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Daily Bafflements

goat cheese

• “Prison labor has gone artisanal,” reports Fortune. Inmates in Colorado, for instance, are working at a goat farm that sells cheese to Whole Foods. “Nationwide 63,032 inmates produce more than $2 billion worth of products a year, most of them sold to government entities,” the article goes on, helpfully explaining that this is problematic because prisoners work for little pay and have no recourse for unfair or abusive conditions. There are other challenges, too: “security lockdowns can halt production. That can be a hassle . . . .” Oh yeah?

• Rachel Riederer in Guernica on the rise of adjunct labor in schools and the very precarious state of “The Teaching Class.”

• Jill Lepore in The New Yorker on the false gods of #innovation and #disruption and also #disruptiveinnovation.

• Today in Bespoke: the headline of this fashion article says it all (“Ada + Nik Creates Bespoke E-Cig Jacket”), but the picture is even better.