Daily Bafflements

• It’s an important day in the Annals of Disruption: the fifth anniversary of the uprising in Egypt, a political moment often used as proof that American social networks equal freedom. “The growth of social media and the disappearance of class from the consciousness of media commentators provoke a near-reflexive substitution of tech-hype for political analysis,” wrote Robert S. Eshelman in The Baffler no. 19. From Egypt, meanwhile, the revolution “reflected the organization, political sophistication, and clearly-articulated demands of the trade unionist movement.” 

• Young at heart, eighty-three-year-old Donald Rumsfeld has made an app—no, it’s not Tinder for war-mongering jerks, but an “incredibly devilish version of solitaire.” He explains: “My wife, Joyce, and I play it against each other regularly, keeping score . . . We both tend to be believers in the simple, Churchillian tagline for the game: #NeverGiveIn.”

• Today in “billionaire populists”: One learns that Michael Bloomberg, a man whose “political mythology rests on the kinds of contradictions only a fortune of his size can engender,” may run for president . . .