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: Guardian
January 19, 2007
The new head of the Church of Ireland has described the ban on any monarch becoming or marrying a Catholic as antiquated.
The primate elect's plea for the repeal of the 1701 Act of Settlement and the disestablishment of the Church of England revives a thorny constitutional controversy and sets him at odds with his Anglican colleagues over the water.
Source: AP
January 19, 2007
In a statement to be published next week, more than 100 Iranian activists outside that country have condemned its recent conference questioning the Holocaust.
The activists signed the statement blasting the Iranian government and paying homage to victims of the Nazi regime. The activists expressed frustration over the relative silence on the subject from the Iranian diaspora.
The statement, which began circulating last month, is to be printed next week in The New York
Source: AFP at Yahoo News
January 19, 2007
An expert on the "Mona Lisa" says he has ascertained with certainty that the symbol of feminine mystique died on July 15, 1542, and was buried at the convent in central Florence where she spent her final days.
Giuseppe Pallanti found a death notice in the archives of a church in Florence that referred to "the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, deceased July 15, 1542, and buried at Sant'Orsola," the Italian press reported Friday.
Born Lisa Gherardini in
Source: AP
January 19, 2007
Julie Winnifred Bertrand, the world's oldest woman at 115, died in her sleep in a Montreal nursing home, according to Canadian media reports Friday.
Bertrand, born Sept. 16, 1891, in the Quebec town of Coaticook, passed away in her sleep early Thursday at the nursing home where she has lived for the last 35 years, her nephew told The Gazette in Montreal.
"She just stopped breathing," said Andre Bertrand, 73. "That's a nice way to go."
Source: Star-Telegram
January 19, 2007
The Civil War ended more than 140 years ago, but on the eve of Confederate Heroes Day, new battles erupted over the meaning of the Old South, statues honoring its defenders and even a stage act at Gov. Rick Perry's inaugural ball.
The ongoing flash points this week highlight the raw emotions conjured up by the mere mention of the Confederacy or the iconic red, white and blue battle flag.
For many descendants of Confederate war veterans, including Texas Land Commissioner
Source: AP
January 19, 2007
Only one-fifth of the property that was stolen from Europe's Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators has ever been returned, leaving at least $115 billion in assets still missing, according to a new study obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
Many Western European governments paid restitution for only a fraction of the stolen real estate, investments, businesses and household items, while Eastern European countries under Soviet control paid almost nothing at all, according to t
Source: NYT
January 19, 2007
The only architectural vestige of the World Trade Center complex still standing aboveground, the “survivors’ stairway,” would be largely demolished under a proposal by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
Six to nine granite stair treads would be left in their original location near Vesey Street. Other elements of the staircase might be embedded in the trade center memorial plaza and displayed in the memorial museum.
The 21-foot-high staircase, which led to the
Source: WSJ Opinion Page
January 19, 2007
Higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students," declared Allan Bloom in "The Closing of the American Mind," a book that chastised a generation of academics and students with its biting, furious analysis about the decline of American liberal education. Twenty years ago, at the time of the book's publication, things looked bleak for those who shared Bloom's qualms about the effects of relativism on the academy.
Recently, Bloom's he
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
January 19, 2007
Charles Carroll Jr. — spendthrift, drunkard, ne'er-do-well — would be long forgotten but for a single notable accomplishment: He built an exceedingly handsome house.
Begun in 1801 with money from his wealthy father — Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence — the Federal-style home has near-perfect proportions and airy rooms. It boasts exquisite plasterwork, faux-marble baseboards, and, above its doorways, spectacular fan windo
Source: David Jacobs in the newsletter of the American Revolution Roundtable
January 19, 2007
Someone thus far unknown, described by the NY Post as a "brazen and unholy vandal" knocked the head off the statue of George Washington inside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue. To add insult to the injury, the desecrator stuffed a dollar bill in the headless neck. The figure on the bill also had its head removed. The three foot statue is part of a collection that represents 20 centuries of history since the birth of Jesus Christ. Washington stood for the 18th Ce
Source: AP
January 18, 2007
President Jacques Chirac honored nearly 2,800 French people who rescued Jews from the Nazis, in a ceremony at the Pantheon in central Paris on Thursday.
