The Measure of a Man

Anyone who's read this site for any length of time knows how I feel about Christopher Hitchens -- and just about everyone understood once his cancer diagnosis was made public that it was only a matter of time before we had to say goodbye to him. Today, unfortunately, is that day.

There's an almost comical irony to the fact that I can't even begin to find the words to properly explain the indelible mark that Hitchens's brilliance, fearlessness, and all-around larger-than-life presence has left on the world around him over the last six decades -- the irony being that those very words would likely come easily to him, and did, right up to the end. He lived his life with a kind of conviction few of us could muster, turning an intellect so virgorous that one would normally imagine it as a cold and sterile instrument into a weapon of pure human passion. He regularly challenged the expectations and sensibilities of even his fiercest defenders, forcing them, as he did everyone else, to accept that the mark of a truly exceptional mind was the willingness to not simply break with conventional wisdom but to sometimes angrily turn against the opinions of your idols. Put simply: Hitchens never expected you to agree with him all the time, even if you were someone who admired the way his brain worked and reveled in his ability to bring that genius to the page; on the contrary, he'd probably think quite a bit less of you if you did.

Sometimes it felt like he argued simply for the sake of arguing, but he was never some grotesque and gratuitous provocateur, pushing buttons in the hope of drawing attention that would be its own reward; his militant intelligence, scalpel wit and irrepressible tongue never felt self-serving. What Hitch was doing -- always doing -- was flexing a muscle so fucking powerful that, like the many other unabashedly human impulses he exhibited, not even he himself could completely control it.

In the end, Christopher Hitchens was something few of us can claim to be -- a completely honest man. Honest in his beliefs. His faults. His vices. Intellectually honest. And what he may be remembered best for: honest in his willingness to voraciously live the one and only life he knew he had.

Here's to you, Hitch.

Vanity Fair: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens/12.15.11

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"I love how this Canadian official, to disparage Amnesty, cites the criticisms of war zealot Christopher Hitchens."

-- Glenn Greenwald, tweeting a link to a story in Politico about a push by Amnesty International to have George W. Bush arrested

Greenwald cranks out a dozen or so of these kinds of tweets a day -- always smug and sarcastic, always dripping with prickish piety. Generally, they're not even worth the two seconds it takes to read them.

But when a pseudo-intellectual drama queen like Greenwald has the galactic balls to punch way above his weight class by attacking a Christopher Hitchens -- well that constitutes a moment of pure, lovely schadenfreude. First of all, the fact that Greenwald chooses to go after Hitchens while conveniently leaving out the other person cited in the article who takes issue with Amnesty -- that would be the brilliant Salman Rushdie -- shows his almost comical level of intellectual dishonesty. Second, there's nothing -- and I mean nothing -- I'd more enjoy seeing than Christopher Fucking Hitchens debating the insolent zilch that is Glenn Greenwald and ripping him to shreds.

By the way, I'd love to see George W. Bush and pretty much the rest of his administration hauled before the Hague, but I'm not arrogant enough to make my argument by denigrating a guy who's a hell of a lot smarter and more respected than I'll ever be.

Quote of the Day

"It used to madden me, back in 2001, when craven commentators were so fond of saying that even if bin Laden was killed, many more jihadists would ‘spring up in his place’. This weak fatalism ignores many things, not least the effect of jihad in recruiting brave Americans to the side of resistance. I know several people who immediately gave up a great deal to join the armed services. Matt Pottinger, for example, finished watching the obscene video of the butchering of Daniel Pearl and left his job at the Wall Street Journal to join the Marines. He later helped sponsor an all-female unit within the Corps, trained to work with Afghan women. He was radicalised: this process is not a one-way street. Look at the calibre and humour and bravery of the Seals, and ask yourself if the sadistic riff-raff of the suicide-murder faction have anything to compare with them."

-- Christopher Hitchens

Nothing in His Life Became Him Like the Leaving It

Once again, I cannot even begin to describe how much darker a place the world will be without this man in it.

