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: Telegraph (UK)
November 30, 2010
A new £21m museum dedicated to Scotland's national bard is set to open its doors to the public.
The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum (RBBM) in Alloway, Ayrshire, aims to attract visitors from across the world.
The project, which has taken six year to complete, will feature more than 5,000 artefacts, including original manuscripts, written by the poet.
The official opening of the museum is due to take place on Burns Night on 25 January.
In additio
Source: CNN.com
December 1, 2010
(CNN) -- An act of civil disobedience 55 years ago -- Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of a city bus -- made the seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, a pivotal symbol in America's civil rights movement.
Wednesday marks the 55th anniversary of the civil disobedience on December 1, 1955.
Parks did not intend to get arrested as she made her way home from work that day. Little did the 42-year-old seamstress know that her acts would help end segregation laws in the Sout
Source: CNN.com
December 1, 2010
Paris, France (CNN) -- A retired French electrician who revealed that he has 271 previously unknown works by artist Pablo Picasso did not steal them, his lawyer told CNN Tuesday.
"He kept them with love," Evelyne Rees said....
Le Guennec contacted the Picasso estate by mail in January to request certification of authenticity for the works: a collection of cubist collages, drawings, lithographs, notebooks and a watercolor.
Along with the letter, Le
Source: Hollywood Reporter
December 2, 2010
Angelina Jolie is defending her directorial debut against a group of Bosnian women that called her "ignorant."
The Women Victims of War -- who faced sexual violence during the 1990s conflict-- wrote a letter to the United Nations refugee agency, for which Jolie is a goodwill ambassador, that read, "Angelina Jolie's ignorant attitude towards victims says enough about the scenario and gives us the right to continue having doubts about it.”...
Source: Examiner
December 1, 2010
Next month on January 19, 2011, the 150th anniversary of Georgia’s secession from the Union, the Georgia Historical Society will dedicate a historical marker at the site of Georgia’s 1861 statehouse in Milledgeville.
The marker will include a statement that Georgia’s secession was directly related to the recent election of an anti-slavery Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.
The New York Times reports that Todd Groce, president of the historical society stated that:
Source: Mirror (UK)
December 1, 2010
Members of a charity group loyally devoted to helping their old friends met in secret last weekend.
They arrived in ones and twos at the nicely painted house with a well-tended lawn - ever on the look-out for any hidden observer who may have threatened their anonymity.
In most countries they would have passed for modest do-gooders anxious to conduct their benevolent work out of the public gaze.
But there is nothing humanitarian about this shadowy organisati
Source: AP
December 1, 2010
ROME – Two more walls have given way inside Pompeii's 2,000-year-old archaeological site, Italian officials said Wednesday — the second collapse at the popular tourist attraction in as many days.
Officials sought to play down the latest collapses, saying they only concerned the upper parts of two walls that had no artistic value. But the repeated damage at one of the world's most important archaeological sites is proving an embarrassment for Italy, and giving credence to accusations
Source: German Herald
December 2, 2010
SWEDEN’S royal family - recovering from revelations of the secret affair the king enjoyed with a pop singer - has been thrown into fresh turmoil over the Nazi past of the queen’s father.
Swedish TV4’s investigative programme Kalla fakta has broadcast the first of a two-part documentary detailing how Queen Silvia‘s late father grew rich producing armaments in a factory stolen from the Jews.
When she married in 1976 the Queen’s German father Walter Sommerlath denied he ha
Source: Reuters
December 2, 2010
LONDON (Reuters Life!) – Archaeologists believe they have found evidence of the first use of firearms on a British battlefield after fragments of shattered guns were unearthed on a site that saw one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on English soil.
The bronze barrel fragments and a very early lead shot were discovered by a metal detectorist working closely with a team that has been trying to unlock the secrets of the 1461 battle of Towton, in Yorkshire, northern England.
Source: Fox News
November 30, 2010
Fans of the Gadsden Flag may soon be able to display its familiar rattlesnake and "Don't Tread on Me" message every time they pull out of the driveway.
At least three states -- Virginia, Nevada and Texas -- are weighing or have already approved proposals to add "Don't Tread on Me" specialty license plates to their state rosters.