Chirac paid tribute to members of a group, known as the "Righteous of France," who risked their own lives to help Jews escape the death camps. Twelve years ago Chirac became France's first president to recognize the French government's role in the mass deportation of Jews during the Holocaust.
"Thousand
Source: BBC
January 19, 2007
The development of sanitation has been the greatest medical advance in the last 166 years, according to a vote of more than 11,000 people worldwide.
Sanitation received 15.8% of the votes, beating other advances including the discovery of antibiotics and the development of vaccines.
Inadequate sanitation remains a problem in the developing world, contributing to millions of deaths.
The contest was run by the British Medical Journal.
Source: Reuters
January 19, 2007
A high-profile Turkish-Armenian editor, who had been convicted of insulting Turkey's identity, was shot dead in Istanbul on Friday in an attack bound to raise political tensions in an election year.
Hrant Dink, a frequent target of nationalist anger for his comments on the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One, was shot in the head as he left his weekly newspaper Agos around 1300 GMT in the center of the city.
"A bullet has been fired at
Source: WaPo
January 19, 2007
Today, the United Daughters of the Confederacy plan to fly a Confederate flag on Washington Street in Alexandria, on the statue of a rebel soldier who faces South. The Virginia Sons of Confederate Veterans will gather for dinner in Richmond to honor the man they hail as "one of the greatest Americans."
It's the 200th birthday of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general who is revered by some and reviled by others. Commemorations and protests are planned across Virginia and o
Source: BBC
January 17, 2007
Hindus in Europe have joined forces against a German proposal to ban the display of the swastika across the European Union, a Hindu leader said.
Ramesh Kallidai of the Hindu Forum of Britain said the swastika had been a symbol of peace for thousands of years before the Nazis adopted it.
He said a ban on the symbol would discriminate against Hindus.
Germany, holder of the EU presidency, wants to make Holocaust denial and the display of Nazi symbols a crime.
Source: CNN
January 15, 2007
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful joining fellow Sen. Christopher Dodd at Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events, said Monday he thinks the Confederate flag should be kept off South Carolina's Statehouse grounds.
"If I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds -- out of the state," the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boy
Source: WSJ
January 19, 2007
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice often calls herself "a student of history." And increasingly, she is using history -- or her chosen slice of it -- both to explain and justify the Bush administration's Middle East policy.
When Ms. Rice talks about the challenges the U.S. faces across the Mideast, she points, somewhat surprisingly, to Europe after World War II and to the West's decades-long face-off against the Soviet Union, which happens to be her area of expertis
Source: Jerusalem Post
January 15, 2007
An immense bedrock cliff uncovered opposite Jerusalem's Temple Mount may help explain why it took the Romans so long to capture what is now known as the Jewish Quarter almost two millenia ago, an Israeli archeologist said Sunday.
The cliff, uncovered during a year-long excavation at the western edge of the Western Wall Plaza, was one of several important finds that include the remains of a colonnaded street called the Eastern Cardo, dating from the Roman-Byzantine period; a section
Source: Tom Zeller Jr. in the NYT blog
January 17, 2007
Before we set aside the topic of Iraq’s botched hangings, which continue to cause a fair bit of consternation there, a reader reminds us to flash back to 1946, and the conclusion of the trials at Nuremberg, in which 11 high-ranking Nazi officers were ultimately condemned to death by hanging. One of them, Hermann Göring, managed to finish himself in his cell with a cyanide capsule just hours before the execution was to take place, but the others took their trip to the gallows.
Joachi
Source: BBC
January 18, 2007
Scientists who recreated"Spanish flu" - the 1918 virus which killed up to 50m people - have witnessed its remarkable killing power first hand.
The lungs of infected monkeys were destroyed in just days as their immune systems went into overdrive after a Canadian laboratory rebuilt the virus.
The reason for the lethal nature of the 1918 flu was never fully understood.
But the experts behind this test say they have found a human gene which may help explain its unusual virulence.
