Talk:Christopher Hitchens

Interview

Couldn't find the Ref2 file, but here's an interivew

• Christopher Hitchens on The Hour

EL section

The external links sections is way too extensive. See WP:EL for some guidelines and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Better picture of Hitchens

Could someone find a better picture of Christopher Hitchens to have on his main page? I much preferred the picture that was on last year, which, I believe, was one of his professional head shots. I'm sure the only problem with this is getting the file accepted by Wikipedia's copyright policy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Uncle Leo (talk • contribs) 13:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

Got an image off flickr. It's still fairly bad, but better than it was IMHO. --h2g2bob (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It's much better than the previous picture. --Uncle Leo 02:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The new picture is significantly better than the previous. In that other picture, Hitch looked like he had just run the quarter mile after drinking half-a-pint of Scotch. He looked awful. ---Cathal 02:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Antitheism and Catholicism not neutral

In my view, the Antitheism section is biased. It places far too much weight on one religion only (Catholicism), when he has attacked all religions. It contains several paragraphs of quoted criticism and calls him a bigot twice (contrast this with the single sentence under "honours"). Nothing in the section puts his side, or the side of secularism or unreligion in general. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Well he has been attacked for being anti-Catholic more so than being attacked for being specifically anti-any other religion (this is OR). I'll try to trim it down though. JoshuaZ 01:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I took a crack at it myself. I rewrote the lead to make it clear that he attacks all religions, but has most often spoken about Judeo-Christian ones. I kept Donohue's accusation but trimmed it down, as it doesn't seem expansive enough for a sub-section. dharmabum 00:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This version has stood for a couple days (outside of a revert by a clear vandal), and I'm of the opinion it's quite neutral and non-committal. I'm a fan of Hitchens in general, but also raised Catholic and don't always agree with him, and I do think he sometimes is a little hard on the Catholic church. I don't want to remove the tag myself, as it was mostly my revision and would prefer someone completely uninterested in both Hitchens and Catholicism to to remove it. I'd just like to point out that NPOV tags, when left too long, can generate more problems than solutions. dharmabum 06:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is a good youtube clip [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by JeffBurdges (talk • contribs)

His position is anti-theism, or pro-reason. I agree, it suggests too much of the importance of Catholicism to suggest it worthy of particular vitrol on his part. 70.178.154.145 23:54, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Good for what? Can you explain the possible relevance? And, would you please discuss the matter here on the talk page before you delete large sections of the text? The section you deleted was accurate and referenced. I have restored it. Please give a good reason here before you delete it again. Thanks. ---Cathal 14:30, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I never deleted anything, I merged the religion sections, you re-created now duplicate text. There was a legitimate critisism that the Anti-theism section was biased against the subject. It was clear that merging the religion part of the personal section would largely solve this. And there was no obvious reason to keep that particular text in personal since it concerned opinions that he talks about professionally. The youtube clip shows his opinions in context and helps banace the anti-catholic accusations. You should re-delete that Religion subsection in personal. It's not really personal, the referencing code appears slightly broken, and the same text now appears elsewhere in the article. JeffBurdges 17:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

well, I suppose it is reasonable to say what a persons religion in in their personal section.  :) But the referencing code still seems broken. And it's still needed elsewhere for balance. JeffBurdges 17:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Opium use

I have deleted this allegation once again. An "extraordinary claim" of this sort requires, by Wikipedia standards, "extraordinary sources." If you can find another, and more reliable source, feel free to put it back. ---Cathal 14:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

External ref

There was a good interview in The Times recently that I briefly tried to add to the wrong ref list and couldn't find 'ref 2' - does someone want to add it?

'Man v God' - (The Times) interview in response to Hitchens' book 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'

There's a wiki page for the book so you may want to change the Amazon link. Miamomimi 10:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Table of contents?

