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On Wealth and Women on TV
January 12, 2015
The conflict that kicks off the plot of Gilmore Girls—the early ‘00s teen drama that has had, over the course of the last year, a full-blown, Netflix-driven renaissance—centers around money. Rory Gilmore, the gifted and angelically beautiful teen who comprises one half of ...

Daily Bafflements
January 12, 2015
• Oh, good! Finally! “Silicon Valley Turns Its Eye Toward Education,” reports the New York Times. According to one research analyst, the obvious question everyone is asking is, “How are you going to monetize those users?” • Via the ...

Q&A: Cynthia M. Duncan on Poverty and Politics in Rural America
January 09, 2015
Twenty years ago, the stock market was high, and national unemployment was low. But not everyone had an equal claim to that growing bubble. When University of New Hampshire sociologist Cynthia M. Duncan published the first edition of her book Worlds Apart in 1999, she exposed ...

Daily Bafflements
January 09, 2015
• “We are honored to be the U.S. bid city to host the 2024 Olympic & Paralympic Games,” reads the website for Boston 2024. “We are ready to engage in a community process about the opportunity presented by hosting the Games and eager to share the best of ...

The Redrow Man and Dystopia’s Dark Appeal
January 08, 2015
Dystopian visions of a cold and emotionless future: so hot right now. In a bizarre commercial that, following criticism, has been pulled from circulation, luxury developer Redrow London boasted that its fashionable apartments would transport buyers into a totalitarian ...

Daily Bafflements
January 08, 2015
• At The Nib, Ted Rall writes about the power of political cartoons, the risks that every political cartoonist takes in making them, and why they do it. • Cartoonist Tommy Dessine’s dark and perfect response to Wednesday’s murders at Charlie Hedbo (the text ...

Arrogance and Deference at the New York Fed
January 07, 2015
Say it’s Summer 2009—pretty much the miasmic trough of the greatest economic meltdown of our age, as well as the point of greatest public interest in what will come of the federal government’s efforts to hold the financial industry accountable for the devastation it has ...

Daily Bafflements
January 07, 2015
• Did you know? You can anonymously send someone poop in a box? Plain old cow dung is only $15.95 per quart, but for gorilla doo, you have to pay a little bit more. (Via the Harpers’ Weekly Review.) • Revenge is best served on a plate, not in a bag: the Korean Air ...

Research for Rent, Solutions for Sale
January 06, 2015
“America’s think tank sector is far bigger, and far more influential, than most people realize,” Hans Gutbrod, a Thomas Pynchon character and the executive director of nonprofit think tank watchdog Transparify, said recently. “This underlines the importance for think ...

Daily Bafflements
January 06, 2015
• Mars, here we come—sort of. A historic rocket launch by SpaceX—part of which would send supplies to the International Space Station, part of which would land on an ocean barge (“autonomous spaceport drone ship”)—was called off at the last minute this ...

Notes from the Underdogs
January 05, 2015
It’s not controversial to say that the book publishing world is, and has been for the past several years, a mess. What was once a genteel profession for those with a certain sensibility (and, often, family money) has become a starved and desperate industry. The twilight of the ...

Daily Bafflements
January 05, 2015
• A new San Francisco startup aims to “print” the DNA designed by its customers on a computer program. “Anyone in the world that has a few dollars can make a creature, and that changes the game,” the company’s founder told the San Francisco Chronicle. ...