The Baffler

• The private takeover of public spaces continues: Portland will soon allow the company’s utility cabinets for its Google Fiber project in the middle of the city’s sidewalks. But don’t worry; they’ll be painted with funky designs for “artistic ...

• Voters approved ballot measures yesterday to raise the minimum wage, in Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota (and maybe also in Alaska). • A dispatch from the “East Coast Cannabis Business Expo, Educational Conference and Regulatory Summit” turned out to be ...

• CNN’s online coverage of the midterm elections this morning is a parody of itself. A front page headline explainer-s your very own vote, and the site’s main story as we write this is “7 things that almost definitely will happen tonight,” the first ...

• This sign that Max Grinnell spotted in Cambridge, Massachusetts (home of The Baffler) says a lot about the changes brewing in our fair city. • “We will elect a whole platoon of empty, defeated men to the Senate on Tuesday, and then, two years from now, we will search ...

• Americans are spending $5 billion on disposable costumes and candy this week, $350 million of which will go towards buying pet costumes, reports Kyle Chayka in his piece on the Halloween-Industrial Complex. • Historians describe grass, leaves, bark, clay, and dirt as ...

• Great Idea of the Day: Marco Rubio is stumping and traveling with a professional photographer, and when supporters or bystanders get their pictures taken with him, they’re handed a card that tells them where to go online to download their pictures. When they go online ...

• Business Insider reports on a new sex toy that is apparently “exclusively for bankers.” No, we don’t know what that means, either, but it apparently comes with silver cufflinks and a money clip. Probably a prank. We approve. • San Francisco mayor Ed Lee ...

• A professor at the University of Southern California is starting an academic journal called BuzzAdemia, for “Buzzfeed-style scholarship” (listicles written by academics) to be published on sites like Buzzfeed, Gawker, and Reddit. “Scholarly merit will be ...