The weekend is approaching, so let's check in on a couple of American vices (or virtues, depending on your stance). For many people, this is no ordinary weekend. It's the first weekend in a long time without football. Or more to the point, it's the first weekend in a long time without football to bet on. Some will take the weekend off from their newly legal habit. Others will take a less treacherous (and withdrawal-inducing) path and just bet on some other game. Maybe game is too broad. Modern gamblers (especially young men) bet on distinct aspects and parts of games. That's how the action keeps going. These days, who has the attention span to wait the length of an entire game to see if a bet hits? The action never stops. The casino is always open. It's right in your pocket. And it's been supercharged by other tech and techniques that keep you glued to your device. "The apps are designed to be played quickly and aggressively to trigger repeated hits of dopamine and, eventually, addiction. 'This has nothing to do with ordinary sports betting ... Until you had online sports betting, nobody had ever bet on whether the next pitch was going to be faster or slower than 95 mph. You’re betting on all these micro-propositions. It’s just an opportunity to push the button.'" The Guardian: How the quick high of ‘fast-food gambling’ ensnared young men. Want a safe bet? Put your money on this trend accelerating. Gambling marketers are definitely laying their money down. "Over the course of an NBA or NHL broadcast, the viewer will see the logo of a betting company or hear some reference made to gambling 2.8 times per minute, according to a study. 'ESPN is a 24-7 casino ad right now,' says Dr Timothy Fong, an addiction psychiatrist and the co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program. 'The normalization has gone so deep, so fast. [Sports] gambling has gone so viral that it’s beyond normalization. It’s endemic.'" 2Get Out of My Head"The Food and Drug Administration approved a new medication Thursday to treat pain from an injury or surgery. It is expensive, with a list price of $15.50 per pill. But unlike opioid pain medicines, it cannot become addictive. That is because the drug, suzetrigine, made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and to be sold as Journavx, works only on nerves outside the brain, blocking pain signals. It cannot get into the brain." Gina Kolata in the NYT(Gift Article): F.D.A. Approves Drug to Treat Pain Without Opioid Effects. 3Altered StatesThe next phase in the war on abortion has begun. This time, a state with an extreme abortion ban is targeting out of state providers of abortion-inducing drugs. New York doctor indicted for prescribing abortion pill in Louisiana. "The case appears to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, at least since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to have strict anti-abortion laws." (We're leaving it up to the states ... to target other states.) 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Benefit: The FireAid concert that aired on every major streaming network combined amazing (and an amazing number of) musical performances with some really moving stories from people who experienced the fires. The performances spanned the genres and the years and included a reunion of Nirvana with guest artists providing lead vocals, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell, Lady Gaga, Pink, John Mayer, Green Day, Billie Eilish, Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Katy Perry, Olivia Rodrigo, and on and on. You can still watch the whole event. And of course, consider making a donation. Steve Ballmer matched all FireAid donations made during the benefit concert. That’s how you billionaire. 5Extra, ExtraParamount a Resistance? For big corporations, news divisions are a rounding error, one many of them are willing to tarnish or sell out for (potential) returns down the road. The latest example: Paramount in Settlement Talks With Trump Over ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit. "When Donald J. Trump sued CBS for $10 billion days before the 2024 election, accusing the company of deceptively editing a '60 Minutes' interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, many legal experts dismissed the litigation as a far-fetched attempt to punish an out-of-favor news outlet." (60 Minutes used to refer to an investigative news show. Now it refers to how long it took corporate America to bend the knee.) 6Feel Good FridayNYT Mag (Gift Article): What Happened When America Emptied Its Youth Prisons. "Lessons from a radical 20-year experiment and a quiet triumph of public policy."
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