December 16, 2011: Morning
- Christopher Hitchens dead at 62 from pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer.
- My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends.
- Longform's round-up of articles by and about Christopher Hitchens.
- Ian Parker's definitive bio of Hitchens: "How a former socialist became the Iraq war’s fiercest defender."
- Amis on Hitchens: He thinks like a child, writes like a distinguished author, and speaks like a genius.
- Big bag of tributes to Hitchens, to be updated throughout the day.
- Birnbaum recalls his chats with Hitch.
- Buckley on the long lunches he and Hitchens drank.
- America's military mission in Iraq is over, but no one is acting to ensure that we protect and resettle those who stood with us.
- Open letters written to inventors on Twitter.
- Related: Teddy Wayne's open letter to the writers of open letters.
- Notes on the new crowd-sourced book from Unbound, where "authors and readers decide which books get published."
- Nike designs special cleats for Ronaldo to cloak his changes of direction.
- Rebuttal to yesterday's news about Lego being more boy-friendly.
- Worth revisiting: Jonah Lehrer's profile of snowboarder Kevin Pearce recovering from his crash.
- Reporter goes inside the Vatican's erotic loo.