Hitch 22 up for Orwell Prize

March 31, 2011 - Katie Allen

"Titles on feminism, New Labour and the life and times of Christopher Hitchens have been longlisted for the 2011 Orwell Prize for political writing. The announcement was made at an event on Wednesday [30th March].

Eighteen titles including Natasha Walters' Living Dolls (Virago), Whatever It Takes: The Real Story of Gordon Brown and New Labour by Steve Richards (Fourth Estate) and Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens (Atlantic) are all longlisted for the £3,000 book prize." 

Read More http://www.thebookseller.com/news/forensic-and-furious-books-orwell-prize.html

The Iraq Effect

If Saddam Hussein were still in power, this year's Arab uprisings could never have happened.
By Christopher Hitchens

"The most heartening single image of the past month—eclipsing even the bravery and dignity of the civilian fighters against despotism in Syria and Libya—was the sight of Hoshyar Zebari arriving in Paris to call for strong action against the depraved regime of Col. Muammar Qaddafi."

Read More (Slate)

Diary

By Jeremy Harding

"I heard a few bars of Chris Corner’s song ‘I Salute You Christopher’ a day or so before the new IAMX album, Volatile Times, was released. The song, which appears on the album, is subtitled ‘Ode to Christopher Hitchens’:
I salute you Christopher
I salute your life
How you played the dice …

Read More (London Review of Books)

The song is on YouTube..

Godless in Tumourville: Christopher Hitchens interview

By Mick Brown, 25 Mar 2011

"Writing in his memoirs, Hitch-22, of the numerous perils that he has faced as a reporter around the globe in places as various as Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and Beirut, Christopher Hitchens reflects that a little danger or discomfort can be a salutary thing: 'I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.’

 Read More (The Telegraph)

The Quotable Christopher Hitchens

By WSJ Staff

"Speakeasy has been entertaining ourselves the last few days by leafing through a new book that landed on our desk: “The Quotable Christopher Hitchens.” As the subtitle — “From Alcohol to Zionism” — suggests, there are few subjects that Hitch hasn’t addressed in his long career, mostly with trademark acid wit. The book will be published in May. Here’s a sampler."

Read More (Speakeasy - Wall Street Journal)

Don't Let Qaddafi Win

Ignore the "realists." If we do nothing, the situation in Libya can only get worse.
By Christopher Hitchens


"...Qaddafi senior has reached his Ceausescu moment: a full-dress (in the literal sense) meltdown into paranoia, megalomania, and delusion. His recent speeches and appearances have shown him stinking with madness and hysteria. His age and condition, at any rate, set a very sharp limit to the duration of his regime."
Read More (Slate)

American Inaction Favors Qaddafi

The administration's inadequate response to the crisis in Libya reveals a lack of courage and principle.

By Christopher Hitchens

"Our common speech contains numberless verbs with which to describe the infliction of violence or cruelty or brutality on others. It only really contains one common verb that describes the effect of violence or cruelty or brutality on those who, rather than suffering from it, inflict it. That verb is the verb to brutalize"

Read More (Slate)

What I Don’t See at the Revolution

By Christopher Hitchens

"When anatomizing revolutions, it always pays to consult the whiskered old veterans. Those trying to master a new language, wrote Karl Marx about the turmoil in France in the 19th century, invariably begin haltingly, by translating it back into the familiar tongue they already know. And with his colleague Friedrich Engels he defined a revolution as the midwife by whom the new society is born from the body of the old."

Read More (Vanity Fair)

Outspoken and outrageous: Christopher Hitchens

(CBS News) Steve Kroft profiles Vanity Fair columnist, author and public intellectual Christopher Hitchens, for whom nothing is off-limits when making his wry and often outrageous observations, including the cancer he is suffering from.

For main segment and web extras:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/06/60minutes/main20038931.shtml?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

Hitchens feared cancer could stop his writing

The interview will be broadcasted on "60 Minutes" Sunday, March 6 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/04/60minutes/main20038931.shtml

Don’t Mess With Wisconsin

By Christopher Hitchens

"The governor of Wisconsin evidently speaks in a more unbuttoned fashion than usual when he thinks he is talking to David Koch. Hoaxed into believing that it was the libertarian moneybags on the line, Scott Walker allowed the actual caller (a near-incredulous Ian Murphy of BuffaloBeast.com) to ask him about the possible use of agents provocateurs to discredit the union protestors in the capital of his state:"

 Read More (Vanity Fair)

Our Man in Pakistan

The dreadful treatment of Raymond Davis is a reminder of how dysfunctional our relationship with Pakistan has become.
By Christopher Hitchens

"In April 2001, a Pakistani diplomat—the first secretary of the Pakistani Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal, as a matter of fact—was found by the Nepalese police to be stashing a large cache of sophisticated high explosives in his home. Muhammad Arshad Cheema invoked diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution and, after a short interval, was sent home"
Read More http://www.slate.com/id/2286722/

Dialogue with civility: Religion and God

Colorado State University

The debate over religion and its impact on society
Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza will engage each other in a rousing debate about religion and their respective thoughts on the consequences of religious faith on society. The world renowned authors will discuss their viewpoints on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 in the Lory Student Center Main Ballrooms at 7 p.m.

More Info: http://events.colostate.edu/event_view.asp?EID=34503&ID=7&cTYPE=1&month=4&year=2011&cate

The Great Faith Debate - Hitchens vs D'Souza

Feb 16, 2011. Christopher Hitchens debated Dinesh D'Souza at Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for the Arts. 

KGO Newstalk AM810:

"We are airing the Great Faith Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza that was held last Wednesday to a full house at the Lesher Center for the Arts. The only editing of this exchange was for its public broadcast, and this included the removal of all inappropriate terminology. Apart from that, the entire discussion is presented for the first time on radio during the final two hours of “God Talk” this Sunday. For each segment I (moderator Brent Walters) will supply the atmosphere and behind the scenes setting and will close with my overall impression of the debate."

Listen/download the debate on archive.org:

http://www.archive.org/details/TheGreatFaithDebate-ChristopherHitchensVsDineshDsouza