"In order to get my own emotions out of the way, I should say briefly that on that day I shared the general register of feeling, from disgust to rage, but was also aware of something that would not quite disclose itself. It only became fully evident quite late that evening. And to my surprise (and pleasure), it was exhilaration. I am not particularly a war lover, and on the occasions when I have seen warfare as a traveling writer, I have tended to shudder. But here was a direct, unmistakable confrontation between everything I loved and everything I hated. On one side, the ethics of the multicultural, the secular, the skeptical, and the cosmopolitan. (Those are the ones I love, by the way.) On the other, the arid monochrome of dull and vicious theocratic fascism. I am prepared for this war to go on for a very long time. I will never become tired of waging it, because it is a fight over essentials. And because it is so interesting."
-Christopher Hitchens's reaction to 9/11
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So on one side you have the married-three kids-joe-six pack NYC firefighters saying a prayer before going up the stairs and on the other side you have the single, well-heeled and world-traveled Hamburg-based engineering graduate students who spend their days toning up in kick boxing classes and their nights in strip clubsstuffing g strings with oil-derived greenbacks . Atheist vs believer, indeed. Things are amazingly clear through the bottom of a gin tumbler, Hitch.
That is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Yes and Pat Tillman took a bullet in the head when in a German club.
"That is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard."
That changes the discourse. So long!
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