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
Dec 6, 2007
The campaign of Rudolph W. Giuliani began running a new television advertisement yesterday in New Hampshire and Boston.
Mr. Giuliani says: “I remember back to the 1970s and the early 1980s. Iranian mullahs took American hostages, and they held the American hostages for 444 days. And they released the American hostages in one hour, and that should tell us a lot about these Islamic terrorists that we’re facing. The one hour in which they released them was the one hour in which Ronald
Source: NYT
Dec 6, 2007
The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.
Source: AP
Dec 6, 2007
Children carried gas masks to the playground. Military officers commanded civilian courts under martial law. Residents feared enemy troops would parachute into the mountains and then swarm the beaches.
This year's 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor offers reminders of how the assault upended the lives of Hawaii's civilians, in addition to the severe damage inflicted on the military.
"It was scary," said Joan Martin Rodby, who had to carry
Source: Reuters
Dec 6, 2007
Four 13th century copies of the Magna Carta, considered to be one of the most important documents in the history of democracy, go on public display next week for the first time in nearly 800 years.
The four, three of which date from 1217 and one from 1225, are held by Oxford University's Bodleian Library and represent nearly one quarter of the surviving 13th century Magna Carta manuscripts in the world.
"These three 1217 charters are a unique historical collection,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 6, 2007
Buried somewhere under a large, comfortable house in Johannesburg's northern suburbs lies Nelson Mandela's gun.
A semi-automatic Makarov pistol, either Russian or Bulgarian-made, it was given to him by Colonel Biru Tadesse, an Ethiopian army officer who trained him in guerrilla insurgency in the early 1960s.
In his memoirs, Long Walk to Freedom, the future Nobel peace prize laureate wrote of his teacher: "I was grateful, both for the gun and his instruction."
Source: NYT
Dec 6, 2007
Over the past 40 years, Mr. Leal, the official historian of Havana, has pulled off a most unusual feat. While much of Cuba’s infrastructure has crumbled and its economy has limped along, he has rebuilt and refurbished more than 300 landmark buildings in Old Havana, from fortresses built in the colonial days to famous nightspots and hotels of the city’s swinging era just before the Cuban revolution.
The center of the city was once a dark warren of cobblestone streets, worn facades an
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Dec 6, 2007
When the Central Intelligence Agency released several declassified
histories of its clandestine services program this week, it seemed like
a solid indication of progress towards opening up the historical record
of U.S. intelligence (Secrecy News, 12/05/07).
But upon closer inspection of the newly released documents, the
opposite appears to be closer to the truth. It turns out that CIA has
engaged in pointless multiple reviews of the same document, and has
even attempted to classify
Source: ECNmag.com
Dec 5, 2007
The 40-ft. x 32-ft. American flag at Fort McHenry in 1814 was made just a few years after the dawn of the incandescent lamp, and now Smithsonian preservationists intend to protect it further with modern LED technology.
Best known as the Star-Spangled Banner, because of the Francis Scott Key poem that became the national anthem, the flag will return to public display when the National Museum of American History completes its renovation in summer 2008. The new gallery being constructe
Source: http://www.inrich.com
Dec 5, 2007
Colonial Beach, VA - After decades of fits and starts to honor the birthplace of James Monroe, a new visitors center is rising in the Westmoreland County woods where the fifth president of the United States roamed as a boy centuries ago.
Built of modern materials such as steel, glass, insulated roof panels and concrete siding, the 1,000-square-foot center will look like an 18th-century tobacco barn. It will contain exhibits about Monroe and bathroom facilities for visitors.
Source: http://www.indystar.com
Dec 5, 2007
The Indiana History Center's elegant brick building on the Downtown Canal is most often visited by dedicated researchers or well-dressed adults attending evening receptions.
Soon, it might begin to look a bit more like Disney's Epcot Center.
Major changes are in store for the center, which is adding four permanent attractions that will be known as "The Indiana Experience."
