― Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political thinker who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Wikipedia
Born: October 2, 1869, Porbandar, India
Assassinated: January 30, 1948,
| Robert Reich Jun 4, 2026 |
Friends,
No, he’s not over over. I wish he were. But something important has changed.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to direct him to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran or win approval from Congress to continue the war. It was a remarkable rebuke. Four Republicans sided with Democrats.
His “short-term excursion” into Iran, which he promised in late February would last no more than “four to five weeks,” has now entered its fourth month, with no end in sight. His claim to have “destroyed” Iran’s missiles and drones is belied by Iran’s massive attack on Kuwait on Tuesday. Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz. Its highly enriched uranium remains hidden. Even MAGAs have had enough of his forever war.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are rebelling. They’ve forced Trump to abandon the $1 billion request for his gilded ballroom, which was becoming ever more grotesque as Americans struggle to make ends meets.
His $1.8 billion Thug Fund is also dead, largely because a significant number of previously gutless Republicans (including — gasp! — Lindsey Graham) pushed back.
Trump’s name is coming off the Kennedy Center because a federal judge ordered it off and no Republicans came to his defense.
Even Trump’s endorsement is losing its magic. On Tuesday, Iowa voters rejected Trump’s choice for governor, Randy Feenstra, whom Trump called “MAGA all the way.” It was Trump’s first major endorsement loss.
And even with Stephen Colbert off the air, Trump has become a bigger late-night joke than ever. All the entertainers — even the B- and C-list also-rans desperate for exposure — dropped out of his 250th anniversary ego trip. So he’s going to be the headliner in a four-hour Fidel Castro speech. Good luck with that.
His Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House’s South Lawn has become a one-liner. To attend, military members have to pay their way to Washington and cannot have a waist size more than 55 percent of their height. (“No Fatties at UFC White House Event,” declared a Facebook page.) We’ll see how many show up.
As if all this weren’t enough, he’s nominated an unqualified sycophantic MAGA mortgage clown to be the director of national intelligence — an action so absurd that even Mitch McConnell had to object: “Anyone performing this role of such immense public trust must have the extensive national security experience required by statute, and no nominee who falls short of this requirement will earn my vote.” Get ready for a circus of a Senate confirmation fight.
No, Trump’s not done. He’ll continue to torment us with his cruelty, corruption, and criminality for some time, so we have to keep fighting.
But his power is disappearing. He’s become a lame duck whose quack no longer causes anyone to quake.
He has no one to blame but himself. His hubris finally reached its own breaking point.
In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.
Marjane Satrapi (Persian: مرجان ساتراپی) was born in Rasht (Iran, 22nd November 1969 – Paris, june 4th, 2026). Conditioned by the extremism of the 1979 Revolution, her parents sent her to Vienna in 1983 to finish her studies at the French Lyceum in the Austrian capital. She later returned to Tehran and enrolled in the School of Fine Arts, but, in 1994, she moved to France before graduating. She studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg (currently, Haute école des arts du Rhin) and later moved to Paris. According to specialists, Marjane Satrapi is one of the most prominent names in international comics, author of what is, for many, one of the best graphic novels ever published: Persepolis (2000), an autobiographical story that narrates her childhood and adolescence in Iran, of which it has been said that “few works have had such an ability to permeate pop culture and, at the same time, be one of the best historical narratives of our time”. Persepolis won the Angoulême Coup de Coeur Award for Best New Author at the Angoulême Festival. In 2001, the second volume also received the award for Best Script at Angoulême. The third and fourth volumes achieved even greater popularity, garnering international success. In 2007, she teamed up with Vincent Paronnaud to turn the comic into an animated film. The adaptation won the Film Critics Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival in 2007 and the César Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2008, in addition to being nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2008 Oscars. Other notable works of hers include Broderies (2003) (Embroideries, 2005) and Poulet aux prunes (2004) (Chicken with Plums, 2006), which was also adapted to film in 2011. In 2023, she coordinated the book Femme, vie, liberté (Woman, Life, Freedom, 2024) together with political scientist Farid Vahid and historian Abbas Milani, both Iranians, and French reporter Jean-Pierre Perrin, in addition to an international group of seventeen comic book authors (including Spaniards Patricia Bolaños and Paco Roca and several Iranians). In this work, she illustrates the revolts that occurred in Iran after the murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022 at the hands of the so-called “morality police”, and denounces the repression and lack of human rights that, according to Satrapi, Iranian society, especially women, suffer at the hands of the regime. The Persian version of this book is accessible online for free to all Iranians.
