Daily Bafflements

• Today in the innovation economy: Rebecca Solnit writes in The Guardian about the execution of Alex Nieto and how “disruptive” the tech economy has been for “communities, traditions, and relationships.” She continues, “Many of the people being evicted and priced out were the people who held us all together: teachers, nurses, counsellors, social workers, carpenters and mechanics, volunteers and activists.” Baffler editor in chief John Summers wrote about innovation, the urge to keep our edge, and the damage it does to communities in Baffler no. 24.

• It surely isn’t the most pressing issue of the day, but Donald Trump ad-libbed on his hands a little to the Washington Post:

My hands are normal hands. During a debate, he was losing, and he said, “Oh, he has small hands and therefore, you know what that means.” This was not me. This was Rubio that said, “He has small hands and you know what that means.” Okay? So, he started it. So, what I said a couple of days later … and what happened is I was on line shaking hands with supporters, and one of supporters got up and he said, “Mr. Trump, you have strong hands. You have good-sized hands.” And then another one would say, “You have great hands, Mr. Trump, I had no idea.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “I thought you were like deformed, and I thought you had small hands.” I had fifty people … Is that a correct statement? I mean people were writing, “How are Mr. Trump’s hands?” My hands are fine. You know, my hands are normal. Slightly large, actually. In fact, I buy a slightly smaller than large glove, okay? No, but I did this because everybody was saying to me, “Oh, your hands are very nice. They are normal.” 

• While we’re at it here’s another glove- (and knuckleduster-) based story about Trump, which begins with the Rolling Stones’s producer trying to “control” him in 1989 . . .