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Daily Bafflements
July 08, 2014
• George Orwell reportedly “could thrive only in comparative adversity.” That may be why he moved to a distant, desolate, and weather-beaten Scottish island to finish Nineteen Eighty-Four. Islanders say he kept to himself and went by his given name, Eric Blair. (Via Roads ...

Daily Bafflements
July 07, 2014
• Today in Broken Records: yet another Forbes columnist helpfully explaining why Raising the Minimum Wage is Not the Answer. We would paraphrase his argument, but it’s too boring to even try to decipher. • Today in Billionaires: Yet another eccentric Chinese ...

Not All Veterans
July 03, 2014
As a veteran, I hate it when other veterans speak for me. I also hate it when they use their veteran status as a way to promote unexamined bellicosity. This kind of appeal to veteran authority has been happening a lot lately. Most of it has been in response to the violent ...

Daily Bafflements
July 03, 2014
• Well, tomorrow is Independence Day, a day to celebrate our great nation with hotdogs and hangovers. Here’s something a little different: the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., an actor will stage a reenactment of Douglass’s 1852 speech, ...

Cigarettes and Climate Change
July 02, 2014
I am a smoker, and I am in denial. It isn’t that I don’t believe that cigarettes will kill me. I do. It isn’t that I don’t believe that I’m addicted. I know I am. Like most addicts, my denial takes the form of dissonance: I rationalize, I procrastinate, I make token ...

Daily Bafflements
July 02, 2014
• Last week the Baffler blog discussed junket journalism—but what about junket policy-making? According to National Journal, new rules in the House mean that lawmakers no longer have to include all-expenses-paid trips they receive from lobbyists or others on their year-end ...

The Village Voice Union Walkout and an Alt-Weekly Obituary
July 01, 2014
On Monday at noon, the employees of the Village Voice who belong to the union UAW Local 2110 staged a walkout and demonstration to protest the management’s new contract proposal. The new proposal would halve family leave time and increase health insurance premiums by $200 a ...

Hollywood Hijinks and the Films of Empire
July 01, 2014
As far as international incidents caused by stupid movies go, the North Korean declaration that The Interview, a new film by James Franco and Seth Rogen, is “an act of war” is probably the most newsworthy since The Innocence of Muslims kicked off anti-American riots in the ...

Daily Bafflements
July 01, 2014
• Here’s Shane Bauer on the shadowy for-profit bail industry, or, “How $550 and a five-day class gets you the right to stalk, arrest, and shoot people.” • After yesterday’s SCOTUS decision giving Hobby Lobby the ability to deny female employees health coverage, as ...

Daily Bafflements
June 30, 2014
• Wow, Googling “Facebook apologizes for . . .” sure brings up a lot of results! Here’s the latest, about secret mood-altering experiments conducted on Facebook users. We wonder if they have a full-time CAO (chief apology officer) on staff? • We’re watching SCOTUS ...