Daily Bafflements

• Over at The New Republic, Esther Breger chronicles “Television’s Long History of Humiliating Poor People.” She traces this illustrious tradition back from today’s “The Briefcase” and “Britain’s Hardest Grafter,” to 1945’s “Queen for a Day,” in which “The winner was decided by audience applause and wrapped in a velvet robe,” and “the losers were sent home with a toaster or a package of nylons.”

• The Supreme Court has ruled that Abercrombie & Fitch, the retailer who tried to compare racism to mocking skiers, was discriminatory to deny a Muslim woman a job because her headscarf clashed with their “look policy.”

• Today in voluntary, self-administered, “wearable” electroconvulsive therapy: Thync. It is said that Thync “brings calm or focus to your brain.” Revisit Barbara Ehrenreich, in Baffler, No. 27, for more details on all that.

• “Adam and Eve” (the back cover of Baffler, No. 27) has flown the coop.