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: NYT
September 25, 2010
The photographs of Ernest C. Withers — of the Little Rock integration battle, of the Emmett Till murder trial, of the aftermath of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — are among the most powerful records of the civil rights movement. They have lived on in dozens of books and museum collections.
But would these images be seen differently if the captions noted that Mr. Withers was known in some circles not by his name but by an Orwellian cipher, ME 338-R — the co
Source: NYT
September 25, 2010
On Sept. 21, 1970, readers who turned to the last inside page of The Times's main section found something new. The obituaries that normally appeared in that space had been moved, replaced by something called Op-Ed. The vision of John Oakes, the editorial page editor, and Harrison Salisbury, the eminent foreign correspondent, Op-Ed was meant to open the paper to outside voices. It was to be a venue for writers with no institutional affiliation with the paper, people from all walks of life whose v
Source: NYT
September 25, 2010
[Gail Collins is a columnist for the NYT.]
Congress is staggering toward recess. I’m going to go way out on a limb and guess that they’re not going to accomplish anything major before they leave. But as long as they’re still in town, taking up space, the least they could do is approve the National Women’s History Museum bill.
Honestly, I would not be making this plea if everybody was knee-deep in the budget or reforming the tax structure. But they can barely summon the
Source: BBC
September 23, 2010
A man wanted in connection with a stolen drawing believed to be by Vincent van Gogh has been arrested in Vermont in the US.
Authorities say the Texan man is wanted for selling a $1 million (£640,000) sketch of van Gogh's The Night Cafe.
He was arrested on charges of occupying an abandoned camp, burglary and possession of stolen property.
The sketch turned up at a New Mexico antiques shop after being stolen from a home in 2009.
Police say they b
Source: BBC
September 23, 2010
A controversial new movie telling the story behind an anti-Semitic film made in 1940 has been released in Germany.
Jud Suss - A Film without Conscience looks at why the earlier film, also called Jud Suss, was a huge success under the Nazi regime.
It focuses on the leading actor's decision to join the cast, suggesting he was forced into it by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
The original movie was banned in 1945.
It is still kept under loc
Source: BBC
September 24, 2010
Workers restoring a 300-year-old ruined cottage in Snowdonia have dug up a mystery under its fireplace.
Almost 100 single shoes were discovered at Gelli Iago, a home which has been uninhabited for more than 50 years.
The National Trust, which acquired the property after 1998's Save Snowdon campaign, is appealing to the public for an answer to the mystery.
The discovery was made by contractors working to save the cottage's external walls and chimney stack.
Source: BBC
September 24, 2010
One of Northern Ireland's smallest World War II heroes has been honoured.
Paddy, a messenger pigeon who served with the RAF during the Normandy operations in June 1944, was remembered in his home town of Larne on Friday.
PDSA, Britain's biggest veterinary charity, awarded Paddy the Dickin Medal, dubbed the animals' "Victoria Cross", 65 years ago this month.
He received it for being the first pigeon to reach England with a coded message from the ba
Source: BBC
September 24, 2010
A small but revealing group of letters written by the playwright Oscar Wilde have been sold at auction in Derby.
The five letters, sold as separate lots, reached a total of £33,900 and were all bought by one bidder.
Auctioneers, Bamfords of Derby, said the letters appear to reveal Wilde propositioning a magazine editor at a time when homosexuality was illegal.
They were written to Alsager Vian, during the Society Magazine era, and were sold off by his desce
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 24, 2010
The controversial historian, David Irving, branded his critics as "little Nazis who Hitler would be proud of" as he announced that his controversial tour of wartime sights in Poland would now include a string of the Third Reich's death camps.
The plan to visit Sobibor, Majdanek and Belzec, not mentioned in the original schedule of a £1,500-a-head tour led by the 72-year-old, comes despite fierce criticism of his presence in Poland from the country's Jewish community.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 24, 2010
It is regarded as one of the greatest baseball games ever played, but one that was lost to history.
The decider of the 1960 World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees ended with Bill Mazeroski's electrifying home run which won the game 10-9 and clinched the series for the Pirates.
It was believed that a grainy 40-second clip was all that survived of the match as television networks erased the tape, as was routine up until the 1970s.
