Christopher Hitchens “Dying”…….But Still Doing “Words”

I only now have found out about Mr. Hitchens’ cancer, and am so sorry that it is serious.  I so enjoy reading or listening to folks “who are ahead of me,” as I put it.  Mr. Hitchens is such a person except in his world of atheism. 

Mr. Hitchens has made such a big deal out of it, always forgetting that a belief in God is not science but  faith.  We are forever surrounded by the great UNKNOWN.   We have been very, very fortunate in our western world to have been brought up by the JudeoChristian traditions of human purpose seeking that which is “good” and discovering  that which is unknown.

The path has been bloody as well as inspiring.  We will miss this heritage as it slips from us ever more speedily day after day.

It is not Mr. Hitchens’ faith in atheism that has impressed me.  The man seems a snot.  Yet, he is so worth paying attention to for his conversations and explanations.   I love being challenged to think anew.  

Here is the the New York Times article  by Liesl Schillinger:

…….”Mr. Hitchens has made no secret of his illness. On June 30, on VanityFair.com, he revealed his diagnosis and announced the abrupt end of the book tour for his memoir, “Hitch-22.” And in the September issue of Vanity Fair, he published an essay in which he movingly describes his journey “from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady.”

Startlingly, these updates have elicited hundreds of responses from well-wishers (and some foes), who urge Mr. Hitchens in online comments (and in their prayers, many write) to accept salvation. One wrote: “Your conversion could do for modern-day Christianity much what Paul’s did in the early days of Christianity.” Still another implored, “Mr. Hitchens, before you die give your life to Christ. Why not.”

On Aug. 6, The Atlantic posted a video interview with Mr. Hitchens at his home in Washington that has been much circulated. In it, the writer Jeffrey Goldberg asked Mr. Hitchens how he was doing.

“I’m dying,” he said. “I would be a very lucky person to live another five years.”

When asked, “Do you find it insulting for people to pray for you?” Mr. Hitchens responded: “No, no. I take it kindly, under the assumption that they are praying for my recovery.”

All the same, Mr. Hitchens dismissed both the notion that his cancer would lead him to make a tardy profession of faith and the idea that, if it did, such a profession would be valid.

“The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain,” he said. “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.”

This subject is one Mr. Hitchens has mulled over since childhood, when he decided, as he wrote in “God Is Not Great,” that it was “contemptible” to rely on religion just for comfort if it “might not be true.” As an adult whose hopes lay assuredly in the intellect, not in the hereafter, he concluded, “Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and — since there is no other metaphor — also the soul.”

That idea was echoed by Mr. Hitchens’s closest friend, the novelist Martin Amis, in an interview last week on the Charlie Rose show about his new book, “The Pregnant Widow” (in which a main character is inspired by Mr. Hitchens). Mr. Amis said his friend, like other writers, surely believed that after death, “not all of you will die,” because the printed words they leave behind constitute a kind of immortality. He added, “The desire for immortality … explains all the extraordinary achievements, both good and bad.”

That thought also emerges in a new novel, “The Imperfectionists,” by Tom Rachman, who was born in Britain and raised in Vancouver, Canada. In the book, one of his characters, an obituary writer, interviews an aging feminist intellectual, Gerda Erzberger, who is dying of cancer. In a room that “smells of strong tobacco and of hospital,” she tells him that the greatest force in the universe is ambition.

“Even from earliest childhood it dominated me,” she said. “I longed for achievements, to be influential — that, in particular. To sway people. This has been my religion: the belief that I deserve attention, that they are wrong not to listen, that those who dispute me are fools.”

Mr. Hitchens was not the only embattled British-born intellectual whose faith in articulacy caught the public eye this summer. On Aug. 6, the day of the Atlantic interview with Mr. Hitchens, the fearless historian Tony Judt died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the progressive neurodegenerative disease. Throughout this year, as his illness worsened, Mr. Judt published essays in The New York Review of Books, with his characteristic, unflinching perception, about memory, history, politics and his struggle with A.L.S.

In one of his last pieces, which he dictated, unable to control a pen, he wrote: “Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence. I have never lost that sense.”

Meditating on the importance of language, he wrote: “I am more conscious of these considerations now than at any time in the past. In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.”

He told Saul Goldberg, a New York University student who wrote an appreciation of his teacher in The Observer of Britain last weekend, that he wanted his epitaph to read, “I did words.”

