Call for comments on the Arch

URGENT – Public Comments Needed by June 15 about the Triumphal Arch in Washington, D.C. 

With little fanfare, a critical federal level review was initiated on Friday, June 5 for the 250-foot-tall Triumphal Arch that would be built between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery; and, remarkably, the public comment period closes on Monday, June 15. So, please submit comments right away—at the end of this article is a hot link to where comments should be submitted.

The review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act is designed to identify how the project could cause negative impacts (or as the feds call it, adverse effects) and how to “avoid, minimize, and mitigate” those negative impacts. The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) recent article Why is the National Park Service Helping the Administration Evade the Law? reveals how the National Park Service (NPS) is twisting, contorting, and manipulating the Section 106 process to fast-track projects such as painting the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.

Now, NPS has hit the gas pedal on the reviews for the Triumphal Arch by compressing the public comment timeframe to a mere ten days. All of the documents concerning the proposed Arch can be found here.

In addition, as noted in TCLF’s article, organizations and individuals that are subject area experts and normally participants in the review process are currently being excluded; this includes TCLF, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, D.C. Preservation League, and others. According to the draft Programmatic Agreement (essentially a final contract): The [Arch’s construction] will be consistent with … the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes …” and other regulations.  Since TCLF’s Founding President & CEO, Charles A. Birnbaum, authored the Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes during his fifteen-year tenure (1992-2007) at NPS, it seems odd that TCLF’s request to be a “consulting party” to the review process has not been approved.

In recent comments submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, an agency reviewing the Arch project, TCLF stated: “The proposed arch interrupts and severs key visual and spatial relationships that are integral to the Monumental Core’s design intent and its inherent symbolism.”

According to the National Park Service the present Memorial Bridge was “Symbolically … designed to show the strength of a united nation by joining a memorial on the north side of the Potomac River (the Lincoln Memorial) with one on the south (Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial). The architect [of Memorial Bridge] envisioned an elaborate sculptural program … including seated figures of the first four American presidents on the D.C. side and reclining statues of oceans and river gods on Columbia Island. The bridge itself was to have forty allegorical statues.” That entire sculptural program was eliminated by the U.S. Commission of Fine Art, another regulatory agency, as some statuary and pylons were seen as too tall in relation to the memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial is a hinge point (on a bent axis) visually connecting the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool to the east, and Arlington House. The Historic American Engineering Record report of 1988 about Arlington Memorial Bridge by historian Elizabeth Nolin noted: “As the final link in the chain of monuments which start at the Capitol building, the Arlington Memorial Bridge connects the Mall in Washington, D.C. with Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Designed to connect, both physically and symbolically, the North and the South, this bridge, as designed in the Neoclassical style, complements the other monumental buildings in Washington such as the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial.”

The Triumphal Arch would radically alter the visual and spatial relationships of a landscape listed in the National Register of Historic Places and insert a huge barrier between Arlington House and Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.

The deadline for submitting comments is Monday, June 15—do not wait. Send in your comments now.

To submit comments, NPS requires using this online form. 

There are bound to be a few stumbles on the Road to AI Utopia

From the humans at magica.ai.
 

The sound you hear

The sound you hear is the future arriving from every direction. Think of it as "Everything Everywhere All At Once" in real life. Humans at magica.ai report the news, you decide how freaked out to be.

 

Amanda Nelson's Congress update for June 1st, 2026

We’re back with this week’s whiteboard! Congress was on recess last week (you’re shocked, I know you’re shocked) but we have lots to catch up on, including:

• NDAA funding for 2027, which includes a section tying our military supply chain, research, and AI development to Israel’s

• The status of the “Protect” kids/don’t say trans bill

• Catching up on the status of the ballroom funding and the DOJ slush fund of $1.776 billion

 The first two are the things to call your reps about!

https://open.substack.com/pub/amandasmildtakes/p/congress-wants-to-tie-our-military?r=1opwqh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

AI On The March

From humans @ magica.com

AI will replace your job as soon as it learns to spell and other news from the front

In the AI universe, no one can figure out what The Plan™ is, let alone what it's going to be.

 

 

 

Source: AI Snacks newsletter from magica.com. 

