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: Denton Record-Chronicle
October 16, 2011
Grand jury selection has long been debated in the U.S., since the grand jury’s early roots in England and as the American colonies wrestled with creating their own justice system apart from the royal courts. The first formal grand jury in the U.S. was established in Massachusetts in 1635 and, by 1683, was in some form established in all of the colonies, according to Marianne Jameson in a brief historical summary prepared for the California Grand Jurors Association in October 2004. The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, did not make reference to grand juries specifically. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution addressed the issue: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger … .”...
Source: History.com
October 17, 2011
In the fall of 1609, several hundred European settlers were struggling to survive on swampy Jamestown Island, riding out a brutal drought and hoping for boatloads of supplies. By the following spring, after a horrific winter that became known as the “starving time,” all but 60 had perished. Four hundred years later, historians can only speculate about the causes of this massive population collapse, which nearly snuffed out the first permanent English settlement in North America. But a team of geologists at the College of William & Mary may be closing in on a suspect: drinking water fouled by salt, arsenic, human waste or a medley of these contaminants.
Source: Mediaite
October 14, 2011
Thursday, we reported on a Fox and Friends story that contained enough whole cloth to start its own garment district. Among other things, Fox and Friends falsely reported that a WikiLeaks diplomatic cable showed that President Obama proposed a visit to Hiroshima to apologize for the WWII atomic bombing of that city, and of Nagasaki. We contacted Fox News about the inaccuracies in the story, and they promised us that they would “address” the story Friday morning.In their initial reporting, Fox’s morning trio combined to deliver such false claims, about the leaked diplomatic cable, as:“President Obama wanted to apologize” for Hiroshima.The White House had a great idea. Let’s apologize for dropping that bomb on Hiroshima.A Japanese official “stopped it.”...
Source: AP
October 16, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama saluted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday as a man who “stirred our conscience” and made the Union “more perfect,” rejoicing in the dedication of a monument memorializing the slain civil rights leader’s life and work.“I know we will overcome,” Obama proclaimed, standing by the 30-foot granite monument to King on the National Mall. “I know this,” the president said, “because of the man towering over us.”Obama and his wife, Michelle, and Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, joined a host of civil rights figures for the dedication on the sun-splashed Mall. Designed as what King described as a stone of hope hewn from a mountain of despair, the memorial is the first to a black man on the National Mall and its parks.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 17, 2011
A new book about the celebrated Dutch painter casts the popular belief that he shot himself in the chest in a field in France into doubt.Van Gogh: The Life, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, suggests that the most likely cause of Van Gogh's death is at the hands of a third party, believed to be a local boy.The theory contradicts the accepted version of events, which holds that Van Gogh shot himself in a field, staggering more than a mile back to an inn where he was staying. Before dying 30 hours later, he was asked if he meant to commit suicide, and said: "Yes I believe so"....
Source: BBC
October 13, 2011
The kits used by humans 100,000 years ago to make paint have been found at the famous archaeological site of Blombos Cave in South Africa.The hoard includes red and yellow pigments, shell containers, and the grinding cobbles and bone spatulas to work up a paste - everything an ancient artist might need in their workshop.This extraordinary discovery is reported in the journal Science.It is proof, say researchers, of our early ancestors' complexity of thought....
Source: BBC
October 13, 2011
The Environment Minister Alex Attwood has announced the appointment of wardens to protect the Derry Walls.The walls were built in the early 17th Century as defences for early settlers from England and Scotland.They have become one of the city's biggest tourist attractions and are visited by thousands of people every year.However, there have been sectarian disturbances and vandalism on the walls over the years....
Source: BBC
October 14, 2011
The entire DNA sequence of a woman who lived to 115 has been pieced together by scientists.The woman, who was the oldest in the world at the time of her death, had the mind of someone decades younger and no signs of dementia, say Dutch experts.The study, reported at a scientific conference in Canada, suggests she had genes that protected against dementia.Further work could give clues to why some people are born with genes for a long life, says a UK scientist.It is more than 10 years since the first draft of the human genetic code was revealed.The woman, whose identity is being kept secret, and is known only as W115, is the oldest person to have her genes mapped.She donated her body to medical science, allowing doctors to study her brain and other organs, as well as her entire genetic code....
