Christopher Hitchens dies after battle with cancer

[Elok]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/14/AR2010101403973.html

[notyoueither]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101403973.html

Thanks for that. I think I'd like to read his biography.

[Elok]

You're welcome. I got it off a Catholic blog Imran pointed me to, I think, so thank him too.

[Elok]

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/12/in-memoriam-christopher-hitchens-1949-2011.html

By his brother.

[kentonio]

An intellectual giant and a very brave man. He will be sorely missed.

[DinoDoc]

Let's not go bashing the dude before his corpse is cold.

Why should you say anything different about a person who's dead than you would when they were alive? Isn't that the time when you're free to be the most truthful?

[DaShi]

All class and clever as usual, DD.

Chris.

[Zevico]

He used to take advantage of people's ignorance and make nonarguments.

Well for one thing, Kidicious, he never argued that this maxim was biblical. In fact, he expressly pointed out that it was attributed to Nietzche.

If you really think this is so, make your case.

[Kidlicious]

Why should you say anything different about a person who's dead than you would when they were alive? Isn't that the time when you're free to be the most truthful?

Yeah. It's not like he was Mother Teressa. He was an intellectual, and deserves a good thrashing for it.

[molly bloom]

Yeah. It's not like he was Mother Teressa. He was an intellectual, and deserves a good thrashing for it.

You mean, divinely blessed Mother Teresa, who couldn't spot a murdering Third World dictator to save her life ? And if he were an intellectual, well so what ?

Better to try to be intelligent and make some sense out of life, than living in a pit of ignorance, scared of the non-existent, like some frightened child afraid of shadows in the semi-dark.

Three resounding cheers for the work of Christopher Hitchens.

[Az]

I just want to say that I respected Christopher Hitchens very much, and will miss his wit and insights. That's all.

[Barnabas]

If he was an iconoclast, how come everybody loves him?

[Elok]

It seems he was a very friendly iconoclast. I've read some of his stuff on Slate since he passed on, and mostly it reads like generic hatchet-jobs, but apparently he was a genial guy who liked to party. Also, as somebody pointed out in the comments to a blog I read, he had such a mixture of opinions that he was guaranteed to agree with half your beliefs even as he offended the other half horribly. But mostly I think it's just that he was considered too entertaining to hate.

[Tupac Shakur]

Mother Teresa is having the last laugh right now.

[Kidlicious]

I watched his debate with Tony Blair and he did very well. Of course Blair sucked.