Asawin Suebsaeng

Interactive Fellow

Asawin Suebsaeng is the interactive fellow at the Washington, DC bureau of Mother Jones. He has also written for The American Prospect, the Bangkok Post, and Shoecomics.com.

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A graduate of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Penn., Asawin came back to DC with hopes of putting his flimsy Creative Writing major, student newspaper tenure, and interest in human rights and political chicanery to some use. He started cutting his teeth at F&M's student-run weekly, The College Reporter, serving as editor in chief. He has interned at The American Prospect, been a reporter for the Bangkok Post, and scribbled for ShoeComics.com. His favorite movie is either Apocalypse Now or Pirahna 3D, depending on the day or mood.

Congress Talk Pretty One Day

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Tue May. 22, 2012 10:24 AM PDT

Congress lost theirs. Jared/Wikimedia Commons

A recent study by the Sunlight Foundation found that Congress is a lot like Benjamin Button. But instead of reverse-aging, members of Congress are regressing in their ability to form complex sentences.

According to the analysis, members of the House and Senate currently speak at roughly a 10th grade level—almost a full grade lower than in 2005. Republicans come in at a 10.4 grade level average, while Democrats perform slightly better at a 10.8. (The study was based on algorithmic analysis—similar to methods used to chart Congressional buzzwords—of floor speeches delivered through April 25, 2012.)

Politico has a rundown:

The study also revealed that only 10 members of Congress have used at least 20 of Kaplan's 100 most common SAT words so far in the current session of Congress, while just 92 members have used at least 10 of those words...[T]he U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level, the Federalist Papers at a 17.1 level, and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 level (an analysis by the University of Minnesota showed that President Barack Obama's State of the Union this year had an 8th grade comprehension level – the third lowest score of any SOTU address since 1934).

Here's are a couple of charts from the study:

Sunlight Foundation

On its surface, this will probably read like yet another cue to bash the stupidity of our much-derided Congress. But determining the substance or effectiveness of something based on its "grade level" isn't an exact science. People might want to keep this fact in mind:

All journos mocking Congress for speaking at a 10th grade level shud remember that newspaper writers aim for 8th grade. (6th is better)
— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) May 21, 2012

You could plausibly argue that our nation's rhetoric has been somewhat dumbed down over the past few years. But great politicians have always tried to speak in populist terms. It shouldn't shock anyone to learn that elected officials don't often channel Aaron Sorkin. If you want to mock the 112th Congress, you run the risk of looking silly if you chuckle at politicians' word choices or the length of their speeches.

Instead, simply highlight their ideas.

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They Finally (!!) Made a Movie Based On Battleship...

...and it just so happens to be the most glowingly patriotic thing in theaters right now.

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri May. 18, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

A production still.

Battleship
Universal Pictures
131 minutes

At first glance, Battleship seems like the most inexcusable, wretched pile of flabby urethra to crawl out of the movie industry in eons.

For starters, the film has been attracting a year-long volley of unfiltered rage for being such a blatant, self-satirizing model of product placement and cross promotion: The movie is openly advertised as an adaptation of the Milton Bradley board game of the same title. The board game. As in, the thing you and your childhood buddies played on the floor of your parents' living room, in the days before you knew what paintball or a spliff was.

This thing, right here:

And unlike games like Clue or even Space Hulk, the sea-battle guessing game never bore any tangible plot. It was just you and your prepubescent cohorts shouting out combinations of letters and numbers. It's not a toy that in any way begs to be whored out to Hollywood script-doctors eager to capitalize on nostalgia and commercial familiarity. As sage-wisdom doler Rob Delaney opined earlier this month, "It isn't okay that there's a movie 'based on' Battleship starring Rihanna. That is a thing that is not okay."

Everything seemed to be teed up for king-sized failure—disposable escapism that amounted to little more than Battle: Los Angeles, but with 80% less dry land. Or Transformers, absent the irrepressible charms and sly wit of actress Megan Fox.

