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Anne Manne and the “Asshole Effect”
August 13, 2014
In a recent article in Aeon, Eric Schwitzgebel suggests that in order to fully understand the problem of “moral ignorance,” we need “a theory of jerks.” In her new book The Life of I, Australian writer Anne Manne gives us one: late capitalism breeds jerks, rewards ...

Daily Bafflements
August 13, 2014
• This is what a bunch of tech hype looks like, all graphed up by Gartner. Entrepreneurs, if you seek to reach the “post-nexus stage” with your digital business, go hard on these technologies: “Smart Workspace; Connected Home; 3D Bioprinting Systems; ...

Daily Bafflements
August 12, 2014
• Today in Pure Coincidences, courtesy Mother Jones: a) A lot of bottled water comes from drought-parched California. b) In California, groundwater’s a property right; extraction is unregulated. (At least for now; stay tuned.) • The living Latin ...

The Masons, the Rotarians, and You
August 11, 2014
© Mark Dancey In our current issue, Thomas Frank examines the long, strange history of the Masons, the Rotarians, the Elks, the Lions, Shriners, and all the other fraternal orders that have gradually fallen out of fashion. “The Freemasons,” he writes in “Veiled Pensioners ...

Daily Bafflements
August 11, 2014
  • The NCAA can no longer prohibit compensation for student-athletes, a federal judge ruled Friday. While you wait out the appeals process, see e.g. Matt Hinton’s “Billionaire Ball,” circa Baffler no. 20, 2012. “It’s become steadily harder to use ...

The Assassin’s Fate: Paul Berman Shoots and Misses (Again)
August 08, 2014
  We Sicilians are connoisseurs of malevolence. So I approached Paul Berman’s hatchet job on Alexander Cockburn (The New Republic, August 1) with an alacrity tempered only by my apprehension that Berman wasn’t quite up to the job. His previous attempts at character ...

Paul Ryan’s Magical Thinking
August 07, 2014
  Paul Ryan deserves credit for having learned exactly the right way to become a Washington policy sage. He knows that whether a proposal will succeed or fail really has very little to do with actual government policy, and everything to do with policy aesthetics. A serious ...

Daily Bafflements
August 06, 2014
  • Over at the Nation, Kate Bahn, Joelle Gamble, Zillah Eisenstein, and Heather Boushey talk Pikettymania and gender. Baffler contributor Kathleen Geier moderates. • 2.3 million people still subscribe to AOL’s dial-up service. • Today in Things ...

When London Burned
August 06, 2014
  This week marks the third anniversary of the start of the “summer of disorder” in the UK. In August 2011 the world watched, baffled, as the Brits seemed to be burning all of their cities down to the ground. We watched as thousands of kids crashed through glass storefronts ...

Daily Bafflements
August 06, 2014
  • This, on the heels of the NLRB’s ruling: McDonald’s restaurants in South Florida are speeding up the production line. They’re handing out timers to drive-thru customers, and offering coupons if food isn’t ready in sixty seconds or less. • ...

Private Prisons, Public Cash
August 05, 2014
  It’s fait accompli that conservatives and neoliberals will want to solve America’s alleged immigration problems by building walls and prisons. As frustrating as their proposed “solutions” are, they shouldn’t come as entirely shocking. They have at their core the ...

Daily Bafflements
August 04, 2014
  • Here’s an epic road trip: visit the richest person in every U.S. state, with this handy map, courtesy Movoto, in tow. Score three for the Waltons: they’ve got Arkansas, Texas, and Wyoming.  • Today in stating the self-evident: “What someone is paid ...