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/

Hitchens on the Art of the Feud

Arts Beat NYTimes.com
By Jennifer Schuessler

" Perhaps no one has distinguished himself as a feudist in the past few decades more than Christopher Hitchens, who in an e-mail gave some helpful hints on how to start a feud — and, more important, how to keep it going. A proper feud, Mr. Hitchens wrote, requires one of at least two things: a clash of strong and recognizable personalities, and a true clash of important principle. “A really first-rate bust-up must transcend the limits of ‘an entertaining side show’ and involve playing for high moral and intellectual stakes,” he said."

Read More (NYT)

Anatomy of a Scandal

How Anthony Weiner and John Edwards lost control of their private parts.
By Christopher Hitchens

"In one of the routines from his heyday, Richard Pryor would enact the anguish experienced by a man who cannot get his male organ to rise. In this redefinition of the whole concept of standup, he ended by practically seizing the torpid member by the throat, howling plaintively, and demanding to know, "Whose dick is this?"

Read More (Slate)

Hitchens vs Brummett

TheRecord.com

Hitchens feted with standing ovation at U of W video link debate

http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/543148--hitchens-feted-with-standing-ovation-at-u-of-w-video-link-debate

Jeff Orchard at Skeptic North posts this report from the debate.
Hitchens vs. Brummett: the un-debate

"So, why am I calling it the “un-debate”? One of my hobbies is to listen to debates between religious folks and science folks. I really like it when the debaters passionately disagree, and are utterly convinced that the other is a kook. That didn’t happen tonight."

Read More: http://www.skepticnorth.com/2011/06/hitchens-vs-brummett-the-un-debate/

From Abbottabad to Worse

Vanity Fair July 2011
By Christopher Hitchens

"Hating the United States—which funds Islamabad’s army and nuclear program to the humiliating tune of $3 billion a year—Pakistan takes its twisted, cowardly revenge by harboring the likes of the late Osama bin Laden. But the hypocrisy is mutual, and the shame should be shared."

Read More (Vanity Fair)