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July 14, 2011
No Christopher Hitchens
VANITY FAIR was the platform for iconoclastic author Christopher Hitchens to popularize his controversial theories. One of the most famous was his "Missionary Position" article [and book]. Hitchens framed Mother Teresa as nothing but a miserable human being who was leveraging Catholic dogma for her own political gain. That was the mid 1990s.
It was then that many of us grassroots [as opposed to official think-tank ones] thinkers noticed this bold mind and followed it. Together we went on an intellectual journey all the way to having a good laugh at the notion that God is great.
The August 2011 issue of VANITY FAIR has no commentary by Hitchens. In an earlier column he noted how quickly the cancer was galloping. No longer could he enjoy the pleasure of food or the satisfaction of orally expressing his point of view.
We may not be getting any more fresh copy from Hitchens.
He lived the life he wanted. Like Edith Pilaf, he expressed no regrets. However, we wish he had embraced healthy living and, like so many of us Friends of Bill, left the booze and the smokes behind. Did he not do that because the trauma of his mother's suicide brought a darkness to his being that success couldn't lighten?