Christopher Hitchens, thank God, or thank whomever, does not yet need an epitaph. He is still doing words: talking, writing and perpetuating the belief that he has upheld throughout his life: the belief, as he wrote in “God Is Not Great,” in “free inquiry, open-mindedness and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.”

Comment:  This does seem to be a miserable tribe victimized by  narcissism, doesn’t it?   Well, what else is there for these atheists to worship?…….

Obama in Cairo, June 2009: “Islam has always been a part of America’s Story!”

I received the following quiz from Prager fan, Francee Altman:

“A lot of Americans have become so insulated from reality that they
imagine America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves.  Absolutely No Racial Profiling!  Pause a moment, reflect back, and take
the following multiple choice test.

These events are actual events from history.  They really happened!  Do
you remember?

HERE’S THE TEST

   1. In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:
        a.  Superman
        b.  Jay Leno
        c.  Harry Potter
        d.  A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

   2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics athletes were kidnapped and
massacred by:
        a.  Olga Corbett
        b.  Sitting Bull
        c.  Arnold Schwarzenegger
        d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

   3. In 1979 the US Embassy in  Iran was taken over by:
        a.  Lost Norwegians
        b.  Elvis
        c.  A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
        d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

   4. During the 1980′s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon  by:
        a.  John Dillinger
        b.  The King of Sweden
        c.  The Boy Scouts
         d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

   5. In 1983 the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
        a.  A pizza delivery boy
        b.  Pee Wee Herman
        c.  Geraldo Rivera
        d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

    6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year
old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his
wheelchair by:
         a.  The Smurfs
         b.  Davey Jones
          c.  The Little Mermaid
         d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

   7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens , and a US Navy
diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
        a.  Captain Kidd
        b.  Charles Lindberg
        c.  Mother Teresa
        d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

   8. In 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
        a.  Scooby Doo
        b.  The Tooth Fairy
         c.  The Sundance Kid
        d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

   9.  In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
        a.  Richard Simmons
        b.  Grandma Moses
        c.  Michael Jordan
        d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

10. In 1998 the US embassies in  Kenya and  Tanzania were bombed by:
       a.  Mr. Rogers
       b.  Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill’s women
problems
        c.  The World Wrestling Federation
       d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

11. On 9/11/01 four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles
to take out the World Trade Centers, and of the remaining two, one
crashed into the  US  Pentagon, and the other was diverted and crashed
by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
       a.  Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
       b.  The Supreme Court of Florida
       c.  Mr.  Bean
       d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2002 the United States began fighting a war in Afghanistan  against:
       a.  Enron
       b.  The Lutheran   Church
       c.  The NFL
       d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
       a.  Bonnie and Clyde
       b.  Captain Kangaroo
       c.  Billy Graham
       d.  Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

14.  And now we can add: In 2009, 31 people were wounded and 13 American
Soldiers murdered on base at Fort Hood by a Major that was known as…
         a. You guessed it! – A Muslim male extremist between the age of
17 and 40.

No! I really don’t see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you?  So,
to ensure that we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics
intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be
allowed to profile certain people. They must conduct random searches of
80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilotswith proper
identification, secret agents who are members of the President’s
security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of
Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim Males
between the ages 17 and 40 alone lest we be guilty of racial profiling.”

Comment:  Remember the Obama speech in Cairo, June 4, 2009.   I guess the contributions made by these Muslim males ages of 17-40,  is what the president meant when in his Cairo speech, he said, “Islam has always been a part of America’s story!”

 Just a year ago Mr. Obama  “ praised American Muslims for enriching the nation’s culture at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country,” Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the holiday’s daily fast.

The president joined Cabinet secretaries, members of the diplomatic corps and lawmakers to pay tribute to what he called “a great religion and its commitment to justice and progress.”

Obama also released a video message to Muslims before the start to Ramadan. In the video, he said Ramadan’s rituals are a reminder of the principles Muslims and Christians have in common, including advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

 

Long Time New York TIMES Standard Lefty, Bob Herbert, Complains “The Country Is A Mess!”

Bob Herbert has been a Leftwing hack at the Times for a long time.  Limited in his depth of experience, he hs rarely deviated from the party line.  I used to read him regularly to keep up with black whine…….which I had found was almost always a part of his outlook.    After all, he is black…….at the Times I’d expect that is his primary duty. 