In addition to the film adaptation of Persepolis, Satrapi has directed the films La Bande des Jotas (The Gang of Jotas, 2012), The Voices (2014) and Radioactive (2019), a biography of scientist Marie Curie. Another discipline in which she has stood out has been painting, with important exhibitions in Parisian galleries such as the Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont. This year, a tapestry designed by Satrapi commissioned by France’s statutory Mobilier Nacional is on display at the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris to mark the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris. Commander of France’s Order of Arts and Letters, Marjane Satrapi holds honorary degrees from the Belgian universities UC Louvain and KU Leuven. She was elected member of the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2024.
(Goodreads.com)
Ken Burns Jun 1, 2026 Watch more with Passport: https://to.pbs.org/3SwZLNS Beginning with a searing indictment of slavery, this first episode dramatically evokes the causes of the war, from the Cotton Kingdom of the South to the northern abolitionists who opposed it. Here are the burning questions of Union and states’ rights, John Brown at Harpers Ferry, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the firing on Fort Sumter, and the jubilant rush to arms on both sides. 1861: “The Cause” | The Civil War This program is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station: https://www.pbs.org/donate Enjoy full episodes of your favorite PBS shows anytime, anywhere with the free PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2QbtzhR
By Mike Zonta, BB editor
Translation is a 5-step process of “straight thinking in the abstract” comparing and contrasting what seems to be truth with what you can syllogistically, axiomatically and mathematically (using word equations) prove is the truth. It is not an effort to change, alter or heal anything other than our consciousness.
The claims in a Translation should be outrageous and mind-blowing, but they are always (or should always be) based on self-evident syllogistic reasoning. Here is my Translation from this week.
1) Truth is that which is so. That which is not truth is not so. Therefore truth is all that is. Truth being all is therefore total, therefore whole, therefore one, therefore at one, therefore in agreement, therefore at peace, therefore Self-entangled. I think therefore I am. Since I am and since Truth is all that is, I cannot be outside of all that is, therefore I, being, am Truth. Since I, being, am Truth, therefore I, being have all the attributes of Truth. Therefore I , being, am total, whole, one, at one, in agreement, at peace, Self-entangled. Since there can be no being without awareness of it, therefore Truth is awareness/consciousness.
2) People with lots of money are arrogant and abusive. I don’t want to be arrogant and abusive, therefore I don’t want lots of money.
Word-tracking:
people: mortal
money: worth, power, ability to do, mental
worth: merit, what one deserves, reward
reward: to value others, measure how one is worth
arrogant: to claim, to assume, to arrogate, to adopt an adult as a son
value: to be well, to be strong
abusive: to misuse, use up, consume.
3) Truth being all is therefore without limit, therefore immortal. Truth being immortal, people (mortals) are a lie about the immortality of personhood OR Personhood is immortal. Truth being all that is cannot be consumed since there is nothing other than Truth to consume. Therefore Truth cannot be used up, misused, abused. Truth being all that is is therefore of infinite value/worth. Truth being of infinite value/worth, there is no arrogance or claiming more than one is worth. Therefore Truth rightfully arrogates to Itself infinite worth. Truth being all that is, there can be no power other than Truth, therefore Truth is limitless power. Truth being limitless power is therefore limitless ability to do, limitless value, limitless worth, limitless strength, limitless wellness, limitless merit.
4) Truth is immortal.
Personhood is immortal.
Truth cannot be used up, misused, abused.
Truth is of infinite value/worth.
Truth rightfully arrogates to Itself infinite worth.
Truth is limitless power.
Truth is limitless ability to do, limitless value, limitless worth, limitless strength, limitless wellness, limitless merit.
