Daily Bafflements

• Slavoj Žižek on teaching: “I hate students,” he said, “they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring.” And on office hours in particular: “I can’t imagine a worse experience than some idiot comes there and starts to ask you questions, which is still tolerable. The problem is that here in the United States students tend to be so open that sooner or later, if you’re kind to them, they even start to ask you personal questions [about] private problems . . . . What should I tell them? I don’t care. Kill yourself. It’s not my problem.”

• Seattle is set to increase its minimum wage to the highest in the country, $15 an hour.

• The Supreme Court has rejected reporter James Risen’s appeal to protect him from having to testify in court. Risen has been compelled to testify in the trial of ex-CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is being prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information to Risen. As Reporters Without Borders points out, just last week Attorney General Holder declared, “As long as I’m attorney general, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail.” But because of Monday’s Supreme Court decision, if Risen refuses to testify, he will probably go to jail.

• New York Times article blurb of the day: “Aby Rosen, the real estate titan, has upset his neighbors in Old Westbury, N.Y., with a statue of a naked woman ripped open to reveal a fetus.”