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Bowe Bergdahl: Hero, Victim, Traitor
June 05, 2014
Back when conservatives were outraged that Bowe Bergdahl hadn’t yet been released, Bowe was called a hero. Because his ongoing captivity was a mark against the Obama administration, it was convenient for Bergdahl to be cast in the role of POW. Bergdahl was the simple and ...

Polarizing Plutocracy: Our Broken Higher Education System
June 05, 2014
The American political system is broken, and one unmistakable sign of it is our inability to bring down soaring levels of student debt or to regulate predatory for-profit colleges. The best solution the Obama administration has been able to propose in this area is a college ...

Daily Bafflements
June 05, 2014
• San Francisco’s “Bespoke Donuts” offers donuts in unusual flavors (which are, we hope, served by these bow-tied and suspendered fellows)—flavors like pulled pork, herb and hummus, and chicken pot pie. How unappetizingly hip. • High-cost lenders are finding ways to ...

The Hope and Despair of the Mansplain
June 04, 2014
I have just sat down to dinner with my female friend and her two male friends she brought along, neither of whom I’ve met before. They are both programmers, and when my friend goes to the bathroom pretty much immediately upon arrival, they begin grilling me on my knowledge ...

All the News That’s Fit to DeMint
June 04, 2014
Move over, FoxNews.com, the Daily Caller, The Blaze, the Washington Times, Breitbart, and Drudge; move over, everybody. Make some room, because the Heritage Foundation launched its very own news site on Tuesday, which the Washington Post reports will keep twelve journalists on ...

Daily Bafflements
June 04, 2014
Nope, no fancy coffees for you, Seattle. / Photo by runner 310. • A $15 minimum wage doesn’t sound so high after all when the AP calculates that a full-time job with that hourly pay (about $31,000 a year) still only buys the very basics in Seattle and many other ...

The Partial Promise of Feminine Hygiene Patenting
June 03, 2014
In 1926, the nascent sanitary napkin industry was in peril. Women, all a-flutter about their rights and whatnot, were proving resistant to giving up their maternally derived tendencies to make their own sanitary products. Traditionally, women sewed pads from castaway fabrics, ...

Daily Bafflements
June 03, 2014
• Slavoj Žižek on teaching: “I hate students,” he said, “they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring.” And on office hours in particular: “I can’t imagine a worse experience than some idiot comes there and starts to ask you questions, which is still ...

Happy Birthday, Marquis de Sade
June 02, 2014
Today marks the 274th birthday of French revolutionary and libertine extraordinaire Marquis de Sade, and The Baffler is celebrating by re-reading Hussein Ibish’s reflections from Issue 22, “The United Sades of America.” In the popular imagination, Marquis de ...

Citizen Koch and the Oligarchic Slide
June 02, 2014
It takes about $99,000 to buy a Democratic congressman. That’s one of the grim factoids we learn in Citizen Koch, the new documentary from directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. That particular insight comes from James Bopp, who would know pay from payola; the conservative boffin ...

Daily Bafflements
June 02, 2014
• Today in Billionaires: heiress Alexis DeJoria is gaining some attention lately, not for her bucks, but for her skills as a professional drag racer. • If the EPA’s proposed plan to cut power plant emissions by 30 percent by 2030 is implemented, it “could very well be ...

The Baffler’s Week That Was
May 30, 2014
• We started the week off with two celebrations of the Class of 2014, with a commencement speech by Siddhartha Deb to graduates at the New School, and some news about Sheryl Sandberg’s visit to Harvard. Her commencement speech this week was accompanied by a visit from ...