By Christopher Hitchens
Arthur Koestler opened his polemic against capital punishment in Britain by saying that the island nation was that quaint and antique place where citizens drove on the left hand side of the road, drank warm beer, made a special eccentricity of the love of animals, and had felons “hanged by the neck until they are dead.” Those closing words—from the formula by which a capital sentence was ritually announced by a heavily bewigged judge—conveyed in their satisfyingly terminal tones much of the flavor and relish of the business of judicially inflicted death.
More: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/christopher-hitchens-staking-a-life.php?page=all
Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011) was an Anglo-American author and journalist. His books made him a prominent public intellectual and a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. He was a columnist and literary critic at Vanity Fair, Slate, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry and a variety of other media outlets. He was named one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect.

Popular Posts
-
Mr Steve Wasserman, Christopher Hitchens' literary agent, kindly replied to my query about a possible memorial. Posted with permission. ...
-
A short audio clip from the Politics and Prose event in Washington DC. As in the previous post, I've asked the uploader to post more...
-
Why is it so hard to speak honestly about allegations of sexual harassment or our corrupt ally in Afghanistan? By Christopher Hitchens T...
-
SKY ARTS 1 / HD: THU 14 APR, 10PM "Sky Arts is screening back-to-back interviews with the Hitchens brothers: writer Peter who's k...
-
Watch the debate: Does Atheism Poisons Everything with Christopher Hitchens and David Berlinski on C-SPAN2 here . Hosted by the Fixed P...
-
The Atheist Foundation of Australia is excited to announce that the next Global Atheist Convention – ‘A Celebration of Reason’ will feat...
-
By Peter Hitchens I can’t really claim that I never notice the extraordinarily spiteful attacks on me which come from one particular qua...
-
Christopher Hitchens participated in 'The Only Subject is Love' Symposium in honor of the opening of his friend Salman Rushdie's...
-
Why Evolution Is True has a great post on Hitchens encounter with 8 year old Mason, who wanted to know what books she should read. Read...

Staking a Life
September 22, 2011Posted by Tom at 15:27 6 comments
Labels: 2011, Christopher Hitchens, Death penalty, execution
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)