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: Village Voice
October 9, 2007
If the Boston Massacre were to take place today, someone would no doubt capture the event on a cell-phone camera and upload the images online within minutes. Lacking such tools, the silversmith Paul Revere took the established technology of 1770—copper engraving—and in a few weeks churned out prints depicting the attack. They sold briskly, fueled Yankee rebellion, and established a link between cartooning and American politics before the country had been formally created.
Even if ha
Source: AP
October 10, 2007
Catholic priest accused in a series of deaths and kidnappings during Argentina's Dirty War was convicted and sentenced to life in prison Tuesday
Former police chaplain Christian von Wernich was found guilty of being a "co-participant" with police in seven homicides, 31 torture cases and 42 kidnappings, ending a trial that has focused attention on the church during the 1976-83 military rule.
Hundreds of people beat drums and set off fireworks outside the feder
Source: Brian Ross on ABC News
October 9, 2007
Fred Thompson has made much of his role 30 years ago as a young Senate lawyer helping to lead the investigation of the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon.
But a much different, less valiant picture of Thompson emerges from listening to the White House audiotapes made at the time, as President Nixon plotted strategy with his aides in the Oval Office.
Thompson's job on the Watergate committee was to lead the Republican side of the investigation. He was appointe
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 9, 2007
Hitler was prepared to look after a palm tree following the death of a loyal old supporter but on no condition was he willing to accept a gift of three handkerchiefs decorated with his own face.
The revelation that Hitler refused to blow his nose on his own image is one of the bizarre details from his private correspondence with German citizens. Carried out over 20 years between 1925 and 1945, the correspondence between the ''beloved Fuhrer" and his people contains tens of thou
Source: expatica.com
October 9, 2007
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has located an ancient world map stolen from Spain's National Library along with other extremely valuable documents in August, the daily El Pais reported Tuesday.
The map torn from a 16th-century edition of Ptolemy's Geographia was found in the possession of a New York collectioner, the daily quoted sources of the National Library as saying.
The identity of the collectioner was not given. It was not known whether he or she wa
Source: http://www.peninsuladailynews.com
October 9, 2007
OLYMPIA - The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe has settled its lawsuits over the failed Hood Canal Bridge graving yard and the ancestral village of Tse-whit-zen.
Motions to approve the settlements were signed Friday by Thurston County Superior Court Judge Anne Hirsch.
The action cleared the way for the Lower Elwha to focus on reburying the remains that archaeologists unearthed at the site from 2003 to 2005.
"We're definitely excited about being able to put th
Source: Times (UK)
October 8, 2007
Italian archeologists have uncovered the ruins of a 2,700 year old sanctuary which they say provides the first physical evidence of Rome at the time of Numa Pompilius, Rome’s legendary second king, in the 8th century BC.
Numa Pompilius, a member of the Sabine tribe, was elected at the age of forty to succeed Romulus, the founder of Rome. He reigned from 715-673 BC, and is said by Plutarch to have been a reluctant monarch who ushered in a 40-year period of peace and stability. He was
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE)
October 9, 2007
It was the spring of 1968, and the nation's colleges were convulsed in protest. Students were barricading themselves in buildings, and antiwar demonstrations were growing violent. At Wellesley College, a group of students were threatening to go on a hunger strike if the administration did not agree to recruit more black faculty members and students.
In an effort to avert the strike, administrators convened an all-campus meeting so students could voice their grievances. When it devol
Source: AP
October 7, 2007
The head of Parliament has warned the United States Congress not to pass an Armenian genocide bill, saying in a letter to the House speaker that the move would harm bilateral ties, his office said Sunday.
The speaker of Parliament, Koksal Toptan, said in his letter to the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, that "it might take decades to heal negative effects" of the bill if it passed, Toptan's office said in a statement.
The bill would declare the killings of Armenians f
Source: AP
October 8, 2007
The notes of 17th century researcher Robert Hooke were posted on the Internet on Monday, opening an online window into the man who helped drive Britain's scientific revolution and laying bare his professional rivalries with the likes of Sir Isaac Newton.