I seem to recall that this talk page had a table of contents at the top. What happened to it? ---Cathal 13:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea where it went, I'll see if I can track down a template. --(Ptah, the El Daoud 18:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC))

It's back. --(Ptah, the El Daoud 18:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC))

However, after forcing the creation of a TOC, it has, on its own accord, created four false sections (i.e., the do not, and have not, appeared on this page): 1 Requests; 2 Clean-Up; 3 To Expand; and 4 Translate to English. I don't know what that's about, but... a slightly screwed up TOC is better than no TOC at all... --(Ptah, the El Daoud 18:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC))

I went back through the history for the past week, and find no indication of its having been deleted, unless I simply missed it. I am glad that it is back, as it amkes page navigation so much easier. Strange, though, as you say, that these false headings now exist for sections that do not. ---Cathal 20:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Anti-Catholic

Who keeps tryng to make him come off as anti-catholic by burrying all the other anti-religious comments he makes? They just keep disapearing from his antitheism section. JeffBurdges 15:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Peter

Can we add some time frame regarding his feud with his brother, when it started, and when it was resolved?M. Frederick 06:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Left-Leaning Thinkers and the Euston Manifesto

This paragraph may be slightly suspect. For a start, calling Julie Burchill a left-leaning 'thinker' is rather dubious if highly amusing, you'd struggle to find many people who would regard Julie as a thinker, she's an absurd newspaper columnist and a bigot who spends her time spewing out bile against famous celebrities and various other individuals and nations, races, etc, whom she has a problem with. She claimed to still be a Communist (a Stalinist, no less) while declaring her support for Thatcherism, and she claimed this wasn't a contradiction. She isn't an intellectual by any stretch and isn't considered as such, she's a just a provocative newspaper columnist, if she is to be regarded as a 'thinker', then so should Carole Malone, Tony Parsons, Brian Reade, etc, and nobody in their right mind would describe those people as thinkers. It would be better if the paragraph describes these writers as left-leaning 'commentators' rather then thinkers, 'thinkers' implies intellectuals and calling Julie a 'thinker' is laughable, and I'm not entirely sure some of the people on the list would regard themselves as intellectuals as such. Besides, if I remember rightly, I read somewhere that Julie Burchill was added to the Euston Manifesto by a blogger as a joke, until recently anybody could be added to the Euston signatories by anyone, hence Dafyd Duck (ie. Daffy Duck) is in there, and numerous other fake names, I'm 99% certain that I read that a blogger has admitted to adding Burchill's name himself. Additionally, including Francis Wheen may be slightly dubious also. Wheen is a Euston signatory, but that does not automatically imply support of the Iraq War (one or two signatories do not support it, I believe) and the only statement by Wheen I have seen on the subject was when specifically asked whether he was in favour of the war and he replied "Maybe, sort of, perhaps just a little". That's hardly an enthusiastic endorsement of the Iraq War, and listing him here as a supporter of the war with no qualifications or details of his views is possibly a serious misrepresentation of Wheen. Unless there is a realible source somewhere where he states plainly that he actually supports the war rather than supporting it "perhaps just a little", his name shouldn't be on there. MarkB79 18:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Further, having checked the Euston website, Burchill is supposed to have signed the manifesto with the following message: "Because I believe in democracy for all - not just for white people, as the opponents of the war in Iraq appear to." Now if Burchill actually wrote that, and she honestly believes that opponents of the Iraq war are motivated by racism, she's an even bigger idiot that I previously imagined but she almost certainly did not write it, even she does not possess the hypocrisy or the gall to say that, unless she's deliberately out to wind people up and shock as usual, but excelling herself on this occasion. It's almost certainly a joke, she's well known for her many openly racist statements about Arabs over the years, most notably celebrating the deaths of Lebanonese civilians in the early 80's and calling them "just smelly Arabs, of no importance". The message is almost certainly a knowing joke added by somebody all too familiar with Burchill's history of anti-Arab racism. Unless somebody has a reliable source stating that Burchill did actually sign the manifesto (in person, on its launch perhaps like Cohen, Aaronovitch and so on), her name should be removed, as I say I am certain that I read months back that a blogger who had added various spoof names to the manifesto had confessed to adding Burchill's name, I'm even more convinced that her signature is fradulent now after reading her supposed message. As for the rest of the supposed signatories, they include Buzz Lappin (ie. Bugs Bunny), Dafyd Mallard (ie. Daffy Duck, not quite as obvious then as I suggested above), Ern Malley (the infamous Australian literary hoax), and Miles Davis, apparently. I hadn't noticed Miles had signed up previously. Nobody should really be using the online list of signatories as a reliable source for Wikipedia, anybody can add virtually any name they like to it. MarkB79 18:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Well having done some more research it seems Burchill is a Euston signatory and does apparently think anybody who opposes the Iraq war is a racist (unlike people like Burchill who call civilian casualties "smelly arabs of no importance", I presume), so I underestimated her capacity for absurdity and hypocrisy. Regardless, she isn't a 'thinker', and unless people have strong evidence otherwise, Wheen has not declared himself to be a firm supporter of the Iraq war, so I would like to make those changes if no one objects. MarkB79 19:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Historic New Stateman's article

