Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Bangladesh: man cuts off wife’s fingers

    Because she pursued higher education without his permission, police say.

  • Hitchens

    More on Hitchens, in no particular order.

    Michael Weiss at the Telegraph –

    The last few days had been, for those of us who knew he hadn’t much time left, a strange bundle of suffering commingled with the joy of recollection. We got to relive what endeared him to us from the start: the hilarious tabletalk, the Borgesian library of political and literary arcana that he kept inside his head, and the writing. Of course the writing, particularly the put-downs that never let their subjects get back up again: “No one has a higher opinion of Alexander Haig than I do, and I think he is a homicidal buffoon,” “a herd of antis in search of a climax,” “not only a bore, but the cause of boredom in others.”

    It is undeniable that the world will be duller and less funny without Hitchens in it. Significantly duller and less amusing.

    As for the politics, his critics always got him wrong on the supposed evolution (or devolution, as they’d argue) from Left to Right. There was the same foundational principle throughout, and if you think the hatred of the clerics and the censors and the commissars began after 9/11, you weren’t really paying close attention.

    Christopher Buckley in the New Yorker –

    One of our lunches, at Café Milano, the Rick’s Café of Washington, began at 1 P.M., and ended at 11:30 P.M. At about nine  o’clock (though my memory is somewhat hazy), he said, “Should we order more food?” I somehow crawled home, where I remained under medical supervision for several weeks, packed in ice with a morphine drip. Christopher probably went home that night and wrote a biography of Orwell. His stamina was as epic as his erudition and wit.

    …

    Intellectually, ours was largely a teacher-student relationship, and let me tell  you—Christopher was one tough grader. Oy. No matter how much he loved  you, he did not shy from giving it to you with the bark off if you had  disappointed.

    …

    The jacket of his next book, a collection of breathtaking essays, perfectly  titled “Arguably,” contains some glowing words of praise, including my own  (humble but earnest) asseveration that he is—was—”the greatest living essayist  in the English language.” One or two reviewers demurred, calling my effusion “forgivable exaggeration.” To them I say: O.K., name a better one. I would alter  only one word in that blurb now.

    Of course he was. People who demur can’t have been paying attention.

    Rick Warren on Twitter –

    Hitchens has died. I loved & prayed for him & grieve his loss. He knows the Truth now.

    Tim Minchin on Rick Warren on Hitch, on Twitter –

    Nauseating condescending clown RT @RickWarren: Hitchens has died. I loved & prayed for him & grieve his loss. He knows the Truth now.

    Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter –

    Gone too Soon: Christopher Hitchens 62. Tireless supporter of human rights and fighter of dogma under any guise.

    Center for Inquiry on Twitter –

    Hitchens was a columnist for Free Inquiry for 10 years. “The Return of Indulgences” Read this op-ed piece.

    You know what? I’m a columnist for Free Inquiry. I’m a colleague of Hitchens’s. That’s quite something.

    Nevertheless –  the world will be duller and less funny without Hitchens in it.

     

  • Michael Weiss on Hitchens

    If  you think the hatred of the clerics and the censors and the commissars began after 9/11, you weren’t really paying close attention.

  • Peter Hitchens on his brother

    I have another memory of him, white-faced, slight and thin as we all were in those more austere times, furious, standing up to some bully or other in the playground.

  • Christopher Buckley on Christopher Hitchens

    Intellectually, ours was largely a teacher-student relationship, and let me  tell you—Christopher was one tough grader.

  • Hitchens the writer

    Another repost, this time of a repost – metametapost. I wrote it in 2002 or early 2003 when B&W was new, and reposted it last year, on

    July 1, 2010

    I wrote this about eight years ago for “In the Library.” It hints at why I hope Christopher Hitchens stays around.

    Christopher Hitchens is a standing reproach to people who write the odd essay now and then. He is like some sort of crazed writing machine, he seems to average three or four longish essays a day, along with reading everything ever written and remembering all of it, knowing everyone worth knowing on most continents, visiting war zones and trouble spots around the globe, going on television and overbearing even noisy Chris Matthews’ efforts to interrupt him, and irritating people. And what’s even more painful is that this torrent of prose is nothing like the torrents of people like Joyce Carol Oates or Iris Murdoch, badly written in proportion to the torrentiality – no, this is a torrent of learned, witty, informed and informative, searching, impassioned history on the hoof. If Hitchens is a journalist then so were Gibbon and Thucydides.

