The Baffler
@thebaffler.com
Political and cultural criticism. Since 1988. Online and in print. https://thebaffler.com/
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The Baffler
@thebaffler.com
· Sep 1
The only guarantee in today’s America is that everything’s a gamble. Our latest issue considers risk and its many industries: insurance, prediction markets, payday lending, and the high-stakes, low-brow world of improv comedy.
“While utility companies are about as safe a place to invest your money as they come, state regulators often reward shareholders as if they’ve taken on great risk, and in turn, guarantee higher rewards.”
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
Power to the People | Shivani Radhakrishnan
In New York’s Hudson Valley, fight for publicly owned utility companies gets a jolt.
thebaffler.com
October 15, 2026 at 12:44 AM
“While utility companies are about as safe a place to invest your money as they come, state regulators often reward shareholders as if they’ve taken on great risk, and in turn, guarantee higher rewards.”
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
Did you know it only costs $50 to get a full year of our blistering criticism and eye-opening reportage? Subscribe to The Baffler today.
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We’re making it easier than ever to join The Baffler’s far-flung disaffiliates program, which currently has subscribers across the world.
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October 14, 2026 at 11:03 PM
Did you know it only costs $50 to get a full year of our blistering criticism and eye-opening reportage? Subscribe to The Baffler today.
thebaffler.com/subscription...
thebaffler.com/subscription...
Improv comedy often sucks, and bad improv is mortifying to watch. But perhaps the joke is on its haters. thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
No, But | Dennis M. Hogan
Love it or hate it, improv comedy is neither dead nor dying.
thebaffler.com
October 14, 2026 at 8:55 PM
Improv comedy often sucks, and bad improv is mortifying to watch. But perhaps the joke is on its haters. thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
From the Archives: James Pogue describes how the wealthy seized popular energies to reassert their rights to power during the run-up to the American Revolution. They’re doing the same thing today!
America’s Plutocratic Love Affair with Cancellation
The mob was carefully controlled, and our long national story—a nation where popular liberty serves to protect the interests of oligarchs—begun in earnest.
thebaffler.com
October 14, 2026 at 6:22 PM
From the Archives: James Pogue describes how the wealthy seized popular energies to reassert their rights to power during the run-up to the American Revolution. They’re doing the same thing today!
Wikipedia has a page for just about everything: Scrappy-Doo, the embankment walls of the River Thames, a list of list of lists. How to tell the history of such a wide-ranging project, one that has involved the labor of millions?
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
Cabinet of Curiosities | Megan Marz
A new book unpacks the history of Wikipedia and the numerous crises it faces in the age of artificial intelligence.
thebaffler.com
October 14, 2026 at 5:01 PM
Wikipedia has a page for just about everything: Scrappy-Doo, the embankment walls of the River Thames, a list of list of lists. How to tell the history of such a wide-ranging project, one that has involved the labor of millions?
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
In New York, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp keeps raising rates on customers. Shivani Radhakrishnan writes on the fight to turn it into a publicly owned utility company.
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
Power to the People | Shivani Radhakrishnan
In New York’s Hudson Valley, fight for publicly owned utility companies gets a jolt.
thebaffler.com
October 14, 2026 at 3:52 PM
In New York, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp keeps raising rates on customers. Shivani Radhakrishnan writes on the fight to turn it into a publicly owned utility company.
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
thebaffler.com/latest/power...
“Most students pay the theater to perform. Classes extract tuition dollars from acolytes in exchange for an infinitesimal shot at becoming a professional or, less impossibly, at least mounting a show.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
No, But | Dennis M. Hogan
Love it or hate it, improv comedy is neither dead nor dying.
thebaffler.com
October 14, 2026 at 1:50 PM
“Most students pay the theater to perform. Classes extract tuition dollars from acolytes in exchange for an infinitesimal shot at becoming a professional or, less impossibly, at least mounting a show.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
Wikipedia is still one of the highest-trafficked websites in the world. Can it survive the rise of AI?
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
Cabinet of Curiosities | Megan Marz
A new book unpacks the history of Wikipedia and the numerous crises it faces in the age of artificial intelligence.
thebaffler.com
October 14, 2026 at 12:44 AM
Wikipedia is still one of the highest-trafficked websites in the world. Can it survive the rise of AI?
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
thebaffler.com/latest/cabin...
In the years between Obama’s 2008 election and the Covid-19 lockdowns, millennials took up an expensive, exhausting, and humiliating art form known as improv comedy. What made them do it?
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
No, But | Dennis M. Hogan
Love it or hate it, improv comedy is neither dead nor dying.
thebaffler.com
October 13, 2026 at 11:03 PM
In the years between Obama’s 2008 election and the Covid-19 lockdowns, millennials took up an expensive, exhausting, and humiliating art form known as improv comedy. What made them do it?