Here is a historical article of Christopher Hitchens which aptly demonstrates his tendency for independent thinking: ( http://www.newstatesman.com/200707050056 ). It was just republished by the New Stateman because of its historical interest. --CGM1980 14:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

In a piece written for The New Statesman in 1976, Hitchens appeared to praise Saddam Hussein as "perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser." He went on to add: "The Kurds now have a very attenuated version of autonomy, and former members of the Barzani armed forces are being moved to the South. At least, however, Iraq constitutionally recognises that she is a partly Kurdish state, which is more than Iran or Turkey do. Further tests for the regime lie ahead. The quarrel with Syria, which involves differences over Ba’athist ideology as well as a dispute over Syrian damming of the Euphrates river, has now extended to the Lebanon, where Syrian troops have attacked newspapers and buildings controlled by Iraqi-sympathising Palestinians. Relations with Iran are still far from cordial. In response to requests for criticism in the party press, some demands were raised for a constituent assembly, and other complaints voiced about the tightness of the regime. All these remain to be acted on, and as the situation grows more complicated Saddam Hussain will rise more clearly to the top. Make a note of the name. Iraq has been strengthened internally by the construction of a ‘strategic pipeline’ which connects the Gulf to the northern fields for the first time. She has been strengthened externally by her support for revolutionary causes and by the resources she can deploy. It may not be electrification plus Soviet power, but the combination of oil and ‘Arab socialism’ is hardly less powerful."[2]

I removed the section as such additions are controversial and potentially libelous. I want to do some independent checking of the source. Per the biographies of living persons policy, please do not reinsert this until it is properly vetted. VanTucky ^(talk) 19:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

By reading the comments, it seems the newspaper is against the war in Iraq, and therefore likely to insult supporters of the war as it isnt what I would call a good newspaper by the looks of this. Is there a link to the actual arcived article?10max01 19:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The above meets the requirements of BLP as the New Statesman (see its Wikipedia article) is a reputable source and the information is completely sourced to that reputable source. I am going to re-add a version of the above unless someone can say specifically why, in citing BLP policy directly, why it is inappropriate. VanTucky's claims that it isn't "properly vetted" are completely out of place as the information is published in a reputable source, the same source that published the original piece. --CGM1980 19:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

As to the BLP issue, I am sternly reminding CGM that this is a very strict policy, and re-adding controversial information (whether cited or not) before consensus on its appropriateness is reached is way out of line.

It seems that Hitchens does not in fact, have "a more admiring view of the Iraqi dictator" in the article. This is an inappropriate usage of what constitutes a political hit on Hitchens. What he does say is that it is a younger, more powerful, more oil-rich nation than it was before and that it will emerge as a new Arab powerhouse state. But he doesn't "admire" Saddam or his regime, and in fact takes time to point out that part of the reason it is so successful is because it completely crushed Kurdish opposition or any other kind of legitimate political opposition. I quoth,

"In their different crusades, both Iraq and Iran take a distinctly unsentimental line on internal opposition. Ba’ath party spokesmen, when questioned about the lack of public dissent, will point to efforts made by the party press to stimulate criticism of revolutionary shortcomings. True enough, there are such efforts, but they fall rather short of permitting any organised opposition. The argument then moves to the claim, which is often made in Iraq, that the country is surrounded by enemies and attacked by imperialist intrigue. Somewhere in the collision between Baghdad and Teheran on this point, the Kurdish nationalists met a very painful end."

. So he isn't championing the regime, but warning people. VanTucky ^(talk) 19:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

BLP is not about controversial material, and it does not give you the ability to block material from an article just by consistently raising objections to it even if they are invalid. You said above that it needs to be properly vetted, but it was a reliable source. Please do not bully me, but rather let's as you begin below that comment to do, work on the content. You are free to clean up the wording, but outright removal is inappropriate as this is a content dispute rather than a BLP dispute. --CGM1980 20:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)