RIP Christopher Hitchens

hope i'm still alive when all the ribald tales of that rascally lush and inveterate bon vivant glenn greenwald show up in his obits.

The most hilarious photo in Hitch-22 is of our hero and a few Kurds lighting celebratory cigarettes after the US invasion, as if this was the point.

― Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, December 18, 2011 3:35 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

lol

oh jesus

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/12/christopher_hitchens_death_he_taught_katie_roiphe_that_provocation_is_fun_.html

ugh of course

pareene OTM

feel like it could b a fun project to define "roiphe." is it "gargling balls?" "licking boots, at payless shoes?" we could put the agreed upon definition on urban dictionary

why is it that every time I encounter something written by Katie Roiphe my main takeaway is "this is one of the worst people in the world"

i think it's because you are literate

lol

you nice liberals are so literal-minded. she's just a provocateur! isn't it fun?

She claims Hitchens drank last July, but he said several times that he gave up drinking; he'd lost the taste for it.

http://imnotatoy.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/w5bcn.gif?w=500

good katha pollitt remembrance bit.ly/tjCN5l

TNC grapples with Hitchens' support for Iraq.

Nevertheless, I think Glenn's frame is wrong. Virtues don't excuse sins; they cohabit with them. Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder. Perhaps worse he was a slaveholder who comprehended, more than any other, the moral failing of slavery, and it's potential to bring the country to war, and yet at the end of his life he argued for slavery's expansion, and on his death many of his slaves were sent to the auction block.

At his end, Jefferson sided with those who would eventually bring about the deaths of 600,000 Americans. He argued that the antebellum South would have either "justice" versus "self-preservation." To paraphrase Churchill, it chose the latter and consequently got neither. But Jefferson was a beautiful writer, and a great intellect, whose thinking and prose I consistently find stunning. This admiration does not negate his moral cowardice. Both are true at the same time. (The same point could be made in regards to our conversation over Elizabeth Cady Stanton.)

Given Hitchens own ties to this magazine, of which I'm very fond, I'd like to say that--at least in this space--there's no demand for exclusion, or any sense that Hitchens worthy of unalloyed admiration. No one should ever receive, or wisely desire, such a thing. I can't really speak for other people, but I don't believe in an essential, irreducible moral nature. I don't see Hitchens, or anyone else, as a case of either/or.

pollitt's piece is good. it's kind of a trip for me to imagine them interacting irl.

What I saw was that drinking made him angry and combative and bullying, often toward people who were way out of his league—elderly guests on the Nation cruise, interns (especially female interns).

post graduate level zing

really who dreamed up this idea of a cruise as fundraiser for a political magazine

just imagining it is so strange and horrible

there should be a short story where it's really some kind of bait and switch and they've all joined the navy reserve or an oil shipping line or something

shanghaied to write spam for the russian mob

I voted for him twice, and I wouldn't want to be at sea w/ Ralph Nader (esp if Jim Hightower was also around)

what u voted twice for ralph nader how has this fact never come out on ilx before???

jk :)

morbs and nader bunked together in the navy how has this fact never come out on ilx before???

haha

i just cannot stop imagining a soused hitchen screaming at a tableful of old lefties just tryna enjoy their chicken a la king and then flipping the table and storming off in disgust

its really amazing

katha pollit clucking in the background

chainsmoking in his cabin angrily writing out a 1200-word screed about the variety show

threatening to quit if pollitt doesnt publish it immediately, on board the ship

puking over the side of the deck while his intern holds his hair

trying to charm an indifferent waitress with a story about dodging a militia in lebanon and then barfing over the side

xp lool

really who dreamed up this idea of a cruise as fundraiser for a political magazine

http://media.salon.com/2010/07/pollster_scott_rasmussen_to_speak_on_national_review_cruise_for_free-460x307.jpg

haha goole

I'm pretty sure couscous is favored over chicken a la king on The Nation cruise.

also Richard Dreyfuss was on it a couple years ago

why was Richard Dreyfuss on some couscous?

Dan crunches on indefinite pronounds like cornflakes.

RICHARD DREYFUSS OVER A BED OF COUSCOUS JOIN US NATION MAGAZINE CRUISE 2012

*pronouns

btw I hate to tell u this year's returned to port yesterday

http://www.nationcruise.com/

lol at puking while an intern holds his hair

http://nearemmaus.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/hitch.jpg?w=690

omg he rode a folding bike, it all makes sense now

he was recreating Lenin's arrival at Finland Station.

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/i_knew_christopher_hitchens_better_than_you/singleton/#comments

Not as funny as I wanted it to be.

still pretty funny

The first time I saw him, he had a bird on each arm and a woman by his side.

Sometimes the cheap laughs are the best.

http://overratedwhitedudes.tumblr.com/post/14311784932/more-lucid-than-the-average-mean-spirited-drunk

overrated tumblr whites

Ron Jeremy? come on, bro.