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Daily Bafflements

• O-ho! Turns out “Elite Americans are not just middle-class people with more money.” They “display distinctive attitudes on basic moral and political questions concerning economic justice.” Plus, they’re more efficient! “Yale Law students’ overwhelming, indeed almost eccentric, commitment to efficiency over equality is all the more astonishing given that the students self-identified as Democrats rather than Republicans.” We should have known. (Thanks, Slate!)

• You’ve all heard about how David Hameron “won’t dignify” allegations of pig-sex with a comment. (Never mind that he was also a member of an organization that burns fifty-pound notes in front of homeless people.) So here’s another cause for concern: A British general is threatening that the army will mutiny if pacifist Jeremy Corbyn is democratically elected—he talks of “emasculation” . . . 

• From the YA novel Forgive My Fins (2010), to the aquatic outfitter Mertailor, to Shia Labeouf  parties at which women swim with their legs bound into a single fin, mermaids are now a vector for innovation.

• Today in complacent dynasty: “I know this because, yes, I am a Bush.”