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Does it really matter what Helen of Troy looked like?

Editorials

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 ...

Remove dangerous dams for conservation, public safety

Editorials

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 ...

Scrappers score respect, support from the Valley

Editorials

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.) ...

Children are running our big cities

Editorials

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani earned national attention in a not-good way when he recorded himself in front of Ken Griffin’s Manhattan home revealing the billionaire’s address. He tapped the lens in a threatening manner and said guys like Griffin are going to pay more taxes. Griffin is the founder and CEO of Citadel, a giant hedge fund. The wisdom of raising taxes on expensive second homes can be debated, but doxxing Griffin in that nasty, personal way was flat stupid. Griffin accurately described Mamdani’s stunt as “creepy and weird,” in addition to showing a ...

Hey, America: Stop complaining

Editorials

Whatever the outcome of the “deal, or no deal” scenario with Iran, the public attitude toward the war has been disturbing. Despite President Trump’s constant admonition that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon, a majority of those polled oppose the intervention. A side effect of the war has been complaints about higher gas prices. That grumbling caused me to do some reminiscing about a different America and different Americans. Over Memorial Day weekend we again heard about “The Greatest Generation,” but do we take the time to consider what made them great? While ...

Is this a PTSD Nation?

Editorials

I was born just after the end of World War II. The first half of the 20th century marked a particularly difficult, violent era. But the 21st century so far has been, well, one trauma after another. It started with 9/11, followed by the grim wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then the Wall Street crisis of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and its own economic crisis. The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Then, beginning in 2024, President Donald Trump’s full-scale attack on democratic institutions, followed by his war on Iran and soaring prices. ...