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Not Quite the People’s Court
June 05, 2015
With apologies to Marx, it seems that America has reversed one of his better-known aphorisms. Instead of history repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farce, our spectacle-addled postmodern republic experiences it first as reality television, and then as politics. That, ...

Daily Bafflements
June 05, 2015
• The American Press Institute has recently released two reports on innovation in media and news organizations. PBS MediaShift takes a look at the measures being taken to get sometimes “fearful” newsroom staff on board for the all-important quest toward innovation. ...

The Kurds Are Alright
June 04, 2015
The Islamic State is a movement; therefore, it proselytizes. Plenty has been written about IS recruiting young people from the West. Much of the coverage has the timbre of “the kids aren’t alright” exposés on the secret sex lives of teens. There’s an almost ...

Daily Bafflements
June 04, 2015
• Pittsburgh has been ranked lowest in startup activity among the country’s major metro areas, frightening the city’s entrepreneurial set. Denizens of the startup ecosystem can’t be stopped from wringing their hands—despite the fact that the city’s ...

The Internet Doesn’t Exist
June 03, 2015
The Internet has been very busy. In just the last week, Caitlyn Jenner broke the Internet, but she also united it. The FCC made war on the Internet. The Internet shamed a couple. The Internet had a dark side, Nikki Finke was barred from the Internet, the Supreme Court made the ...

Daily Bafflements
June 03, 2015
• Today in Billionaire Branding: the one-of-a-kind “Billionaire watch” that makes a luxury lifestyle “tangible.” Mind you, the B-watch is only about feeling like a billionaire—you don’t have to be reining in the runaway 0s like a husky sled musher to get a taste of ...

Daily Bafflements
June 02, 2015
• Over at The New Republic, Esther Breger chronicles “Television’s Long History of Humiliating Poor People.” She traces this illustrious tradition back from today’s “The Briefcase” and “Britain’s Hardest Grafter,” to 1945’s “Queen for a Day,” in ...

Homo Economicus Slouches Toward Retirement
June 01, 2015
In Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?  Swedish writer Katrine Marçal casts a suspicious eye on the “story about the meaning of human existence” told by free-market economists and on that story’s hero, the self-interested rational actor: Economic ...

Daily Bafflements
June 01, 2015
• Happy first of National Homeownership Month! Celebrate with this new survey by the American Institute of CPAs, which finds that retirement has replaced home ownership as the touchstone of the American dream: “The US homeownership rate has now reached a 20-year low,” ...

The Fantastic Four Under Fire
May 29, 2015
Only in America can the skin color of someone who spends much of his waking life on fire supply the basis for a spirited pop-culture controversy. That’s the grim lesson of the media run-up to the latest in the long line of lumbering comics franchises’ superhero cash-cows ...

Daily Bafflements
May 29, 2015
• Continuing its Google Glass-style experiments in making users look silly in public, the tech giant has introduced the attractively low-fi Google Cardboard, a virtual reality “viewer” you can fit over your smartphone. Google says the low price (under $20) will ...

It’s Always Mourning in America
May 28, 2015
For the most part, Memorial Day was celebrated in Washington with the usual cynical platitudes. Senator Tom Cotton, in a discharge of vacuity, sentimentalized the cost of combat while ever pushing for more of it. Par for the course in D.C. Some, however, considered this most ...