Bugger All

I’ll give the guy a tiny bit of credit in that he admitted he was wrong, but the problem is that he was SOOOOO wrong.

That dead kid in Iraq has bigger more incompetent non-cancer fish to fry, but your point is taken Nojo.

@ManchuCandidate: I don’t think he’s admitted he was wrong (unless I missed it):

The memoir, as you might expect, goes into quite a lot of detail about why he thought we should invade Iraq, and why he was right. What the left just does not get, Hitchens argues, is that “Islamofascism” is hellbent on destroying our civilisation, and unless you fancy being bombed back into pre-Enlightenment times, you should bloody well be out there on the barricades, fighting the good fight beside him. Anyone who disagrees is either stupid, cowardly, naive or too lazy to have bothered updating their political faculties “since Woodstock”.

@blogenfreude:
I could be wrong, but I could have mistaken him Andrew Sullivan.

Judging by that excerpt I am wrong (and will openly admit it unlike Hitch.) I get the idea he’s mad because Islam bans alcohol.

I never bought into the Huntington claims of a clash of civilizations. Despite what folks claim, how is this monolithic Islam going to conquer the west? Through the awesomeness of their culture? I like eating Tabouleh and Falafels, but come on. The power of their amazing economies? If it weren’t for oil, pretty much all of the major OPEC nations of the Islam faith would collapse. The technological wizardry that comes from Islamic nations? Sorry. And it’s not like the fundamentalists are well loved in Muslim nations either or there would be more Irans. It’s a pipe dream conjured up by folks who crave unnecessary drama in their lives.

I guess I am a stupid naive lazy coward.

Please forgive me in advance for using this post to hang a disquisition on. I want to talk about alcohol. I believe that alcohol is not universally addictive. If it were, it would now have as bad a press as heroin. I used to like to quote Lord Monboddo, a Scottish jurist; when asked to render a verdict in the case of a man accused of murdering his wife while drunk, Monboddo said, “If he will do this when he is drunk, what will he not do when he is sober?” Clearly a happy drinker! (As was I, once upon a time!)

I can tell you the answer to that question. When drunk, especially if the drunk in question is far gone in addiction, she or he or me might just do anything at all, depending on how far gone the hapless wight is. I read it about it every day, on the second page of our local newspaper. For those of us who, late in our drinking careers, become stumblebums when drinking, it probably helps to avoid arrest if you are female (thus lacking in sufficient testosterone to frighten local law enforcement).

My half-brother, descended from two grandfathers who deserted their families to pursue their addiction, died, at age 30, in 1980, from an accidental overdose of Valium and alcohol. I had been trying hard to save him. I had first tried to saved him, and my husband, from Vietnam, in 1965, the debacle (as every war, possibly excepting

@lynnlightfoot: Please continue….

@ManchuCandidate: Joe Lieberman, David Brooks, Tom Friedman, and the rest – I want to ask them if they’ve sent any money to the Iraqis whose lives they helped destroy.

@ManchuCandidate: Yes, Sully’s the one who has been very humble and apologetic about his warmongering. He doesn’t try to defend himself. He flat out states he was tragically wrong, and he does it repeatedly. For that I respect him.

Hitch, however — well, Bloggy has the details on that. The “dead kid” refers to an American who went to war solely at Hitch’s urging, and Hitch’s very self-serving visit to the kid’s family.

@lynnlightfoot: Ditto.

@lynnlightfoot: Oh, Lynn.

I’m very conflicted about Hitch, which tells me that I find him interesting. Interesting is good in a world full of boring people. My hate for the occupation of Iraq and his virulent support of it hasn’t tipped the scales for me. I’m not sure why. It probably should. I mean, he should use his powers for good, right?

Hitch has been wrong, very much so about Iraq, but he is smart and has always been fearless and iconoclastic, and smart, fearless, and iconoclastic, for me, makes up for a lot of wrong, and he writes good, too.

His article about having himself waterboarded was fantastic, to name one.

He has just been diagnosed with esophpageal cancer, with a bad prognosis, its a sad thing, it shoulda been W.

@JNOV: I am with you, I cannot hate him for his Iraq opinions, he is just a writer with opinions, he is not a propagandist like Friedman or the PNACers. He is smart, bold, funny, writes well, and I am very sorry to hear about his cancer.

I just read the Salon article. It says the Dead Kid’s name is Mark Daily, but Hitch went to “Jennings’ MySpace page…” to contact Daily’s family. Who is this Jennings person? And, yes, I emailed Barra.

/focusing on minutiae

@Promnight: Well, I actually can hate him for Iraq, and I do. But I like other things about him, hence my internal conflict.

After reading the Salon book review, it seems like he’s turning into Michael Moore. That’s hilarious and pitiful.

@lynnlightfoot:
please continue your thought. i want to help in any way, even just to listen, if that’s what you need lynn…..you have friends here. god knows i spew my troubles, and you once laughed and told me you loved that i was fearless about doing so..it helps. reach out….we’ll catch you…
(you have helped me tremendously sharing your experience with your own ratbastard, i think of you often)
afunnygirl720@ yahoo.com