Monday, August 30, 2010

If Congress can prosecute Roger Clemens for lying to Congress, why can't Senators and Congressman be prosecuted for lying during sessions of Congress?

Bush's former U.N. Ambassador won't rule out presidential run. John Bolton for president and Sharron Angle for the Senate. This country is reaching new limits of insanity.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Christopher Hitchens intimidates the hell out of me

I'm reading two Christopher Hitchens books right now: a slender volume titled "Thomas Jefferson" and his memoir, "Hitch 22."

I picked his “Jefferson” because it’s not very long and because I know I can trust him not to sugar coat anything.

I've been a fan of Hitchens for years. Gave up on him for awhile after he endorsed the invasion of Iraq and started hanging out with Paul Wolfowitz, then rejoined the fold when I read "god Is Not Great." He certainly makes a good case for non-believing, which I'm currently doing.

He is funny as hell and such a good writer. My reading list has grown by a couple of pages just jotting down some of what he's read in his lifetime. I won't read them all but do intend to tackle Wilfrid Owens poetry and George Orwell's lesser known novels.

One of the benefits of being 70 years old is that I know I don't have time to read all the books I missed. There are so many books being published every month I hardly have time to go back and pick up the many I missed.

Hitchens isn't afraid to tell his version of the truth and to honestly state his feelings about people, about what say say and write, about what they do.

His book "The Missionary Position," was an unflattering portrait of Mother Teresa pointing out, among other things, that she was much more concerned with pleasing her god than with helping the poor and suffering. In fact, according to him, she refused to allow the dying to have drugs to ease their suffering because she felt their suffering was pleasing to her god. I could be wrong but I suspect most of those she was helping would have been Hindu or Muslim.

Hitchens recently interrupted his book tour for "Hitch 22" in order to have chemo for esophageal cancer. I won’t pray for him but sure as hell want him to recover and keep on writing.