All posts by James

About James

James Seidler is a writer living in Chicago. The editor for the now-defunct humor publication FLYMF, he has now decided to maintain his web presence and smart remarks through this blog.

Professionals

Well Worth Reading

No American was yet inside the residential part of the compound. Mark and his team were inside a downed helicopter at one corner, while James and his team were at the opposite end. The teams had barely been on target for a minute, and the mission was already veering off course.

In the New Yorker, Nicholas Schmidle has a fascinating overview of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Getting Bin Laden” breaks down the planning, debates over intelligence and raid itself.

It also states, unambiguously, that killing Bin Laden was the ultimate goal. Regardless of how you feel about the targeted assassination*, the article offers an in-depth look at another world. Some disturbing details are revealed: our poisonous relationship with Pakistan, the increase in drone attacks under Obama and the fact that these types of raids are almost a nightly occurrence. It’s hard to see how the United States can step back from international raids being standard operating procedure, especially when the most prominent example was so effective.

 

* Just my two cents: I don’t object to Bin Laden’s murder, but I always favored the prospect of him being tried and jailed like any other criminal.

Redistribution

Politics

Interesting chart in the Economist showing which states have been net federal revenue contributors and which have been net federal revenue recipients since 1990. I think the government should invest more moneys in the states that need them. But this map seems to highlight a blatant gap between rhetoric and reality.

I’d also like to see in-state versions of how the money flows.

Turning to Violence

Politics

Ignore the fact that there is still a horrible utility in political violence, the way there was during Reconstruction, or during the labor wars of the early twentieth century. If there were not, it wouldn’t be so hard to get an abortion in Kansas, and assault weapons would not have been accessories of choice at recent rallies purportedly held to discuss changes in the way the country organizes its health-care system.

Charles P. Pierce has an excellent article in Esquire examining recent political violence in the United States. “The Bomb that Didn’t Go Off” centers on a failed bombing on a Martin Luther King Jr. march in Spokane. He uses that incident to showcase right-wing political violence since Obama’s election, highlighting our insistence on not seeing a pattern.

Follow-up: In the New York Times, Scott Shane has an article outlining the influence of American anti-Muslim bloggers on the terrorist behind the attacks in Norway.