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
thebaffler.com/salvos/no-bu...
For all the founders wrote of “liberty,” the American Revolution did not produce an egalitarian—or even a democratic—nation. This is hardly a surprise! thebaffler.com/salvos/on-th...
America’s Plutocratic Love Affair with Cancellation
The mob was carefully controlled, and our long national story—a nation where popular liberty serves to protect the interests of oligarchs—begun in earnest.
thebaffler.com
October 13, 2026 at 10:02 PM
For all the founders wrote of “liberty,” the American Revolution did not produce an egalitarian—or even a democratic—nation. This is hardly a surprise! thebaffler.com/salvos/on-th...
“Stressful to put words in order, keep them together, commit to a personally geared and curated collection of phrases. Communication as a challenge. It’s hard to say what you mean genuinely.”
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
Noodles | Nathan Dragon
Do you notice when the luck starts to kick in?
thebaffler.com
October 13, 2026 at 8:55 PM
“Stressful to put words in order, keep them together, commit to a personally geared and curated collection of phrases. Communication as a challenge. It’s hard to say what you mean genuinely.”
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
Poetry by Benjamin Krusling from Baffler no. 85:
thebaffler.com/poems/ideall...
thebaffler.com/poems/ideall...
“ Ideally , with an honest face | Benjamin Krusling
I’d be slung or flung off the face of the earth / such was my attitude toward parties and departments
thebaffler.com
October 13, 2026 at 7:10 PM
Poetry by Benjamin Krusling from Baffler no. 85:
thebaffler.com/poems/ideall...
thebaffler.com/poems/ideall...
There was a time not so long ago when the threat of being invited to an improv show—or, worse, a corporate improv workshop—was everywhere. Now, not so much. @dennismhogan.bsky.social looks back on the yes-and boom.
No, But | Dennis M. Hogan
Love it or hate it, improv comedy is neither dead nor dying.
thebaffler.com
October 13, 2026 at 5:00 PM
There was a time not so long ago when the threat of being invited to an improv show—or, worse, a corporate improv workshop—was everywhere. Now, not so much. @dennismhogan.bsky.social looks back on the yes-and boom.
It would take you thirty-eight years to read Wikipedia—and that’s just what’s in English. Richard Cooke’s new history compiles a history of the sprawling online encyclopedia. Megan Marz reviews “The Last Best Place on the Internet.”
Cabinet of Curiosities | Megan Marz
A new book unpacks the history of Wikipedia and the numerous crises it faces in the age of artificial intelligence.
thebaffler.com
October 13, 2026 at 2:44 PM
It would take you thirty-eight years to read Wikipedia—and that’s just what’s in English. Richard Cooke’s new history compiles a history of the sprawling online encyclopedia. Megan Marz reviews “The Last Best Place on the Internet.”
“Mob rule, or cancel culture, was among the forces that drove the formation of America. But it did not, for all that the papers spoke of liberty, birth an egalitarian or even an avowedly democratic America.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/on-th...
thebaffler.com/salvos/on-th...
America’s Plutocratic Love Affair with Cancellation
The mob was carefully controlled, and our long national story—a nation where popular liberty serves to protect the interests of oligarchs—begun in earnest.
thebaffler.com
October 13, 2026 at 12:44 AM
“Mob rule, or cancel culture, was among the forces that drove the formation of America. But it did not, for all that the papers spoke of liberty, birth an egalitarian or even an avowedly democratic America.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/on-th...
thebaffler.com/salvos/on-th...
In her new memoir, Meghan O’Gieblyn unwinds her relapse into alcoholism and her flirtation with Catholicism. In both cases, she finds oblivion in one form or another. @rhiansasseen.bsky.social reviews “Will and Attention.”
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
True Confessions | Rhian Sasseen
Meghan O’Gieblyn’s addiction memoir transcends the form—and offers a salient exploration of what varieties of care and attention we owe ourselves and others.
thebaffler.com
October 12, 2026 at 6:22 PM
In her new memoir, Meghan O’Gieblyn unwinds her relapse into alcoholism and her flirtation with Catholicism. In both cases, she finds oblivion in one form or another. @rhiansasseen.bsky.social reviews “Will and Attention.”
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
It’s hard to make a new habit stick; harder when the to-dos accumulate, when time could always be better spent, when a broom-handle is there to trip you up.
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
Noodles | Nathan Dragon
Do you notice when the luck starts to kick in?
thebaffler.com
October 12, 2026 at 5:00 PM
It’s hard to make a new habit stick; harder when the to-dos accumulate, when time could always be better spent, when a broom-handle is there to trip you up.
