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: NBC
Jun 5, 2008
Nearly 8.5 million homeowners now have negative or no equity in their homes — a level not seen since the 1940s. Experts say equity levels will tumble further as home prices erode.
Source: LAT
Jun 5, 2008
If elected president, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, would be the oldest president to take office. That's why it was a big deal two weeks ago when McCain's personal doctors proclaimed him to be in excellent health. The assessment on McCain's health, however, was released in a tightly controlled news conference in which reporters were not provided with copies of McCain's medical records and were granted limited information in order, McCain's doctors said, to protect McCain'
Source: http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/williamsburg/dp-local_wangola_0605jun05,0,3949747.story
Jun 5, 2008
The director of Angola's slavery museum visited The Mariners' Museum in Newport News and Jamestown on Tuesday as part of his trip through the United States arranged by the State Department. In Chicago, he saw a woman re-enact Angolan Queen Njinga, who led her people in revolt against Portuguese slave traders in the 1640s, and at Jamestown he saw museum space devoted to her story.
"Our relationship with the United States can't be based exclusively on trade exchanges and the comm
Source: NYT
Jun 5, 2008
A somewhat smaller crowd than in previous years turned out here on Wednesday evening for the annual candlelight vigil commemorating the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, the participation depressed by a growing reluctance among many Hong Kong residents to confront Beijing officials on human rights issues.
Enthusiasm for the Olympic Games in Beijing, sympathy for victims of the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province and growing prosperity because of Chin
Source: http://www.tampabay.com
Jun 5, 2008
They are two events linked mostly by a single, jarring coincidence.
On the same Tuesday that Barack Obama became the first African-American to win the Democratic nomination for president, local activists raised a Confederate flag the size of a semitrailer truck at the intersection of Interstates 75 and 4.
Some might suggest an indirect connection — that supporters of Confederate history, angry that their heritage has been overlooked in the rush to celebrate multicultura
Source: AP
Jun 5, 2008
Egyptian archaeologists unveiled on Thursday a 4,000-year-old "missing pyramid" that is believed to have been discovered by an archaeologist almost 200 years ago and never seen again.
Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities chief, said the pyramid appears to have been built by King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years.
In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned it among his finds at Saqqara, referring to it as number 29 and c
Source: Education Week
Jun 5, 2008
Middle and high school history textbooks generally paint a positive or benign picture of Islam that tends to clash with confrontational images students might see or read in the news, according to a review by the American Textbook Council, financed, in part, by the Searle Freedom Foundation, the Achelis Foundation, and the Stuart Family Foundation.
Nearly seven years after the 9/11 attacks highlighted the need for Americans to
Source: LAT
Jun 5, 2008
The laughter went flat. The smiles froze before they had time to disappear. In the back of the Ambassador Hotel ballroom, David Steiner couldn't tell what was happening. But a change in mood raced through the crowd like an electrical charge, arcing from face to face.
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy had just finished his victory speech after winning the California primary and exited through a door near the podium. It was just after midnight on June 5, 1968.
At 25, Steiner, who le
Source: Independent (UK)
Jun 5, 2008
The embalmed body of the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin should be moved from its mausoleum in Red Square and given a standard burial, the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said yesterday.
Lenin's body has been on public display in a glass case since his death in 1924. His continuing presence in the symbolic heart of Moscow has been a source of controversy since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Lenin led the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to found the first C
Source: The Standard
Jun 4, 2008
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE — The small plot of graves is immediately distinguishable from the others in St. Vincent de Paul cemetery.
Surrounded by a small iron fence, the 25 graves bear the emblem of a white eagle, the symbol of a free Poland. The names — Michael Byszewski, Jozef Dolwa, Jan Siatkowski — also set them apart.
In these graves, Henry Radecki said, are some of the bravest men in Poland’s history.
The soldiers were newly emigrated Polish-Americans when
Source: http://wcco.com
Jun 4, 2008
Flying the Confederate flag has long been controversial in Southern states but now it's causing a heated debate at Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn. Three seniors who displayed the flag will not be allowed to attend their graduation ceremony Wednesday evening.
