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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 ...

The Baffler’s Week That Was
June 27, 2014
• A highlight this week on the blog was this illustrated excerpt of Michael Duffy’s book I Can’t Recall, about the campaign to recall Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. Duffy updated it for The Baffler with the recent allegations about Walker’s involvement in a “criminal ...

Ikea and the Business Case for a Living Wage
June 27, 2014
This week, the Swedish furniture giant Ikea announced that it plans to start paying its retail workers a living wage. The new hourly minimum will be based on regional estimates derived from the MIT Living Wage Calculator. Beginning next year, the average minimum wage of Ikea ...

Daily Bafflements
June 27, 2014
• Men’s Fashion Week is really something, isn’t it? (Via Noah Schactman.) • Today in Billionaires: venture capitalist Nick Hanauer writes an open letter to his “fellow zillionaires” in Politico, warning them that “the pitchforks are coming for us plutocrats . . . ...

On Robot Soldiers and the Recession
June 26, 2014
After more than twelve years in Afghanistan, with approximately 2,200 Americans killed and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the proposed conclusion to what has ended up being America’s longest war has been met with resigned apathy from many Americans, and predictable ...

Daily Bafflements
June 26, 2014
• Speaking at Google’s I/O conference on Wednesday, futurist Ray Kurzweil shared his prediction that, in ten years, we’ll all be able to download designs and then 3D-print our own open source clothes for just cents. (Kurzweil claims a 75 percent accuracy for his ...

The Joy and Shame of Junket Journalism
June 25, 2014
As Germany continues to grapple with Google over privacy and profit, Google is deploying its strategic pundit reserve. Jeff Jarvis (journalist, author, #innovator, tech-enthusiast and news-guru) was recently brought over to Google’s Big Tent event in Berlin, where he defended ...

Daily Bafflements
June 25, 2014
• In case you missed it yesterday, David Leonhardt at the New York Times wrote about a Brookings Institution study that declared that the student debt crisis in America was not actually that bad, so stop whining. Mike Konczal at The New Republic argued that the long-term ...