    Unacknowledged Legislation is a collection of essays on writers in the public sphere, as the subtitle has it. The essays are many things, but one of the most noticeable is that they are unexpected. The essay on Philip Larkin for example entirely declines the opportunity to express easy outrage, and instead digs much, much deeper. The one on Martha Nussbaum’s Poetic Justice wonders why she didn’t mention Mill’s autobiography and then at the fact that she seems unaware of the element of caricature in Dickens’ Hard Times. ‘When the utilitarian teacher M’Choakumchild – perhaps a clue there? – tells Sissy Jupe etc.’ Hitchens misses nothing.

    Christopher Hitchens, Unacknowledged Legislation, Verso: 2000.

  • The Hitch

    Update: a couple more. I didn’t include Salman Rushdie’s because it was more personal, but I see it’s also on Twitter where anyone can see it, so –

    Goodbye, my beloved friend.  A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops. Christopher Hitchens, April 13, 1949-December 15, 2011.

    And Richard Dawkins –

    Christopher Hitchens, finest orator of our time, fellow horseman, valiant fighter against all tyrants including God.

    My thoughts exactly.

    Francis Wheen at Facebook –

    BBC radio news at 7am reports the death of Christopher Hitchens, “an alcoholic”. How I wish Christopher was still here to challenge imbecile reporter Nick Higham over this lie. His epitaph, he once told me, should be “He never missed a deadline”. Farewell, dear old fruit.

    Nick Cohen ditto –

    The editor is letting me write about the Hitch. The fact that I had a gun to his head at the time is neither here nor there.

    Also, a few minutes earlier –

    Anyone who wishes to raise a glass of whisky in memory of an absent comrade can join Padraig Reidy and me at 5.30 at the King’s Head Islington.

    That’s two hours from now, you have plenty of time.

    Martin Robb ditto –

    Now it’s up to the rest of us to stay on the case of Galloway and all the other friends of tyrants.

    And on the case of the ultimate tyrant, Colonel God.

  • How dare you ask for evidence?

    Nice piece about Rhys Morgan in the Guardian.

    So why does this floppy-haired teenager bother? Wouldn’t it be less hassle to focus on becoming even better at Team Fortress 2 or just kicking back and listening to his favourite bands, Muse and Radiohead?

    “It can be nerve-wracking but I think that getting the message out there is a lot more important than me being sued,” says Morgan. “I think there’s a need for more people to speak out. I hate the idea of anyone being taken for a ride.”

    And there you go. That’s what a lot of speakers-out think, and that’s why they speak out. Most of us weren’t clever and together and dedicated enough to do it at age 17, and if we had we wouldn’t have been worth listening to anyway, but the reasons are still the same.

    But it was when Morgan was diagnosed with a serious illness – Crohn’s disease – that he plunged deep into the world of scepticism. While off school last year, he set about researching the disease and was alarmed at some of the “miracle cures” on offer. One particularly grabbed his attention: Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), which is described on its website as the “answer” to Aids, hepatitis A, B and C, malaria, herpes, TB and “most cancer”.

    Morgan looked into MMS and was alarmed to find that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had warned that, when used as directed, the solution produced was “a potent bleach” and urged anyone using it to stop immediately and throw it away. Similar warnings have been issued in this country.

    Bleach. Bleach!! People are peddling bleach as a treatment! That’s scary. (And puts me in mind of a horrible story about a volunteer at the zoo and some mice and a jar and some bleach…)

    “A few people on support forums seemed to be pushing MMS on others. I started telling people on the forums, look, this treatment doesn’t seem to be that great.” He got “kicked off” one forum. “They told me I was being rude and inflammatory by questioning other people’s choices.”

    Because medical treatments are just a matter of “choices,” and choosing the wrong one – say, bleach – won’t do any harm. Wouldn’t it be nice if people could learn to stop thinking that way?

    So what does he believe in? Morgan does not hesitate: “Evidence-based medicine. If evidence can support something, I’m all for it. One thing that really gets me is when people claim sceptics have closed minds. That’s not true: a true sceptic will be convinced by evidence. And even if the evidence supported the most absurd claims, the sceptic would agree that it’s true.”

    Is that rude and inflammatory or what?!

     

  • MRAs respond to fraternity’s “who would you rape?” survey

    “We should be celebrating young men who stand up against misandry. We should be celebrating the frat that said ‘no means yes’.”

  • Killing of Dagestani journalist must be investigated

    Today’s murder of Gadzhimurad Kamalov, founder of the independent newspaper Chernovik, is a lethal blow to press freedom, said the Committee to Protect Journalists.

