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.

They Say There Are No Atheists in Foxholes…

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Well, maybe this is why. The New York Times reports:

“When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.

But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement.

Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.”

Continue reading They Say There Are No Atheists in Foxholes… →

An African Ordeal

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Paul Salopek has an amazing story, “Lost in the Sahel,” in the April issue of National Geographic. While traveling to the Darfur region of Sudan to write about the human rights crisis taking place there, he and his companions are captured by militia members.

Accused of being a spy, Salopek is beaten and detained by his government captors; it is only through persistent diplomacy that he and his companions are eventually released. The shock of his ordeal haunts the rest of the piece, which explores culture and deprivation throughout the Sahel, the strip of land bordering the souther edge of the Sahara.

AP: McCain More Conservative Than His Image

Politics, , ,

In discussing the November 2008 Presidential election, I’ve had a number of people who lean liberal but are uncertain about either Obama or Clinton (generally the latter) tell me that they would be ok with a McCain victory because he’s “not like other Republicans.”

I always disagree, arguing that a McCain victory would effectively be an extension of the Bush administration. As it turns out, the Associated Press agrees with me in a new article, “McCain: More Conservative Than His Image,” where they state:

The likely Republican presidential nominee is much more conservative than voters appear to realize. McCain leans to the right on issue after issue, not just on the Iraq war but also on abortion, gay rights, gun control and other issues that matter to his party’s social conservatives.

The article offers a detailed examination of McCain’s positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control, leaving aside his support for the status quo in Iraq, regressive economic policies and belligerent talk toward Iran.

It’s a mistake to think of him as a moderate. His centrist positions are typically abandoned or reversed, a move that would be “flip-flopping” if a Democrat were doing it. Unfortunately, McCain seems to be held to a different standard.

Are Newspapers Even Fit to Print Anymore?

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Eric Alterman has an article, Out of Print, in the March 31 issue of the New Yorker exploring the decline of newspapers in the United States. He begins by pointing out the typical financial reasons that are often highlighted, such as the faster news cycle inspired by the internet and loss of classifieds revenue to services such as Craigslist.

Beyond that, though, he highlights real deficiencies in the way newspapers have reported over the past decade and more, culminating in their unquestioning credulity in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Much of his time is spent exploring the presence that news and political blogs have carved for themselves online (Huffington Post, not a favorite of mine, receives the most attention), engaging the myth of the liberal media and illustrating how liberal groups are using web-based communication to sidestep the bias of traditional media sources.

It’s a valuable read, presenting a useful overview of the current media landscape. It illustrates the areas where newspapers have stumbled thanks to larger forces and also highlights the spots where they’ve rotted away of their own volition.