The Atlantic Daily: Part of the Cure
What We’re Following
Exercising Rights: As Donald Trump continued his attempts to appeal to black voters who overwhelmingly reject him, news broke today that his campaign is using “voter suppression operations” in the form of radio spots and Facebook videos to discourage black voters from turning out for Hillary Clinton. It’s actually not that unusual to use negative ads in this way, but targeting black voters in particular sends a bad message—particularly given the ugly history of repressive voting laws in key states like North Carolina. There, the battle for equal voting rights traces back from today to the Jim Crow era; you can read a comprehensive history here. Meanwhile, some of the state’s undocumented immigrants are trying to increase turnout among Latinos by helping others register to vote—even though they can’t do it themselves.
Women at Work: In Iceland this week, thousands of women staged a protest against the pay gap by leaving work about 30 percent earlier than usual—that is, leaving after the amount of time it would take to earn their paychecks if they were paid at the same rate as men. In one of the world’s most gender-equal nations, it was a striking demonstration of a gap that, worldwide, may take another 170 years to close. Unequal pay isn’t the only problem women face in the workplace; as our readers illustrate, many must deal with casual sexism and sometimes comply with gender stereotypes to succeed in the first place. What’s the solution? In an interview for our Women and Leadership series, Senator Amy Klobuchar explains what it takes for women to get elected—and how that experience and perspective helps female legislators get things done.
Recommended: Milk Chocolate Is Better Than Dark, the End
Surprising Remedies: Scientists are preparing a large-scale test of a plan to combat the Zika virus with—more mosquitoes. These particular insects, to be unleashed over Brazil and Colombia, have been infected with a bacterium that stops them from spreading the virus. If all goes well, they’ll infect other mosquitoes and thus stop Zika at its source. Fighting fire with fire is also the approach in the most successful therapy for OCD: exposure and response prevention, or ERP, in which sufferers must confront their obsessive thoughts until they’re able to ignore them. Those who’ve experienced ERP say it’s life-changing—but it also can be prohibitively expensive.
Snapshot
Quoted
“A chimp doesn’t come with a ticket or a sign, so they don’t know where to send it back to.” —Christina Hvilsom, who studies chimpanzees, on what happens when smuggled chimps are confiscated
Recommended: The Battle for North Carolina
“Nobody is getting rich farming; that’s important to know.” —Jane Harrod, a hemp farmer in Kentucky
“I tried putting out non-carbonated ginger beverages, and I know: People like their bubbles.” —Chris Reed, who founded a craft ginger ale company
Evening Read
Megan Garber on Halloween-candy rankings:
The judgment, collectively, if I may sum it up, is that candy corn is disgusting and also weird-looking, and Mr. Goodbar is the superior selection in the Hershey’s Minis bag, and Mounds are proof that God loves us, and Raisinets are proof of the opposite, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are proof that even in these turbulent times it could turn out that committed monogamy makes a certain sense. Also: Nerds are warty nonsense; Whoppers are okay but why are their coatings so shiny; Butterfingers are delicious but also possibly Illuminati-left clues about impending apocalypse; the best M&M color is red and the blue ones are trying too hard and the oranges are trying not hard enough and let’s not even start on the green; Rolos are fine; Milk Duds are unacceptable; Smarties are good in an “actually...” kind of way; Twix are what they are, but—wait for it—also demand the plural verb; Snickers are, obviously, at the very tippy-top of the Halloween hierarchy, but only if they’re Fun-Sized, and if someone puts a regular-sized version into your bag, that person is most likely either over-compensating for something or trying to murder you with the tiny razor blade that has been lodged between the peanuts and the nougat …
What these assessments haven’t fully accounted for, though, is the most fundamental division of all.
That division: Which is better, dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Keep reading here, as Megan makes the case for the latter.
Recommended: Election 2016: The Latest Updates
What Do You Know?
1. A pilot program in the nation of ____________ requires bankers to take an oath similar to American doctors’ promise to “first, do no harm.”
Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.
2. Each year, U.S. state and federal governments spend about $____________ on early-childhood education.
Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.
3. At the turn of the 20th century, the legal tort “heart balm” was often invoked by women who wanted to sue ____________.
Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.
Reader Response
Look Back
The New York City subway system opened its first underground line on this day in 1904. By July 1908, as Hollis Godfrey recorded in The Atlantic, it had already gained a reputation:
Its stifling heat during the terrific summer of 1905 is a matter of painful memory to thousands. That heat was made yet more intolerable by the peculiar “subway smell.”
But not every response to the transit system that New Yorkers love to hate was so jaded. In our February 1908 issue, Chester Firkins paid tribute to the ritual of the subway commute—the “crowded dark,” the thundering trains—in a poem that closed like this:
You that ’neath country skies can pray,
Scoff not at me—the city clod;—
My only respite of the Day
Is this wild ride—with God.
Read the whole thing here. Also: Watch a video of teen subway performers here, and find out here why the MTA never tells you when your train is coming.
Verbs
Bill Murray recognized, best Vines remembered, Inferno burned, Millennials mocked.
The Atlantic Daily is written by Rosa Inocencio Smith. To contact us, email hello@theatlantic.com.
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