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)

The Quotable Hitchens reviewed in New Statesman

The Quotable Hitchens - from Alcohol to Zionism: the Very Best of Christopher Hitchens
Edited by Windsor Mann

"It often seems as if Christopher Hitchens has spent his life writing and speaking with a collection such as this in mind. His essays, reviews, lectures and TV appearances are distinguished by a permanent war against what Diderot called l'esprit de l'escalier, the moment when, as you leave the television studio or debating hall, the brilliant riposte you should have made a minute earlier occurs to you."

Full Review (newstatesman.com)

Mladic the Monster

Our failure to respond to the Serbian atrocities prolonged the slaughter.
By Christopher Hitchens

"I suppose it is possible that the arrest of Gen. Ratko Mladic is as undramatic and uncomplicated as it seems and that in recent years he had been off the active list and gradually became a mumbling old derelict with a rather nasty line in veterans' reminiscences. His demands would probably have been modest and few: the odd glass of slivovitz in company with a sympathetic priest (it's usually the Serbian Orthodox Church.. "

Read More (Slate)

Rockstar with a voice

UPDATE ! "Please note: due to Christopher Hitchens' health challenges, he will be participating in the debate via video link rather than in person."

https://dogwood.uwaterloo.ca/alumnievents/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=377

WATERLOO — Barry Brummett says he isn’t a rock star but Christopher Hitchens practically is. The two men are to take the stage at the Humanities Theatre at the University of Waterloo for a debate at a sold-out full house on June 4.

Debaters will address the topic: Religion, as a literary value, is a force of good. The debate will be moderated by the host of CBC Radio One’s Q, Jian Ghomeshi.

Full article (TheRecord.com)

Refutations from a Stalinist Commissar-Lookalike

This response to a response to a response to a response takes George Scialabba and Noam Chomsky to task for seemingly hasty analogies and false accusations.
By Christopher Hitchens

"George Scialabba confidently and effectively re-states the differences between Noam Chomsky and myself as they stood almost ten years ago. In my more recent article for Slate, however, I had briefly sought to bring attention to some fresh disagreements (at any rate new to me) arising from Chomsky’s comments on the killing of Osama bin Laden."

Read more (guernicamag.com)

Want To Stop Nuclear Proliferation? Encourage Democracy.

Ignore the shady people promoting sinister theories to the contrary.
By Christopher Hitchens

"It's very unpleasant to be given lectures on good behavior by the profiteers of nuclear proliferation, but if you can hold still and swallow your vomit, there are lessons to be learned from the exposure to it."
Read more (Slate)

Beaucoup B.S.

The DSK case and the silly stereotypes about American and European morals.
By Christopher Hitchens

"Why is that we cannot read any discussion of a political sex scandal, or a sex scandal involving a politician, without pseudo-sophisticated comments about the supposedly different morals of Americans and Europeans? And why is it that this goes double if the politician is French, or if the reactions being quoted are from Gallic sources?"

Read more (Slate)

The Enemy (Kindle Single) $1.99

Kindle Exclusive "..Hitchens reflects upon the life and death of Osama bin Laden in this sobering Kindle Single."

If you don't have Kindle, download free 'Kindle for PC' installer here.

Kindle also available on other various devices and platforms.


Amazon Product Description:
In a brilliant essay on the death of Osama bin Laden, Christopher Hitchens insists that the necessity to resist the threat of theocratic fanaticism is by no means cancelled. Hitchens argues that bin Laden and his adherents represented the most serious and determined and bloodthirsty attempt to revive totalitarian and racist ideology since 1945.
Read more (amazon)