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“Formula 1 began to test the limits of Las Vegas’s appetite for professional sports. After originally promising locals they wouldn’t need any public financing for the race, the government ended up footing a $40 million bill to repave the roads.”

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" . . . examples of bungled lethal injection executions are unending, leaving a macabre trail of state brutality visible only to the few paying attention." @charlotteerosen.bsky.social @thebaffler.com thebaffler.com/latest/botch...

submitted 13 hours ago • 1 comment

Professional sports used to fear any association with Las Vegas. The NFL refused to run its tourism ads during the 2003 Super Bowl. Two decades later, things look radically different—the city hosted Super Bowl LVIII and has a team of its own. What changed?

submitted 12 hours ago • 1 comment

This is an excellent read that goes into a lot, including the low pay and the ways some women bodybuilders finance their efforts.

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In the U.S., lethal injection gets presented as a more humane form of execution. A new book exposes the harrowing, stomach-churning truth of the matter—but ultimately sanitizes the racialized violence of death penalty writ large.

submitted 14 hours ago • 2 comments

In New York, many voters rank “public safety” at the top of their concerns. City and state officials have thus opted for a punitive approach to the mental health crisis. It’s a strategy based on fear and not facts.

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The last eight members of Congress to die in office have all been Democrats. In Baffler no. 72, Chris Lehmann explained how we came to live in a gerontocracy.

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Vintage Bafflers are now up to 70% off. Fill the gaps in your collection.

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“The death penalty and the U.S. carceral state more broadly is an apparatus that authorizes and enshrines anti-black violence in an ostensibly post-civil rights age.”

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Today’s protests and rebellions would be wise to take note of the seventeenth-century radical-by-chance who led a frenzied mob against Spanish Habsburg rule and turned a spontaneous riot into an enduring inspiration for the upheavals to come.

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It’s a classic story: young woman from a small town moves to the big city, takes on a fancy job, and transforms herself. Gets crammed in the back of a cab with fellow assistants, gets stuck with a chore designed as a gift.

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Copper occurs naturally in all sorts of places: leafy greens, cocoa, and the earth beneath our feet. But modern life, with all its batteries and pipes and solar panels, demands more and more of the metal. At least, that’s what mining companies say.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

In “Secrets of the Killing State,” Corinna Barrett Lain assesses the well-documented horrors of lethal injection. But as @charlotteerosen.bsky.social‬ writes, it leaves openings for those who wish to salvage capital punishment rather than eliminate it.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Lots of people are making money off college sports, but for the most part, the schools operating the programs are not. And that’s to say nothing of the athletes themselves.

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With New York’s mayoral primary coming up, will the city chart a different course when it comes to tackling the crisis of mental health? Because the current, punitive approach harms NYC’s most vulnerable individuals—and it isn’t working.

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Earlier this year, Brad Sigmon became the first person in 15 years to be executed by firing squad. The media framed it as anachronistic and inhumane. But Sigmon chose the method over lethal injection. Here’s why.

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“Involuntary treatment can undermine a patient’s independence, a crucial factor in their long-term health, and prevent them from actively seeking care when a court order expires.”

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Many cities have rolled out non-police crisis response teams with much fanfare, but the truth is that police are still responding to the overwhelming majority of mental health crises. Until budgets are reallocated, this will continue––and police will continue killing. thebaffler.com/latest/serio...

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

For one week in 1647, an insurrection seized Naples. Squid salesmen and tomato vendors took on their colonialist overseers and triumphed, putting power in the hands of the underclass.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Baffler no. 79 features new short fiction from @lauravandenberg.bsky.social‬. In “Cake,” every treat is a burden, and every burden is an opportunity.

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In “Secrets of the Killing State,” Corinna Barrett Lain assesses the well-documented horrors of lethal injection. But as @charlotteerosen.bsky.social writes, it leaves openings for those who wish to salvage capital punishment rather than eliminate it.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

“Social scientists like to ask, why is democracy in Latin America so weak? But I think that question, particularly when we look at the commitments of people on the ground, gets it backward. We should ask, how has it stayed so strong?”

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Last month, Representative Gerald Connolly—aged 75—died in office. He was just the latest in a long line of aging Democrats who held onto power until the end. Back in 2024, Chris Lehmann explained how we came to live under a gerontocracy.

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“Even if it were possible to reverse the trend of global warming by producing more solar panels and electric cars, it isn’t just red tape standing in the way of new mines. People who live near proposed mining projects are worried about the impact.”

