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: Seattle Times
May 21, 2008
Part of the Great White Fleet arrives in Puget Sound in 1908. The fleet was the greatest concentration of warships seen before or since in the Sound.
In our history, the hearts of the American people have experienced certain moments of patriotic pride and joy. These include hearing the news that World War II had finally ended or watching television screens in wonder as an American made history by walking on the moon.
The awe-inspiring deployment of the Navy's "Great Whit
Source: NYT
May 21, 2008
Getting stuck in the mud on its first attempt to leave Manhattan was not the last or the least of the troubles that the aircraft carrier Intrepid has encountered in the past 18 months.
The military museum the ship houses was at risk of going out of business last year, as the costs of overhauling the carrier and rebuilding its home pier spiraled past $100 million, almost double the original estimate, said Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. To keep the
Source: Email from Andrew J. Weaver
May 21, 2008
I am Andrew J. Weaver, organizer of the petition at www.protectSMU.org and an ordained United Methodist clergyman and research psychologist. I am a graduate of Southern Methodist University (SMU) and live in New York City. There are over 11,900 petition signers from every state and ten nations.
Thank you for your support
Contributors to our legal fund have all given permission to use their donations to design and implement a pro
Source: http://obsentinel.womacknewspapers.com
May 21, 2008
Archaeological teams are geared up to answer the on-going mystery of Fort Raleigh's early settlers.
Last week, First Colony Foundation (FCF) teamed up with scholars and the premier production of Time Team America to excavate grounds in hopes of finding artifacts that would answer any of the numerous questions surrounding the mystery.
Fort Raleigh is the first of five sites for Time Team America's series and the team only had three days to complete the excavation. Thus,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 21, 2008
For hundreds of years a band of scholars have fought to get the Cornish language recognised and revived in Britain, but they hit upon a major stumbling block when no-one could agree on how it should be written.
Now, after more than two years of passionate negotiations, the different factions have finally streamlined the many versions of their language to create a new Standard Written Form.
The resolution means the path has been cleared for Cornish to get official accept
Source: NYT
May 21, 2008
An anonymous donor has come to the rescue of St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church in the East Village, saving the building — which has presided over Tompkins Square Park since 1848 — from demolition and making it possible for the structure to be reopened as a parish church.
The Archdiocese of New York announced this morning that a donor had come forward with an “unexpected but very welcome gift” after a private meeting with Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of New York.
Source: AP
May 21, 2008
The last surviving Topeka plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Education case that led to the landmark ruling outlawing school desegregation has died at 88.
Zelma Henderson died Tuesday in Topeka, six weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
In 1950 she signed onto the litigation on behalf of her children challenging Topeka's segregated schools. In all, 13 black parents, including the Rev. Oliver Brown, took part in the federal court case.
Oliver B
Source: Newsweek
May 21, 2008
Pinpointing the moment that defines Edward M. Kennedy's 45-year Senate career is, to say the least, a bit of a challenge. The Massachusetts senator has played critical roles in legislation ranging from his first bill, an overhaul of the American immigration quota system, up through No Child Left Behind and the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007; his political allies easily span the political spectrum. But his biographer, Adam Clymer, believes there is one moment that stands out as particularly tellin
Source: NYT
May 21, 2008
Hamilton Jordan, a self-proclaimed “political animal” and campaign whiz-kid who, at age 26, ran a successful campaign for governor and, at age 31, a successful presidential campaign for Jimmy Carter, eventually becoming the president’s chief of staff and top confidant, died Tuesday at his home in Atlanta. He was 63.
Mr. Jordan was surrounded by friends and family — including his son Hamilton Jr., who was able to make it from Europe to his father’s bedside — when he lost a long battl
Source: US News & World Report
May 20, 2008
They keep waiting, but longtime aides to former President Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ historians, and even his daughter Lynda Bird Robb say it doesn’t look like today’s politicians are ready to give the Texan credit for laying the groundwork on the programs and civil rights advances they are building on today. At a huge LBJ homecoming this week to celebrate the former president’s 100th birthday, his former domestic policy aide, Joseph Califano Jr., named names--John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama--in a k
Source: http://www.prweb.com
May 20, 2008
Great guns on Alderney! It has taken over 400 years but soon the Tower of London is going to get some of its guns back. On May 25, archaeologists will begin work on the recovery of cannon from a sunken Elizabethan ship that went down off the coast of Alderney in the Channel Islands in 1592. The Duke of York is behind the work that aims to conserve, replicate and test-fire the weapons found on this important wreck.
