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Daily Bafflements
September 30, 2014
• Headline of the Day, presented without context: “Billionaire Elizabeth Holmes, 30, Wants Your Blood.” • “Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky may be only four days old, but she’s already influencing politics,” says MSNBC’s ...

The Return of America’s Favorite Anti-Trafficker
September 29, 2014
America’s anti-trafficking sweetheart Somaly Mam is back— phoenix-like, unscathed, and sweet-voiced—only four months after a takedown that was described alternately as devastating and unfair (by Mam’s newly-vocal support team), justified but unfortunate (by Newsweek, who ...

Daily Bafflements
September 29, 2014
• Let’s start this week off right, shall we? The Daily Beast would like us all to know that “2014 is the year of the butthole.” A titilating article, but they are, ahem, behind the times: please see Natasha Vargas-Cooper’s piece in our current print ...

Harassment in the Online Workplace
September 26, 2014
As if we needed another, September kicked off with an acrid reminder that yes, all women—even the most privileged and powerful—are still subject to the cruel whims of anonymous men. On the great celebrity nude hack of 2014, Roxane Gay wrote in the Guardian, “What these ...

Daily Bafflements
September 26, 2014
• From Mother Jones comes this little profile of an anti-weekend warrior: “Wisconsin state Sen. Glenn Grothman thinks days off are ‘goofy,’ says sex ed could make kids gay, and claims money is ‘more important for men.'” • A new investigative ...

Towards a Politics of Delight and Desire
September 25, 2014
When Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, he was looking to expose the dangerous working conditions of the meatpacking industry and bring relief to its workers. Instead, the popular reaction to his book led to new food standards and sanitation laws. (Apparently the worst thing about ...

Daily Bafflements
September 25, 2014
• Democracy in Action Headline of the Day: “Another Donna [Texas] school board election worker charged in coke-for-votes scheme.” (From the McAllen, Texas Monitor, via Quartz.) • China’s teenagers are being forced by their schools to work long hours for ...

You Can Find Capitalism in Da Club
September 24, 2014
Though “financial coercion” is something of a phrase du jour for hand-wringers describing unsavory employment decisions by women, there is a new phrase in town that seeks to take its throne. It is “consensual trafficking,” and it is brought to you by a New York Times ...

Daily Bafflements
September 24, 2014
• If you’ll remember, we used to help the homeless by turning them into walking Wi-Fi hotspots; now we might as well help them by actually housing them inside ad-emblazoned billboards. • Today in Billionaires: Larry Ellison bought an island in Hawaii. He has said he ...

What “Yes” in Scotland Might Have Meant
September 23, 2014
Looking at a map of the world and seeing the number of places over which the sun of the British Empire has most definitely set, it’s difficult to imagine why, when Scotland was presented with the opportunity to leave the United Kingdom, they did not take it. It goes against ...

Daily Bafflements
September 23, 2014
• Today in Billionaires: Some residents of the Dolores Heights neighborhood of San Francisco feel “under seige” by a “massive construction encampment” surrounding a $10 million “fixer-upper” bought (and currently being slowly and ...

Rhetoric Meets Reality for Married Gay Veterans
September 22, 2014
A couple purely rhetorical statements have recently achieved the status of “bipartisan consensus.” “ISIS is barbaric” is one. “Returning veterans deserve our best treatment” is another. Unfortunately, these truisms are too vague to suggest any particular course of ...