Reading archive 2024-06-01

The elite ancient Greek fighting force made up entirely of gay couples: As Pride Month kicks off, the story of how the Sacred Band of Thebes defeated Sparta and changed history. - "Excavation of a mass grave on the battlefield at Chaeronea uncovered the bodies of 254 soldiers believed to be the band’s war dead. Amid the broken bones and fractured skulls, some pairs of skeletons lay linked arm in arm, a tribute to a love that outlasted death."

In a swing county, Trump’s faithful are angry. But they believe he’ll get even.: In Saginaw County, Mich., Democrats worry — and Republicans boast — that even 34 felony convictions won’t stop the former president from retaking the White House.

Investors, worried they can’t beat lawmakers in stock market, copy them instead: A loose alliance of investors, analysts and advocates is trying to let Americans mimic the trades elected officials make — but only after they disclose them. - "The penalties for those who violate the law are minimal: Members who are late to disclose stock activity, or sales and purchases of cryptocurrencies, generally face a $200 fine prescribed by the Stock Act. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Tex.), who failed to disclose 122 transactions valued between $9 million and $21 million in 2021 in a timely manner, paid $600 in late filing fees and corrected the record though he refused to cooperate with the review conducted by the Office of Congressional Ethics.

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"The Senate Ethics Committee has not issued a disciplinary sanction against a senator in over 15 years, even after a stock-trading scandal roiled the upper chamber. Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) came under scrutiny at the start of 2020 after they dumped vast stock holdings ahead of the coronavirus-induced market plunge. Neither the Senate Ethics Committee nor the Justice Department, whose investigators launched probes into the stock sales, pursued charges."

The Great Honeybee Fallacy: For years, people have understood them to be at imminent risk of extinction, despite evidence to the contrary. Why? - "A true truth about the bees: The modal American honeybee is, essentially, a farm animal—part of a $200-billion-a-year industry that’s regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is as sophisticated and professionalized as any other segment of the sprawling system that gets food on our plates. The nation’s largest beekeeping operation, Adee Honey Farms, has more than 80,000 colonies, facilities in five states, and nearly 100 employees. Its bees, and those at other large-scale apiaries, do produce honey, but more and more, the real money is in what the industry calls “pollination services”: the renting-out of bees to fertilize the farms of Big Ag, which have seen their indigenous pollinators decline with urbanization and industrialization."

Lawns Draw Scorn, but Some See Room for Compromise: Conventional turf lawns have come under attack. Landscape designers are using water-wise and native plants to balance green with “green.”