  • The Guardian talks to Rhys Morgan

    “They told me I was being rude and inflammatory by questioning other people’s choices.”

  • More weasels

    I’m starting to think it’s a pattern. I’m starting to think it may be that only opponents (or at least non-fans) reported this particular bit of legislation honestly.

    Here’s the CNS version:

    The legislation would prohibit taxpayer funding for abortions and bar  women from using subsidies under the Obama health care law to buy  health insurance that covers abortion, except in those cases involving  rape or incest or when the mother’s life is endangered. Also, the  legislation would protect health care providers who are opposed to  abortion for moral or religious reasons.

    Again: that’s it. It doesn’t spell out that that means the legislation would make it legal for health care providers – including hospitals, not just individuals – to refuse to do abortions even to save the woman’s life. Given the preceding sentence about funding, which does include that exception, readers are primed to assume the opposite.

    This probably helps to explain the lack of outrage, and the people like the staffer in one representative’s office who say “oh no, of course hospitals won’t let women die.”

  • Weasels

    Interesting. The supporters of the “Protect Life Bill” aka the Let Women Die Bill are so ashamed of the let women die part that they conceal it in their press coverage; at least, the people at LifeSiteNews do.

    The measure would amend President Obama’s Affordable Care Act to reflect the Hyde amendment by prohibiting taxpayer dollars from funding any health plan that includes coverage of elective abortions. The measure retains Hyde’s exception for abortions performed due to the child’s conception in rape or incest or to save the mother’s life.

    The bill also makes clear that no health insurance carrier may be forced to provide coverage of abortion in any of its health plans, and strengthens the conscience rights of health care workers and institutions to reject abortion training, procedures, or referrals.

    That’s it – that’s all it says. Notice the complete failure to mention that this “strengthening” means legalizing the refusal to do an abortion to save a woman’s life. Notice it and think about what it implies. It implies that they’re ashamed of it, or at least realize that other people would think they should be. It means they don’t want their readers to grasp that that’s what the bill would do if it became law. It means they’re hiding what the law actually does.

    Disgusting.

     

  • Projects

    Another item from the archive. No reason. Just for the hell of it. I saw a link to it somewhere and was reminded of it so thought I would summon it from ur-B&W.

    June 17, 2011

    I have a new project. My new project is to convince people on the left that they must work together with Tea Partiers.

    This may seem like a difficult thing to do, but I like a challenge. There are many urgent problems in the world, such as countless people who still have the wrong kind of light bulbs, and the only way those problems can be solved is if I – yes I, I alone, I personally, I bravely yet gently yet determinedly yet lovingly – build a bridge between the left and the Tea Party. The division between the left and the Tea Party is divisive, and when there is divisiveness, problems don’t get solved, because people don’t work together, so it is urgent and vital and very important to heal this tragic divide by telling the left to forget about all the things they disagree with the Tea Party about. It would be pointless to tell the Tea Party to reciprocate, of course, and besides, the left is…well you know. So the work is to tell the left how to heal the divide, while not telling the Tea Party anything, because it already.

    This is my healing work that I plan to do. I believe in love and reaching out and bridges and unity. I hope you all wish me luck and every success with my work, which I will be working on in many ways for many weeks to come, and which I will be reporting on via Twitter, Facebook, the New York Times, the Washington Post, People, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Tikkun, First Things, Christianity Today, my seven blogs, some of my friends’ blogs which I haven’t counted yet, and CBS News. In spite of all this fame and exposure I remain impressively humble and kind of bashfully surprised by all the success and approval I report daily via Twitter, Facebook, the New York Times, the Washington Post, People, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Tikkun, First Things, Christianity Today, my seven blogs, and some of my friends’ blogs which I haven’t counted yet.

    Once I’ve got the left and the Tea Party squared away, I’ll get to work on getting feminists and sexists to work together, then unions and the governor of Wisconsin, then the Taliban and the women of Afghanistan. As I mentioned, I like a challenge. Thank you, god bless you, and god bless the United States of America.

  • And how much deadly force would I use?

    Frat boys are such fun. The very word reminds me of fun-loving George Bush, whom I usually thought of as frat boy. Some frat boys at the University of Vermont sound super fun.

    The fraternity circulated a questionnaire to its members, asking their names, major, favorite frat-related memories, favorite actor, and who they would pick to rape. Just normal questionnaire stuff, you know.