But here's the dirty little secret about Battleship: It's actually a ragingly dumb good time, that also happens to be the most enjoyably patriotic thing in theaters today.

[Read the full article]

"The Dictator": A Qaddafi-Inspired Rom-Com Filled With Pubic-Hair Jokes

Sacha Baron Cohen's uneven comedy still confirms his status as a master satirist.

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Wed May. 16, 2012 12:01 AM PDT

The Dictator
Paramount Pictures
83 minutes

If The Dictator were a dictator, it would probably be Chiang Kai-shek: good in spurts, but excessive and, in the end, unpardonably flawed.

The film (directed by Larry Charles) chronicles the politically incorrect misadventures of Adm. General Haffaz Aladeen, the jolly autocrat of the fictional North African republic of Wadiya. The character—actor/satirist Sacha Baron Cohen's latest creation—is a comic pastiche of democracy-killing icons: Aladeen enjoys a flamboyant, sybaritic, rape-abundant lifestyle à la Uday Hussein. He possesses the megalomania and the "Amazonian Guard" of a Moammar Qaddafi. And his regime's nuke-happy, Jew-baiting tendencies are a caricature of today's Iranian hardliners.

Mix together those three ingredients, add a dash of Elmer J. Fudd, and you've got yourself one tall, mad Haffaz Aladeen.

[Read the full article]

"Dark Shadows" May Imperil Tim Burton's AC/DC Status

The director's patented formula gets another workout, featuring Johnny Depp as a goofy-ass '70s vampire.

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri May. 11, 2012 3:25 AM PDT

Dark Shadows
Warner Bros. Pictures
113 minutes

In March 2010, CollegeHumor.com debuted a sketch titled "Tim Burton's Secret Formula." The Burton character brainstorms with his team of "weavers of shadowy fantasms" to come up with his next big project. Burton rejects the idea for an original screenplay and declares that they will stick to taking "an old story that was already creepy and make it shitload creepier!" From there, the other elements and usual suspects fall into place: Johnny Depp, Tim Burton's domestic partner, buckets of white make-up, black set design and wardrobe, Danny Elfman score, and haunted everything.

Even if you admire, as I do, Burton's directorial output since 1999—which has indeed leaned heavily on rebooting famous old tales—it's hard to argue that this was an unwarranted lampooning. Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, and Alice in Wonderland can be damn-near aesthetically interchangeable. The same goes for Burton's latest, Dark Shadows, a star-studded adaptation of the influential 1960s daytime soap that threw together black magic, werewolves, and vampires—"Satan's favorite TV show," as it was labeled by boycott-happy Christian groups at the time.

To his credit, Burton has achieved what I like to call the AC/DC standard: Once popular artists really nail a good formula, they reach a point where it is permissible to abandon the pursuit of originality or innovation. Listening to the albums High Voltage and Highway to Hell back-to-back is much like watching Burton's glut of remakes in rapid succession—the formula feels more like signature style, and you learn to forgive and often embrace the predictability.

But the fatal snag with Dark Shadows isn't its lack of originality. It's that halfway through, the film forgets to bring the fun. The result is a thoroughly uneven black comedy that builds to a thunderously unsatisfying conclusion.

[Read the full article]

The GOP Plan To Protect New York From Iran's Nonexistent Transatlantic Missiles

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Thu May. 10, 2012 3:01 AM PDT

Pictured: Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), left, and Iranian aggression. fliegenwulf/Shutterstock

House Republicans want to protect America in the event Iran suddenly decides to start raining down rockets on Manhattan's Theatre District. Their ambitious solution? A missile shield for the East Coast—think of it as yet another big-budget sequel to "Star Wars."

Predictably, Democrats are eager to spoil their fun:

A new Republican plan to set up a missile defense site on the East Coast has attracted election-year fireworks, with Democrats accusing the GOP of pushing the idea to undercut President Obama's national-security credentials.

