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 21, 2010
BERLIN — As anti-immigrant sentiment continues to sweep across Europe, generating a right-wing populist wave from the shores of the Mediterranean to the chilly reaches of Scandinavia, there is growing concern that such politics could take root here, too, in the fertile ground of financial uncertainty, rising anti-Muslim sentiment and a widening political vacuum left by the misfortunes of the once mighty Christian Democratic Union....
Since the end of World War II, German laws, polit
Source: New American Media
September 21, 2010
EDITOR’S NOTE [FROM NEW AMERICAN MEDIA]: Eminent scholar and historian Franz Schurmann, who co-founded Pacific News Service in 1970, passed away on August 20, 2010. Richard Rodriguez, a long-time editor and writer with PNS, remembered him in a powerful eulogy delivered Sept. 19 at UC Berkeley Alumni House.
Franz Schurmann was a terrible driver.
I remember once, after lunch, in his car, he was still talking about the Peloponnesian War or Richard Nixon in China or the spi
Source: Xinhua News Agency
September 19, 2010
More than 120 renowned Chinese archaeologists on Sunday agreed that an ancient tomb belonged to Cao Cao, a cunning general and ruler who lived some 1,800 years ago, amid doubts about its authenticity.
"After discussions about excavated items from the tomb, a consensus has been reached that it belongs to Cao Cao", Bai Yunxiang, deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told a symposium after a brief study of the tomb
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 21, 2010
Three paintings have come to light in which the unknown artist, believed to be from northern Italy , depicts scenes in the 1650s in which ordinary people are wearing what appears to be an early denim fabric - centuries before it was worn by the cowboys of the American Wild West or Hollywood stars of the 1950s.
In one picture, a peasant woman, wearing a skirt that appears to be made of denim, mends a piece of clothing.
In another, a teenage girl wearing a torn blue skir
Source: New Yorker
September 27, 2010
For most people, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be Barack Obama as his Administration’s high hopes are dashed by daily waves of bad news. But for Walter Mondale, who spent four years as Jimmy Carter’s Vice-President, the experience is all too familiar. When the public sours on you, he said last week, the Presidency seems “like a unique four-year marriage contract, in which divorce is not an option.”
Mondale, now in his eighties, was speaking on the phone from his home state
Source: Yahoo News
September 19, 2010
On the day Paris was liberated from the Nazis in 1944, a young American soldier nabbed a souvenir of epic proportions: He took home the French flag that hung from the Arc de Triomphe, a symbol of the end of four years of struggle and shame.
Six and a half decades later, the aging veteran has given the flag back to the city of Paris.
Officials from Paris City Hall took possession of the 12-meter (13-yard) tricolor flag Saturday in a ceremony in southern France, a step in
Source: Irish Central
September 11, 2010
A researcher looking into the deaths as a result of neglect at the Bethany mother and baby home in Dublin has discovered a further 200 graves, which date between 1922 and 1949.
Many of the babies in the Bethany Home died from malnutrition and their deaths were never recorded.
Niall Meehan, a Griffith College lecturer, has previously discovered 40 unmarked graves, but he has now uncovered a further 200.
Meehan has published his discoveries in the publication
Source: Yahoo News
September 20, 2010
The British government used bombs and covert tactics to try to thwart the settlement of Palestine by post-World War II Jewish refugees, according to a new book by Keith Jeffery, titled "MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949." The British government has independently verified Jeffery's revelation. Jeffery, a historian from Northern Ireland, notes that his book was "published with the permission of the Secret Intelligence Service and the Controller of Her Maj
Source: USA Today
September 17, 2010
Three centuries after the birth of Christianity, at least one wealthy family in the town on Sussita, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee, was still adorning its home with images of goddesses.
Archeologists from the University of Haifa in Israel and Concordia University in Minnesota discovered a wall painting of Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune.
They also found a figure of a maenad, one of the female companions of the wine and fertility god Dionysus.
Source: Irish Central
September 20, 2010
President O'Bama said it best when he said "is féidir linn," "yes we can," at a Saint Patrick's Day reception last year in the White House.
