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: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
March 8, 2006
A leading association of scholars devoted to Latin American studies and based at the University of Pittsburgh is asking the U.S. government to rethink its decision to bar Cuban scholars from the group's convention next week. The visa denials cover 55 participants from that country who were to attend the Latin American Studies Association's International Congress in San Juan, Puerto Rico March 15-18.
They are the latest in a long line of athletes, academics and o
Source: Herald (Glasgow)
March 8, 2006
Today sees the publication of a unique dictionary - to coincide with International Women's Day - which aims to turn the spotlight on female contributions to society.
More than 800 prominent women are profiled in the Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. The entries come from varied backgrounds. Among the pages, queens consort with factory workers, heroines rub shoulders with spies, and mountaineers with missionaries. Penned by a team of 280 scholars, the entries explore people
Source: Australian
March 9, 2006
THE comparison between the Crusades and the September 11 terrorists in a Victorian textbook was deliberately provocative and designed to spark debate, teachers said yesterday.The idea that the Crusaders and their fight in a holy war shared similarities and ''moral equivalence'' with the September 11 terrorists was intended to teach students how to support an argument, educators said.
The book, Humanities Alive 2 developed for Year 8 students, was criticis
Source: Columbus Dispatch
March 8, 2006
Americans unconcerned about government secrecy should consider this: Federal authorities have been resealing many records already made public.Since 1999, 9,500 documents containing 55,500 pages have been withdrawn from public view. These are papers that were made public under a 1995 executive order that required declassification of many records that were at least 25 years old.
After that order by President Clinton expanded the official record available to
Source: CBS News
March 7, 2006
An author admitted in court Tuesday to exaggerating his claims that the best-selling "The Da Vinci Code" borrows from his own work. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of the 1982 nonfiction book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," are suing Random House, publisher of Dan Brown's book.
They claimed that parts of their work formed the basis of Brown's 2003 novel, which has sold more than 40 million copies and has been made into
Source: Press Release -- The Holocaust History Project
March 8, 2006
In the early hours of March 6, 2006, a fire broke out at a warehouse complex near San Antonio International Airport, causing extensive damage to the offices of The Holocaust History Project (THHP), an organization that has been, for the last ten years, in the forefront of confronting Holocaust denial online, in addition to providing educational materials to students throughout the world. Arson investigators now have confirmed that the fire was intentionally set and are continuing their investiga
Source: Nieman Watchdog
March 8, 2006
Those who say Iraq is nothing like Vietnam have another guess coming, says retired Gen. William Odom. He lists striking similarities and asserts that only after it pulls out of Iraq can the U.S. hope for international support to deal with anti-Western forces.
Source: Yahoo
March 7, 2006
She's not a girl but is now a woman. No, we're not talking about Britney Spears, but the Magdalenian Girl, the skeleton of an early modern human housed at the Field Museum in Chicago since 1926. For years, these bones dating from 13,000 to 15,000 years ago were thought to be from a girl because her wisdom teeth had not yet erupted, something that typically should happen between the ages of 18 and 22. But new analyses provide evidence that she was in fact a 25- to 35-year-old
Source: Science Daily
March 7, 2006
Mouthwatering Peruvian cuisine like causa (mashed yellow potatoes layered with avocado and seafood) and carapulcra (dried potatoes and pork/chicken in peanut sauce) combine food crops from Amazon basin rainforests and Andean highlands. Smithsonian archaeologists and colleagues presenting in the prestigious journal, Nature1, uncover the first definitive evidence for this culinary, cultural link: 3600-4000 year-old plant microfossils and starch grains.Heading to th
Source: US Dept. of State
March 8, 2006
U.S. customs officials have returned 60 kilograms (132 pounds) of 13th century coins to Saudi Arabia after seizing the stolen artifacts from a Florida diver who illegally removed them from a shipwreck in the Red Sea more than 10 years ago.“Artifacts such as these coins are not trinkets that can be pilfered and sold to the highest bidder,” said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “To their rightful owners, th
Source: Wichita Eagle
March 8, 2006
Last week, Peru said it would sue Yale University, which exhibits many of its Machu Picchu artifacts at its Peabody Museum of Natural History, to get them back. The increasingly fractious dispute between the Ivy League university and Peru, involving at least 250 artifacts, is one among many in a recent upsurge of ownership controversies between U.S. museums and foreign governments.As governments seek the return of antiquities or archaeological artifacts that they say are rig
Source: The Australian
March 8, 2006
The comparison between the Crusades and the September 11 terrorists in a Victorian textbook was deliberately provocative and designed to spark debate, teachers said yesterday. The idea that the Crusaders and their fight in a holy war shared similarities and "moral equivalence" with the September 11 terrorists was intended to teach students how to support an argument, educators said.