"It was sitting like that in the parking lot," said Justin Thompson, as he held a Confederate flag that was hanging from a pole inside a pick-up truck bed.
On Tuesday, three seniors, each with
Source: National Security Archive
Jun 4, 2008
Soviet nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were ready to destroy the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo had the U.S. military persuaded President Kennedy to invade Cuba during the missile crisis in 1962, according to a new book by Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs (citing documents and interviews posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive, www.nsarchive.org).
The documents show that U.S. intelligence listed the Soviet weapons as "
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Jun 4, 2008
Like most people, Hedrick Ellis grew up listening to his parents and grand parents tell family stories. As a teenager, he often tuned them out, but this year, eager to keep those memories alive, he hired a personal historian to interview his father and mother.
"You hear these stories over the years, but nobody ever really gets around to writing them down," says Mr. Ellis, of Arlington, Mass. "This seemed like an easy and practical way of capturing them."
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 4, 2008
An American tank that formed part of the 1944 D-Day invasion force was discovered buried under a street in northern France.
French bomb disposal experts were brought in to ensure the military vehicle posed no danger before it was dug out from its muddy grave in near perfect condition.
Council workers came across the M5 tank as they carried out routine repairs to the road in Chartres, 55 miles south-west of Paris.
Source: Romenesko
Jun 4, 2008
Matt Pressman did some measuring and found out that on May 6, 2008, there were 2,524 square inches of column space devoted to news in the New York Times, and 3,359 inches of ad space. A decade earlier, there were 5,549 square inches of ads, but only 2,188 square inches of news. "So criticize The New York Times for its bogus trend stories, questionable judgment, or occasional acts of plagiarism," he writes. "But please don't accuse it of skimping on the news."
Source: WaPo
Jun 4, 2008
They say that history is written by the victorious, which begs the question as to how Al Gore and Friendster manage to get center stage in a history of the Internet.
Vanity Fair writes a rambling eight-part 22 page story on history of the Internet called "How The Web Was Won" for its latest edition. The article pays tribute to Internet pioneers, including Al Gore, as well as some of the companies that have defined the commercial Internet (Amazon, Ebay, PayPal, Ning, MySpac
Source: Fox News
Jun 4, 2008
A Cape Cod lighthouse thought to be destroyed more than 80 years ago has reappeared — in California.
Local historians for decades believed the 30-foot-tall lighthouse that once overlooked Wellfleet Harbor had been demolished in 1925.
But researchers learned the fate of the cast iron tower last year. Colleen MacNeney, whose parents have snapped pictures of every lighthouse in the country, reported the find in this month's edition of Lighthouse Digest.
MacNen
Source: AP
Jun 4, 2008
Madame Tussauds defended a decision to include a wax likeness of Hitler in its new museum, scheduled to open in Berlin in July. Mayor Klaus Wowereit of Berlin had urged the museum to consider carefully whether to include Hitler and, if it did, to make sure that he not be depicted as a cult figure. The museum argued that it would not make sense to ignore Hitler’s role in German history. His rule “stands for an important, though also appalling, turning point in the development of modern Europe,” t
Source: AP
Jun 4, 2008
To understand how Barack Obama won the
presidential primary, you have to look at what he
learned when he lost.
Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton solidly in the
Iowa caucuses in January, but five days later she beat
him, painfully and unexpectedly, in New Hampshire.
That loss showed him that toppling the royal family of
Democratic politics would not come easily.
"I think this was meant to be," Obama said privately
Source: Press Release--Bradley Foundation
Jun 3, 2008
The Bradley Project on America’s National Identity today released its Report, “E Pluribus Unum,”the product of a two-year study involving a number of our nation’s leading academics, public figures, journalists, educators and policy experts. The report examines four aspects of American life crucial to American identity: historical memory, civic education, assimilation, and national security.
The report finds that America is facing an identity crisis and calls for a national dialogue
