 on ABC radio Part I, Part II

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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06.02.2010
03:32 pm
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Christopher Hitchens vs. Ratzinger
03.28.2010
04:04 pm
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Excellent clip of Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher taking a welding torch to the Catholic Church’s current policy on dealing with molester priests.

The Catholic Church is in serious trouble and may have nowhere to run, depending on who you ask.

“I warned them about all of this,” declared author Christopher Hitchens, appearing on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night. “Nothing good can come of a church that has as its’ slogan, ‘Leave no child’s behind.’ And then they went and chose as pope the man who was personally responsible, in his dioceses, and institutionally responsible for the cover-up. So now, there’s no escape.”

The child rape scandals that have savaged Catholic ranks for years starting in the United States, then flaring up in Ireland, Germany, Italy and other locations around the world, have finally come to implicate Pope Benedict XVI, according to recent reports.

At time of this writing, the most recent scandal flare-up involved a school for the deaf in Wisconsin, where up to 200 boys were molested by a man whom Hitchens said “was allowed to walk free and was buried with full honors as a priest.”

(Raw Story: Christopher Hitchens vs. Pope)

(Christopher Hitchens: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything)

Posted by Jason Louv
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03.28.2010
04:04 pm
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Hitchens on J.G. Ballard
01.13.2010
11:06 pm
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Wonderful short essay from Christopher Hitchens, writing about British novelist J.G. Ballard on the occasion of the publication of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard.

From The Atlantic:

For all that, Ballard is arguably best-known to a wide audience because of his relatively ?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.13.2010
11:06 pm
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Fry and Hitchens Slam the Church
12.02.2009
03:04 pm
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Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry absolutely scathingly slammed the sins of the Church at the Intelligence?Ǭ? talks. See resources below.

Here’s a good discussion thread about the talk.

And here’s the whole conference, via Richard Dawkins.

(Previously on Dangerous Minds: Canonizing Sinead O’Connor, Catholic Church Covered up Child Sexual Abuse for 30 Years.)

 

Posted by Jason Louv
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12.02.2009
03:04 pm
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Christopher Hitchens’ Collision With God
10.28.2009
02:00 pm
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Pot-stirring, hell, pot-smashing, author and journalist Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice) muses in Slate this week on what he’s “learned from debating religious people around the world.”  Typical for Hitchens, “Faith No More” is a nice balance of lucidity and venom.  But it’s also gracious to his current sparring partner, Pastor Douglas Wilson, a senior fellow at New St. Andrew’s College:

Wilson isn’t one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just “metaphors.”  He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God.  He doesn’t waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering?

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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10.28.2009
02:00 pm
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