Quote of the Day

"If I had decided to shame the British authorities on Iraq in 1976, I would have accepted the challenge to see them in court or otherwise face the consequences. I couldn't have expected to help myself to secret documents, make myself a private arbiter of foreign policy, and disappear or retire on the proceeds. All you need to know about Assange is contained in the profile of him by the great John F. Burns and in his shockingly thuggish response to it. The man is plainly a micro-megalomaniac with few if any scruples and an undisguised agenda. As I wrote before, when he says that his aim is 'to end two wars,' one knows at once what he means by the 'ending.' In his fantasies he is probably some kind of guerrilla warrior, but in the real world he is a middle man and peddler who resents the civilization that nurtured him. This Monday, in two separate news reports, the New York Times described his little cabal as an 'anti-secrecy' and 'whistle-blowing' outfit. Such mush-headed approval at least can be withheld from the delightful Julian, even as we all help ourselves to his mart of ill-gotten goods."

-- Christopher Hitchens on Julian Assange

Hitchens's piece in Slate ran late yesterday; this morning Julian Assange is in fact under arrest after turning himself in to police in London. Although hitting him with admittedly trumped-up sex crime charges is even more guileful than charging Al Capone with tax evasion.

Quote of the Day

"I ask myself if the world in which I have worked for so many decades -- the intersecting and overlapping world of the news media, publishing, the academy, and the think-tank industry -- is even imaginable without the presence of liberal American Jews. The answer is plainly no. Moreover, I can't think of any other 'minority' of which this is remotely true. (Rick Sanchez) didn't descend into saying that there was Jewish control of the media, but he did imply that liberalism was linked to a single ethnicity... there is nothing criminal about this."

-- Christopher Hitchens, defending Rick Sanchez

You know, more than anything else, now I know Sanchez has arrived. What I'd give to have Christopher Hitchens even know who the hell I was, much less be an advocate for me.

Save a Prayer

From Chrisopher Hitchens's ongoing series of pieces on his battle with cancer, this particular one dealing with much of the -- often unsurprisingly illiterate -- commentary from those among the religious faithful who believe that his disease is some sort of punishment from a vengeful god for his outspoken atheism:

"There are numerous passages in holy scripture and religious tradition that for centuries made this kind of gloating into a mainstream belief. Long before it concerned me particularly I had understood the obvious objections. First, which mere primate is so damn sure that he can know the mind of god? Second, would this anonymous author want his views to be read by my unoffending children, who are also being given a hard time in their way, and by the same god? Third, why not a thunderbolt for yours truly, or something similarly awe-inspiring? The vengeful deity has a sadly depleted arsenal if all he can think of is exactly the cancer that my age and former “lifestyle” would suggest that I got. Fourth, why cancer at all? Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: it’s an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia. Devout persons have died young and in pain. Bertrand Russell and Voltaire, by contrast, remained spry until the end, as many psychopathic criminals and tyrants have also done. These visitations, then, seem awfully random. While my so far uncancerous throat, let me rush to assure my Christian correspondent above, is not at all the only organ with which I have blasphemed …And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it’s hello darkness my old friend."

I hope that when my time comes, I can go down swinging with as much dignity, wit and intellectual honesty as Hitchens is -- although I'm still hoping with everything inside of me that he comes through this thing.

Quote of the Day

"Glenn Beck's rally was large, vague, moist and undirected -- the Waterworld of white self-pity"

-- Christopher Hitchens in Slate

My God, how I'm going to miss this guy if he doesn't survive his current battle with cancer. It will be a smart people tragedy like nothing we've seen in years.

Hitchens goes on to make a terrific point about how Beck's seemingly unfathomable appropriation of MLK's legacy and the civil rights movement in general -- which so many people rightly mocked over the past few weeks -- is really nothing more than an attempt to provide confirmation to the doughy, Middle-American doofs who worship him that, as whites, they're the new minority.

Quote of the Day

"The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain. I can't guarantee that such an entity wouldn't make such a ridiculous remark, but no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a remark."

