I’ve always thought Christopher Hitchens is a bit of a blowhard. Probably that comes from his writing style. He’s not there to analyse or inform. He’s a polemicist, and he’s there to heap abuse on whoever has aroused his ire. And in his unbound fury he can be funny and entertaining.
I do, however, have a great deal of respect for him. This is they guy who let himself be waterboarded so he could make his own determination of whether in constitutes torture. On a trip to Lebanon he saw a street sign bearing the symbol of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, which bears a resemblence to the Nazi swastika, and wrote on it “No, no, Fuck the SSNP”. For this he very nearly got his ass kicked.
So I’m not a huge fan of his writing, but when it comes to his beliefs he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is, and I respect that.
He recently published a memoir entitled Hitch 22, but on the eve of his book tour he was forced to cancel it, because he’d been diagnosed with esophagal cancer. This is considered a very dangerous form of cancer, because it’s usually no discovered until it’s had time to spread, and in fact it looks as though his lymph nodes are now also affected.
Hitchens is also an athiest, and in fact an opponent of organized religion. Despite this fact, when he announced he was ill there was an outpouring of sympathy, including many who said they’d keep him in their prayers. Some of the athiest community, who can frankly be as dogmatic as the most zealous believer, were offended by this.
I suspected Hitchens himself, who after all is suffering a life-threatening disease, would not turn away the kind wishes even from his political adversaries. And I was right.
So I watched the first two episodes of Human Target this week, and I have to say it’s pretty good. The flashbacks in each episode let you know what’s going to happen next, but the how-did-we-get-here keeps you watching. Both episodes had their moments. And both had moments that had my eyes rolling like that guy in Scanners.
(Here be SPOILERS.)
In the first episode, security consultant Christopher Chance is on the inaugural journey of California’s new bullet train, travelling at 200 MPH towards Los Angeles. His client is the beautiful project manager of the train project. At one point, she realizes that someone has triggered all the emergency-stop handles, causing the train’s brakes to engage and overheat. If the brakes are used again they’ll EXPLODE! (Eye roll.)
Not only that, but in just 20 minutes they’ll be entering a tunnel, and inside the tunnel is a curve, and when they hit that curve they’ll fly right off the tracks and THEY’LL ALL DIE!!! (My eye rolling is now audible as far away as France.)
Apparently nobody ever thought of TURNING OFF THE DAMN ENGINE. Just guessing here, but at 200 miles per hour there’s probably some pretty serious wind resistance, and I’m guessing that in 20 minutes you would probably coast to a stop.
The second episode – in which Chance has to protect a hacker on a flight from San Francisco to Seattle, was even more farfetched. At one point the plane is one fire, and Chance is trying to increase airflow through the cargo bay to blow it out. The airstream above them is, according to him, going much faster, so he decides to “flip the plane” (roll inverted). This, instead of, oh, say, CLIMBING A FEW DOZEN FEET. (At this point my eyes rolled fully back in my head, with the whites visible from space.)
Despite these preposterous plot tricks, the show is actually pretty entertaining. It was even better under it’s original title, Burn Notice. Stay with me here: Chance is Michael Weston, his old buddy Winston is Sam Axe, and lunatic information broker Guerrero is lunatic gunrunner Fiona Glenanne (although Fiona is juuuust a bit easier on the eyes – Jackie Earle Haley is one freaky lookin’ dude). They even had Burn Notice’s “Carla” (Tricia Helfer) as the target on the first episode.
The main difference is that while you shouldn’t try the tricks on Burn Notice at home, you shouldn’t try the Human Target tricks on any planet governed by the laws of physics.
An Australian cameraman was in Haiti covering the devastating earthquake there when he missed getting footage of an 18-month-old girl being rescued. Rather stupid, wouldn’t you say, since that’s what he was there for?
Nope. He didn’t get the footage because he was the one doing the rescuing.
This, along with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta manning a makeshift hospital after the Belgian medical team left/was ordered out (accounts differ) is going to change a few minds about the media. And frankly, I’m surprised this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. They’re people too, and many have clearly been moved by the tragic events.
Aldo Calcagno over at Darkest Before the Dawn has republished a story of mine called “Payday”. This story originally appeared in CrimeSpree Magazine, and it’s one of my favorites. I originally came up with the idea while stuck in traffic one evening. In a drowsy stupor I had the idea for a hit man who doesn’t really want the job.
I envisioned this as being the perfect Plots With Guns story (sort of like David Allan Coe’s perfect country song) but Neil Smith went on hiatus before I could complete it. I’d always wanted a story in CrimeSpree, so there you are. I hope you enjoy it!