Source: BBC
October 16, 2011
The Pursued - a crime novel written in 1935 by Horatio Hornblower creator CS Forester that was thought lost - is to be published for the first time.It was lost after the English author decided not to publish it so he could concentrate on a follow-up to the first Hornblower novel, The Happy Return.But a copy of the text surfaced at an auction in London in 2003 when it was bought by enthusiasts.Forester wrote 11 books about fictional Royal Navy officer Hornblower.His character was played by Gregory Peck in the 1951 movie Captain Horatio Hornblower RN and by Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd in a series of films for ITV.Forester - real name Cecil Louis Troughton Smith - died in 1966 aged 66....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 16, 2011
The remarkable story of how a Jewish schoolgirl outwitted one of the most feared Nazis to escape the death camps is to be published for the first time next year.In 1944 Helga Weiss and her mother were transported to Auschwitz, where they came face to face with Josef Mengele – the Angel of Death – who was selecting children and older women for the gas chambers.Weiss, who was in her early teens at the time managed to persuade Mengele and the other guards that she was older than she appeared and her mother was much younger.The subterfuge meant the pair were directed to the forced labour camp rather than the gas chambers and Weiss became one of just 10 per cent of children from the Nazi controlled Czech ghetto of Terezin to survive the holocaust.After the war, Weiss became an internationally renowned artist, whose married name Weissova-Hoskova, is celebrated around the world....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 16, 2011
President Barack Obama on Sunday tied himself to Martin Luther King's pursuit of justice and equality in America, as he dedicated a monument erected in memory of slain the civil rights leader in Washington.In overtly political passages, Mr Obama sent a message to his beleaguered supporters not to give up and that King's struggle remained unfinished as election year approaches.The 30ft high pink granite monument to King is the first dedicated to a black American, and the first to a non-president or non-war hero on the National Mall, the capital's hallowed central park.Fifteen years in the making, its designers could not have predicted then that the monument would be dedicated by the nation's first black president, just as in the heady days after Mr Obama's election it could scarcely have been predicted that he would face such bleak re-election prospects now....
Source: CNN
October 11, 2011
Don McCullin is best known for the unwavering gaze of his war photography.For thirty years he traveled to places most people run from, depicting horror unflinchingly and with enormous compassion for the people he captured in unimaginable situations.Considered one of the greatest war photographers, McCullin's pictures chart conflicts in Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Congo, El Salvador, Biafra, Cambodia and the Middle East, including the Six-Day War in June 1967.McCullin came away having taken some of the most powerful photographs of his career -- but he was left suffering combat stress, much like the soldier in his photograph.....
Source: CNN.com
October 13, 2011
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Walking along the tree-lined gravel track towards one of the Roman Empire's greatest architectural legacies, little can prepare you for what you are about to experience.As you emerge from the shade of the tall poplars the towering stone edifice that guards Leptis Magna's approaches appears. It is simultaneously stunning and evocative. Like a blow to the sternum, it quickens the heart.Septimus Severus's gate, a tribute to the Roman emperor responsible for much of what remains today, stands astride great Roman roadways.Severus, like the country's most recent modern day ruler Moammar Gadhafi, spent lavishly on his hometown transforming it reputedly into the third greatest city in Africa, rivaling Carthage and Alexandria....
Source: Science News
October 13, 2011
MINNEAPOLIS — By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and the other explorers who followed may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe’s climate for centuries.The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, diminishing the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooling climate, says Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford University.“We have a massive reforestation event that’s sequestering carbon … coincident with the European arrival,” says Nevle, who described the consequences of this change October 11 at the Geological Society of America annual meeting....
Source: Jim Grossman at the AHA
October 14, 2011
Jim Grossman is the executive director of the AHA.On Oct. 11 the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee released the draft of a bill reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind. Sen. Tom Harkin, (D-IA), the committee chairman, and Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY) the ranking Republican have been engaged in negotiations since early this year in crafting the bill.The comprehensive legislation decentralizes educational funding from Washington to the states. States would be given block grants that in turn would be allocated to local school districts through competitive grants. History education will have to compete at the local level for scarce resources.This bill does not include the concept of a “Well-Rounded Education” offered in the White House’s original ESEA plan, which would have included competitive grants for history, civics, social studies, foreign languages, and arts education.
