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Daily Bafflements
January 20, 2015
• President Obama’s State of the Union address is on tonight, and some of the advertisements hyping it are…a bit ominous. Baffler blog contributor Andrew Helms asks, “SOTU or Black Mirror set?” • Today in Billionaires: According to a new Oxfam ...

Simple Notebooks for Complicated Times
January 15, 2015
AdWeek recently brought to the public’s attention the enormous success of Field Notes, a small, Chicago-based company that sells small, forty-eight-page paper notebooks. The overwhelming popularity of these homespun notebooks suggests that the supply of wholesome consumer ...

Daily Bafflements
January 15, 2015
• We assume by now you’ve seen Scott Dadich’s bonkers memo to his employees about what is and is not permitted in the new Wired offices. In the words of British comedian Eddie Izzard, on the new ban on smoking in American bars in the late 1990s, “No smoking ...

Fear, the Ultimate Trump Card
January 14, 2015
America has a long legacy of dressing up its xenophobia in the cheap costume jewelry of law and order. Read what Harper’s Weekly wrote about the Irish immigrants in 1860: Unfortunately, this should sound very familiar. Even today, anti-immigration rhetoric in America reads ...

Daily Bafflements
January 14, 2015
• A bartender at the country club that John Boehner attends has been indicted for a plot to kill him by poisoning his drink. • Here are all of the minimum wage raises effective as of 2015, gathered by the National Law Review. Just FYI, tipped employees like wait staff, and ...

London’s Poor Fetish
January 13, 2015
Visit any bar in the hip London districts of Brixton, Dalston or Peckham and you will invariably end up in a warehouse, on the top floor of a car park, or under a railway arch. Signage will be minimal and white bobbing faces will be crammed close, joined together in a Stockholm ...

Daily Bafflements
January 13, 2015
• Last week we let you know about a great little service called Poopsenders, that will anonymously send dung to someone you’re not happy with. If your sensibilities are offended, but you’ve still got a certain message to send, ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com is an ...

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 ...