Daily Bafflements

Boston's mayor Marty Walsh, receiving an honorary degree last year. / Photo by the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology.

• This one really does baffle: when observing the public debate over Boston’s Olympics bid, it may be useful to know that the mayor of our fine city “had signed an agreement with the United States Olympic Committee to prohibit city employees from speaking negatively about the Olympics” and that “It is not clear what punishment might await employees who disparage the Games.”

• Truthout reports on five corporations you may have never heard of before that are making millions from mass incarceration. (Via The Marshall Project.)

• Headline of the Day, from TIME: “Thought Leaders at Davos See Opportunities in 2015: Amid global crises leaders find reasons to be hopeful.” Oh really.

• A rare bit of good news here today: the former staff of the sadly-shuttered San Francisco Bay Guardian has released one last commemorative issue, and it is beautiful, and you can read it here.

Hey, one last thing.

In a media environment that tolerates tail-chasing, gutlessness, and all kinds of ratfuckery, The Baffler is a rare publication willing to shake the pundit class free of their own worst impulses. We can’t help it. We’re humanitarians at heart.

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