The Baffler

• Our reader @divya alerted us to this Independent article about how the CIA’s covert funding of abstract art in the mid-twentieth century and asked if The Baffler has ever been a beneficiary. Next question! • A man who checked into a U.S. Navy program for alcoholism ...

• Customers who have recently bought the iconic Hermès “Birkin” bags (for $20,000 or more) are returning them with complaints that they smell like marijuana, or skunks. The New York Post reports that Hermès is blaming a “badly tanned” batch of ...

• In a past issue of The Baffler, David Graeber asked, where are all the flying cars? This week Elon Musk (he of autopilot electric car fame) expressed ambivalence about the idea: “If the sky was full of cars flying all over the place, it would affect how things ...

• Today in Labor Strikes: teachers in Texas, Foxconn workers in China, airline cabin crews in New York who fear exposure to Ebola, and (maybe) Tube workers in London next week. • USA Discounters, a retailer that gained some less than favorable attention this summer for ...

• Amazon and its workers are heading to the Supreme Court today with a battle over whether workers should be paid for the time they spend waiting in the security lines they are required to go through after they finish their shifts. Former Amazon warehouse workers in Nevada ...

• For all the attention Virgin and Netflix have received recently for their “unlimited vacation” policies for employees, that’s certainly not a reality for most of the country’s workers. In fact, half of America hasn’t taken a single vacation day ...

• Margaret Hartmann at New York has a roundup of the most terrifying warnings politicians have uttered about Ebola. For instance, Rand Paul, speaking about President Obama’s plan to send 3,000 U.S. soldiers to West Africa to help, said: “You also have to be ...

• Power corrupts everyone eventually, even the most honest of us. It’s science. • Headline of the Day, via Huffington Post: “Pro-Union Burger King Worker Disciplined for Poor Pickle Placement.” (Runner-up: “Facebook apologizes to drag ...