Democrats say Republicans are playing politics, but GOP members hit back saying the site is necessary to get ahead of the rising threat of Iran's missile development and to plug a gap in U.S. missile defenses..."This is a political move," said Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), who intends to introduce an amendment Wednesday to strip the provision from the defense authorization bill. "Every time the election comes around, the Republicans run out a national security agenda."

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House strategic forces subcommittee, counters thusly:

You cannot open a newspaper or turn on a TV…without seeing a story of the rising threat from Iran and North Korea to mainland United States. With these emerging threats it is inevitable that an East Coast site will be necessary in order to ensure we have the ability to lessen the threats from both Iran and North Korea.

House Republicans have been kicking around this idea for a few weeks now. It would require $100 million upfront to get the project off the ground, and would take about four years to build.

There are lots of reasons why this plan is punishingly ill-advised.

Yes, Iranian military and government officials have indeed said things about attacking the East Coast of the United States with their missiles and naval fleets. They've also said things about launching simultaneous Red Dawn-like ground offensives on American, European, Israeli, and Palestinian soil, and that George W. Bush brought down the World Trade Center. Basically, Iran says a lot of things, often with the same attachment to reality you'd get from a Kardashian wedding.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for May 9, 2012

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Wed May. 9, 2012 7:42 AM PDT

Sgt. Joshua Smith, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, chats with an Afghan boy during an Afghan-led clearing operation on April 28, 2012 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan. The soldier studied the Pashtun language prior to his deployment to southern Ghazni. US Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod.

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"The Avengers": A Cripplingly Powerful Nerdgasm

You might have some trouble walking and need a cigarette once the end credits roll.

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri May. 4, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Marvel's The Avengers
Walt Disney Pictures
142 minutes

Dear comic book fans,

Take the frothy, industrial-strength nerdgasm you experienced the first time you watched Iron Man. Or the volcanic nerd-max you achieved on opening night of Thor. Or the patriotic nerd-OOOOOO-MG you embarrassingly sang out when you saw Captain America: The First Avenger in theaters.

Now double it.

That's what you get with Marvel's The Avengers, a rousing shot of popcorn flash, smooth wit, and accessible comic-book reverence.

For the past few summers, Marvel Studios has been pumping out adaptation after adaptation of the venerated Marvel Worldwide canon. The Avengers is the Traveling Wilburys of Marvel's superhero sagas—an ambitious, loud epic in which you get to see the all-stars, from Hawkeye to Black Widow, band together to defend the planet from high-powered space fascists.

The action kicks off when angry Norse god Loki (played by British actor Tom Hiddleston) teleports his way to North America in his quest to impose totalitarian rule on all humankind—"I am burdened with glorious purpose," he pronounces menacingly. It's hard to take this wannabe galaxy dictator seriously at first, mainly because he talks like Masterpiece Theatre and looks like a 30 Seconds to Mars music video. But he starts mass-murdering people with his vast arsenal of space powers, so the guy kind of demands attention. Thus enter the Avengers, a ragtag team assembled by S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (snake-punching virtuoso Samuel L. Jackson), to counter the onslaught. Here's a refresher on the crew:

Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.): The Randian badboy industrialist who takes a cavalier approach to flying around in a hot-red suit of armor, and neutralizing Islamists.
Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo): He uncontrollably turns green and causes billions of dollars worth in property damage. (Yes, Mark Ruffalo had to wear a leotard for his role.)
Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson): Master interrogator and kung-fu ass-kicker. She used to work for the Russians, now plays for team America. She somehow manages to wear high-heels even in the roughest instances of Avenger-ing.
Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner): Supposedly the world's greatest archer. Much like Black Widow, he has his fair share of covert ops/CIA malfeasance related skeletons in his closet.
Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evans): A war hero who was injected with a performance-enhancing serum. He drop-kicked Nazis professionally back in the early '40s.
Thor, a.k.a. Thor (Chris Hemsworth): A benevolent Norse thunder-god. He wields a scary magic hammer. Also, he's the brother of space-Hitler Loki. This makes things awkward.

