Aug. 5th, 2010

davidfcooper: (Default)

I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. But nothing prepared me for the early morning last June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement. I could faintly hear myself breathe but could not manage to inflate my lungs. My heart was beating either much too much or much too little. Any movement, however slight, required forethought and planning. It took strenuous effort for me to cross the room of my New York hotel and summon the emergency services. They arrived with great dispatch and behaved with immense courtesy and professionalism. I had the time to wonder why they needed so many boots and helmets and so much heavy backup equipment, but now that I view the scene in retrospect I see it as a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady. Within a few hours, having had to do quite a lot of emergency work on my heart and my lungs, the physicians at this sad border post had shown me a few other postcards from the interior and told me that my immediate next stop would have to be with an oncologist. Some kind of shadow was throwing itself across the negatives.

Read more... )

Christopher Hitchens is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. Send comments on all Hitchens-related matters to hitchbitch@vf.com.


I count myself lucky that all I have to do is stick to a nearly vegan diet, consume lots of antioxidants, and monitor the minuscule bugger with periodic biopses and blood tests, but then I have fewer vices than Hitch.

Posted via email from davidfcooper's posterous

davidfcooper: (Default)

I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. But nothing prepared me for the early morning last June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement. I could faintly hear myself breathe but could not manage to inflate my lungs. My heart was beating either much too much or much too little. Any movement, however slight, required forethought and planning. It took strenuous effort for me to cross the room of my New York hotel and summon the emergency services. They arrived with great dispatch and behaved with immense courtesy and professionalism. I had the time to wonder why they needed so many boots and helmets and so much heavy backup equipment, but now that I view the scene in retrospect I see it as a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady. Within a few hours, having had to do quite a lot of emergency work on my heart and my lungs, the physicians at this sad border post had shown me a few other postcards from the interior and told me that my immediate next stop would have to be with an oncologist. Some kind of shadow was throwing itself across the negatives.

Read more... )

Christopher Hitchens is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. Send comments on all Hitchens-related matters to hitchbitch@vf.com.


I count myself lucky that all I have to do is stick to a nearly vegan diet, consume lots of antioxidants, and monitor the minuscule bugger with periodic biopses and blood tests, but then I have fewer vices than Hitch.

Posted via email from davidfcooper's posterous

davidfcooper: (Default)

Since 9/11, Western "experts" have said repeatedly that Muslim leaders who fit Rauf's description should be sought out and empowered to fight the rising tide of extremism. In truth, such figures abound in Muslim lands, even if their work goes unnoticed by armchair pundits elsewhere. Their cause is not helped when someone like Rauf finds himself being excoriated for some perceived reluctance to condemn Hamas and accused of being an extremist himself. If anything, this browbeating of a moderate Muslim empowers the narrative promoted by al-Qaeda: that the West loathes everything about Islam and will stop at nothing to destroy it.

  Rauf and Khan have said Park51 - envisaged as a 15-story structure, including a mosque, cultural center and auditorium - will promote greater interfaith dialogue. The furor over the project only underlines how desperately it is needed.

Read the article on news.yahoo.com

I'm also really proud of our mayor:

Posted via email from davidfcooper's posterous

Here is the text of Mayor Bloomberg's speech

davidfcooper: (Default)

Since 9/11, Western "experts" have said repeatedly that Muslim leaders who fit Rauf's description should be sought out and empowered to fight the rising tide of extremism. In truth, such figures abound in Muslim lands, even if their work goes unnoticed by armchair pundits elsewhere. Their cause is not helped when someone like Rauf finds himself being excoriated for some perceived reluctance to condemn Hamas and accused of being an extremist himself. If anything, this browbeating of a moderate Muslim empowers the narrative promoted by al-Qaeda: that the West loathes everything about Islam and will stop at nothing to destroy it.

  Rauf and Khan have said Park51 - envisaged as a 15-story structure, including a mosque, cultural center and auditorium - will promote greater interfaith dialogue. The furor over the project only underlines how desperately it is needed.

Read the article on news.yahoo.com

I'm also really proud of our mayor:

Posted via email from davidfcooper's posterous

Here is the text of Mayor Bloomberg's speech

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