Source: WSJ
October 14, 2011
Herman Cain's "9-9-9" plan might have been called the "Optimal Tax."The Republican presidential candidate's economic adviser, Rich Lowrie, thought the plan's broad sweep and ultra-low 9% rates made it an ideal tool to revamp the tax code and encourage growth.Mr. Cain liked the idea, but not the name Mr Lowrie came up with."We can't call it that," Mr. Cain said during a cab ride through Nashville in July, according to Mr. Lowrie. Instead, the former pizza-chain executive, tapping his instinct for marketing, concluded: "We're just going to call it what it is: 9-9-9." ("What kind of nerd am I?" Mr. Lowrie says now.)...Mr. Cain's plan clearly has roots in the Reagan-era antitax movement. In constructing the proposal, Mr. Lowrie consulted with conservative tax icon Arthur Laffer, often viewed as the father of supply-side economics. Many conservatives continue to espouse his view that lower tax rates and a wider tax base can accelerate investment and production, and even produce greater tax revenue in certain circumstances. Liberals say Mr. Laffer's ideas led to over-optimistic assumptions about how low tax rates could go....
Source: WaPo
October 13, 2011
While the National Women’s History Museum waits for authorization from Congress, its organizers are launching a series of lectures on scholarly topics.The subjects are a window into the range of materials a museum might cover and a pointed way of reminding the public the museum remains a vital effort.“The Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Women’s History” kicks off October 18 with a talk by Dr. Vicki Ruiz, the dean of the School of Humanities at the University of California at Irvine. Ruiz, a social historian and professor of History and Chicano/Latino Studies, will discuss milestones of Latino history in the U.S....
Source: USA Today
October 13, 2011
American history is dotted with popular movements like the "Occupy Wall Street" protest -- particularly during times of great economic hardship.Several movements from the Great Depression of the 1930s and the major economic crises in the 1890s seem to parallel the "Occupy Wall Street" phenomenon, Iowa historians said.In each case, they said, average people united and called on the federal government to ease financial hardships or correct what they perceived to be structural inequalities caused by the concentration of wealth. Here are a few of them:Coxey's Army: The protest known as Coxey's Army may hold the strongest parallels to the Occupy movement, said University of Iowa history professor Shelton Stromquist.The movement, led by Ohio populist Jacob Coxey, united unemployed workers in a march to Washington, D.C., in 1894 to demand that Congress inflate the U.S. currency and use the newly created wealth to create public-works jobs for the unemployed....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 3, 2011
The American files show that chancellor Ludwig Erhard, despite being credited as one of the men behind West Germany's post-war economic miracle, was prepared to hand over a huge sum of money to Moscow for the prize of reunification.A document seen by the German news magazine Der Spiegel records a conversation between a German government official and George McGhee, the US ambassador to Bonn, in October 1963. The American was told Germany was prepared to pay over $2 billion a year for a decade to Moscow in return for East Germany: a sum which then amounted to about a quarter of West Germany's GDP.The conversation ties in with a CIA report from the same year, which said Mr Erhard had "suggested he was willing to offer 'substantial' sacrifices by West Germany perhaps in the form of economic aid in return for Soviet concessions on reunification".Under the so-called "Erhard plan", in return for the money Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, would agree to a phased withdraw from East Germany, leading to self-determination and eventual reunification....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2011
The severed head of King Henri IV of France, lost during the Revolution and formally identified last year, should be reunited with his body, the pretender to the throne of France has demanded.Louis de Bourbon said the embalmed head, identified by forensic scientists in December, should now be reinterred with his body so that one of France's best-loved monarchs can "rest in peace".Henri IV was 57-years-old when he was assassinated by a Catholic militant in 1610.He was buried alongside France's other kings in the Basilica of Saint Denis, outside Paris. French revolutionaries dug up his body in 1793 but a mystery admirer of "Good King Henri" managed to make off with his head.Over the next 200 years, it was lost from view until a private collector finally handed it over to Louis de Bourbon, 37, the Duke of Anjou, a banker and King Henri's direct descendant....
