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: The Boston Globe
Mar 28, 2010
Later this spring, a team of scholars at Germany’s Berlin-Brandenberg Academy of Sciences will complete the first phase of what will ultimately be an unprecedented, two-decade effort to throw light on the origins of the Koran.
The project, called the Corpus Coranicum, will be something that scholars of the Koran have long yearned for: a central repository of imagery, information, and analysis about the Muslim holy book. Modern research into Islam’s origin and early years has been ha
Source: BBC
Mar 28, 2010
An intricately carved 17th Century cup which had been in a North Lincolnshire attic for 25 years has sold for four times its estimated price at auction.
The Chinese libation cup, which is made out of a rhinoceros horn, had been valued at between £20,000 and £30,000.
But it went for £80,000 at an auction house in Brigg on Saturday.
Source: CNN
Mar 28, 2010
Former first lady Barbara Bush was admitted Saturday to a hospital in Texas for routine tests, a spokeswoman said.
The former first lady was taken to Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. She had not been feeling well for about a week, said Jean Becker, the chief of staff for Bush's husband.
Bush, 84, is expected to stay at the hospital for a day or two, Becker said. Details on the testing were not immediately available.
Becker, the chief of staff for forme
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 27, 2010
Plans for "Tsar Marathons" with competitors running from the spot where Russia's last royal family was executed to the spot where they were buried have been met with disbelief by their descendants.
German Lukyanov, a spokesman for Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, the disputed head of the Romanov Dynasty, said he was profoundly shocked by the idea and demanded an explanation.
The idea, they say, is to hold regular 'Tsar's Marathons' starting and finishing at
Source: Irish Times
Mar 27, 2010
WHILE roads and domestic plumbing were both high-profile casualties of the recent cold spell, some of our historic outdoor artefacts also felt the worst effects of the weather. The high cross known as Muiredach’s Cross in Monasterboice, Co Louth, was recently reported to be in increasing peril having suffered a hairline fracture, caused by water seeping into the sandstone and expanding when the cold spell hit. Muiredach’s Cross dates to the 10th century, and was built in honour of an abbot who l
Source: USA Today
Mar 27, 2010
The "congenitally gracious" residents of this historic port city also possess the "siege mentality of islanders" and a "scriptural belief that they are simply superior to other people of the earth." So writes best-selling author and frequent visitor Pat Conroy.
And as the grande dame of the South primps for the annual profusion of blossoms and winter-weary tourists (the Historic Charleston Foundation's spring home-and-garden tour runs through April 17)
Source: CS Monitor
Mar 27, 2010
Welcome to the austere – and increasingly embraced – message of Calvinism. Five centuries ago, John Calvin's teachings reconceived Christianity; midwifed Western ideas about capitalism, democracy, and religious liberty; and nursed the Puritan values that later cast the character of America.
Today, his theology is making a surprising comeback, challenging the me-centered prosperity gospel of much of modern evangelicalism with a God-first immersion in Scripture. In an age of materiali
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 27, 2010
Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.
But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.
They ha
Source: CNN
Mar 27, 2010
Civil rights activist Dorothy Height, 98, remained in "very serious, but stable condition" Saturday, her friend and spokeswoman said.
A flurry of rumors about Height's death appeared Saturday on the Internet, particularly on the social networking site Twitter, where her name was a trending topic. Wikipedia also briefly reported Height's death.
Height remains hospitalized, according to Alexis Herman, her friend and former secretary of labor under President Bill
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 27, 2010
Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" has been banned in Russia in an attempt to combat the growing allure of far-Right politics.
Russian prosecutors on Friday banned the 1925 semi-autobiographical book, saying its outline of racial supremacy encouraged extremist and violent behaviour.
Despite including tracts that are both anti-Jewish and anti-Russian, it has become increasingly popular among Russia's far-Right groups.Russian extremist
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 27, 2010
Vatican officials say they expect two million people to view the Turin Shroud, the cloth said to have covered the body of Christ, when it goes on display next month.
The linen sheet bearing the image of Jesus has captivated the imagination of historians, church chiefs, sceptics and Catholics for more than 500 years.
