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Daily Bafflements
May 27, 2014
• Today in Billionaires: Not a billionaire, but you want to dress like one? Well how about trying on some new duds by Italian luxury brand Billionaire? No one will be able to see the label on the inside of your clothes, but you’ll know it’s there, and it will make you feel ...

The Baffler’s Week That Was
May 23, 2014
Hello Bafflers, won’t you consider subscribing to the print magazine, if you have not done so already? For $30 a year, your mailbox will be graced thrice yearly by a perfect-bound collection of salvos, satire, and colorful art. Sign up now and receive our new issue, which is ...

The Trigger-Happy University
May 23, 2014
The “trigger warning” is an innovation that seems innocuous enough, in theory. But in practice, trigger warnings have a subtle but corrosive effect on the values of intellectual inquiry and gender equality. As such, they should be firmly resisted. Trigger warnings ...

Daily Bafflements
May 23, 2014
• Ned Resnikoff reports on the 138 arrests at the protest at the Oakbrook, Illinois headquarters of McDonald’s on Wednesday, over at MSNBC.com. • Traditional wealth advisers just don’t understand [millionaire] kids today, explains Reuters. • After the New York Times ...

Happy Birthday, Margaret Fuller
May 22, 2014
Friday, May 23rd marks the 204th anniversary of the birth of Margaret Fuller, literary icon and “America’s first true feminist.” Fuller, born in Cambridge in 1810, is lately enjoying a bit of a renaissance. She was a female editor in a man’s world of ...

On “Density,” the Most Slippery Word in Urban Planning
May 22, 2014
Have you heard? Millennials are moving back to cities, and the New York Times is on it. In fact, the Times was so on it that it was on it twice in the same day last month, in two different sections of the paper. Plenty of folks have been hoping this day would come—from Grist, ...

Daily Bafflements
May 22, 2014
• Fact: every single time you put the word “bespoke” into a Google News search you will be rewarded with something ridiculous. Today in Bespoke: this press release-as-news-article, headlined “Hope of Rolls Royce to make a bespoke picnic basket.” • Trickster James ...

The Last Days of Abercrombie & Fitch
May 20, 2014
A flagship Abercrombie & Fitch store had its grand opening in Shanghai last month, one of one hundred Abercrombie stores set to open in China in the coming decade, according to AdAge. As befitting such an event, young men with the half the clothing and twice the lean muscle ...

Ask Uncle Ralph
May 20, 2014
Whenever someone buttonholes me and demands to know my position on tort reform, corporate governance, campaign finance, regulatory enforcement, citizen utility boards, or reductions in the defense budget, I just reply: “Ask Uncle Ralph. He has all the details.” He does, ...

Daily Bafflements
May 20, 2014
• Here are some highly enjoyable illustrated Martin Luther insults by Peter Mann, including such timeless classics as, “You stink like devilish filth flung into Germany” and “You are like mouse-droppings in the pepper.” • WBEZ reported earlier this month that ...

Protests Against Commencement Speakers: Hard-won But Hollow
May 19, 2014
Are we seeing the emergence of a new “anti-liberal” left? That’s what The Nation’s Michelle Goldberg argued recently. She was writing about the #CancelColbert Twitter campaign, but she and others have also called attention to the other manifestations of the phenomenon, ...