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.

"Veep," Season 2: Douchey and Mean-Spirited Like DC—But Way Wittier

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Thu Apr. 11, 2013 9:48 AM PDT

"You know, you're about as annoying as a condom filled with fire ants. How's that for a fucking metaphor?" Ohio congressman and gubernatorial candidate Roger Furlong snaps at his aide.

"It's a simile, sir," the sheepish, twentysomething male aide replies.

"Shut your mouth, you fat girl," the congressman rejoins, as he fiddles with his smartphone while lumbering out of the vice president's office.

If you tuned in to any of Season 1, this exchange from the new season should sound thankfully familiar. Season 2 of Armando Iannucci's political satire Veep (premiering Sunday, April 14 at 10 p.m. EDT on HBO) is all the things that made the first eight episodes so worthwhile: It's a roaringly funny, mean-spirited burlesque that plays out like a good episode of The West Wing—if The West Wing were a slur-filled, punk-rock fantasy.

The passionately petty Selena Meyer (played by a pitch-perfect Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is still the American VP who can't get any love from the press or administration, and can't get any face time with POTUS. "I'm about to enter a national ass-kicking competition, with no legs... and a massive ass," Selena remarks. Her staff (played by the series regular Matt Walsh, Sufe Bradshaw, Reid Scott, Anna Chlumsky, and Arrested Development alum Tony Hale) help her pencil-push an agenda while clumsily pursuing their own professional self-interest. Veep has a fairly simple vision of American government: All of them (middle-age senators, cynical data crunchers, aloof operatives) are douchey incompetents—vain, power-hungry, self-loathing, foul-mouthed, back-stabbing, and perpetually upset. In this sense, Veep nails down the tone of Washington in the same way that Scrubs painted an honest portrait of medical professionals: It's an exaggerated, ridiculous depiction that veers on hitting too close to home.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

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"I May Be a Republican. I'm Not an Idiot."

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Tue Apr. 9, 2013 1:14 PM PDT

Lancaster, California is the state's 30th largest city, with a population of more than 150,000. Its Republican mayor, class-action attorney and alleged "unstoppable control freak" R. Rex Parris, has big plans for solar and clean energy. Lancaster requires virtually all new homes to either install solar panels or be built in subdivisions that generate a kilowatt of solar energy per house. The mandate is the first of its kind in the United States.

When asked by New York Times reporter Felicity Barringer if he views global warming as an imminent threat, Parris replied "absolutely." He continued: "I may be a Republican. I'm not an idiot."

Parris may be going out on a political limb, but science is on his side. Only about 0.17 percent of peer-reviewed papers on the subject actually question the science behind global warming or whether carbon emissions are causing it.

Parris has been on the solar-energy warpath for a while. In a ClimateWire story published last month, he is quoted as describing climate change as the biggest threat to the planet: "There isn't any greater crisis facing the world today. We're going to see the displacement of millions and millions of people. Whether we can survive the wars that that's going to cause is an open question."

"[Our mandate] serves as a model," he later told E&E News. "Here I am in an extremely conservative area, and there was almost no push-back."

h/t Taegan Goddard

LISTEN: Here Is a Song About the Twitter Feud Between Paul Krugman and the President of Estonia

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Mon Apr. 8, 2013 3:39 PM PDT

A night at the opera, President Ilves (left) and Paul Krugman. PhotoXpress/ZUMA Press (left) ; Mister Shadow/Agencia Estado/ZUMA Press

There is a new European musical production, sung and performed in soaring operatic style, that tells the true story of the June internet war between Paul Krugman, the noted Keynesian economist, and Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia. The first shot rang out when Krugman published a blog post titled "Estonian Rhapsody" criticizing the Baltic state's austerity measures. Later that day, Ilves, a national figurehead who commands no real executive power, retaliated by opening up a salvo of indignant and sometimes vulgar tweets, decrying Krugman as ignorant, "smug, overbearing & patronizing."

@IlvesToomas/Twitter

Naturally, someone would have to see this and think of it as musical-theater gold: "I couldn't avoid the tweets," Scott Diel, an Estonia-based American writer and lyricist for the show, tells me. "They just sort of recommended themselves."

