I will be on vacation for the next seven days, enjoying the sun and sand in the island paradise of Aruba with my girlfriend. Envy me.

Really, Hitch? Nothing at all?

Christopher Hitchens discusses his diagnosis of of cancer and subsequent experiences in typically fine essay in Vanity Fair:

I can’t see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it’s all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me. Rage would be beside the point for the same reason.”

To those of us who wonder how it feels, he sums up the existential horror of the experience in just a few swift sentences:

I was fairly reconciled to the loss of my hair, which began to come out in the shower in the first two weeks of treatment, and which I saved in a plastic bag so that it could help fill a floating dam in the Gulf of Mexico. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the way that my razorblade would suddenly go slipping pointlessly down my face, meeting no stubble. Or for the way that my newly smooth upper lip would begin to look as if it had undergone electrolysis, causing me to look a bit too much like somebody’s maiden auntie. (The chest hair that was once the toast of two continents hasn’t yet wilted, but so much of it was shaved off for various hospital incisions that it’s a rather patchy affair.) I feel upsettingly de-natured. If Penélope Cruz were one of my nurses, I wouldn’t even notice. In the war against Thanatos, if we must term it a war, the immediate loss of Eros is a huge initial sacrifice.

 

Over at RealClearPolitics.com, Jeremy interviews Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn. The interview was posted Saturday, just as the House was heading towards the final stretch on health care reform bill vote. Things got a little fiesty between him and McCollum, a liberal and feminist, but that made for some interesting exchanges:

RCP: The first House bill included a “public option” – that is, a government run and subsidized insurance plan that would compete with private companies. That’s gone now and a lot of progressives are upset about that. What’s the logic behind the House now backing a different bill that arguably gives a huge handout to the insurance companies by forcing all Americans to purchase insurance?

McCollum: I wouldn’t call it a huge handout to insurance companies. We’re telling insurance companies that if we are going to make sure that everyone has insurance coverage, we want to make sure that everyone has insurance coverage that’s usable. So there is a quid pro quo in that.

I don’t use the term government run. The government’s going to set up the rules and the rules are going to be that consumers are going to have access to care when they need it when they purchase policies. The public option was going to be a way in which we had a standard benefit set very similar to to Minnesota Care. The state of Minnesota doesn’t run Minnesota Care. It administers it and it makes sure that there’s a basic quality level healthcare that Minnesota citizens will receive if they are using that policy.

And then there was this:

RCP: Madame Speaker called a meeting of the female Democratic lawmakers Wednesday…

McCollum: Women. We call ourselves women. (Laughs.)

RCP: OK, what was that about?

I’m late in posting this, but Jeremy interviewed Slate blogger Mickey Kaus on his quixotic effort to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Cailf., in the California Democratic primary. Read his exchange with the dirty Mickster here at RealClearPolitics.com.

#1 - Make a cellphone call and briefly step away from your large black dufflebag to get better reception.

Some people — people with machineguns and badges — might misinterpret your actions. Especially if they are already on edge.

Hmm, things you learn.

Just keep it together, Alex.

It’s quite simple really. Take all your beer and put it on your balcony when the forecast calls for snow. Let the snow fall until it covers the beers completely. Then reach into the snow and pull out a frosty cold brewski just like you were starring in a beer commercial (Swedish Bikini Team not included).

Once you’ve got the beer open, sit back in your easy chair and watch the Charles Bronson movies you have rented.

Asked how he pulled out a win in the second compulsory round in last year’s competition, he explained that he is urged on by the energy of the crowd, adding that he can hit a “level of shamelessness” that only the few and the proud are able to reach and rock.

– Caroline Cullen of On Tap magazine, interviewing air guitar champion Craig “Hot Lixx Hulahan” Billmeier prior to last year’s championship bout at the 9:30 Club in DC.

This last week Richard Morrison, my usual co-host of Liberty Week, was away. So I did what was, for me, a first. I hosted the show.

Producer Ryan Young took up the second banana mic and we interviewed guest Phil Klein about the healthcare debate. He argued that even if Scott Brown wins Tuesday the Dems will still find a way to pass a reform bill.

We also talked about global warming, the ’70s, key parties, mood rings, Harry Reid, Trent Lott, and baseball movies. Good times.

(NYR#7)

Fans of low-impact, safeword-protected BDSM should be offended by the association with amputee fetishists — who in turn consider themselves a distinct group united by their love of the Star Wars films. But so far nobody has spoken up.

– Tim Cavanaugh, over at Reason’s Hit and Run Blog, railing against biased, inaccurate reporting by the BBC and others.