I can't deny how difficult it is to get through Hitchens' morbid memoir "Hitch-22" at my own age of 22. However, I can only hope to have some semblance of Hitchens' calm and dignity in facing the prospect of the end.

Brilliant! Huge fan of Hitch's. Saw him in LA Feb 15th for a debate with 2 Rabbis and Sam Harris for "Is There An Afterlife?". had a ticket to see him at Stony Brook University on Long Island March 8th but it got canceled due to Hitch's poor health the day before. Man, I hope he hangs in there!

Thanks, Roger.

Joseph

I just don't know, Rodge. I listened to this a couple times, searching for how you, or "one," might find these words inspiring.

It's the "I'm too busy living to worry about dying" sort of cliche, albeit with a little Socrates tossed into the salad. Heard it a zillion times, always thought it was a somewhat dishonest spiel, even a bit annoying. It has a certain lack of truth and beauty.

It's because o' you I pored over Hitchens' writings in the first place. Dead or alive, I think he's obsessive almost to the core, and for that, quite unable to recognize truths and beauties that do not reinforce certain warring personal obsessions.

This guy, clearly, has "just wished he was dead," often. I've been the same way. I may even have a suicide note around here somewhere from 30 years back. I keep it as a token for the day I finally got up off the floor and found JESUS!!

Just kidding. But it can indeed come with the territory I chose, and so it has for others -- it's not necessarily some obsessed war among one's parts. For that I've accrued a certain adeptness dealing with people who've voiced the same and really meant it. The young, especially.

"If a fool would but persist in his folly, he would become wise." So it is with considerations about one's own death. I've always seen that people who really were about to die also became unusually honest. I expect this guy has a distance left to go as yet, at least, from the date this recording was made. I don't pay much attention.

Tom Dark, what is untruthful here? It seems to me his point was that the afterlife is unanswerable, but while here he refuses to abide by any dogma just on the authority that it is dogma. He wasn't answering the question of "are you ready to face death." This was likely the close of another debate focused on the Abrahamic religions, and was his final plea against the fundamental problem that causes someone to believe in them (the willful handing over of our ability to decide our own morality and meaning).

This video is no longer available. I'd love to see it but I don't have any way to look for it.

Interesting how bought and paid for puppets from National Propaganda Radio and meeeeedia (me, important me! presstitutes) forget to include the equi-important Hitch-slap on Islam while they feature rants against Christianity.
Hitchens on Islam: "What is needed from the supporters of this very confident faith is more self-criticism and less self-pity and self-righteousness"
Rest in peace, Christopher Hitchens. You toiled so hard for those you loved.
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