This is not the Onion. It's the true story behind an original production that debuted Sunday night to a packed house at the historic House of the Brotherhood of Black Heads in Tallinn, Estonia, as part of the Estonian Music Days festival. A subsequent performance is in the works for the Estonia business conference Pärnu Konverentsid in the fall, and for a performance by Sinfonietta Riga in Latvia on October 18. The piece, titled Nostra Culpa, which means "our fault" in Latin (the expression was used in one of Ilves' angry and sarcastic tweets), isn't satirical, does not stake out a partisan position, and is not particularly critical of either Krugman or Ilves.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

Obama Administration: Don't Worry, We'll Only Drag Small Asteroids Toward Earth

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Mon Apr. 8, 2013 9:54 AM PDT

Michael Bay's Armageddon Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler

Official NASA portrait

Last Friday, the office of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) blasted out a press release noting that President Obama's forthcoming budget plan (to be released on Wednesday) includes a $100 million initiative to abduct an asteroid, tow it toward Earth, place it into our moon's orbit, and claim the space rock for 'Murica. American astronauts would then travel to the asteroid and potentially conduct mining operations and research ways of deflecting future civilization-ending asteroid attacks on Earth.

The Obama administration has confirmed the existence of this section of the president's upcoming budget proposal. An official close to the matter filled me in on some of the details. The source wanted to make two things clear. First, the proposal does not increase NASA's budget—existing efforts and funds would be redirected to the $100 million asteroid-lasso plan. Second, if the audacious-sounding mission goes through, NASA promises only to drag small asteroids toward Earth and into lunar orbit. If something were to go horribly wrong, the relatively small size of the target asteroid would ensure that the rock is harmless to the planet.

In other words, Barack Obama is not risking accidentally throwing a killer asteroid at the world with this plan.

Last year, the president established a goal of landing astronauts on a near-Earth asteroid by 2025. This new plan could bump up the date to 2021. ("NASA is in the planning stages of an innovative mission to accomplish the President's challenge of sending humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 in a more cost-effective and potentially quicker time frame than under other scenarios," an administration official wrote in an email.)

"This is part of what will be a much broader program," Nelson said last week, during a visit in Orlando. "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars." Nelson was recently on the Senate panel responsible for grilling scientists about the consequences of an asteroid impact. In March, a highly publicized asteroid the size of a city block came sorta, kinda, maybe close to smashing into Earth. In February, a truck-sized meteor exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains, creating a sonic boom, injuring roughly 1,500 people, and damaging many buildings.

On a related note, here's the trailer for Asteroid, a 1997 NBC miniseries about the president of the United States and a FEMA director scrambling to stop asteroids from killing America:

Does Obama Have a Plan to Capture an Asteroid?

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri Apr. 5, 2013 1:16 PM PDT

Not on Obama's watch, says Obama, according to Bill Nelson.

Does President Barack Obama intend to capture an asteroid and place it into lunar orbit?

This seems more like a Newtonian (as in Gingrich) idea. But on Friday afternoon, the office of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) blasted out a press release disclosing that Obama's forthcoming budget includes a $100 million plan to tow an asteroid into moon orbit. And this will be done for freedom—that is, for the purpose of saving the planet Earth from complete annihilation. (This is not about just serving the Democratic Party's base.)

Here's the gist of the press release:

Bill Nelson press release on NASA and Obama asteroid tow

An excerpt (emphasis mine):

Tucked inside President Barack Obama's proposed federal budget for next fiscal year is about $100 million to jump start a program scientists say is the next step towards humans establishing a permanent settlement in space. That, at least, is what U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson says we're likely to see when the White House unveils its fiscal year 2014 budget around the middle of next week. Nelson has been briefed by scientists...In a nutshell, the plan in NASA's hands calls for catching an asteroid with a robotic spacecraft and towing it back toward Earth, where it would then be placed in a stable orbit around the moon.

Next, astronauts aboard America's Orion capsule, powered into space by a new monster rocket, would travel to the asteroid where there could be mining activities, research into ways of deflecting an asteroid from striking Earth, and testing to develop technology for a trip to deep space and Mars.

"This is part of what will be a much broader program," Nelson said today, during a visit in Orlando. "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars."

The president already has established the goal of landing astronauts on a near-Earth asteroid by 2025. This new plan would bump up the date to 2021. As in, not a moment to waste.

Nelson, a former astronaut, has an affinity for asteroids and United States asteroid policy; last month, he was on a Senate panel that grilled scientists about the consequences of an asteroid striking earth. He was keen to know if there is any way for humankind to fight back against asteroid aggression.

Obama has often been slammed for supposedly not being bold, for not being tough enough with foes. But if Nelson is right, Obama is ready to do what's necessary to take on the asteroid threat and make the United States the first nation to claim a giant space rock. Forget Spock or Luke Skywalker; he's going the full Bruce Willis: