An African Ordeal

Well Worth Reading, , , , , ,

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?

Well Worth Reading, , , ,

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.

Falling Short

Books, , , ,

With Great Experiment, his short story in the March 31 issue of the New Yorker, Jeffrey Eugenides furthers his reputation as one of the most pitch-perfect authors writing today. The story focuses on Kendall, a former literary up-and-comer whose arc has atrophied, but it isn’t an examination of art and compromise. Instead, it’s rooted at the ground level, with concerns about time and money and health insurance—all of which Kendall and his family lack—and the sense that some fundamental inequity lies behind these unmet needs.

With small details—an open oven providing a brief respite from a fixed thermostat, a mound of laundry that expands organically—Eugenides conjures an unbroken sense of strain. Underlying the unease is the prevailing belief that normal moral codes have stalled in the face of larger, unpunished misdeeds.

The example set on high wasn’t one of probity and full disclosure. It was anything but.

When Kendall was growing up, American politicians denied that the United States was an empire. But they weren’t doing that anymore. They’d given up. Everyone knew about the empire now. Everyone was pleased.

And in the streets of Chicago, as in the streets of L.A., New York, Houston, and Oakland, the message was making itself known. A few weeks back, Kendall had seen the movie “Patton” on TV. He’d been reminded that the general had been severely punished for slapping a soldier. Whereas now Rumsfeld ran free from responsibility for Abu Ghraib. Even the President, who’d lied about W.M.D., had been reëlected. In the streets, people took the point. Victory was what counted, power, muscularity, doublespeak if necessary. You saw it in the way people drove, in the way they cut you off, gave you the finger, cursed. Women and men alike, showing rage and toughness. Everyone knew what he wanted and how to get it. Everybody you met was nobody’s fool.

One’s country was like one’s self. The more you learned about it, the more you were ashamed of.

The agonized tone seems to mirror Eugenides own disquiet, but it’s also subsumed to a larger narrative, one that builds to a queasy ending. Overall, the feeling is one of resignation, lending the story an understated, desperate tone. No one believes things are going to get better; the safe bet is that they’ll only get worse.

Urban Dead

Humor, ,

Movies and games about zombie invasions are often vehicles of excess, competing to outdo each other in gore. Helpless victims are torn limb-from-limb by brain-hungry opponents; heroes mow through shambling foes, using whatever implements are handy (cricket bats, lawnmowers) to extract a bloody vengeance.

Urban Dead, a browser-based, massive multiplayer online game, plays against these conventions. There are no fountains of bodily fluids—the game is almost entirely text based. Beyond that, the game isn’t centered on combat, although battles between the undead and still-living are frequent. Instead, the game focuses more on building barricades and hiding out, with survivors struggling to secure a safe place from the zombie hordes.

Continue reading Urban Dead →