Photos by Brooks Kraft

Set of pictures taken earlier this year by photographer Brooks Kraft.

http://brookskraft.photoshelter.com/gallery/Christopher-Hitchens/G0000066he0LB6TQ

Boat People

Some questions for the "activists" aboard the Gaza flotilla.
By Christopher Hitchens

"The tale of the Gaza "flotilla" seems set to become a regular summer feature, bobbing along happily on the inside pages with an occasional update. A nice sidebar for reporters covering the Greek debt crisis: a built-in mild tension of "will they, won't they?"; a cast of not very colorful characters but one we almost begin to feel we know personally. Such cheery and breezy slogans—"The Audacity of Hope" and "Free Gaza"—and such an easy storyline that it practically writes itself."

Read More (Slate)

1968 was an ending and not a beginning.

Hay Festival 2008, Sunday 25 May.
John Walsh chairs. Speakers include Rosie Boycott, Christopher Hitchens and Matthew Engel.
In 4 parts
 

The Rights of Man

Hay Festival 2006.
"The contrarian traces the history of The Rights of Man from the publication of Part One in 1791 in London and its rapturous reception across the Atlantic. He analyses the meaning it has acquired since its creation, and its significance as the cornerstone of contemporary debates about our basic human rights."
In 4 parts.
   

Christopher Hitchens talks to Phil Maynard about his biography of Thomas Paine, Iraq, and US politics: books.guardian.co.uk

Has Bachmann Met Her Waterloo?

The old parochialism meets the not-so-new isolationism in Michele Bachmann.
By Christopher Hitchens

"That was actually three dripping custard pies, rather than just the one, with which Rep. Michele Bachmann assailed her own face by bragging to Fox News about her small-town Iowa roots. Having hymned the incomparable Dairy Queen and Wonder Bread facilities boasted by the sturdy small town of her girlhood, she went on to claim that "John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa," adding, "That's the kind of spirit that I have, too."

Read More (Slate)

Christopher Hitchens Hay Festival 2008

Part 1


Part 2-4


Hitchens talks religion at Hay in 2008, with Q and A.

Christopher Hitchens talks to Ian McEwan 2007

Hay Festival 2006: Carter, Hitchens and Younge

I'll be posting older material in coming days, to expand the archive.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, Christopher Hitchens and the Guardian’s US correspondent Gary Younge discuss US foreign policy at Hay Festival 2006.
 

Think Inc 2011 Reminder

Tickets still available for the Think Inc. Science and Rationalism Conference in Melbourne, Australia. September 18, 2011.

More Info:
http://www.thinkinc.org.au/
http://www.facebook.com/ThinkIncConference
 

Atheist Convention to present Christopher Hitchens with Richard Dawkins award

"At the Atheist Alliance of America (AAA) Convention, held in conjunction with the Texas Freethought Convention, AAA will present the 2011 Richard Dawkins Award to Christopher Hitchens for his outstanding contributions to freethought. The convention, with a theme of “From Grassroots to Global Impact”, will be held from October 7-9, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston, Texas."

Read More (godlessgradstudent.wordpress.com)

Byliner - Discover & discuss great reads by great writers

Byliner.com Goes Live, Providing Readers with Deep, Rich Archives of the Finest in Nonfiction Storytelling.

"Wouldn’t it be great to have the best stories by Susan Orlean, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Lewis, Mary Roach, E.B. White, Mark Bowden, and hundreds of other nonfiction writers from the past 100 years available on one website? Now there is such a website: Byliner.com."

Read More (Business Wire)

141 articles by Christopher Hitchens.

David Mamet’s Right-Wing Conversion

Sunday Book Review - The New York Times
By Christopher Hitchens

"This is an extraordinarily irritating book, written by one of those people who smugly believe that, having lost their faith, they must ipso facto have found their reason. In order to be persuaded by it, you would have to be open to propositions like this: “Part of the left’s savage animus against Sarah Palin is attributable to her status not as a woman, neither as a Conservative, but as a Worker.”

Read More (nytimes.com)

The Real Mahatma Gandhi

Questioning the moral heroism of India’s most revered figure.
By Christopher Hitchens

"JOSEPH LELYVELD SUBTLY tips his hand in his title. The word Mahatma (often employed in ordinary journalistic usage without any definite article, as if it were Mohandas Gandhi’s first name) is actually the Sanskrit word for “Great Soul.” It is a religio-spiritual honorific, to be assumed or awarded only by acclaim, and it achieved most of its currency in the West by association with Madame Blavatsky’s somewhat risible “Theosophy” movement.."

Read More (The Atlantic)

The Last of the Scholar Warriors

Farewell to Patrick Leigh Fermor and his extraordinary generation.
By Christopher Hitchens

"The death of Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor at the age of 96, commemorated in many obituaries as the end of a celebrated travel writer, in fact rings down the final curtain on an extraordinary group of British irregular warriors whose contribution to the defeat of Hitler, significant in military terms, still managed to recall an age when nobility and even chivalry were a part of warfare."

Read More http://www.slate.com/id/2296835/