More and more these days, Irish Gaelic is returning to Irish American life at functions and in art, as perceptions of what makes something Irish shift towards more detail and care. In multi-cultural America, the old Irish American assimilation model is giving way and making it possible for Irish Americans to rediscover what t
Source: Asian Times
September 20, 2010
After 95 years, the Eucharist was celebrated once again in the Holy Cross Armenian Church on Akdamar Island in Lake Van, in eastern Turkey near the border with Armenia. Archbishop Aram Atesyan, vicar of the Armenian patriarch of Turkey, described the event, which occurred yesterday, as “a miracle”. However, in the Armenian Diaspora, many voices were critical.
“It is miracle to be able to celebrate the Eucharist here today,” the bishop said in his sermon. Speaking in Armenian, then T
Source: Fox News
September 20, 2010
The Iraqi National Museum has found more than 600 missing artifacts stashed away in a storeroom of the prime minister's office, two years after the U.S. government returned them to Iraq, officials said on Monday.
Most of the artifacts were among some 15,000 relics looted during the chaos that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
The 638 pieces were recovered, handed over to the premier's office, and promptly lost again, officials said
Source: LA Times
September 20, 2010
...In the first days of 2009, hundreds of angry Vietnamese Americans marched outside an exhibit in Santa Ana featuring Vietnamese artists. Some arrived by bus from as far away as San Jose.
The object of their fury was a 2-foot-by-3-foot photo featuring a young woman sitting next to a brass bust of former Communist leader Ho Chi Minh. She wore a red tank top with a large yellow star, the color of the official flag of Vietnam.
The protesters shouted into bullhorns and rai
Source: Inside Higher Ed
September 21, 2010
The New York Times has made reference to research universities consistently over its many years of publication. But in the last half century, the newspaper has grown less interested in the universities and more interested in their researchers, according to a new study.
A team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign analyzed 60 years’ worth of Times archives in an attempt to find out how its coverage of research universities has evolved since World War II. The researchers f
Source: WaPo
September 21, 2010
...Last week Jon Stewart, the host of The Daily Show, announced that he will hold the Rally to Restore Sanity, a satirical response to Glenn Beck's teary August demonstration to "restore America."
That same day, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report says he's going to counter with the "March to Keep Fear Alive," mocking the Al Sharpton march that countered Beck's....
In 1894, the brigades of unemployed men who marched from Ohio to Washington to deman
Source: Greek Reporter
September 20, 2010
Two exhibitions concerning Alexander the Great are on display in the Netherlands. One is at the Amsterdam Hermitage and the other is at Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. The exhibition at the Hermitage Amsterdam Museum is about “Alexander the Great – the Immortal”. The second one running at the Allard Pierson Museum in cooperation with the former, is on the subject of “Alexander the Great and His Heritage-Greeks in Egypt”.
The exhibition at the Hermitage Amsterdam Museum will b
Source: AFP
September 21, 2010
Iraq has recovered more than 600 historical artefacts that had been stolen and then recovered but mistakenly stored in a warehouse in the country for around two years, a minister said on Monday.
The 638 items include statues, spearheads and glass cups that were taken from Iraq and actually returned to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office in late 2008, but only accounted for recently.
The items, some dating to the third millennium BC, had been stored in a warehouse alo
Source: BBC
September 21, 2010
As world experts grapple with ways to contain global warming, researchers gathered in Egypt are seeking answers from the country's pharaonic past to help tackle environmental problems of the present.
A three-day conference opened on Sunday with experts hoping to understand how the ancient Egyptians, who were capable of erecting the famous Giza pyramids, dealt with climate change.
The conference is the first of its kind to be held in Egypt, where archaeology has always t
Source: BBC
September 21, 2010
Archaeologists will use scanners to carry out a survey of land in a town in Northamptonshire in perparation for a planning application.
The team will be working in Daventry, once home to Anglo Saxons, a priory and now a thriving market town.
Northamptonshire Archaeology will carry out a series of small-scale digs in a field off Eastern Way and Ashby Road.
This work is part of a proposed town centre development and must be carried out to support a planning a
Source: BBC
September 21, 2010
An air raid siren will be sounded to mark the 70th anniversary of the Coventry Blitz, it has been announced.
Residents were asked by the city council if they wanted a siren sounded during commemorations on 14 November.
But the council said the siren would only be heard within the cathedral, as part of the memorial service.
The Luftwaffe dropped thousands of tons of bombs on the city on 14th November 1940, killing hundreds of residents and destroying most
