As the election approaches, I know many of us are anxious. And the ways in which we process that can vary wildly. For some, talking through bad and worst case scenarios seems to be a way in which they process potential futures. And for others, that kind of game theory just creates new anxiety spirals. No one’s way of dealing with things is right or wrong, but just a note to be empathetic and patient with one another as we head toward November 5. 

With that said, here’s some news that doesn’t deal directly with the impending election for you to chew on this morning:

The Times shares excerpts of Alexei Navalny’s diary he kept while in prison in Russia, which has been published and is a window into the brutal conditions he faced.

“Reasons three and four for writing this book may sound overly dramatic, and if everything ends badly, this will be the point at which my more emotional readers may shed a tear. (Oh my God, he could see it all coming. Imagine how that must have felt!) On the other hand, if everything works out for the best, this could be the most pathetic part. It could be tidied up with a bit of editing or simply omitted, but I have promised myself that this is to be a very honest book.

Reason three, then, is that if they do finally whack me, the book will be my memorial.

Reason four is that, again if they whack me, my family will get the advance and royalties that, I hope, there will be. Let’s face it, if a murky assassination attempt using a chemical weapon, followed by a tragic demise in prison, can’t move a book, it is hard to imagine what would. The book’s author has been murdered by a villainous president. What more could the marketing department ask for?”

The Guardian, meanwhile, looks into private equity – sharing examples such as dental practices owned by private equity firms that do root canals on children. Yikes. The article includes this choice passage: 

“Private equity creates value by growing great companies,” Pagliuca has said, offering a picture of the industry as a green-thumbed gardener turning mere seedlings into fruit-bearing trees. But over the past several months, as I combed through the recent trove of books on private equity, trawled through the memoirs of industry titans such as Schwarzman and Guy Hands, spoke with people who have worked inside Wall Street and City firms and interviewed scholars who study this species of finance, I came to see private equity in more virological terms, like a pandemic.

(This also hits close to home as local news in the Cordytown area recently reported on our largest private medical practice turning to private equity.)

Bloomberg investigates the companies that set odds for sports gambling (I encountered a paywall, but there’s an archive available here.) There’s a lot that goes into it, but this is the passage that stood out to me:

An all-seeing intelligence would bring the oddsmaking companies’ trajectory to a kind of total fruition. Koerl says he wants to be able to predict, with high confidence, each twist or result of a game. If a flagging tennis player, two match points down, finds a second wind to push for an upset victory, maybe an algorithm can predict the increased likelihood of a win as soon as his topspin grows a little stronger and his lunges a mite quicker? The odds will adjust, the microbets will proliferate, and the gamblers will bet exponentially more. The system will never achieve the sorcery of forecasting the future of every game. But all it needs to do, really, is to know the bettor as well as the sport—and to offer just enough temptation to keep him betting.

The Washington Post shares the story of a trans girl who waned to play volleyball (archive link)- and the challenges she and her mother faced in pursuit of, and after, making that happen. A content warning for a deeply infuriating, but powerful article.

Norton teared up as she spoke. Her daughter was an innocent 16-year-old girl, she said. Yes, she had played volleyball, but she had done so much more at Monarch. Her peers had chosen her for the homecoming court and student government. She had been flourishing, Norton said, but the district’s investigation had ruined that. 

If you don’t have time for a long article, but are able to listen to a podcast, maybe check out You’re Wrong About’s latest episode, featuring a conversation with Kellie Carter Jackson about the role Black women have played in revolution and resistance in American history.

With all of that, please be kind and thoughtful today. To others and to yourself. Cheers.