-- Christopher Hitchens, on the likelihood that he'll change his famously atheist stance and reveal that he's "found God" now that he's essentially dying of cancer

Sorry about all the Hitchens-centric material lately, but I think it's safe to say that the man has become even more fascinating now that his convictions are being put to the ultimate test and, admirably, he's refused to back down or make excuses for his lifestyle.

This is why I love and respect him as much as I do: he's brilliant, beautifully flawed, and intellectually honest to the very end.

Bonus Quote of the Day

"And it gave a lovely light."

-- Christopher Hitchens, responding to Anderson Cooper's statement, "You've burned the candle at both ends," last night on CNN

Spreading the Disease

Heartbreaking. Enlightening. Powerful. Fiery. Gorgeous.

Everything you'd expect from Christopher Hitchens as he describes his battle with cancer.

Vanity Fair: Topic of Cancer/September, 2010

Go for the Throat

If you haven't yet figured out that Christopher Hitchens is a walking disaster whose continued existence alone defies the laws of both God and science, you're obviously down at least two or three senses. You could rightly describe him as Falstaffian, if only Falstaff had been an insufferably miserable prick.

So with that in mind, it comes as no surprise that Hitchens has just been diagnosed with esophageal cancer -- which he'll now have to undergo chemotherapy to combat.

It also comes as no surprise that despite the insatiable gluttony for vices of every kind that likely landed him where he is right now, this is a goddamned tragedy. Why? Because pompous ass or not, Hitchens is one of the sharpest minds on the planet -- an unapologetic intellectual whose fearless contrarianism is as refreshing as it is infuriating.

Bottom line: It'd be a shame to lose him.

The world needs more people like Christopher Hitchens, not fewer.

Good luck, Hitch.

Who Ya Got?

A couple of humorous dueling quotes as the week of the Sarah Palin media assault hopefully draws to a close. First up, from Christopher Hitchens in his Newsweek cover story:

"The Palin problem, then, might be that she cynically incites a crowd that she has no real intention of pleasing. If she were ever to get herself to the nation's capital, the teabaggers would be just as much on the outside as they are now, and would simply have been the instruments that helped get her elected. In my own not-all-that-humble opinion, duping the hicks is a degree or two worse than condescending to them.

This is not a small matter for the Republican Party. (And again: it was senior Republican operatives, and not jeering liberals, who told my Vanity Fair colleague Todd Purdum about the hectic atmosphere, of hysteria and collapsing scenery, that accompanied their lame attempt to present Sarah Palin as plausible during the last campaign.) The United States has to stand or fall by being the preeminent nation of science, modernity, technology, and higher education. Some of these needful phenomena, for historical reasons, will just happen to concentrate in big cities and in secular institutions and even—yes—on the dreaded East Coast. Modernity can be wrenching, as indeed can capitalism, and there will always be 'out' groups who feel themselves disrespected or left behind. The task and duty of a serious politician, as Edmund Burke emphasized so well, is to reason with such people and not to act as their megaphone or ventriloquist. Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or at least has held and not yet repudiated) that the end of days and the Second Coming will occur in her lifetime. This completes the already strong case for allowing her to pass the rest of her natural life span as a private citizen."

And Palin's response to such criticism -- any criticism really, as from what I've read of her book (and no, I didn't pay for it), much of it, not surprisingly, is about settling petty personal vendettas:

"These are probably some lonely people, some shallow people who want to take a shot like that and we need to pray for these people."

Dick to the Future

I love it when Hitchens has a few scotches and gets really feisty. And his brilliant and brutal take on Richard Nixon's ongoing legacy-of-ugly has him in top form.

Slate: "Caught on Tape" by Christopher Hitchens/6.29.09

Quote of the Week

"The president should be squirming in his seat, not smiling. The black dyke got it wrong. No one told her the rules."

-- Christopher Hithchens, interviewed at the end of Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner (which means he was "impossibly drunk" as opposed to just the usual "extremely drunk"), referring to host Wanda Sykes's stand-up routine during the event

Tuesday is Recycling Day

"I'm the King of the Jews!" (Originally Published, 2.27.07)

Renowned megalomaniac James Cameron -- director of Titanic and Piranha 2: The Spawning -- has now figured out a way to irritate not only everyone on this plane of existence but apparently the next as well. He claims that his new documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, reveals just that: the final resting place of Jesus Christ.

The Discovery Channel special details an archaeological dig in Jerusalem which stumbled upon a sepulcher containing ten stone burial boxes. The ancient caskets bear the names of Jesus, an immediate family (possibly brothers and sisters), Mary (presumably, the "Magdalene" variety) and, most startling, what could be the offspring of Jesus. If any of these relics were to be proven legitimate, they would render the basic tenet of the Christian faith essentially null and void -- as well as leave open the possibility that Jesus's brother could very easily have been a guy named "Jeff of Nazareth" whose main claim to fame was his ability to turn water into wine coolers.

It goes without saying that religious "scholars" are now falling all over themselves to debunk the find and disparage its proponents.

And that's where things get interesting.

Christopher Hitchens may be a surly, drunk son-of-a-bitch, but there's a great quote from him that's worth keeping in mind right about now: "That which can be asserted without evidence can be disproved without evidence." When applied to this specific case, the suggestion is painfully obvious: whether or not the tomb of Jesus has truly been found is irrelevant; it's not needed to disprove a belief system that has no evidence backing it up. When it comes to disputing the spectacular convictions of the faithful, it's just as easy to say, "that's irrational nonsense" and be done with it, as it is to go digging for contradictory evidence. The other side of that coin, unfortunately, is that a belief buttressed by nothing but wishful thinking is immune to the typically persuasive powers of contradictory evidence anyway. You just can't argue with someone whose primary justification is "because the Bible says so."

So why aren't the faithful skeptics employing this bulletproof "argument" in their attempts to discredit the discovery in Jerusalem? The answer is not only simple -- it's a delicious tip of the cards from a group which portrays itself as ready, willing and able to consistently rely on faith and faith alone.

The truth? They know that faith isn't enough -- that at some point a concession to reason is imperative.

The solution? They attempt to apply logic to claims which have no basis in reality -- to argue their points as if they were backed by accepted and irrefutable evidence.

The result? Well, it's damn funny.

Case in point: the quote of the day. Father David O'Connell of the oxymoronically-named Catholic University voiced his considerable doubt as to the veracity of Cameron's claim with this simple bit of common sense:

"Jesus of history is often referred to as 'Jesus of Nazareth.' Joseph the father was from Nazareth. Why would they be buried in Jerusalem? It doesn't make sense."

In case you missed that home run of irony, let's recap: A man who believes that the son of a supreme being was born on earth of a virgin, rose from the dead three days after being executed and ascended into the firmament to be with the benevolent father who allowed him to be executed in the first place and who takes an interest in the day-to-day existence of every man, woman and child on the planet, so much so that he's keeping a personal tally to help him decide where we'll spend eternity after we die -- this guy says that being buried sixty miles away from your hometown doesn't make sense.

I've met people like Father O'Connell. They're the ones who sit through movies in which alien invaders spend two hours decimating the earth with giant spaceships, sucking human blood out of their victims and spreading it across the landscape -- and then feel compelled to comment incredulously, "Oh that's impossible!" at the fact that the aliens are finally done in by bacteria.

Jesus was known as "Jesus of Nazareth." Joseph was the father of Jesus. How do we know this? The Bible tells us. How do we know the Bible can be trusted? Because it says it can.

If there's a better example of perfectly circular reasoning I'm unaware of it.

Just as entertaining (as well as enlightening, if such a word can be used in this context) is a widely-circulated press release from the Christian Newswire entitled, "Bible Scholars: Ten Reasons Why Jesus Tomb Claim is Bogus." Among its supposedly unassailable points -- presented with a tone of arrogance and condescension typically (and falsely) attributed to those who advocate scientific fact over ancient superstition:

"There is no historical evidence that Jesus was ever married or had a child."

