Senator Chris Dodd gave a Congressional speech yesterday denouncing the Democratic capitulation on the recently introduced surveillance “compromise,” highlighting how expanded surveillance opportunities and no-questions-asked amnesty for telecommunications companies that illegally enabled unlawful spying are part and parcel of the Bush administration’s tapestry of misconduct. For those unfamiliar with the issue, the whole speech is worth reading to get a sense of why this latest bill matters.
Archive for June, 2008
Salvation in Soccer
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008The June 23 issue of Sports Illustrated has an amazing human-interest story by Gary Smith, “Alive and Kicking,” which chronicles an Atlanta-based youth soccer team composed of children who are refugees from war zones in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The team has been organized and kept afloat by Luma Mufleh, an immigrant born to privilege in Jordan.
Smith does an excellent job of evoking the roughness of the children’s lives in refuge, highlighting traumatic pasts and still-evolving struggles to get by. Rough neighborhoods, racism and single working mothers are the norm for the team’s members. Mufleh begins to anchor the group after a chance encounter with some boys playing makeshift soccer outside a mosque. Adrift herself and estranged from her family, she turns her attachment to the kids into a larger mission to enable them to thrive.
The Federal Budget in One Poster
Friday, June 20th, 2008Graphic designer Jess Bachman has created a pretty amazing image that breaks down the discretionary budget for the federal government, from the $515 billion going to the Deparment of Defense to the $13 million going to the Office of Governmental Ethics (unsurprisingly, the latter is the smallest one on the board).
The visual design is striking. It’s also impressive how the poster crams a lot of detail into a small space. It’s perfect for starting an argument with your conservative uncle about which areas should be cut!
Comics Depict Desolation of Chinese Earthquakes
Thursday, June 19th, 2008Chinese artist Coco Wang has written a series of comic strips featuring stories pulled from the rubble of the recent earthquakes in China. Most of the episodes center on people trapped beneath collapsed buildings; excruciating rescues, last-minute losses, and even incidents of parents shielding children with their own bodies are presented in heartbreaking detail.
The tone verges on mythical, and it can even veer into sentiment, but the situations depicted are rending, particularly since many victims were children trapped in their schools. There’s some light humor to break the tension as well, with rescuers cracking jokes to keep victims awake. Sometimes they suceed; often they don’t.
The Worst of the Worst?
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008The McClatchy newspaper group has done excellent independent reporting on the excesses and illegalities of the Bush administration. A recent series, Guantanamo: Beyond the Law, highlights the travesty of the United States’ Cuban-based detention center. As a comprehensive series of stories, interviews, photos and videos makes clear, many of the prisoners that have spent years detained in harsh conditions had little or no connection to terrorism. Many were instead turned over to U.S. forces for reward money or revenge for local slights.
Get Fuzzy Made Me Laugh Today
Thursday, June 12th, 2008Consider this to be the equivalent to taping this strip to a very big refrigerator.
For those unfamiliar with the strip, Get Fuzzy is a daily comic produced by Darby Conley. Most of the humor revolves around the malevolence of Bucky Katt and the sweet stupidity of Satchel, the dog. Pet owner (and Conley stand-in) Rob Wilco is responsible for maintaining some semblance of order (while also using his job for some work gags from time to time).
Wordplay is a common vehicle for jokes. In this instance, Bucky has spent the past couple weeks designing Soviet-themed products that he thinks will be a hit in Russia. As you can see, his instincts are rarely on the mark.
McCain Is Not a Centrist
Monday, June 9th, 2008Among the nonsense that’s sure to be bandied about in the election ahead is the absurd notion that John McCain is some sort of centrist. I’ve blogged about the emptiness of this claim before, but I wanted to highlight Paul Krugman’s take on the subject.
There are ways to assess politicians’ position on the left-right scale. Ignore the National Journal, which has a somewhat subjective method, and always manages to find that the current Democratic candidate is an ultra-liberal. Instead, we can turn to the Poole-Rosenthal-McCarty analysis, which is based on a systematic, no fiddling technique using rollcall votes.
And they tell us that, based on his voting record, McCain is the eighth most conservative member of the current Senate. That’s right: he’s been voting on the right wing of the Republican party.
But has he just moved right to curry favor with the GOP base? No: he was the second most conservative member of the previous Senate.
Add: Barack Obama, by contrast, while more liberal than the average Democrat, is considerably closer to the center than McCain.
Ralph Gamelli Podcast at Clonepod
Friday, June 6th, 2008FLYMF alum Ralph Gamelli has a podcast of his story, “The Invisible Man is Innocent,” up at Clonepod. Check it out. The story was originally published on McSweeney’s.
Ralph’s stories for FLYMF include How Long Before I Use My Ejector Seat?, Twilight Zone Episodes For the Internet Age, and Rocky Balboa Gives Inspirational Speeches Too Frequently.