[Read the full article]

Hitler, Obama Both Fond of Slogans

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Tue May. 1, 2012 2:37 PM PDT

"Forward!" German Federal Archive

Hitler does not have a patent on adverbs.

It all started right after Team Obama debuted their new campaign's slogan: "Forward"—the long-awaited sequel to 2008's "Hope and Change." And in those seven letters, members of the conservative commentariat detected a whiff of totalitarianism.

On Tuesday, ThinkProgress editor Alex Seitz-Wald threw together a primer on the bizarre, petty, and not entirely unexpected freak-out. For example, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard criticized the president for having signed off on a word so closely linked to Chairman Mao's mass-murder-tastic Great Leap Forward. ("[P]erhaps President Obama might rethink this slightly creepy slogan," Kristol pondered earnestly.) Breitbart.com's Joel Pollak (this guy) wrote about how the seven-letter slogan is further proof that Obama's political heritage belongs to a long line of Communist tyrants. Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit took Forwardgate as his cue to yet again draw the Obama-Hitler connection.

There you have it: The 44th President of the United States and his campaign staff like to use words. Communists and fascists throughout history were also known to have used words.

It's the same kind of bulletproof logic you'd get from Dave Chappelle's "Conspiracy Brother" in Undercover Brother.

Here are some other conclusions that follow the same line of reasoning that begot the Forward backlash. You can apply the formula to anyone, really.

Obama:

The White House/FlickrYou know who else liked dogs, don't you?

German Federal ArchiveSupermodels:

You know who else really loved horsies?

Biggie:

WikimediaYou know who else knew where Brooklyn at?

I think we're done here.

We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for May 1, 2012

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Tue May. 1, 2012 8:27 AM PDT

Sgt. 1st Class Raja Richardson, platoon sergeant with Company C, 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, Task Force 2-28, 172nd Infantry Brigade, leads a patrol across a ridgeline outside of Forward Operating Base Tillman. Photo by the US Army.

4 Things to Know About CISPA

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri Apr. 27, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

wongwean/Shutterstock

On Thursday, the House passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR 3523) by a 248-168 vote. The bill, commonly known by its acronym, CISPA, aims to make it easier for government agencies and private industry to share information about cyber threats. But all that information-sharing worries privacy advocates and civil libertarians, who say the bill lacks safeguards against abuse. Supporters like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who introduced the bill last November, insist that it is a necessary step in cracking down on illegal hacking and foreign spying, and would not be used to target things like file-sharing sites and free speech on the internet.

Now that the bill has passed the House, the focus shifts to the Senate, which is crafting an alternate version of the bill that could be voted on as early as May. Here are four things to know about CISPA.

1. Those for, those against. The usual suspects on both sides—rights organizations, consumer groups, big business, telecommunications—came out to endorse or condemn the bill. Here are some big names that have issued ringing endorsements of CISPA:

…and some key players that have denounced the bill:

2. The vague language. As with charges leveled at other recent controversial pieces of legislation, much of the debate over CISPA is about what the language in the bill actually means. CISPA would allow and encourage companies and government agencies to share internet users' information with each other without court orders or subpoenas so long as the company or agency can cite a "cybersecurity purpose." Proponents say that this will allow companies facing online attacks to report intrusions to the government and get help promptly without having to worry about unnecessary red tape. Critics, however, say there is a substantial potential for abuse in the vagueness of the phrase "cybersecurity purpose." "Right now, companies can only look at your communications in very specific, very narrow situations," Trevor Timm, a blogger and activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Daily Beast on Monday. "The government, if they want to read them, needs some sort of warrant and probable cause. This allows companies to read your communication as long as they can claim a cybersecurity purpose."

It's widely known that many major companies—including Facebook and Time Warner, for instance—already share plenty of user information with federal authorities in the interest of monitoring for national security threats or cyber crime. The concern here is that the bill would allow authorities to disregard the standard practice of subpoenas and court orders in such scenarios. "Essentially, this bill would preempt…other laws related to privacy," Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, told Mother Jones.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]