Source: AP
September 24, 2010
The African Union asked the U.N. Security Council in a letter circulated on Friday to delay for a year the prosecution of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on charges of genocide and other alleged crimes.
In a letter to the council circulated Friday, the continent-wide organization said it wants the delay because a trial of al-Bashir would interfere with efforts to end the seven-year conflict in western Darfur.
His letter was made public hours before a high-level meeting
Source: AP
September 24, 2010
Abdul Ruzibiza, a former captain of a Tutsi rebel group and key witness in a French judge's investigation into a 1994 attack that triggered the Rwandan genocide, has died, Norwegian police said Friday. He was 40.
Ruzibiza died in a Norwegian hospital Wednesday after a long illness, said Reidun Brekke, who was Ruzibiza's supervisor at staffing company Adecco Norway.
A former captain of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Ruzibiza released a book in 2005, saying the group was be
Source: MSNBC
September 24, 2010
The Texas State Board of Education on Friday narrowly approved a resolution calling on publishers to correct a “pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias” in history textbooks.
The 7-6 vote followed a spirited debate on the nonbinding resolution proposed by the board’s conservative majority aiming to correct what Dave Welch, head of the Texas Pastor Council, testified amounted to “whitewashing” of some negative aspects of Islam in the texts.
“We’re asking you to look at this ver
Source: BBC News
September 24, 2010
Former Soviet Vice-President Gennady Yanayev, who led an abortive coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, has died in a Moscow hospital aged 73.
Russia's Communist Party said he died on Friday after a lengthy illness.
Mr Yanayev famously appeared at a news conference with shaking hands to announce he was replacing Mr Gorbachev.
The 12-member State Emergency Committee held power for only three days but the coup was widely seen to have hastened the fall of th
Source: Fox News
September 23, 2010
A redevelopment project in this Albanian town has been halted after construction work discovered a 6th-century tomb.
Officials hailed the delay as a landmark decision in this impoverished Balkan country, where rampant construction often obliterates cultural heritage such as archaeological sites.
Vangjel Stamo of Albania's archaeological service said Tuesday that recent development in Durres has "damaged so much of the archaeology."
Two years ago,
Source: Shropshire Star (UK)
September 23, 2010
A number of paintings by Adolf Hitler, which are estimated to collectively be worth more than £145,000, are going under the hammer at a Shropshire auction at the end of the month.
The 17 pieces of work, which include watercolours of landscapes still life and a portrait, are expected to attract oa lot of interest when they are auctioned at the Mullocks sale at Ludlow Racecourse on September 30.
Many of the paintings, which are expected to fetch up to £10,000 each, date f
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
September 24, 2010
Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun's silver cutlery is go up for auction later this month.
The bespoke pieces of silverware were taken by his housekeepers at the lavish mountain retreat 'Eagle's Nest' before Allied forces arrived in 1945.
But now the cutlery used by the leader of the Nazi party and Braun has been rediscovered and is expected to be auctioned off for thousands.
Willi and Gretl Mitlstrasser gathered up as many items as possible from the residen
Source: cnn
September 23, 2010
An American imam took an eye-opening tour last month of the Dachau and Auschwitz death camps and said that what he saw was unfathomable - and undeniable.
"You see the ashes of people. You see the pictures. You walk the trail; you see the gas chambers," said Imam Muhamad Maged of the All-Dulles-Area Muslim Society in Virginia, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America.
"It is beyond imagination that somebody would do something like that."
Source: bbc News
September 24, 2010
One of Northern Ireland's smallest World War II heroes is to be honoured on Friday.
Paddy, a messenger pigeon who served with the RAF during the Normandy operations in June 1944, will be remembered in his home town of Larne.
PDSA, Britain's biggest veterinary charity, awarded Paddy the Dickin Medal, dubbed the animals' "Victoria Cross", 65 years ago this month.
He received it for being the first pigeon to reach England with a coded message from th
Source: BBC News
September 24, 2010
A controversial new movie telling the story behind an anti-Semitic film made in 1940 has been released in Germany.
Jud Suss - A Film without Conscience looks at why the earlier film, also called Jud Suss, was a huge success under the Nazi regime.
It focuses on the leading actor's decision to join the cast, suggesting he was forced into it by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
The original movie was banned in 1945.
It is still kept under lock
