Last night I had the honor of attending a speech by renowned journalist and foreign correspondent Christopher Hitchens on Religion and Politics: The Place for Religion on Public Life on the WSU campus with Roy.
To be perfectly honest, I had no idea what the subject matter would be. Roy and I had been invited (and had seats reserved) by some friends. Not having seen so much as a brochure before the event (and, sadly, being what I would call entirely ignorant of who Hitchens actually was), I had originally thought the speech might be about Castro.
I found myself absolutely enthralled by the performance (although I won't relay the majority of my thoughts here, since the majority of my blog readers wouldn't be interested). While incredibly controversial in topic, Hitchens demonstrated not only brilliance , but complete civility throughout the speech and into the Q&A session afterward. Taking a few glances into the seats behind us, it was apparent on the faces of members of the audience that some were offended by the remarks that were made (although, sadly, I believe that some attended with the actual intent to become offended) however I found myself unable to find a single statement to be offended by. (Then again, I'm not exactly what you would call easily annoyed... I just finished reading The Davinci Code by Dan Brown two weekends back and I'm still attempting to lay a finger on what exactly had everyone's panties in a bunch). I even found myself increasingly suspicious that a few attendants had hoped to cause up a stir, but had aborted their attempts in witnessing the downright courteousness in which audience statements were countered with.
After the speech (which was far too short in my opinion!) there was a book signing in the lobby. I immidiately wheeled Roy into line and were quickly joined by our friends. Counting up our pennies, Roy and I had just enough to make the purchase (I only had fifteen dollars in my purse, coupled with bits of small change. As luck would have it, Roy found a ten dollar bill hidden in the back of his wallet which saved the night!). When we got to the head of the line, Hitchen was a bit taken aback that we requested to have our book personalized to the both of us. According to him, very few people choose that option, since the resell value on eBay essentially plummets to zero.
On a side note... water-saving flush valves! WSU, why are you so awesome?
