This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Roger Pulvers in Japan Times
May 11, 2008
When it comes to making amends, it's never too late. If there were a single principle to guide us in our relations with others — either on a personal or a broader scale — it would be this.
On Feb. 19, 1942, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on the relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast of the United States, across the Pacific from America's then-enemy. More than 110,000 of these people, over 60 percent of them American
Source: http://politicalwire.com
May 9, 2008
In his long-awaited memoirs, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, former JFK aide Ted Sorensen admits he "collaborated" on Profiles in Courage with then Sen. John F. Kennedy.
According to a Wall Street Journal review, Sorensen says, for the first time, that he "did a first draft of most chapters," "helped choose the words of many of its sentences" and likely "privately boast
Source: Times (UK)
May 10, 2008
Lessons in the “story of our land” will replace history, geography and religious education at a leading independent school.
Richard Cairns, the Headmaster of Brighton College, told a conference there that he wanted to inspire children and teach how Britain influenced the world. He likened the current teaching of history to a car journey that stopped on only three occasions — 19th-century women, the First World War and Nazi Germany — and said that there was too much focus on other cu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 10, 2008
A seaside town is to put right an ancient wrong by giving a cross to Spain 600 years after an English pirate stole one from a church.
The privateer Harry Paye, from Poole, Dorset, was employed by a Spanish count in about 1400 to help his cause against the monarch.
However, Paye instead helped himself to the countess while her husband was away, fleeing when royal armies arrived – though not before burning the towns of Gijon and Finisterre and stealing a cross from the Ch
Source: NYT
May 10, 2008
France puts great stock in anniversaries. On your Paris map, you’ll find streets named “8 Mai 1945” and “4 Septembre” and squares called “8 Novembre 1942,” “18 Juin 1940,” “19 Mars 1962,” and, most recently, “Place du 8 Février 1962” — this one so christened last year on the anniversary of a protest for peace in Algeria. Flags come out, like the mammoth Tricouleur under the Arc de Triomphe for today’s Victory Day; newspapers groan under weighty ruminations; officials don sashes.
May
Source: Peter Steinfels in the NYT
May 10, 2008
Even without retrieving that bundle of yellowing French newspapers from the top shelf in a closet, it is easy to remember the night of May 10, 1968, in Paris. It is far less easy, 40 years later, to discern what it was all about. Adolescent hormones, the death of Communism, the death of capitalism or, as Andre Malraux suggested at the time, the death of God?
Malraux may have been alone in invoking God’s death as an explanation, but no one doubted that May 10 provoked an entire socie
Source: Washington Times
May 8, 2008
A decade before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admitted fudging the truth during the presidential campaign, federal prosecutors quietly assembled hundreds of pages of evidence suggesting she concealed information and misled a federal grand jury about her work for a failing Arkansas savings and loan at the heart of the Whitewater probe, according to once-secret documents that detail the internal debates over whether she should have faced criminal charges.
Ordinarily, such files containi
Source: National Geographic News
May 8, 2008
The grassy prehistoric Sahara turned into Earth's largest hot desert more slowly than previously thought, a new report says—and some say global warming may turn the desert green once again.
The new research is based on deposits from a unique desert lake in remote northern Chad.
Lake Yoa, sustained by prehistoric groundwater, has survived for millennia despite constant drought and searing heat.
Source: AP
May 9, 2008
A mother and child separated. A father's war wound. An uncle's name on a list.
The unrelated and disparate items are among the discoveries made by 40 Jewish genealogists who spent the past week plumbing a trove of Nazi documents made public after 60 years.
For genealogists of Jewish families, the Holocaust is both a tragedy and a black hole, because so many of the 6 million Jewish victims disappeared without a trace. For years, researchers hoping to fill the gaps have l
Source: Independent (UK)
May 8, 2008
Construction of a controversial dingo fence around resort areas on Fraser Island, one of Australia's leading tourist destinations, is to continue despite objections from Aboriginal traditional owners.
