Daily Bafflements

• Bernie Sanders takes to the pages of the New York Times to tell the Democrats to “wake up.” We’re a little bummed he didn’t borrow the title of Tom Frank’s latest book, Listen, Liberal!, to drive his point home; but what’s that ol’ saying, “You can’t have you cake and eat it, too”? On Brexit, Sanders writes, “Could this rejection of the current form of the global economy happen in the United States? You bet it could.”

• Over at Belt, a deer hunter reflects on his ambivalence toward firearms: “I do not like guns. I do not fetishize them. I hate going to the range and sitting elbow-to-elbow with poor young guys shooting hundreds of dollars of ammunition in seconds through modified automatic assault rifles.”

• The New York Times, ever the aimless ponderer, wonders without a hint of irony whether poets can save America’s national park system. Based on Nathan C. Martin’s assessment in issue no. 31, we believe it’s safe to say “no.” After all, Martin writes, “the whole notion of capital-N Nature—something pristine and wild that’s ‘out there,’ as opposed to the inescapable ecological medium of our existence—is an anesthetic that allows us to forget about things like global warming, mass extinction, and ocean acidification.” 

• Neil deGrasse Tyson, the “well, actually,” of science, is trying to start a political movement through one of the most tiresome mediums possible: Twitter. “Earth needs a virtual country,” he informed the masses this morning, “#Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence.” 

• Please, no pet sweaters.