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Does it really matter what Helen of Troy looked like?

It’s the controversy that has launched a thousand X posts. Elon Musk, who is a fan of Homer, has kicked up a fuss by objecting to filmmaker Christopher Nolan casting the black actress Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy in his forthcoming movie version of “The Odyssey.” The epic production presumably won’t rise or fall based on its depiction of Helen, the legendary beauty who precipitated the Trojan War. That conflict is portrayed in “The Iliad,” while “The Odyssey” follows the Greek warrior Odysseus on his return home after the war, a story that doesn’t feature ...

Dems ruminate over an autopsy when they should get to work

It seemed to take forever, but on Thursday the Democratic National Committee finally released the autopsy of its ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign. It’s bitter medicine, my Dem friends, but, as Momma used to say, take a spoonful; it’ll do you good. As midterm elections loom, Democrats would do well to recall the great humorist Will Rogers’ assessment of their 1924 convention, remembered as the longest and “wildest” in the nation’s history. Although the Democrats that year initially saw opportunity in the division and corruption plaguing incumbent President Calvin ...

Scrappers score respect, support from the Valley

As June begins to bust out all over on this sunny Monday, that must mean the Mahoning Valley’s boys of summer soon will be busting out all over the 7 17 Credit Union Field at Eastwood — to the delight of tens of thousands. Yes, Tuesday marks the start of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers’ 28th glorious year as an organization and its sixth season as a member of Major League Baseball’s increasingly respected Draft League. We suspect a full house will be on hand at the newly named stadium in the Eastwood Mall Complex in Niles when the first pitch against the State College (Pa.) ...

Remove dangerous dams for conservation, public safety

I stood on the riverbank in Milltown, Indiana, with Allen Pursell of the Sam Shine Foundation. We watched young people fishing on either side of the low-head dam on Blue River. May 31 was National Dam Safety Awareness Day, and I wanted to learn why the Sam Shine Foundation was committed to dam removal. Milltown’s dam is not one that will come out anytime soon, but it is the first one Allen and his colleague Cassie Hauswald considered. It all started about 10 years ago when the Nature Conservancy, a global environmental nonprofit, received an unrestricted gift for freshwater ...

Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To the patriotic residents along Butler Road, Foster Drive, Halsey Drive, Crescent Drive, Woodland Street, Fairway Drive, Overlook Drive and Golf Drive Northeast in Warren for lining their streets with some 100 large new American flags on all light poles. The tight-knit and highly regimented neighborhood posse also sprung into action by adding fresh paint to fire hydrants and restoring stone street markers. The all-volunteer effort proudly celebrates the 250th birthday of the United States. This patriotic community face-lift also serves as a proud reminder of the unity, freedom ...

End massive tax breaks for data centers in Ohio

The explosive growth of data centers in Ohio in recent years has been matched only by an equally explosive growth in heated opposition to the high-tech facilities for housing, storing, processing and distributing massive amounts of critical data and digital applications. A plethora of communities in the Mahoning Valley and throughout the state understandably have enacted moratoriums on their construction. A statewide referendum campaign has gained steam toward banning construction of most new, large-scale hyperscale data centers altogether. Environmental and consumer advocates decry ...