December 16, 2011

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

From Vanity Fair:
Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.
From the New York Times:
Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62.
I had lunch with him once kinda.

His takedowns of his intellectual (or maybe even not so intellectual) opponents were so sharp they spawned a new word - the "hitchslap."

Like this one:



Or this one:




Or these:



The world is a little darker today.

3 comments:

  1. You forgot Islamophobe. I would have thought being a Iraq war supporter
    and pissing off Dayvoe's favorite "News source" Media Matters would make him Persona non grata here.
    RIP

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  2. I am have to say I was never more than ambivalent about Christopher Hitchens. His pro-war, pro-Bush views were very troubling to me. They were almost enough for me to question his judgement on all issues.

    I mean, we should take opinions and arguments individually and on their own. But you wonder about the hidden agenda of source of arguments when some of their views are questionable at best.

    HTTT has a point.

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  3. Hey Ed ditto, but i agreed with him on Bush and War and wondered why with everything else!!

    ReplyDelete