Asawin Suebsaeng

Interactive Writing Fellow

Asawin Suebsaeng is the interactive writing 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.

Obama's "Skeetgate," Explained

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Tue Feb. 5, 2013 9:44 AM PST

An official White House photo of the moment Obama decided to hatch a plan to fool the world with a story about habitual skeet shooting. Photo by Pete Souza/The White House

For the past week, you've probably heard a lot about President Obama and skeet shooting. Basically, what began as one offhanded remark in an interview with The New Republic has transmogrified into a billow of conspiracy theories, parody, and upsetting political discussion. Here is your guide to Skeetgate 2013:

Wait, what?

Good question.

This all started when Obama told The New Republic in an exclusive interview published online on Sunday, January 27 that he has "a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations," and that:

[U]p at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.

(In the wake of the Newtown school shooting, the president has been pushing initiatives and legislation aimed at reducing gun violence in America.)

This statement—a bold claim that Barack Obama has looked at, and has even touched, a firearm at any point in his liberal-left lifetime—kicked off a wave of strained credulity on the part of the American right.

What did the backlash look like?

At a press briefing on the day after TNR ran the story, White House press secretary Jay Carney responded to a question regarding why there aren't any publicly available photos of Obama skeet shooting at Camp David. (Carney addressed related skepticism yet again when he spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One exactly one week after.)

Unsurprisingly, Matt Drudge went ahead and did his thing:

Via @BrettLoGiurato

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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"Warm Bodies": A Zombie Comedy With Lots of Romance and No Politics

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri Feb. 1, 2013 1:11 PM PST

warm bodies teresa palmer nicholas hoult

Warm Bodies
Summit Entertainment
97 minutes

It's refreshing to see a zombie movie that isn't political in nature. Too often it seems as if every zombie (or zombie-ish) movie is a critique of consumer culture, or the War in Iraq, or widespread racism, or the federal government, or something else important.

Warm Bodies—based on this 2011 novel by Isaac Marion—is a zombie movie packed with synth-pop and classic rock that focuses on a forbidden love between a walking-dead male called "R" and a girl named Julie. (Get it???) The film takes place in a post-zombie-apocalypse America in which the humans hunker down in their fortress and the undead prowl the deserted cityscapes. "R" is a good-natured zombie who, as we learn through his voiceover narration, is always morally "conflicted" about his need to feed on human flesh and brains. After he meets Julie (during a bloodbath in an abandoned building during which "R" devours Julie's current boyfriend), they soon start a romance that sets off a chain reaction that alters the fate of the post-apocalyptic world forever.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

"30 Rock": A Political History

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Thu Jan. 31, 2013 4:48 PM PST

Liz Lemon.

Thursday night, 30 Rock takes its curtain call.

After six years on the air, Tina Fey's beloved NBC comedy is ending its run with an hourlong series finale. The series, which is set behind the scenes at an Saturday Night Live-like sketch comedy show, earned a devoted fanbase with its cultural satire and rapid-fire wit. 30 Rock premiered on NBC in 2006, just as the network was launching Aaron Sorkin's highly anticipated drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip—another series revolving around a fictional sketch comedy program. Strangely enough, it was Sorkin's hugely political Studio 60 that tanked, while Fey's goofier series became the award-winning critical hit. (As a sidenote, it's worth remembering that when Tina Fey first pitched the show, her original idea was basically the same premise behind Sorkin's latest series, The Newsroom.)

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

No, the University of Chicago Isn't Tearing Down Reagan's Childhood Home to Make Way for an Obama Parking Lot

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Thu Jan. 31, 2013 10:59 AM PST

ronald reagan toasting barack obama beer

There's a new rumor going around that the University of Chicago wants to pave what's left of Reagan's paradise and put up a socialist parking lot.

On Wednesday, the UK tabloid the Daily Mail published a story claiming that the university had plans to demolish Ronald Reagan's childhood home in Chicago (832 E. 57th St.), to make room for a parking lot for a potential Barack Obama Presidential Library. It goes without saying that this would be flipping one gigantic bird to the American right.

It was at this apartment building that Reagan survived a severe bout of pneumonia. It's also where the future president was living when his older brother was run over by a horse-drawn beer wagon (the incident wasn't fatal, but left a long scar on his leg). In 2004, the University of Chicago bought the land encompassing the apartment building where the 40th President of the United States lived between the age of 3 and 4. Residents were ordered out in 2010. The Commission on Chicago Landmarks denied the structure "landmark status," which gave the university the greenlight to take a bulldoze to the vacant six-flat building to make way for planned campus expansion.

"Some have said that the liberal Chicago establishment does not want a reminder that Reagan, a conservative icon, once lived in the city," the thinly sourced Daily Mail report reads.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

"The Americans": Lovable Soviet Spies Who Smack-Talk Reagan and Do Kung-Fu Are Finally on Cable TV

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Wed Jan. 30, 2013 12:20 PM PST

the americans fx keri russell matthew rhys

Matthew Rhys, left, and Keri Russell. Courtesy of FX

"The American people have elected a madman as their president," a softly bearded Russian general says to KGB officer "Elizabeth Jennings" (played by a terrific Keri Russell), in obvious reference to The Gipper. The general continues: "He makes no secret of his desire to destroy us. Our war is not so cold anymore...Our enemy is strong and capable. We must meet the challenge." The year is 1981, the Reagan era has dawned, and communist sleeper agents are apparently running around Washington, raising their families and seducing Justice Department officials.

The Americans, a new series premiering tonight at 10 p.m. ET on FX, focuses on Elizabeth and her husband and partner-in-counterintelligence-crime Phillip (Matthew Rhys, the "Welshman who plays a Russian playing an American"). Their marriage was arranged by the KGB during the Khrushchev era. The two live in an upper-middle-class neighborhood with a young daughter and son, both of whom are blissfully ignorant to mommy and daddy's real allegiances. For years, the duo has hidden in plain sight, running a small travel agency, while fulfilling their mission to subvert the United States government and funnel valuable information back to the Kremlin. Elizabeth is the true believer of the household: "I would go to jail, I would die, I would give up everything before I would betray my country," she shouts. Phillip is the non-ideologue who is far more interested in his family than in ensuring Soviet global domination: "America's not so bad. We've been here a long time; what's so bad about it, you know? The electricity works all the time, the food's pretty great, the closet space..."

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]