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
thebaffler.com/fiction/nood...
The propertied class has always harnessed popular anger to their own ends. From the Archives: James Pogue peers back at the Revolutionary era, when merchants and speculators were doing the same damn thing.
America’s Plutocratic Love Affair with Cancellation
The mob was carefully controlled, and our long national story—a nation where popular liberty serves to protect the interests of oligarchs—begun in earnest.
thebaffler.com
October 12, 2026 at 3:52 PM
The propertied class has always harnessed popular anger to their own ends. From the Archives: James Pogue peers back at the Revolutionary era, when merchants and speculators were doing the same damn thing.
“As rising temperatures and decades of overuse drive water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead toward all-time lows, the Southwest’s future is increasingly entangled with the fate of a fish most people have never heard of.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/livin...
thebaffler.com/salvos/livin...
Living Water | Ash Sanders
The Southwest’s future is increasingly entangled with the fate of a fish most people have never heard of.
thebaffler.com
October 12, 2026 at 12:20 PM
“As rising temperatures and decades of overuse drive water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead toward all-time lows, the Southwest’s future is increasingly entangled with the fate of a fish most people have never heard of.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/livin...
thebaffler.com/salvos/livin...
“Today, writing in the spirit of geological time—to observe nature, but also for any kind of long-form journalism, really—is a vanished privilege.”
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
Up a Creek | David Schurman Wallace
The Library of America completes John McPhee’s canonization as this country’s most important nature writer.
thebaffler.com
October 11, 2026 at 7:03 PM
“Today, writing in the spirit of geological time—to observe nature, but also for any kind of long-form journalism, really—is a vanished privilege.”
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
Religion and addiction are seductive, twinned experiences—each a form of obliteration of self. Meghan O’Gieblyn’s new book “Will and Attention” takes on both.
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
True Confessions | Rhian Sasseen
Meghan O’Gieblyn’s addiction memoir transcends the form—and offers a salient exploration of what varieties of care and attention we owe ourselves and others.
thebaffler.com
October 11, 2026 at 4:03 PM
Religion and addiction are seductive, twinned experiences—each a form of obliteration of self. Meghan O’Gieblyn’s new book “Will and Attention” takes on both.
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
“Epidemics are not, as the cliché goes, ‘great equalizers’—they tend to exacerbate social inequality.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/bill-...
thebaffler.com/salvos/bill-...
Bill of Health | Adam Gaffney
In the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. health finance system was functioning exactly as it was designed to: it was operating as a business.
thebaffler.com
October 10, 2026 at 10:01 PM
“Epidemics are not, as the cliché goes, ‘great equalizers’—they tend to exacerbate social inequality.”
thebaffler.com/salvos/bill-...
thebaffler.com/salvos/bill-...
“Addiction itself isn’t logical; why this need to blot oneself out, to destroy oneself from within?”
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
True Confessions | Rhian Sasseen
Meghan O’Gieblyn’s addiction memoir transcends the form—and offers a salient exploration of what varieties of care and attention we owe ourselves and others.
thebaffler.com
October 10, 2026 at 7:03 PM
“Addiction itself isn’t logical; why this need to blot oneself out, to destroy oneself from within?”
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
thebaffler.com/latest/true-...
By attending to the small details, John McPhee’s nature writing created a picture of something almost too big to see. Reading his work, it’s hard to imagine pieces at such scale breaking into public consciousness these days.
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
Up a Creek | David Schurman Wallace
The Library of America completes John McPhee’s canonization as this country’s most important nature writer.
thebaffler.com
October 10, 2026 at 4:04 PM
By attending to the small details, John McPhee’s nature writing created a picture of something almost too big to see. Reading his work, it’s hard to imagine pieces at such scale breaking into public consciousness these days.
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
thebaffler.com/latest/up-a-...
“‘Primetime’ doesn’t just capture the textures of the period—the camera stocks, the xeroxed suburban McMansions that look like they’re decorated by Carmela Soprano—it captures the feeling of watching ‘Predator’ in the 2000s.”
thebaffler.com/latest/pedog...
thebaffler.com/latest/pedog...
PEDOGEDDON! | John Semley
This is not some “docudrama.” It’s a fugue. A fever dream. An insane, hysterical, hideous opera.
thebaffler.com
October 10, 2026 at 12:54 PM
“‘Primetime’ doesn’t just capture the textures of the period—the camera stocks, the xeroxed suburban McMansions that look like they’re decorated by Carmela Soprano—it captures the feeling of watching ‘Predator’ in the 2000s.”
thebaffler.com/latest/pedog...
thebaffler.com/latest/pedog...