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“College sports is funny like that—the more money they make, the more they seem to cost.” @thebaffler.com (@dennismhogan.bsky.social) examines “College Sports: A History” by John R. Thelin and Eric A. Moyen: thebaffler.com/salvos/a-new...

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"THING was an avatar of the black, queer culture that ended up providing a basal layer of everyday speech, but it was also a local, gnomic instance of Chicago culture that mattered to a small group of friends." — @sashafrerejones.bsky.social‬ for @thebaffler.com

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“In the Neapolitan revolution there is something to be understood about the primacy of materialism in any insurrection; truly radical political theories are born from the lived experience of humans and only systematized by philosophers later.”

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You can’t fully understand the history of the United States without first getting your head around its long engagement with its neighbors to the south in Latin America.

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my latest piece is on this year's increase in restrictive policies for ppl with serious mental illness in NYC & what the front-runners for mayor are thinking about doing thebaffler.com/latest/serio...

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New York’s city and state officials tend to take a punitive approach to mental health. @jessmcallen.bsky.social writes on those fighting against the push for involuntary treatment.

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Mining copper is tricky and often environmentally destructive. But because the mineral is key in manufacturing the batteries and solar panels of our green future, industry leaders insist that extraction is worth it.

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“The entire history of college sports has been one of a push and pull between athletics and academics, amateurism and professionalism, corruption and purity.”

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In case you missed it, we just published a new issue. Now it’s time to get rid of some of the old ones. Will you help us? Get up to 70% off our back catalog.

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Abundance—it’s the word on everyone’s lips this week, thanks to the centrist circlejerk happening in D.C. this week. Malcolm Harris considered the buzzword (and reviewed the book behind the hype) on our site in March.

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Before Trotsky, Robespierre, and Thomas Paine, a revolutionary fishmonger named Masaniello took Naples in the name of the people—for nine whole days. As Ed Simon writes, praxis precedes theory; revolt is a thing of the stomach.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

College sports is at a crossroads, and in Baffler no. 79, @dennismhogan.bsky.social considers some inflection points: the death of the conference model, the rise of the “superleague,” the question of paying athletes, and the threats to higher education in general.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Great article about the history and the (not promising) future of bowling, a sport I loved competing in during the 1980s. Brings back a lot of memories. 🎳

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Who deserves to go down in history? Andrew Schenker describes the arbitrary standards that decide who does and doesn’t make it into a sport’s hall of fame.

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Professional sports franchises were wary of Las Vegas for a long time, but now they’re setting aside their scruples. David Hill tells the story of how Sin City bet on the big leagues.

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“Gimmick boxing” has overrun the sport. But fights like Tyson-Paul make money for streamers and sportsbooks, and so the trend is here to stay.

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Copper mining destroys habitats, pollutes the environment with heavy metals, and guzzles up an enormous amount of water. But now, thanks to its association with green technology, the industry is getting an eco-friendly rebrand.

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Bowling industry leaders say that the sport needs to “evolve.” But as @daveadenison.bsky.social puts it in our new issue, “to be a bowler is to be at war with change.”

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College sports and the US university grew up together; now, both face serious, even existential, challenges. For @thebaffler.com I argue that, whether we like it or not, the fate of the educational mission is intertwined with that of the athletics department. thebaffler.com/salvos/a-new...

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Baffler no. 79 is now available online and in print. “Player Haters” judges the state of American sportsmanship: the college ballers and bull riders, the GOATs and cheats of all kinds. Start reading now.

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Our spring clearance sale is still going strong! Get steeply discounted back issues of The Baffler now.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

"For anybody active in pre-internet DIY underground in the early 90s, the smell + feel of newsprint is an express back to a world of zines that THING embodies + from which it meaningfully departs. We were reading catalogs, supermarket circulars, ☎️📚, + all sorts of local information on newsprint."

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

Tilman Fertitta made his billions buying up schlocky restaurant chains and stripping them of all character. Now, set his sights on a new horizon: New York City’s dining scene.

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Tenants who have legal representation in eviction court fare better before a judge: they get more lenient deals, face smaller monetary judgments, and often get to stay in their homes. But even under NYC’s right to counsel law, many have to go it alone.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Professional bodybuilders are getting buffer and buffer, the standard for muscularity set higher for every year. To make the cut, competitors take performance-enhancing drugs. But these have serious side effects, especially for women in the sport.

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments