Daily Bafflements

Female superb fairy wren, fledgling journalist, or frightened onlooker at Trump rally? / Patrick_K59

• Yesterday afternoon, Al Jazeera America unceremoniously announced the end of all television and digital operations and a massive round of layoffs, to the detriment of another corps of journalists and the delight of a coterie of trolls.

• Much like those in the news industry, it seems that some birds are losing their desire to sing in the midst of widespread predation.

• In light of NFL owners’ recent vote to relocate the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles, plans are in the works for what one team owner calls “absolutely the greatest plan ever conceived in sports, as far as how to put the show on.” Rather than simply building the Rams a stadium, the league plans to build “a city that has the NFL as a featured aspect of it.” The project may cost up to $15 billion.

• We . . . haven’t quite figured out what to say about this.

Hey, one last thing.

In a media environment that tolerates tail-chasing, gutlessness, and all kinds of ratfuckery, The Baffler is a rare publication willing to shake the pundit class free of their own worst impulses. We can’t help it. We’re humanitarians at heart.

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