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Daily Bafflements
November 25, 2014
• A former U.S. attorney writes in the Washington Post about why it’s so difficult to prosecute a police officer: it’s all about the officer’s state of mind. “Federal law sets a very high bar, and essentially requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt ...

Hacking the Planet: What Could Go Wrong?
November 24, 2014
You remember this science fiction story, right? Faced with the threat of extinction on a warming planet, an advanced race flies gigantic mirrors into the stratosphere to create a giant “space umbrella” that will bounce the sun’s rays back into the cosmos. But it doesn’t ...

Daily Bafflements
November 24, 2014
• Find your Silicon Valley job title with this handy generator. Ours is “collaboration sherpa.” • Um, why is everyone making fun of our folded-cardboard virtual reality masks? • Quote of the Day, from the Business section of the Portland Press Herald: ...

Daily Bafflements
November 21, 2014
• Today in Millionaires: Japanese millionaire Chisako Kakehi has been the beneficiary of almost $7 million in insurance money after the death of seven husbands and boyfriends over twenty years, reports the Guardian. Her latest husband died of cyanide poisoning; she was ...

After the Wall
November 20, 2014
The Berlin Wall fell twenty-five years ago this month. As one would expect, there are competing stories about how it happened. There is the tale of Reagan the Stalwart, which bloomed in the early triumphal years after 1989 but has since ebbed. There are the feather-haired East ...

Daily Bafflements
November 20, 2014
• We’ve really got to stop giving the New York Times such a hard time for being out of touch with the financial realities of most of its readers’ lives. In a section of the paper on Wednesday that was literally entitled “Your Money,” an article ...

What To Do About Uber?
November 19, 2014
On Monday, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith published a report from a dinner he and several other media figures attended with Uber executives. During the dinner, Smith wrote, senior vice president Emil Michael proposed spending $1 million to dig up dirt on journalists critical ...

Daily Bafflements
November 19, 2014
• Here is a blog post about a custom T-shirt startup company, presented without comment or context: “Karl Marx Would Have Liked Teespring.” (Via Zachary Davis.) • Read Baffler blog contributor Alana Massey’s excellent salvo about the hours and hours of ...

Why the SAT Can’t “Democratize” Harvard
November 18, 2014
Does anyone actually like the SAT? Given how our media reports on every changing detail and decision related to the test, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Americans are absolutely dying to hear about it. A few days ago, CBS News reported that more and more colleges are ...

Daily Bafflements
November 18, 2014
• So much for “upward mobility”: a new study for the journal Human Nature tracked British surnames from 1170 and 2012 to compare the families’ social status over time, by looking at elite school attendance and property ownership. The researchers found that ...

The Art of Con
November 17, 2014
Last weekend, heralded all by tourist boards, local TV news reports, and a massive full-color ad campaign throughout the city’s public transportation system, what turned out to be a relatively modest art exhibition opened in downtown Chicago. It shouldn’t have been ...