The book, Humanities Alive 2 developed for Year 8 students, was critic
Source: Australian Broadcasting Network
March 8, 2006
Australian scientists have uncovered what they believe are the earliest examples of Buddhist literature.Carbon dating of rare manuscripts from a private collection dubbed the "Dead Sea scrolls of Buddhism" may reveal the religion's ancient origins.
Fragments of the manuscripts were delicately washed, then carbon dated at Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.
Scientists found the texts originated from the first and fifth centuries AD.
Source: WaPo
March 8, 2006
The leader of South Korea's main opposition party on Wednesday urged Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi before he leaves office later this year to resolve historical and territorial issues that have strained bilateral ties, media said.Ties with South Korea have been chilled over Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, seen by Seoul as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun last week urged Japan to stop all actions th
Source: NYT
March 7, 2006
A small yet growing number of linguists and anthropologists has been busy in recent years recreating dead or dying Indian speech. Their field is language revitalization, the science of reconstructing lost languages. One byproduct of the scholarship is the dialogue in Virginia Algonquian for the movie "The New World." More than moviemaking is behind the research. A revival of ethnic pride and cultural studies among Indians has stimulated Indians' interest in t
Source: NYT
March 7, 2006
Huge Nazi flags hung over the Lustgarten lawn in the heart of Berlin yesterday as a Jewish director filmed what was billed as Germany's first comedy about Hitler, Agence France-Presse reported. Described as a parody of the hit German drama "Der Untergang" ("Downfall"), about Hitler's last days, the film by the Swiss director Dani Levy, 48, "My Führer: The Really True Truth About Adolf Hitler," features a sniveling Hitler wallowing in his defeats
Source: AP
March 6, 2006
ST. LOUIS - Little is known about Dred Scott's wife, Harriet, other than she was likely the force behind the St. Louis slave couple's unsuccessful legal quest for freedom, which helped trigger the Civil War.
Now, new insights about Harriet Scott uncovered here recently are helping to fill in the gaps of her story. Historians also hope the findings will ignite more research into the couple's life."It's not about what I have done here," said Ruth A
Source: NYT
March 6, 2006
Not far from the Greco-Roman courthouse in Downtown Manhattan made familiar by the television show ''Law and Order'' is the place once called the Negroes Burial Ground.From about 1640 to 1795, historians say, perhaps 15,000 slaves were buried there in a forgotten wasteland. Many had died before the age of 12. Some had died within two years of arriving in chains.
The federal government announced plans last week for an $8 million memorial and visitor c
Source: Hobart Mercury
March 6, 2006
THE notorious Sandakan track, where more than 1000 Australian and British prisoners of war died during World War II, will be opened to the public as a war tourism site to rival the Kokoda Trail. Lost behind impenetrable jungle in Borneo for the past 60 years, the 250km Sandakan death march track has been rediscovered through painstaking detective work.
The track was the scene of one of the darkest episodes of World War II.
Of 2438 Australian a
Source: Tom Mangold in the Guardian
March 6, 2006
Good Night, and Good Luck, the story of US TV journalist Edward R Murrow's victorious battle against McCarthyism in the mid-50s, is a cogent reminder of how badly British television subsequently failed to honour the higher principles of news and current affairs broadcasting.Far from maintaining the courage and intellectual rigour of the campaigning standards then adopted by CBS's legendary news division, first through Ed Murrow's See It Now, (his principal attack vehicle aga
