What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
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Mr Steve Wasserman, Christopher Hitchens' literary agent, kindly replied to my query about a possible memorial. Posted with permission. ...
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At reddit.com there are comments on Hitchens having breathing issues at the airport. This would explain the cancellations. Hopefully it'...
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Vanity Fair, June 2011 By Christopher Hitchens "Like so many of life’s varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of m... -
Vanity Fair | January 2012 By Christopher Hitchens When it came to it, and old Kingsley suffered from a demoralizing and disorienting fal... -
By Peter Hitchens I can’t really claim that I never notice the extraordinarily spiteful attacks on me which come from one particular qua... -
By Christopher Hitchens Ever since Tom Lehrer recorded his imperishable anti-Christmas ditty all those years ago, the small but growing... -
The iconoclast Christopher Hitchens loved life and delighted in "doing and thinking and writing all the things that he had always don... -
By Peter Hitchens How odd it is to hear of your own brother’s death on an early morning radio bulletin. How odd it is for a private loss... -
Time has come to publish the last post on this site. I've been posting links and articles for three years, and it's been great. I a...
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Vanity Fair February 2012 By Christopher Hitchens Those who study Charles Dickens, or who keep up the great cult of his admiration, h...
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4 comments:
Wonderfully fluent and heartfelt words from Simon Schama. Thankyou.
These news items all state that Mr Hitchens was killed by cancer. That doesn't seem accurate to me. From what I know he was killed by an infection, which his body couldn't resist because his immune system had been decimated by chemotherapy - which is to say that his cause of death was iatrogenic - the treatment killed him, not the disease.
Christopher Hitchens was killed by chemotherapy and pneumonia, or some combination of opportunistic ptathogens, not cancer.
Not that it matters, but I happen to have incurable tongue cancer, so I'm probably somewhat familiar with the treatment regimen Mr Hitchens endured before his passing, so please understand I'm not trying to belittle his struggle or dignity. Quite on the contrary, the bravery he showed in the face of his deteriorating health is of a piece with the rest of his life. It's heartening to see people like Schama affirm the value of his commitment to truth, the basic integrity he held that deserves respect also from those like myself who often disagreed with his opinions.
Becky, I understand from what others have written that Mr Hitchens' life was extended by the treatments, although, not to the extent the world had hoped. You describe your cancer as incurable but hopefully it can be healed.
Love the comparison to Hemingway. Two of the most brilliant writers to grace literature. Thank you, Hitch.
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