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Daily Bafflements
August 21, 2014
• According to reports of the ongoing trial of Virginia’s ex-governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen, both of whom face charges of public corruption, “The defense painted Ms. McDonnell as a vitamin-obsessed ‘nutbag.'” • Former Obama operatives ...

We Do Actually Know What’s the Matter with Kansas
August 20, 2014
A decade ago, coastal voters and the political and media elite were banging their heads on their desks with bafflement, wondering why so many Americans were voting against their economic interests. Wasn’t the Democratic Party supposed to be the party for the little guy, and ...

Daily Bafflements
August 20, 2014
• While the beginning of the school year has been postponed in Ferguson, Missouri because of ongoing protests there, classes are cancelled today and until further notice in Millville, Pennsylvania because all the teachers have gone on strike. According to WNEP-16, the ...

Redlining and Reckoning in Ferguson
August 19, 2014
As I write this, it’s been about three months since the publication of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Atlantic cover story about reparations. That’s not a very long time relative to the span of a human life, but it’s significantly longer than the average lifespan for most Internet ...

Reality TV Workers and Walkouts
August 19, 2014
Last week, the postproduction crew of the reality television show Survivor walked off the job and formed picket lines outside the production company’s Santa Barbara headquarters. The editors and producers had requested contract negotiations with Mark Burnett’s Island Post ...

Daily Bafflements
August 19, 2014
• Dust off your monocle and top hat, New York City’s Metropolitan Opera and two of its unions (representing its orchestra and chorus) have finally come to a deal. • Today in Advice from Billionaires: If you want to make it rich, see where this billionaire ...

A St. George Segregationist Update
August 18, 2014
[This is an update on the situation Tom wrote about in The Baffler’s current issue, published last month. – Ed.] In mid-July, Frontline devoted a half-hour to the unfolding secessionist fight in Baton Rouge. The investigative PBS special zeroed in on consequences of ...

S.W.A.T. USA
August 18, 2014
Sunday night in Ferguson, Missouri, the second night of an imposed curfew, brought not calm, but more chaos. The world watched the scene unfold on several online livestreams and read rapidly-changing reports over Twitter. (Broadcast television news was largely useless.) At 10 ...

Daily Bafflements
August 18, 2014
• New York Times reporter James Risen, who is likely facing prison for refusing to give up an anonymous source for a story and book about the CIA, calls President Obama “the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.” • Oh, also, in case ...

What’s the Matter with New Atheism?
August 14, 2014
  Taken in its original context, Nietzsche’s famous dictum “God is dead” sounds more like a warning than a triumphant boast. When the line appears in The Gay Science, Nietzsche places it in the mouth of a village madman who soon realizes the world is not yet ready to hear ...

Daily Bafflements
August 14, 2014
  • It’s the fifteenth anniversary of ABC gameshow Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? • Today in Fearmongering: Ahead of Florida’s November vote on medical marijuana, an anti-legalization group, “No on 2,” tweeted this: “Will the new face of ...