Rebecca Watson vs. Christopher Hitchens: New Atheism, Same Conservative Bigotry

 

Weapons and Warriors

“What are we looking at here? Formaldehyde, necrolium, nitro benzene. This thing actually has over seven thousand chemicals. Don’t get me started on what they do to you. Prematurely wrinkled skin, stunted lung growth, tooth loss, cancer…”

“Cut the bullshit, Dr. Archer, you know damn well this is wrong,” said Nurse Taylor Patrick, who stood across the mad scientist’s lab in pink scrubs with her arms folded tightly to her chest.

“Wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Miss Patrick,” said Dr. Adam Archer as he ate a slice of pepperoni pizza while twisting the last few bolts on his “project” with a monkey wrench. “You know those goddamn hippies outside of our lab? They just so happen to be getting in the way of production. And if it wasn’t for the hard work of these loyal CEO’s, you’d be out of a job. Well, not really a job. More like an internship. Or indentured slavery. Haha!”

Dr. Archer dropped a slice of pepperoni into the “life core” of his machine and ate it shamelessly, causing Taylor to cover her mouth in disgust. “Look, I need this internship, I really do, but putting a serial killer’s mind into a robot body? That’s just sick and twisted. Not only that, but it’s probably illegal too! You know, there’s always that remote possibility of prosecution.”

“Don’t worry about the legal shit, Miss Patrick,” said Dr. Archer as he finished tightening the last bolt on his robot. “It’s nothing a little hush money can’t fix. And trust me, we’ve got enough hush money to go around, kind of like that welfare shit you hippie liberals love so much. Haha!” Taylor rolled her eyes and shook her head.

The puffy white haired scientist in a dark lab coat stepped backwards to admire his handiwork…and to uncomfortably wrap his arm around Taylor’s shoulders. “You see this, my dear?” said Dr. Archer as he waved his hand about for theatrical purposes. “I want you to meet the new enforcer for Sexton-Naylor Oil Trade.”

“SNOT?” said Taylor when putting the company name into an acronym.

“We don’t call it that, sweetheart,” said Adam before patting Taylor on the shoulder and causing her to shove his arm off. The mad scientist danced happily over to the power box to flip the electrical switch while Taylor sat down in the fetal position with bile coming up from her throat. The poor nurse rocked back and forth silently praying to herself that she would live though this scientific nightmare.

“World? Meet Cain Gutwrench, society’s most sadistic, bloodthirsty, animalistic, and gory serial killer! He’s perfect for slaughtering protesters and anybody else who decides to screw up business for us! Are you ready? I said! Are! You! Ready?!” Adam threw down the electrical switch and lightning bolts flooded through the cords attached to this hellish creation. The robot thrashed and wailed about while Taylor Patrick cried softly to herself. Was this internship really necessary? Were there no other jobs out there for a nurse like her? How did she wind up in this shit-hole of a project? What the fuck was she thinking?!

The lightning flowing through the robot’s body turned purple, green, and blood red whilst crashing into the metallic body in larger waves. Taylor slowly picked her head up from her fetal position to see that the electricity was getting slower and gentler before it fizzed out. The cords running through Cain Gutwrench’s body snapped off and the creature from the ninth circle of hell slowly sat up on the table with an ogre-like groan.

Cain’s face was that of a metallic dragon. His body was that of a robotic skeleton. His hands and feet both held scythe blades that could cut through a telephone pole like a stick of butter. He had black bat wings on his back to make his appearance even more frightening. The life core in his chest had the appearance of blood and ooze in a nuclear container.

Taking one look at this robotic monster caused Taylor to tuck her head and cry a waterfall onto her knees. She wanted so badly to leave this place, but she was too terrified to stand up and move. She shook harder than one of Dr. Archer’s power tools.

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t be like that! It’s going to be amazing! There’s going to be blood everywhere on the streets! It’ll be great!” boasted the sadistic scientist, who received a slash to the gut for his efforts. Taylor screamed like a banshee as Cain Gutwrench stood up from the table and hoisted Dr. Archer’s gushing corpse high in the air. The murderous robot gave a sick laugh before tossing the limp body off to the side and allowing the stomach wound to soak the floor.

As Cain slowly stalked the nurse in the corner, Taylor screamed bloody murder once again before crawling quickly on her hands and knees toward the door. The robot flapped its bat wings and stood in Nurse Patrick’s way, causing her to scream and sob some more while on her knees.

“Please! Please don’t kill me! I’ll do whatever you want! I swear! Just please let me go!” Taylor begged with her hands together prayer style.

Cain held a finger to his monstrous face and creepily shushed her. With tears and snot rushing down the nurse’s face, Cain petted her hair gently and sang in his demonic rasp a lullaby for her. “Hush little baby. Shh! Don’t say a world. Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. Shh. It’s okay, little princess. I won’t let the big bad monster hurt you.”

Taylor tucked her head down and puked all over Cain’s bladed feet, to which the serial killer said, “Oh, for shit’s sake! You can stop acting now! We all knew you switched out life cores! Well, everybody except Dr. Archer, but you get the point!”

“Sorry,” said Taylor in a weak, shaky voice. “it’s just that seeing the violence for the first time…it’s just a little too much, that’s all.”

“You saw it alright, Taylor. And you’re going to see it again…and again…and again. Did you already forget how angry you were when the CEO stiffed you on your payments? Did you already forget how traumatized you were when they stuck you in this dump basement with that pervert Adam Archer?” Cain leaned his head down so that he was making direct eye contact with his co-conspirator. “Did you also forget that time when Adam offered you money to put your mouth on his…you know what? You’re right. It is a lot to take in at once.”