The 6ft-high fence is intended to protect visitors to the World Heritage-listed island off Queensland from the 150 or so dingoes that roam its rainforests and beaches. A nine-year-old boy was killed by two dingoes on Fraser in 2001, and there has been a spate of attacks since, most rec
Source: Business Wire
May 8, 2008
Today, Footnote.com announced the addition of the 1860 US Census to their Civil War Collection. As the largest online collection of original Civil War documents, this new addition to Footnote.com provides a snapshot of America before the bloodiest war in its history.
The 1860 US Census reveals many details about individuals at that time. What was their occupation? Where were they born? What was their marital status? Did they attend school? Could they read or write? Was your ancestor
Source: AP
May 8, 2008
President Bush signed legislation that designates a massive swath of Illinois as the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area.
Bush signed the measure Thursday. It calls for up to $15 million in federal money over 15 years to fund grants to help keep alive the story of Lincoln.
Source: UPI
May 1, 2008
A TV station run by the Palestinian militant group Hamas aired a program saying Jews organized the Holocaust to get rid of the weak, a media watch group said.
The Al-Aqsa TV program features recordings from the World War II Nazi Genocide in conjunction with images of former Israeli prime ministers David Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in its Friday edition.
The newspaper reported the program alleges Gurion and "the Satanic Jews thought
Source: WaPo
May 9, 2008
A powerful federal arts commission is urging that the sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for a memorial on the Tidal Basin be reworked because it is too "confrontational" and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states.
The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries," commission secretary Thoma
Source: BBC
May 9, 2008
Russian tanks and intercontinental missile launchers have been paraded through Moscow for the first time since the collapse of the USSR.
The Russian leadership has decided to revive the Communist-era custom of featuring military hardware in the annual Victory Day parade.
New President Dmitry Medvedev said the army and navy were getting stronger.
Observers say the point of the parade was to demonstrate that Russia is a serious military force.
Source: NYT
May 9, 2008
Did Senator John McCain not vote for George W. Bush in 2000?
That question has kicked up a minor ruckus in political circles this week as Arianna Huffington and the McCain campaign have traded he-said, she-said barbs.
On her Huffington Post Web site on Monday, Ms. Huffington, the liberal blogger, said she had heard Mr. McCain say at a Los Angeles dinner party shortly after the 2000 election that he had not voted for the president he has now publicly embraced in his own
Source: Andrew Kohut in the NYT
May 8, 2008
The phrase “generation gap” came into vogue in the 1960s as a way of describing the wide gulf in values, beliefs and lifestyles that emerged between baby boomers and their parents and grandparents. Indeed, this difference between younger and older people played out sometimes turbulently in the ’60s in virtually all aspects of life, including the ballot box. Unlike in previous elections, from 1968 to 1980 young voters gave much stronger support to Democratic presidential candidates than did their
Source: Chicago Tribune
May 7, 2008
Eugene Bowser recalls the time department store heir and publisher Marshall Field III gave him a $2 tip. For a railroad club car attendant making about $18 a month in salary around 1950, it was quite a bonus.
Bowser never made a lot of money, but at 93, he's active and alert, one of a select brotherhood who forged a special chapter in American history.
On Saturday, Bowser will join five other surviving porters who will be feted by Amtrak during a special National Train
Source: History Today
May 8, 2008
Archives chronicling the history of African and African--Caribbean descendants in the UK have been awarded a major grant. The £4million Heritage Lottery Fund award was announced today for the Black Cultural Archives, which will be housed permanently in Raleigh Hall, Brixton. The Grade II listed building in south London is currently derelict but will be removed from the English Heritage ‘Buildings At Risk’ register. Writer and broadcaster Kwame Kwei-Armah said: ‘I’ve been a huge fan of the BCA si
Source: Scoop.com
May 9, 2008
Viewing original papers written by Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. in Atlanta - the city he called home - Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon today paid tribute to the renowned United States
civil rights leader, saying the values he lived and died for
are shared by the United Nations."Dr. King remains an
unsurpassed advocate of all the UN stands for: peace,
economic and social justice, and human rights," Mr. Ban told
an audience of dignitaries, students, faculty and members of
the UN Association o
