| By Christopher Hitchens before he died, reprinted by Slate in memory of the dearly departed -- Oogo, that is, not Hitch. It begins as follows: |
Recent accounts of Hugo Chavez's politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16--just at the midnight hour, to be precise--Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón BolÃvar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830. According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart--even as Chavez tweeted the proceedings for his audience--and some teeth and bone fragments were taken away for testing. The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chavez government's seal. In one of the rather free-associating speeches for which he has become celebrated, Chavez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate BolÃvar's constituent parts. |