Surprise, surprise! Hate speech is bustin' out all over Substack

 

What I thought was a relatively innocent comment, "Show us the proof," to the assertion that "Paul Krugman has an extremely poor track record with predictions" turned into a demand that I disclose that I am "a jew." Not satisfied to leave it there, another commenter joined in to call me a "faggot boi" based on my Substack posts.

This is the relevant section of the content guidelines: 

Hate 

Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition.

Clearly, Substack has a serious harassment/hate speech problem. Report an issue and they promise not to let you know how it was decided. Seriously. They will not share what if any action was taken when you report a content violation. 

So, what's a content creator to do? I can tell you that this one will move all of his posts off Substack and delete his account before it turns into Twittter with subscriptions. 

ETA: I flagged the comments, Tyler from Substack replied, and I responded to his e-mail.

On Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 12:43:05 PM EDT, Substack Support <support@substack.zendesk.com> wrote:#- Please type your reply above this line -##

Hi there,
 
Tyler from Substack Standards and Enforcement here. Thanks for reaching out about this. 
 
We take all reports of violations to our Content Guidelines seriously and thoroughly evaluate them. Though we're unable to disclose specific details about actions taken with publishers on the platform, we'll be taking any steps necessary to ensure publishers adhere to Substack's Terms of Use. Thank you. 
 
Best wishes,

Tyler @ Substack

Hello there, Tyler. Thanks for getting back to me with a vague promise of action that may or not have been taken since you can't tell me what happened.

So publishers have to adhere to the Content Guidelines but comments can contain hate speech and slurs. Got it.

Frankly, I don't see why I should have to tolerate someone calling me a "faggot boi" and Substack not doing anything about it.

 

"Departures": Caught up in a bad romance

 

 

Departures is Pillion without the humor.

The theme song is “Bad Romance,” over and over. I would have walked out if I hadn’t paid for the ticket.

It’s as if your friend with self-esteem issues (Benji, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) tells you in excruciating detail about the dead-end relationship that just ended. As he tells the story, you can spot every red flag that he ignored but he was so besotted that he just plowed right ahead. As relationships go, it wasn’t much of one, made up of eight marijuana-laced and boozed-up weekends in Amsterdam with an enigmatic 40-something hunk (Jake, David Tag), one a month. From the start, when your friend couldn’t tell if the guy was even gay and he brought a hooker to the apartment soon after they unpacked, it was clear that there was no way it could go on.To no one’s surprise it didn’t, and to your great relief it looked he found a way to get over it. In Greek drama that’s known as a deus ex machina, and here he’s named Kieran.

The usual disclaimer about the characters in the movie not resembling anyone living or dead ends the movie. Since Lloyd Eyre-Morgan is the screenwriter, co-director, and lead I have my doubts.

Finally, I have a bone to pick with New York Times film critic Chris Azzopardi. U.K. distributor Peccadillo Pictures touted Departures as a New York Times Critic’s Pick in a recent email and that made me think I needed to see the movie before it left the IFC Center. Azzopardi wrote, “A voice to watch, Eyre-Morgan wrote Departures and directed it with Neil Ely. The film balances a mordantly funny deconstruction of romance with the harsher realities of gay life: internalized homophobia, body dysmorphia, alcoholism, sexual abuse, parental expectations to be a “happy gay.” It’s a lot, maybe too much for some. Even the camerawork feels confrontational, with tight close-ups and high angles that subjugate Benji. Departures is still tender and winsome, with graphic-novel-style animation lightening the load, but is ultimately punishing in tone. It lives by a truth that might ring familiar for gay men particularly: Humor that cuts deep is a form of survival.”

First of all, there’s nothing funny, let alone “mordantly funny.” And it’s neither tender nor winsome, though it is definitely punishing. I felt undeservedly punished at many points of its 82 minutes that felt more like 102. “Humor that cuts deep is a form of survival”? Puh-leeze, Chris. If you can show me the humor, then we can discuss how it’s a form of survival.

After that review, Chris Azzopardi joins The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody as a critic to ignore. Read the full review here (gift link): ‘Departures’ Review: Finding Levity Amid the Pain.