He wrote the following article for the Times which I found at realclearpolitics yesterday:

“The country is a mess. The economy is horrendous, and millions of American families are running out of ammunition in their fight against destitution. Steadily increasing numbers of middle-class families, who never thought they’d be seeking charity, have been showing up at food pantries.

The war in Afghanistan, with its dreadful human toll and debilitating drain on the nation’s financial resources, is proceeding as poorly as ever. As The Times reported on Friday, an ambitious operation that was supposed to showcase the progress of the Afghan Army turned into a tragic, humiliating debacle.

And while schools are hemorrhaging resources because of budget meltdowns, and teachers are losing jobs, and libraries are finding it more and more difficult to remain open, American youngsters are falling further behind their peers in other developed countries in their graduation rates from colleges and universities.

This would be a good time for the Obama crowd to put aside its concern about the absence of giddiness among liberals and re-examine what it might do to improve what is fast becoming a depressing state of affairs.

It’s not just liberals who are gloomy. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and a majority disapproves of President Obama’s handling of the economy. Nearly two-thirds expect the economy to get worse still.

Mr. Obama’s problem — and the nation’s — is that in the midst of the terrible economic turmoil that the country was in when he took office, he did not make full employment, meaning job creation in both the short and the long term, the nation’s absolute highest priority.

Besides responding to the nation’s greatest need, job creation would have been the one issue most likely to bolster Mr. Obama’s efforts to bring people of different political persuasions together. In the early months of 2009, with job losses soaring past a half-million a month and the country desperate for bold, creative leadership, the president had an opportunity to rally the nation behind an enormous “rebuild America” effort.

Such an effort, properly conceived, would have put millions to work overhauling the nation’s infrastructure, rebuilding our ports and transportation facilities to 21st-century standards, establishing a Manhattan Project-like quest for a brave new world of clean energy, and so on.

We were going to spend staggering amounts of money in any event. There was every reason to use those enormous amounts of public dollars to leverage private capital, as well, for investment in projects and research that the country desperately needs and that would provide enormous benefits for many decades. Think of the returns the nation reaped from its investments in the interstate highway system, the Land Grant colleges, rural electrification, the Erie and Panama canals, the transcontinental railroad, the technology that led to the Internet, the Apollo program, the G.I. bill.

The problem with the U.S. economy today, as it was during the Great Depression, is the absence of sufficient demand for goods and services. Consumers, struggling with sky-high unemployment and staggering debt loads, are tapped out. The economy cannot be made healthy again, and there is no chance of doing anything substantial about budget deficits, as long as so many millions of people are left with essentially no purchasing power. Jobs are the only real answer.

President Obama missed his opportunity early last year to rally the public behind a call for shared sacrifice and a great national mission to rebuild the United States in a way that would create employment for millions and establish a gleaming new industrial platform for the great advances of the 21st century.

It would have taken fire and imagination, but the public was poised to respond to bold leadership. If the Republicans had balked, and they would have, the president had the option of taking his case to the people, as Truman did in his great underdog campaign of 1948.

During the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt explained to the public the difference between wasteful spending and sound government investments. “You cannot borrow your way out of debt,” he said, “but you can invest your way into a sounder future.”

Now, with so much money already spent and Republicans expected to gain seats in the Congressional elections, the president finds himself with a much weaker hand, even if he were inclined to play it boldly.

What that will mean in the real world of ordinary Americans is that even if there is a fretful recovery from the Great Recession, millions will be left out of it. Hope has morphed into widespread gloom as widespread economic suffering becomes the new normal in America.”

Comment:  Herbert seems to share some things about the real America here.  But only the American brain dead liberal could write and believe:  

“President Obama missed his opportunity early last year to rally the public behind a call for shared sacrifice and a great national mission to rebuild the United States in a way that would create employment for millions and establish a gleaming new industrial platform for the great advances of the 21st century.”

Mr. Obama was on a great national mission to rebuild the United States in a way that would create employment for millions…….He doesn’t believe in America….He believes in  Marxism….. Obama has never showed any interest or thought that he needed the American public to be rallied.

His ego could do it …..all by himself,  with a bit of a kick at  Nancy and Harry.  He gave the rest of the Democrats a tingle in the leg and made grown women faint.

And he is still selling his Marxism…..and at this point he has become  the main cause of this horrendous  mess.