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Daily Bafflements
January 25, 2016
• It’s an important day in the Annals of Disruption: the fifth anniversary of the uprising in Egypt, a political moment often used as proof that American social networks equal freedom. “The growth of social media and the disappearance of class from the ...

The People’s Republic of Troy
January 22, 2016
Christopher Logue called his politics “dusty pink”: committed pacifist, rebellious ex-soldier, and former petty thief, the poet harbored a lifelong loathing for authority. His formal education included a stint at the notoriously abusive Christian Brothers schools; it ...

Daily Bafflements
January 21, 2016
• Guy Patrick Cunningham wrestles with Baffler contributing editor David Graeber’s The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy over at the LARB, concluding that “even if you find Graeber’s direct democracy too radical, he ...

Pounding Sanders
There’s something undeniably stirring in the mobilization of America’s Responsible Pundit Consensus. This week finds the liberal lectors of said consensus singing, not surprisingly, from a single hymnal entry, the one called “Bernie Sanders Is Not a Serious Presidential ...

Daily Bafflements
January 20, 2016
• In the Palinian spirit of not pussyfooting too much, The Baffler has moved our print edition to a quarterly publication schedule—that’s right, we’re putting our spurtive past behind us, and being a bit more punctual. On the web we can offer you a little regularity, ...

Daily Bafflements
January 15, 2016
• The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff writes on the cachet of going offline that “there is no status symbol so powerful now as not having a status—or not, at least, in the ‘look at me’ Facebook sense—at all.” After all, “going off grid is ...

Daily Bafflements
January 14, 2016
• 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 ...

Daily Bafflements
January 13, 2016
• Your chances of winning the Powerball may be 1 in 292 million, but that hasn’t stopped the media’s bullshit spinners from coming up with terrible advice of their own. One “expert” on Fox News suggests you “buy as many tickets ...

Daily Bafflements
January 12, 2016
• Chelsea Manning mourns former Baffler contributing editor Aaron Swartz three years on from his death, and reviews a new book of Swartz’s essays. She writes: On January 28, John Summers, Baffler editor in chief, is in conversation with ...

Q & A with Neda Semnani
January 11, 2016
In 1979, Iranians living abroad, Neda Semnani’s parents among them, rushed back to Tehran to enjoy the fruits of the Islamic Revolution—only to find Khomeini an even more repressive leader than the Shah. Nursing a young family, Semnani’s mother gave up politics, ...

Daily Bafflements
January 11, 2016
• The FT recognizes the limits of attempting to humanize Charles Koch over lunch: “Koch would like us to get to know him. Or, more accurately, he has been persuaded that staying silent is counterproductive both politically and, increasingly, for his business.” ...