Posted on 01/07/2017 8:09:45 PM PST by EveningStar
Nat Hentoff, an eclectic columnist, critic, novelist and agitator dedicated to music, free expression and defying the party line, died Saturday at age 91.
His son, Tom Hentoff, said his father died from natural causes at his Manhattan apartment.
Schooled in the classics and the stories he heard from Duke Ellington and other jazz greats, Nat Hentoff enjoyed a diverse and iconoclastic career, basking in “the freedom to be infuriating on a myriad of subjects.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
ping
Truly an American one-off.
Pro-life liberals are as rare as hen’s teeth.
RIP
My father was friends with him. He said he was the most principled liberal he’s ever met. My brother interned with him circa 1974. He sent my brother to Miles Davis’ apt. in New York to pick up something and my brother tripped on the stairs because (he said) they were all shades of blue. My brother had nothing buy nice things to say about him as well. RIP, Mr. Hentoff.
May the babies he fought for welcome him into Paradise.
He was one of my first pro-life heroes. His explanation for how one must be pro-life even if they were, like him, atheists, was brilliant.
Sad to hear this. Hentoff was a liberal but a relatively sensible one, who was strongly on the side of civil liberties even when his side of the aisle wasn’t. Even though I often disagreed with Hentoff (and sometimes agreed), he was a liberal we could respect.
He was a good man. I remember him mainly as a free speech absolutist. Just not enough of him in the world.
RIP.
RIP bump. So strange a collection of beliefs almost has to be sincere.
Freegards
Nice story. Hentoff was an American original.
If only more liberals were like him. RIP.
RIP Nat.
One of the great ones.
If only!
Hentoff falls into the same category as the late Pat Moynihan, i.e., honest liberals.
Nobody gets out alive.
Nat Hentoff was one of the few journalists who came to the defense of Kellly Michaels, an innocent woman who was given a 47-year sentence on false charges of child abuse in a day care center. (The charges were absurd. She was accused of doing terrible things to kids in a day care center where people were walking in and out all day with no eyewitnesses and no physical evidence.) Since the liberals were the ones pushing these cases, that took a lot of courage on the part of Hentoff to call B.S. and point out that the whole thing was a witch hunt.
That’s sad news, I always enjoyed reading his commentaries as he was a fair-minded and interesting person. A good run.
He at times was what some call, “intellectually honest.”
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