Daily Bafflements

• Chapman University has conducted a nationwide poll about what Americans fear most. The fears they ranked include hurricanes, identity theft on the Internet, clowns, child abduction, and public speaking, among many others. Fun fact: Americans are more afraid of Obamacare than they are of toxic waste contaminating their drinking water. Another one: among all the factors the researchers evaluated as predictors of a person’s high levels of fear, one of the surest predictors was a high frequency of television watching.

• The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that the upcoming mid-term elections will cost $4 billion, “by far the most expensive ever. The candidates and parties alone will combine to spend about $2.7 billion, while outside groups will likely spend close to $900 million on their own.” (Via Politico Playbook.)

• Okay, okay, so we can’t have flying cars, or even self-driving cars; not yet, anyway. But honestly, we haven’t even figured out a proper hoverboard yet? Where are this country’s priorities?

• Thanks to everybody who’s been coming out to our west coast book tour this week to celebrate the release of our third anthology, No Future For You. Here’s a video of the Seattle event from Monday, featuring Thomas Frank, Rick Perlstein, and John Summers.