New exhibits include a re-created 1940s nightclub and three-dimensional dis
Source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Dec 5, 2007
In addition to giving the world James Joyce, Daniel O'Donnell and the strap-on leprechaun beard, Ireland can now apparently take credit for a fair chunk of the English language as spoken today, including slang.
According to a (mildly controversial) new book, words such as 'gimmick', 'scam' and even 'dude' are all corruptions of the Irish used by the tens of thousands of migrants who arrived in the United States throughout the 19th century.
"Irish was a back-room la
Source: US Dept. of Defense
Dec 5, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Pfc. Donald M. Walker, U.S. Marine Corps, of Springfield, Ky. He will be buried Dec. 7 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
Walker was assigned to the Service Company, 1st Service Battalion, of the 1st
Source: AFP
Dec 5, 2007
A tiny and extremely rare 5,000-year-old white limestone sculpture from ancient Mesopotamia sold for 57.2 million dollars in New York on Wednesday, smashing records for both sculpture and antiquities.
The carved Guennol Lioness, measuring just over eight centimeters (3 1/4 inches) tall, was described by Sotheby's auction house as one of the last known masterworks from the dawn of civilization remaining in private hands.
"It was an honor for us to handle The Guennol
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 5, 2007
One of two surviving leaves from a Mozart manuscript has been sold for a record £110,900 at auction.
The page from a draft for the Sinfonia Concertante - regarded by many as the composer's first masterpiece - went under the hammer at Sotheby's in London.
Source: NYT
Dec 5, 2007
The Flushing Remonstrance made a rare visit yesterday to the old neighborhood.
The fragile, fire-scorched, 350-year-old document arrived secretly by courier at the Queens Public Library in Flushing. Marie Culver, a preservation expert from the New York State Archives in Albany who accompanied the Remonstrance during its journey to Queens, immediately began installing an exhibition of the document, an important early recorded defense of the freedom to worship that has been called the
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Dec 5, 2007
The Central Intelligence Agency has recently declassified and released several additional volumes of its coveted Clandestine Services History series. These are official Agency histories prepared for internal use
regarding significant episodes in the Agency's cold war record.
Scholarly access to such documents has been sporadic and subject to strict controls.
The following clandestine service history volumes were approved for release in July 2007 following a new
Source: Guardian
Dec 5, 2007
Nearly two years after the internationally acclaimed author Orhan Pamuk narrowly escaped imprisonment for statements that were thought to "insult Turkishness", the publisher of a British writer goes on trial today accused of the same charge.
Ragip Zarakolu is facing up to three years in prison for publishing a book - promoting reconciliation between Turks and Armenians - by George Jerjian, a writer living in London.
Jerjian's book, The Truth Will Set Us Free,
Source: USA Today
Dec 4, 2007
Are you feelin' groovy? Do you remember when you didn't trust anybody over 30? Does the word "plastics" bring to mind Dustin Hoffman?
If you're a baby boomer, you'll probably get this. And now, so will some college kids.
They're the first group of students at American University taking a class called "Talking About My Parents' Generation: Understanding Baby Boomers and How They've Shaped Us."
Communication professor Leonard Steinhorn's honors
Source: Guardian
Dec 4, 2007
Britain's largest Muslim body has voted to end its boycott of Holocaust memorial day, the Guardian has learned.
The Muslim Council of Britain voted this weekend to end its six-year protest, which had angered the government and Jewish groups.
The decision may lead to some groups leaving the MCB, an umbrella organisation with over 500 members. Its working committee voted 18 to 8 to end the boycott, which began in 2001. Those who voted to attend said the stance had allowed the M
Source: http://www.berkeleydaily.org
Dec 4, 2007
Zachary Running Wolf and some members of the Ohlone people say the site is sacred, the resting place of villagers who once dwelt along the shores of Strawberry Creek.
“There is no specific, verified evidence of burials,” other than one cited by a consulting archaeologist, said Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeley’s executive director of public affairs.
But Richard Schwartz, a writer with several books on Berkeley history to his credit, says a look at the record raises critical ques
