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: WaPo
Oct 3, 2007
Abandoned near the Potomac River headwaters in western Maryland are several old coal-mining villages historians believe are at risk of being forgotten forever.
***
VINDEX, Md. You could say that this old town is just a memory now, but even that might be giving it too much credit.
Actual memories of the place, from back when it had a school, two churches and a row of flimsy houses built by the coal company, are scarce now. The people who saw it that way are
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Oct 3, 2007
Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama"will reverse
this [Bush Administration] policy of secrecy," his campaign stated this
week, and he addressed the subject in a high-profile address at DePaul
University on October 2."I'll lead a new era of openness," he said.
"I'll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information, and
restore the balance we've lost between the necessarily secret and the
necessity of openness in a democratic society by creating a new
Nat
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Oct 3, 2007
On October 2, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, (ID-CT) called for an end to the hold that has been blocking Senate consideration of “The Presidential Records Act Amendment of 2007.” (H.R. 1255)
H.R. 1255 would revoke Executive Order 13233 that was issued in 2001 by President George W. Bush broadening the ability of former presidents, their heirs and former vice presidents to withhold the release of records. When Democrats sought to
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Oct 2, 2007
If high school juniors' answers to a World War II questionnaire were strung together, here's how history would look:
World War II took place in 19-something, when Theodore Roosevelt was president and the Germans claimed to be the best race.
Hoping to aid Third World countries, the United States joined the war to stop racism and end the dispute over Jews.
The head of the Nazis was a killer named Hitler whose evil partner, Mussolini, was president of the USSR. Ultimately, the
Source: BBC
Oct 2, 2007
Controversial plans for a new Bodleian Library in Oxford are now on hold because critics say the new scheme will spoil the city's world-famous skyline.
Fourteen councillors have successfully petitioned for the plans to be debated at a meeting next month.
The council's planning team originally voted in favour of the development, which will be in the Osney Mead area.
Source: http://www.zawya.com
Oct 2, 2007
A property advert featuring a picture of German dictator Adolf Hitler has sparked outrage across the UAE.
Conqueror Real Estate used an image of the Führer alongside the strapline: "The World Is Yours".
And yesterday the firm's general manager admitted he authorised use of the image to attract attention to his firm.
But his choice has been criticised by experts and residents, who have branded the advert insulting and of bad taste.
Hit
Source: Anita Hill in an op ed in the NYT
Oct 2, 2007
ON Oct. 11, 1991, I testified about my experience as an employee of Clarence Thomas’s at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
I stand by my testimony.
Justice Thomas has every right to present himself as he wishes in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He may even be entitled to feel abused by the confirmation process that led to his appointment to the Supreme Court.
But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.
Source: NYT
Oct 2, 2007
Sixteen years after the remains of more than 400 enslaved and free Africans were unearthed in Lower Manhattan, a new monument will open to the public on Friday to honor a place once called the Negroes Burial Ground.
The memorial, the African Burial Ground National Monument, designates the burial site of the remains, which were discovered in 1991 by workers excavating the foundation for the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway.
Commissioned by the federal governmen
Source: BBC
Oct 2, 2007
Falklands veterans, relatives of the fallen and VIPs were at the unveiling of a Welsh national monument.
The ceremony in Cardiff's civic centre marked 25 years since 255 British servicemen died retaking the islands.
The monument was created from five tonnes of Mount Harriet granite rock, located by veteran Andy "Curly" Jones, from Libanus, near Brecon, Powys.
Source: BBC
Oct 2, 2007
Historic monuments agency Cadw has won its bid to preserve a huge coal tip near Wrexham for its heritage value. Councillors voted not to remove the tip at the former Bersham Colliery in Rhostyllen which closed 21 years ago.
The decision followed a plea by Cadw to keep the tip because of its importance to the "appreciation of the development of north east Wales."
Wrexham's planners recommended removing the 6m tonnes of shale, which could be sold on to the build
Source: BBC
Oct 2, 2007
A twinning project between Aberdeen and a German town has united wartime memories in a book.
Older writers from Aberdeen and Regensburg combined to launch the book recording their experiences of World War II.
Representatives from both countries launched Connections - Verbindungen at the Gordon Highlanders Museum in Aberdeen on Tuesday.
The memoirs are written in both German and English.
The project began after English tutor Frank Cefali from Regensbu
Source: International Herald Tribune
Oct 2, 2007
Sixty-two years after dying of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Anne Frank continues to haunt countless readers of her diary, with its youthful exuberance, dry humor and shattering hints of the violence that would sweep away her world. But fewer people know of the soaring chestnut tree that gave comfort to Anne while she and her family hid for more than two years during the German occupation....
In recent years, fresh ills have befallen the tree: fungi have turned alm
Source: Chicago Tribune
Oct 2, 2007
[The anger of the sailors aboard the USS Liberty, the ship attacked by Israel during the 6 Day War (Israel has always said it was a mistake)] has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots -- communications, according to
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 2, 2007
Grim evidence of how the Incas “fattened up” children before sacrificing them to their gods has emerged from a new analysis of hair from two 500-year-old mummies preserved near the summit of a volcano.
The remains of the 15-year-old girl known as the “Llullaillaco Maiden” and the seven-year-old “Llullaillaco Boy” revealed that their diets changed markedly in the 12 months up to their deaths, shedding new light on the rituals of the ancient Andean civilisation.
The resea
Source: LAT
Oct 1, 2007
Every once in a while you come upon a special website that you can't leave (unless you decide to blog about it). Obviously, Top of the Ticket is one of these special sites. But besides that, we've found one for anyone who's ever been exposed to a political advertisement, even if you're not a political junkie. It's a living video history of television commercials for presidential campaigns from the start of television to 2004.
You can watch the actual commercials roll by in black and
Source: Lee White in Perspectives (October)
Oct 1, 2007
In 2016, it is conceivable that the president we elect in 2008 will be completing his or her second term in office. While that may seem a long way in the future, the National Park Service is already hard at work in preparation for its centennial in 2016. The Park Service has created a web site (www.nps.gov/2016) detailing the extensive planning that is already underway.
The Bush administration's Centennial Initiative proposes $3 billion in new
Source: AP
Oct 1, 2007
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The state is paying more than $737,000 to renovate the First White House of the Confederacy, a state-owned historical site that has been closed since repair work began in July.
Officials with the White House Association of Alabama, which is dedicated to preserving the property, expect it to reopen early next year in time for the February observance of Jefferson Davis' inauguration as president of the Confederacy.
Source: Earth Times
Oct 1, 2007
The reclusive main owners of the BMW car company said Monday that allegations in a television documentary about their ancestors' wartime business dealings were hardly new. The one-hour programme, The Silence of the Quandts, was aired without advance notice by ARD public television just before midnight Sunday. ARD denied the unscheduled showing had been designed to avoid legal intervention.
The documentary detailed how Guenther Quandt, who died in 1954, owned battery factories which
Source: Editor & Publisher
Oct 1, 2007
CHICAGO The second annual Gay History Project, a package of features centered on October's Gay History Month, will run in more than 30 gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) newspapers, the project's founder and coordinator, Philadelphia Gay News Publisher Mark Segal said Monday.
Print circulation of the papers that have agreed to carry the articles tops 700,000 -- it "the largest GLBT media promotion in the history of the gay press," according to Segal.
Source: Reuters
Oct 1, 2007
A federal judge on Monday tossed out part of a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep some of their presidential papers secret indefinitely.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the U.S. Archivist's reliance on the executive order to delay release of the papers of former presidents is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law."
Criticized by historians, the November