The notes, lost for centuries before their discovery in 2005, cast new light on developments at Britain's Royal Society, where scientists discussed microscopes, micro-organisms, and planetary motion.
Royal Society schol
Source: AP
October 8, 2007
A private dive team exploring the waters off south-central Alaska has discovered the oldest American shipwreck ever found in the state, officials said Monday.
The Torrent sank 139 years ago in Cook Inlet after tidal currents, among the world's most powerful, rammed it into a reef south of the Kenai Peninsula. Documents from the period show that all 155 people on board survived.
The U.S. had purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, less than a year earlier,
Source: AP
October 9, 2007
In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking t
Source: NYT
October 8, 2007
David Michaelis first contacted the family of Charles M. Schulz seven years ago about writing a biography of Schulz, the creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip. It turned out that Schulz had read Mr. Michaelis’s biography of N. C. Wyeth, and that Schulz’s son Monte also liked the writer’s work. He ended up helping persuade the rest of the Schulz clan to cooperate with Mr. Michaelis, granted full access to his father’s papers and put aside his own novel writing to help him.
But Monte S
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 7, 2007
One of Britain's leading universities is embroiled in an embarrassing row over hundreds of treasures looted from Iraq.
Found scattered around ancient Mesopotamia, the Aramaic incantation or devil bowls were placed upside down in homes during the sixth to eighth centuries to trap evil spirits. The spells, and information such as the names of the home owners, are not found in any other source. One collection contains the earliest examples of the Bible in Hebrew.
Anther co
Source: Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed
October 8, 2007
The University of Kentucky has this fall been considering the segregation of its Greek system (a common situation at colleges with large fraternity and sorority traditions) and what to do about it. While no solution has been found, black students and white Greeks were suddenly united Friday to condemn the student newspaper for a cartoon that tried to explore the issue.
The cartoon in The Kentucky Kernel featured a black man in chains on an auction block. Three fraternities, “Aryan O
Source: Mercury News
October 6, 2007
A critical audit released Friday found struggling History San Jose has been swimming in red ink because of weak financial management, fanciful fundraising goals and limited efforts to reduce expenses.
The Macias Consulting Group audit recommends the San Jose City Council grant the non-profit a relatively modest subsidy increase of $717,113, spread over the next four years in decreasing amounts. The audit also said History San Jose should reprioritize staffing to reduce personnel cos
Source: National Post
October 8, 2007
A group of "young patriots" are asking Quebecers to vote online for the greatest "traitor" to the Quebec nation -- both Liberal leaders, in Quebec and in Ottawa, are on the hot seat.
The contest is a mockery of the search for the greatest Canadian launched by CBC in 2004.
The organizers say the non-scientific, and humorous, poll is a way to counterbalance the shortlist of the CBC that they say "hailed Canadians who despised Quebec's nation, such
Source: NYT Editorial
October 8, 2007
At the height of his bardic powers, Allen Ginsberg could terrify the authorities with the mere utterance of the syllable “om” as he led street throngs of citizens protesting the Vietnam War. Ginsberg reigned as the raucous poet of American hippiedom and as a literary pioneer whose freewheeling masterwork “Howl” prevailed against government censorship in a landmark obscenity trial 50 years ago.
It is with a queasy feeling of history in retreat that poetry lovers discover that WBAI, l
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 8, 2007
A dilapidated Nazi-era church, complete with altar carvings of German storm troopers, has been put on sale in Berlin after its congregation failed to raise enough money to restore it.
The Martin Luther Memorial Church, in the southern Berlin district of Mariendorf, has been closed for three years after its 150ft tower — originally damaged by bombing — was found to be unstable.
It was initially consecrated in 1933, the year that the Nazi party came to power. Two years la
Source: http://www.aftenposten.no
October 8, 2007
The stone, found under the floor at Hausken church in Rennesøy, Rogaland [Norway], was used as part of the foundation when the church was built in 1856.
Archeologists at first believed they had found a new rune stone that was nearly 1,000 years old, but they now have identified it as part of a large tombstone that was previously reported in 1639 and 1745.
The stone lay outside the door of the old stave church, and the remains of this stone have now been found under the