The trembling voice turned from frightened sadness to volcanic anger when Taylor said, “Trust me, Cain, I didn’t forget about any of that. I had fantasies every night about killing Dr. Archer. I thought about slaughtering every executive in this whole fucking building for the shit they put me through. It’s all I could think about. All those sleepless nights led to this moment. And yet…I still feel empty and cold. This isn’t right, Cain. This isn’t right at all.”

“Do I also need to remind you that it was you who swapped out life cores in my body with out Dr. Archer’s knowledge? Just because you don’t like the results of your actions, doesn’t mean you’re excused from them. There’s no turning back, Taylor. Either you see this whole thing through, or you can puss out and sit in a jail cell. Which will it be?” asked Cain.

Taylor wiped the tears and snot from her face and slowly rose to her feet to give the robotic demon her answer. “I’m sorry, Cain. I really am. I can’t go through with this, not after seeing Dr. Archer looking the way he does. You slaughtered him like a farm animal. It smells awful in here!”

“It’s okay, Taylor. I understand,” said Cain as he put his bony hand on her shoulder. “Not everybody can handle this kind of violence. Which is exactly why…I’m not letting you live a life as a prisoner. Then again…you won’t be living at all!”

In one swift motion, Cain kicked Taylor in the stomach and impaled her body on his scythe feet. Her spine was severed, her life juices poured out of her like a biblical flood, and the room just got a whole lot smellier now that she emptied her intestines and bladder. After discarding her corpse on the floor like common trash, Cain said, “I’m sorry, Taylor. It had to happen. You were going to jail for this one way or another. But since you took the coward’s way out, there was no future for you. Revolution is only for the brave.”

There were heavy knocks on the bolted steel door of the laboratory along with shouts of, “Open up! Security! Open up this goddamn door now before we get the battering ram! Move it!”

Cain Gutwrench reached inside his life core, pressed a few buttons, and detonated a secret bomb that Taylor tucked away in the core should things go south. They went south in a hurry and now a volcanic flow of hellfire blew through the laboratory, taking the SWAT-like security team and anybody else standing around with him to the underworld. Even with the sprinkler system going nuts to put out the fire, it grew and grew until the SNOT building resembled a corporate effigy. One way or another, this shit was going to end badly for somebody. It wasn’t best for business. But then again, if Taylor was still alive, she wouldn’t give the shits that came out of her intestines when she did die.

St. Vincent

MOVIE TITLE: St. Vincent

DIRECTOR: Theodore Melfi

YEAR: 2014

GENRE: Dramatic Comedy

RATING: R for fight scenes, language, and sexual themes

GRADE: Pass

Vincent MacKenna is an angry old drunk with gambling problems, a prostitute girlfriend, and an addiction to cigarettes. And yet, he’s the only one who is available to baby-sit 12-year-old Oliver while his mother Maggie is working long hours at the hospital. Vincent seems like a highly unlikely candidate for a babysitting job. He takes Oliver to gamble at the race track, drink at the bar, and even teaches him how to fight back against Catholic school bullies. Behind all of the alcoholic rage, Vincent proves to be a worthy mentor for Oliver as the two teach each other valuable life lessons. There’s not one character in this movie who isn’t permanently changed for the better by the time the movie is over.

The first thing I’d like to touch on is the relationship between Oliver and his school bully Robert. These two get into plenty of fights during the beginning moments of the movie. But when the two of them are punished with toilet cleaning duty, they bonded over the fact that they both had scumbags for fathers. Normally when I talk about bullying in movies, I always wish a hardcore beating for the ones doing the bullying. While vengeance may seem nice during a moment of rage, diplomacy will always be a superior tactic. Violence begets more violence. Peace begets friendship. Oliver and Robert found their peace and become friends over time. This should count as a spoiler, but since it happens early enough in the movie, I don’t see how a warning is necessary.

The relationships between the characters and how they improve over time is heartwarming, but since this is a comedy, there should also be laughs to go with that warmth. The biggest source of comedy comes from Bill Murray’s performance as Vincent MacKenna. Mr. Murray portrays his character like a clumsy and foulmouthed degenerate. Whenever he’s cussing somebody out, making an off-color comment, or just being socially inept, the audience is laughing alongside him. He also employs a little bit of slapstick as well when he accidentally hits himself in the face with an ice hammer and knocks himself into unconsciousness. It’s brutal, but because Bill Murray is the one portraying it, he does a masterful job of turning brutality into giggles. Richard Roeper said Bill Murray might get an Oscar for this and I’m hard pressed to disagree with him.

The entire character roster of this film is flawed in some way. We like flawed characters, because they’re relatable and perfection is boring. If Vincent MacKenna was a heroic superman with a chiseled chin and a golden smile, this movie would be a snooze fest. If Oliver wasn’t a scrawny little dork, there’s be no reason for a bullying storyline, which is a huge part of the script. If Maggie wasn’t a struggling mother with all of these obstacles in her way, then she wouldn’t have a need to introduce Oliver to Vincent, which goes against the whole point of the story. Flaws in characters should be celebrated, because they make transformation that much more believable.

I first saw St. Vincent on my last day of a vacation to San Diego where Lego Land was the main reason for going. The reason for seeing this movie was to kill time before we had to hurry up and wait at the airport to go home. I must say that seeing this movie was the perfect way to end an already delightful vacation. I’m a sucker for a good story and St. Vincent has just that. A good movie puts me in a good mood, which is something everybody should have before they engage in stressful air travel. Because I was in a good mood, my flight back to Seattle went as smoothly as I could have asked for. Positivity attracts other positive things; never forget that proverb.