The Gadsden Flag, originally used by the U.S. Marine Corps during the American Revolution, was meant to represent the 13 or
Source: News Channel 5
November 30, 2010
FRANKLIN, Tenn. - It's where thousands of soldiers were killed, where the civil war neared its end.
Now, the piece of land in Franklin is home to a Domino's Pizza. But it turns out money can go a long way in restoring the past.
In this case, a group of very excited people hope that a newly awarded million dollar grant will help reveal another piece of Franklin's rich history.
Consider Columbia Pike the dividing line between two eras. On one side, the Carter
Source: NYT
November 30, 2010
BERLIN — The past still thrusts itself back into the headlines here, occasionally as an unexploded bomb turning up somewhere. Now it has reappeared as art.
In January workers digging for a new subway station near City Hall unearthed a bronze bust of a woman, rusted, filthy and almost unrecognizable. It tumbled off the shovel of their front-loader.
Researchers learned the bust was a portrait by Edwin Scharff, a nearly forgotten German modernist, from around 1920. It seem
Source: NYT
November 30, 2010
Joan Rosenbaum, who has led the Jewish Museum since 1981, will step down as director at the end of June, the museum plans to announce on Wednesday.
Joan Rosenbaum
“Thirty years is a very good run,” Ms. Rosenbaum, 67, said in an interview. “The museum is well-positioned now to take on the next stage of its life.”...
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 30, 2010
A Polish fire brigade has rebelled against its commander after an alleged campaign of humiliation and abuse of power that saw him force them to greet each other with a "Heil Hitler" each morning.
Angered by their commander's behaviour the firemen from a station in the eastern city of Augustow went over his head and made a plea to regional command to have him removed.
In a letter to regional headquarters the firemen at the station listed 27 allegations of abus
Source: WaPo
November 26, 2010
BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia is seeking extradition from the U.S. of a naturalized American citizen who is suspected of serving in a Nazi unit that killed around 17,000 Jewish and other civilians during World War II, the justice minister said Friday.
Snezana Malovic told the Associated Press that Serbia sent its formal request for the extradition of Peter Egner earlier Friday.
Belgrade has worked closely with the U.S. on the case of 88-year-old Egner, who was born in Yugo
Source: CNN
November 29, 2010
Former President George W. Bush joined a chorus of U.S. officials calling leaks of sensitive government information "very damaging," telling a forum at Facebook headquarters that WikiLeaks' recent release of 250,000 documents may significantly hurt Washington's image abroad.
A relaxed Bush was joined by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on stage in Palo Alto, California, with hundreds watching from the audience and up to 6,500 following the interview live online.
T
Source: Daily Mail
November 29, 2010
He is celebrated as the humble Italian weaver who ended up discovering the Americas.
But the conventional wisdom relating to Christopher Columbus is under threat after academics concluded the explorer was actually a Polish immigrant.
An international team of distinguished professors have completed 20 years of painstaking research into his beginnings.
The fresh evidence about Columbus’ background is revealed in a new book by Manuel Rosa, an academic at Duke
Source: The Atlantic
November 29, 2010
It's a bad day to be Abdullah Atalar, an engineering professor at Turkey's Bilkent University. That's because Atalar was born on April 11, 1954, which a Cambridge computer scientist has determined to be"the most boring day in history."...The most boring day in history, apparently, or at least of the past 110 years, was April 11, 1954. The Telegraph
Source: UPI
November 29, 2010
WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A U.S. government committee says a Pennsylvania museum must return artifacts in a collection to Alaska's Tlingit tribe from which they were purchased in 1924.
A review committee established by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act made the decision on the 20th anniversary of the passage of the act, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
The act created a federal law under which Native peoples can claim human remains and cult
Source: Yahoo News
November 29, 2010
Angelina Jolie is the target of more criticism over her feature directorial debut, a love story set during the Bosnian War.
The actress -- who recently cut short the film's shoot after rumors that it portrayed a relationship between a rapist and his victim sparked protests -- was called "ignorant" on Monday by a group of women who were victims of sexual violence during the 1990s war, the AFP reported.
In a letter to the United Nations refugee agency, for whic