Excavation director Mensun Bound of St Peter's College, Oxford, says
Source: http://discovermagazine.com
May 20, 2008
Jon Erlandson shakes out what appears to be a miniature evergreen from a clear ziplock bag and holds it out for me to examine. As one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient seafaring, he has devoted much of his career to hunting down hard evidence of ancient human migrations, searching for something most archaeologists long thought a figment: Ice Age mariners. On this drizzly late-fall afternoon in a lab at the University of Oregon in Eugene, the 53-year-old Erlandson looks as pleased as
Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate
May 20, 2008
The nonprofit Gettysburg Foundation recently purchased the 80-acre Spangler Farm within the Gettysburg battlefield boundary and donated it to the National Park Service.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that more than 1,000 acres of the 6,000-acre Gettysburg National Military Park remain in private hands and unprotected from development. Congress has not appropriated any money for land acquisition or easement purchases since 2001.
If not for organizatio
Source: http://www.galesburg.com
May 20, 2008
The Illinois House voted 93-3 on Monday to authorize the creation of new license plates to observe the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth next year.
Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, sponsored House Bill 4665, which advances to the Senate. No one spoke against the legislation, which still needs to pass in the Senate and be signed by the governor before becoming law.
The secretary of state’s office would decide on the design and color of the license plates, whic
Source: http://www.civilwarinteractive.com
May 20, 2008
A plan to build an expanded visitor center at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana has sparked heated opposition from historians, two former park superintendents and conservation groups. This week, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR) have asked NPS Director Mary Bomar to halt the plan and review its appropriateness, legality and impact on the historic battlefield.
Under the plan,
Source: NYT
May 20, 2008
Sometimes you can read a city though a cultural landmark. Tempelhof Airport is Berlin’s open book.
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the historic, American-led airlift to supply the besieged capital, the mayor is going ahead with plans to close the airport by year’s end. How sad. A last-minute campaign by his political opponents to save it through a citywide referendum late last month won a majority, but not enough Berliners turned out to make the vote official.
No
Source: NYT
May 20, 2008
When it opened in 1956, the Statler Hilton Hotel in Dallas was a marvel of modern architecture, its size a tribute to imagination and a booming economy. Now it stands empty, another white elephant on the American landscape.
On Tuesday, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private nonprofit organization, will announce that the Statler Hilton and 10 other sites have made its 2008 list of the country’s most endangered historic places.
“Historic buildings in citi
Source: Reuters
May 19, 2008
British sailor Philip Beale aims to rewrite a bit of African history by sailing round the continent in a boat built with the same materials he believes the Phoenicians used 2,500 years ago to make the same trip.
Built of Aleppo pine and using wooden dowels to hold it together, the 21-metre-long "Phoenicia" powered by wind and muscle will set out down the Suez Canal on Aug. 6 and Beale aims to complete the 15,000-mile clockwise journey 10 months later.
"Th
Source: WaPo
May 19, 2008
When Hillary Rodham Clinton questioned rival Barack Obama's ties to 1960s radicals, her comments baffled two retired Bay Area lawyers who knew Clinton in the summer of 1971 when she worked as an intern at a left-wing law firm in Oakland, Calif., that defended communists and Black Panthers.
"She's a hypocrite," Doris B. Walker, 89, who was a member of the American Communist Party, said in an interview last week. "She had to know who we were and what kinds of cases we w
Source: Wire News Network
May 19, 2008
President Lyndon Baines Johnson ("LBJ") has been described in many ways -- as a bold dreamer, a progressive, a "can do" President, who had the drive and the knowledge to help transform many of his dreams into reality. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, as part of the year-long centennial celebration commemorating President Johnson's 100th birthday (August 27, 1908), is hosting a series of events in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the remarkable life and legacy of Lyndon Bai
