A Good, Godless Man
Sadly the world this week lost famed atheist, alcoholic, and author Christopher Hitchens. He challenged the Judeo-Christian West to reevaluate our deeply ingrained belief systems and assumptions. His book God is Not Great made a splash among monotheists and joyful nonbelievers. Even more sadly, in his foolishness and fanatic devotion to Science, Hitchens could not overcome mainstream medicine's mocking of "alternative" cancer cure claims. And so he lost his life, and we lost a great voice of reason and inquiry, however misguided he may have been in his search for truth from time to time.
Are profitable cancer (oncology) centers, mainstream drug companies, and wealthy research labs mourning the loss? No, they are busy counting the profits and pleading for more funding to explore the same three treatment options: chemo, surgery, and radioactive bombardment. Hitchens ignored the healing methodologies not based on corporate profit, which people celebrate every single day choosing instead to "fight" cancer. Forced to stick to his pride and misplaced devotion to proprietary science in the name of real "Science," Christopher followed the deadly route of allopathic medicine, whose official articles of faith only allow discussion of chemical poisoning, excision, and ionizing radiation. His acidifying habit of alcohol toxicity would have made the alternatives seem very unappealing when one can carry on as one loses one's hair (due to chemo, not to cancer) and health and eventually this precious human life. Hitchens died without knowing. And depending on where he was reborn, he may still not know where he went wrong. But there is a chance it all became clear...just a little too late.
Tyrant's baby son to rule North Korea -- with an iron fist or velvet glove remains to be seen (heraldsun.com.au).Hillary must be wringing her hands
"We came, we saw, he died," Clinton squealed about Libya. [She came, she didn't meet with him, we killed him?] She then went to Burma to make sure it stayed away from North Korea and its weapons sales. Then their troublesome leader died mysteriously on a train.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, 69, succumbed to heart difficulties this week. A "god" among men, at least among North Koreans kept in the dark about the outside world, Il proved to be more vulnerable to his hardening than was thought possible. Surely he is an immortal. He nevertheless is survived by his wives and children, the youngest of which (Kim Jong Un)
will rise to the throne of absolute power. Will he be a playboy, a tyrant, a revolutionary youngster inspired by the worldwide Arab Spring and Occupy Movement? Whatever he does, we are likely to hear the worst of it in an ongoing campaign of disinformation about North Korea, having sided with the South and manned a no man's land (the DMZ or demilitarized zone) that sees frequent unrest while creating an island of biodiversity in the midst of a long running war.
Finally, a more inspiring leader was also lost in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, 75. He was the much-lauded Czech writer and dissident turned president after the 1989 Velvet Revolution in which “people power” led to a peaceful transition of power after 40 years of communist rule. He passed away on Dec. 18. He died in his sleep at his country house in northern Bohemia next to his second wife, actress Dagmar Veškrnová.
His experience as a dissident who spent years in Communist prisons and his powerful writings -- not only his plays with their critique of the regime but even more his open letter to the Communist leader Gustav Husák, his essay “The Power of the Powerless,” and his Letters to Olga, written while imprisoned from 1979 to 1983 -- seem all the more important to recall at the end of a year in which popular Occupy and Arab Spring uprisings have ended the rule of dictators in the Arab world and in which the protester, occupying on Wall Street and cities throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, has become an emblematic figure. More
"We came, we saw, he died," Clinton squealed about Libya. [She came, she didn't meet with him, we killed him?] She then went to Burma to make sure it stayed away from North Korea and its weapons sales. Then their troublesome leader died mysteriously on a train.North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, 69, succumbed to heart difficulties this week. A "god" among men, at least among North Koreans kept in the dark about the outside world, Il proved to be more vulnerable to his hardening than was thought possible. Surely he is an immortal. He nevertheless is survived by his wives and children, the youngest of which (Kim Jong Un)
will rise to the throne of absolute power. Will he be a playboy, a tyrant, a revolutionary youngster inspired by the worldwide Arab Spring and Occupy Movement? Whatever he does, we are likely to hear the worst of it in an ongoing campaign of disinformation about North Korea, having sided with the South and manned a no man's land (the DMZ or demilitarized zone) that sees frequent unrest while creating an island of biodiversity in the midst of a long running war.- Kim Jong Il's legacy of defiance
- Kim Jong-il: South Korea on high alert after North Korea confirms passing of enigmatic leader
Finally, a more inspiring leader was also lost in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, 75. He was the much-lauded Czech writer and dissident turned president after the 1989 Velvet Revolution in which “people power” led to a peaceful transition of power after 40 years of communist rule. He passed away on Dec. 18. He died in his sleep at his country house in northern Bohemia next to his second wife, actress Dagmar Veškrnová.
His experience as a dissident who spent years in Communist prisons and his powerful writings -- not only his plays with their critique of the regime but even more his open letter to the Communist leader Gustav Husák, his essay “The Power of the Powerless,” and his Letters to Olga, written while imprisoned from 1979 to 1983 -- seem all the more important to recall at the end of a year in which popular Occupy and Arab Spring uprisings have ended the rule of dictators in the Arab world and in which the protester, occupying on Wall Street and cities throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, has become an emblematic figure. More