It is due to go on display for six weeks after Easter and among those who are due to view it are Pope Benedict XVI. Vatican off
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 27, 2010
For more than a century, Munshi Abdul Karim was derided as a jumped-up servant who refused to know his place in Queen Victoria's household.
After arriving from the subcontinent in 1887, he quickly won the monarch's devoted affection and became known as the "Indian John Brown".
His influence over the queen was so envied that when Victoria died her son King Edward ordered palace guards to destroy correspondence she sent to the Munshi to erase all record of thei
Source: Science Daily
Mar 26, 2010
The idea that palaeolithic art is based in religious beliefs isn't new. But for years, anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of art understood these artistic manifestations as purely aesthetic and decorative motives. Eduardo Palacio-Pérez, researcher at the University of Cantabria (UC), now reveals the origins of the theory.
This idea appeared at the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century. Up until then, Palaeolithic art had been interpreted as a simple
Source: NYT
Mar 26, 2010
A prominent Chinese scholar and film critic who was scheduled to speak at an academic conference in the United States this week said Friday that she had been barred from leaving China as punishment for her commentary on human rights and free speech.
The scholar, Cui Weiping, 54, a poet and professor at the Beijing Film Academy, said that she had planned to lecture at Harvard and attend a conference sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies in Philadelphia, but that the director
Source: Spiegel Online
Mar 26, 2010
"Holy harlots" in Jerusalem, temple sex in the service of Aphrodite? Many ancient authors describe sacred prostitution in drastic terms. Are the accounts nothing but legends? Historians are searching for the kernel of truth behind the reports.
The "ugliest custom" in Babylon, the historian Herodotus wrote (who is believed to have lived between circa 490 to 425 B.C.), was the widespread practice of prostitution in the Temple of Ishtar. Once in their lifetimes, all
Source: Huffington Post
Mar 26, 2010
On Friday's edition of C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," Census Bureau Director Robert Groves apologized to a caller for the "negro" classification on the 2010 census form.
"I am black. I did not appreciate the Black, the Afro-American and Negro. That is back when I used to live in Nashville, Tennessee, when people were called Negro. I do not like that, that is out of character, and it really hurt my feelings ... that to me is racist," the caller said befo
Source: BBC
Mar 26, 2010
At least one person has been killed and 10 wounded in a crush at a Ugandan royal tomb that was destroyed by fire last week, police say.
The incident came at the end of a week of official mourning for the mausoleum of the Buganda kingdom, which has attracted thousands of people.
The government has said it will help rebuild the site and Buganda ministers are discussing the plans. It remains unclear what started the fire, altho
Source: CTV (Canada)
Mar 26, 2010
A Montreal store has come under fire from Jewish groups for selling Nazi memorabilia, including a bar of soap that is rumoured to be made from the remains of Holocaust victims.
Inside a cramped collectibles shop on St. Laurent Blvd., Abraham Botines claims he bought the bar of soap off a Canadian soldier who found it in a concentration camp.
Described as yellowish and adorned with a swastika, his son, Ivan, who owns the store, said its ingredients are uncertain, but pot
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 26, 2010
Shanghai's Bund, once known as the "Wall Street of Asia", will reopen on Sunday after a painstaking £280 million two-year restoration to bring back a touch of its 1930's glamour.
The stately waterfront, alongside the muddy Huangpu river, was built by the British and was the hub of colonial life in Shanghai until the Japanese invaded the city in 1941.
Tons of stone were shipped in from Hong Kong, marble from England and Italy and bronzework for the facades of
Source: The Australian (AU)
Mar 26, 2010
NOT since the Irish Republic was founded has a pint of stout been allowed to emerge from behind a pub bar on Good Friday.
However, a legal ruling now means that Limerick is the place to be on April 2, Christendom's most solemn day, for those wishing to witness a peculiar - and perhaps slightly unsteady - piece of Irish history being made.
Publicans in Limerick, the capital of Irish rugby, have been granted a special exemption and will be allowed to open on Good Friday f