    Another source:

    We were sent a copy of the questionnaire, which mostly consists of benign questions like name, birthday, major, amount of time with SigEp and favorite SigEp memories, hobbies, future goals, etc. It’s actually kind of nerdy and cute, until you get to the final three “personal questions.”

    1. Where in public would I want to have sex?

    2. Who’s my favorite artist?

    3. If I could rape someone, who would it be?

    Boys just wanna have fun, boom boom.

     

     

  • Fraternity asks “If you could rape anyone who would it be?”

    The fraternity circulated a questionnaire to its members, asking their names, major, favorite frat-related memories, favorite actor, and whom they would rape.

  • Bishops run amok

    Laura Bassett on the power of the bishops.

    Terry O’Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women

     finds it troubling that a group of men that has historically denied women the opportunity to participate in leadership positions is exercising so much power over such a broad range of women’s reproductive health legislation.

    “Clearly there’s a problem when men take such an interest in the sexual function of women,” she said. “There’s something deeply off about it.”

    Especially those men – men who are officially celibate, men at the top of a men-only hierarchy, men who have spent their entire adult lives in an all-male profession – and, of course, men who think they’re taking orders from the Topp Man, God Himself.

  • President Sarkozy and Angie Baby

    And another thing. Not up there with US legislators telling Catholic hospitals go right ahead, let pregnant women die if you don’t want to give them abortions, but still annoying.

    The BBC World Service was talking about the economic mess in Europe last night, as it does every night, and it said something or other was decided or discussed or fretted over or laughed at by President Sarkozy and Mrs Merkel.

    Excuse me?

    It already bugs the shit out of me when they call the US Secretary of State “Mrs Clinton,” but to give the man his title and then immediately reduce the woman to Mrs is just infuriating.

    That’s Chancellor Merkel to you, beeb.

  • Well, you see, it’s just women

    Dahlia Lithwick on the Let Women Die bill.

    The other noteworthy element of the bill is a “conscience” provision that would allow hospitals to turn away women who need abortions, based on policy set by religious leadership. The provision ensures that the approximately 600 hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church will now be legally protected if they turn away women seeking abortions medically necessary to save their lives. Oddly enough, Pitts says the conscience provision is redundant, as it’s simply “preserving the same rights that medical professionals have had for decades.” So that makes both provisions of the bill redundant—or maybe only one is while the other literally gives hospitals cover to allow women to die. Rock on, Party of Life!

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has described the bill as “savage,” telling reporters that the legislation could ultimately lead women to “die on the floor of health care providers.” The president has promised to veto the bill if need be. (It needn’t be, because it won’t pass in the Senate). And Rachel Maddow has wondered how pointless anti-abortion legislation would create jobs, an issue on which the GOP is supposed to be laser-focused. Meanwhile, a national coalition of anti-abortion groups has announced it is pushing legislation in all 50 states that would force pregnant women to see and hear a fetal heartbeat before terminating a pregnancy.

    She goes on to ask why there isn’t more outrage. Good question.

     

     

  • The Church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility

    The following post from last year.

    December 26, 2010

    Mark Jones found the confirmation I was looking for, in the shape of the letter the bishop of Phoenix wrote to the president of Catholic Healthcare West. It is unbelievably disgusting.

    He’s pissed off that the president of CHW told him that this is a complex matter on which the best minds disagree – not, as one might hope, because he thinks there should be no disagreement on whether or not a pregnant woman should be allowed to die along with her fetus rather than prevented from dying at the expense of her fetus, but because he is The Bishop.

    In effect, you would have me believe that we will merely have to agree to disagree. But this resolution is unacceptable because it disregards my authority and responsibility to interpret the moral law and to teach the Catholic faith as a Successor of the Apostles.

    His responsibility, that is, to order doctors to let a woman die. Because he is a Successor of the Apostles.

    The decisions regarding life and death, morality and immorality as they relate to medical ethics are at the forefront of the Church’s mission today. As a result, the Church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility to remain actively engaged in these discussions and debates.

    So that they can do their level best to compel hospitals to refuse to save the lives of pregnant women.

    While the issues discussed in the moral analysis you provided are certainly technical and deeply philosophical, they are also foundationally “theological.” And the theology of the Catholic Faith, as concretized in the Code of Canon Law, dispels any doubt whose opinion on matters of faith and morals is decisive for institutions in the Diocese of Phoenix.

    Me! Me me me me me me me! Do you understand? Me, the Bishop! My opinion is decisive! Not yours! Mine! I am the boss and you have to do what I say.

    It goes on like that for four horrible pages. This from a church that protects priests who fuck children!

    I feel dirty.