"The earliest followers of Jesus never called him 'Jesus, Son of Joseph.'" (as was inscribed on the stone casket)

"There is no DNA evidence that this is the historical Jesus of Nazareth."

And my personal favorite:

"The statistical analysis is untrustworthy."

I won't bother pointing out, once again, the laughable irony of that last statement. You do have to marvel though at the brilliant penultimate introduction of the DNA straw man -- it serves the purpose of hanging those know-it-all scientists with their own rope while cleverly tying it into one big Gordian knot of zero-sum argumentation: There will likely never be DNA samples of Jesus, which means it can never be proven that Jesus was merely human and not divine; which means that it can never be proven that Jesus existed at all. Each side gets to go about its merry way, safe in the knowledge that is has technically neither won nor lost the debate.

So, after taking the case into careful consideration and weighing all the relevant "evidence," what singular conclusion can be drawn, according to the enlightened authors of the ten-point plan?

"In light of all the incredible number of problems with the recent claim that Jesus' (sic) grave has been found, the time-honored, multi-faceted evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is more convincing than ever."

Well, of course it is. That just makes sense.

I'm reminded of something I saw years ago -- a hilarious and thoroughly disturbing cult documentary called Mondo Elvis. For two hours, it chronicled a brand of delusional lunacy that was unlike anything I had seen before (but unfortunately have witnessed in person since). Its central focus: the small but ferocious segment of the American population that remains obsessed with Elvis Presley. It takes no insight or ingenuity to recognize the analogous relationship between the single-minded insanity on display in Mondo Elvis, and the occasionally ludicrous behavior of those adhering to the demands of a faith-based religion. Each has a central figure of worship who's been afforded mythic, sometimes supernatural qualities. Each requires unquestioning loyalty. Each casts the utterly irrational as commonly accepted fact. Each has a cadre of acolytes who honestly think that they're sane, reasonable people -- in spite of an overriding belief system which is on par with that of your average schizophrenic.

The most memorable, unnerving moment in the movie comes about half-way through. A middle-aged, skeletal nightmare with bleach-blond hair, Appalachian bridge-work and a cigarette that's been smoked down to solid ash twists and twitches uncomfortably in a decrepit recliner which sits against a paneled wall inside her trailer. With menacing intensity, she pushes her focus directly into the camera and proclaims her own personal mystery of faith. Although to her, there's no faith; there's only fact. And the "mystery" is nothing less than the identity of the man who gave her life.

Her belief: Elvis is her father.

Her rationale for this seemingly dubious deduction: Her mother never told her that Elvis wasn't her father.

She has no proof, but she has plenty of faith -- and a technically bulletproof argument -- and that's enough for her to continue her fantasy.

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be disproved without evidence."

I doubt we'll see any proof that James Cameron, or anyone else, has found the actual tomb of Jesus Christ. Then again, I doubt we'll see any proof that Jesus Christ as described in the Bible ever existed in the first place.

But as long as no one can prove he didn't exist, that will be enough for the faithful to continue their fantasy.

Quote(s) of the Week (Early Contender)

CH: “I want tongue. Give me tongue."

AS: “No, I'm not giving you tongue.”

CH: “Let the record show: Sullivan wouldn't give tongue.”

AS: “He's gayer than I am!” (to a third party)

-- Conversation between Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan while the two were stuck in an elevator together at Slate.com's pre-inauguration party in Washington, DC

That's Entertainment

The only possible explanation for the contentiousness of this exchange is the fact that it lasts 13 minutes and that's a long time for Hitchens to go without a drink.

If Only They'd "Scotchboarded" Him, He Probably Wouldn't Have Minded So Much

The real trick was probably getting whoever was doing it to stop.

(CBC: Christopher Hitchens Says "It's Torture" After Being Waterboarded/7.8.08)