5) The Personhood of Truth rightfully arrogates to Itself limitless power, limitless ability to do, limitless value, limitless worth, limitless strength, limitless wellness, limitless merit.
For information about Translation or other Prosperos classes go to: https://www.theprosperos.org/teaching.
Or, if you have taken Translation class, join us each Saturday for Translation Saturday Meeting at 11 a.m. Pacific time for current, up-to-the-minute Translations on the issues of the day. Email zonta1111@aol.com for the Zoom link.
June 6: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PST
Mike Zonta, H.W., M.
In a crisis — any crisis — The Prosperos offers Translation. Translation Saturday Meetings is a weekly series of Translation presentations by veteran Translators, live and up to date on the issues of the day.
It is not a Translation workshop, It is not a Translation class. It is not a group Translation in the usual sense, though group participation is encouraged.
It is, however, restricted to those who have taken Translation class. So if you have never taken Translation class, check the calendar tab on The Prosperos website (TheProsperos.org) or get in touch with us and we will schedule a class.
Last week our sense testimony was: Thyroid node is a build up of stress due to self-imposed deadlines and helping others who can’t take care of themselves. And our conclusion was: Truth is the only regulation, the only thyroid, being instantaneous, complete and fearless.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – See you there!!! – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Here’s the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81749347119
For more info and link to join please email Mike Zonta at:
Alice’s mad tea party, 1865 Art: John Tenniel
A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: An absurd, illogical, or fantastical situation.
adjective: Absurd, dreamlike, fantastical, or illogical.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a children’s novel by Lewis Carroll. Earliest documented use: 1874.
NOTES:
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice follows a rabbit down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, where she meets talking animals, vanishing cats, mad tea-partiers, murderous monarchs, and more.
When dealing with an Alice-in-Wonderland scenario, trying to apply logic will only make you mad as a hatter. Best to just embrace the absurdity before you lose your head over the details.
Another word coined after the book is Alician. Also see rabbit hole, a phrase Carroll did not coin literally, but one whose figurative life owes much to Alice’s tumble.
For words coined in the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, see here. Also see micropsia, aka Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Jun 4, 2026 Andrew Holecek was trained for decades within the Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen and Mahamudra, and having completed the traditional three-year retreat. He is the author of numerous influential books, including Dream Yoga, The Lucid Dreaming Workbook, Preparing to Die, Dreams of Light, and his newest work is Total Eclipse of the Mind: Unleashing the Power of Darkness for Creativity, Healing and Transformation. His website is https://www.andrewholecek.com/ Andrew explores Vajrayana Buddhism as a living transformational path for modern Westerners, drawing from decades of Tibetan Buddhist training, dream yoga, sleep yoga, and dark retreat practice. He discusses lucidity, the dreamlike nature of reality, the states of consciousness associated with waking, dreaming, dying, and deep sleep, and how these experiences can cultivate wisdom, compassion, and awakening. Holecek also examines emptiness, non-dual awareness, the bardos, lucid dreaming, and the integration of psychology, spirituality, and consciousness studies into everyday life. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:44 Andrew’s journey into Vajrayana Buddhism 00:06:42 Three-year retreat and meditative discipline 00:11:03 Consciousness, contraction, and openness 00:19:05 Dream yoga and spiritual practice in daily life 00:25:56 Lucid dreaming and the nature of reality 00:31:31 Sleep yoga and deep dreamless awareness 00:42:28 Dreamers, perception, and non-dual awareness 00:49:07 Bardos, death, and ritual phenomenology 01:02:10 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on May 18, 2026)
From a millennial climate activist, an exploration of how young people live in the shadow of catastrophe
“Strikingly perceptive.” –Jenny Offill, author of Weather
“Beautifully rendered and bracingly honest.” –Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing
Warmth is a new kind of book about climate change: not what it is or how we solve it, but how it feels to imagine a future–and a family–under its weight. In a fiercely personal account written from inside the climate movement, Sherrell lays bare how the crisis is transforming our relationships to time, to hope, and to each other. At once a memoir, a love letter, and an electric work of criticism, Warmth goes to the heart of the defining question of our time: how do we go on in a world that may not?
(Goodreads.com)
