“Homer is back in the discourse on account of Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, The Odyssey. The latest controversy began with Elon Musk, among others, protesting the supposed inaccuracy of casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen, a fictional character, who among other fantastic elements is the daughter of the god Zeus and was laid as an egg by her human mother. … the fight over Homer represents just another skirmish in the campaign mounted by bigoted very-online right-wing self-described ‘chuds’ to claim Greek and Roman culture for their own fascist, or at least fascist-adjacent, ideology, which demands the exclusion of minorities, women, and LGBTQ people.” (06/04/26)
“The oil industry is warning the Trump administration that a Hormuz-sized hole in the world’s petroleum market is steadily draining inventories to levels that are likely to send global energy prices surging in the next several weeks, according to four executives. Industry executives have flagged the issue to senior White House officials and Cabinet members in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing dialogue with the U.S. energy industry, the people said. The warnings came as recently as late last month as data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other sources began showing that fuel makers were increasingly relying on oil and fuel from their storage tanks to replace products no longer arriving from the Middle East.” (06/04/260
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the recent anniversary of a tweet from NPR about public health experts signing a letter that supported the anti-racism protests during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.” (06/04/26)
“There is a particular kind of financial wisdom that used to be passed down at kitchen tables. A grandparent, someone who remembered harder times, would explain that the first obligation of a responsible person was to spend less than they earned, put something away, and let patience do its quiet work. The savings account was not a sophisticated instrument. It was a vessel for deferred consumption—a way of translating present discipline into future security. The interest it paid was modest, but it moved in the same direction over time. That world has not merely changed. It has been, in a precise and largely unacknowledged sense, inverted.” (06/04/26)
“Just a month out from America’s celebration of its 250th birthday, the national capital is a mess. And I’m talking about the sites central to the pilgrimages that millions of Americans make each year to Washington, especially the White House. The once-verdant park remains a construction site, with makeshift fencing only partly obscuring the vast scar that was once the East Wing and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. Cranes sway in place of the felled trees, to build President Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom despite court orders and overwhelming public opinion against it. The South Lawn has been replaced with a gargantuan circus-tent-like arena for Ultimate Fighting Championship cage matches and a Trump-picked audience of thousands. Yes, cage matches. To mark not the nation’s birthday but the president’s 80th on June 14. Because it’s all about Trump.” (06/04/26)
“A massive fire tore through multiple buildings of an historic psychiatric facility in the Hudson Valley, wild footage shows. The blaze erupted Wednesday at the abandoned Hudson River Psychiatric Center in Poughkeepsie, which was established in 1867 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 after closing years earlier, according to Pix 11. … The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but officials confirmed the campus is not connected to the electric grid.” (06/04/26)
“NATO partisans in both Europe and the United States are perpetual optimists about Ukraine’s prospective fortunes in its war against Russia. Lately, there has been yet another inundation of such accounts in Western news media outlets. Many of them emphasize that Moscow’s latest military offensive against Ukrainian ground forces has come to a halt with inconclusive results. The lack of a decisive breakthrough, members of Ukraine’s fan club contend, means that Russian president Vladimir Putin has again failed in his quest to conquer Eastern Europe’s resilient ‘democratic’ frontline state. That version of recent developments contains just enough truth to gain credibility among gullible opinion shapers and political leaders in the United States and in most other NATO countries.” (06/04/26)
“Dozens of artists participating in this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show are threatening legal action if their names are not removed from the ballot allowing visitors to vote for the best national pavilion and overall participants in the absence of a jury to award the prestigious Golden Lions. The Venice Biennale opened its most chaotic and contested edition in recent memory on May 9, with the prestigious Golden Lion yanked from contention after the jury quit in protest of Israel’s and Russia’s participation. The week of previews leading up to the public opening was characterized by loud protests outside the Israeli and Russian pavilions. … Signatories seeking to be removed from visitor prize contention include some 70 artists participating in the main show and nearly 40 national pavilions, including those of Iceland, Norway and Denmark, which have led the call to have Russia barred from returning to the Biennale for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” (06/04/26)
