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: International Herald Tribune
May 1, 2007
BERLIN -- In a city abundant with the architectural relics of a tumultuous last century, the pickings are ripe for people like Dimitri Hegemann.
In 1990, the self-described "space researcher" opened up an art gallery in a one-story building near where the wall once carved Berlin in two...The location would become the legendary techno nightclub Tresor, a symbol for the chaos and creativity of post-reunification Berlin...
[Now he] has his sights set on something
Source: National Geographic News
May 1, 2007
[On Monday] hundreds of Buddhist monks gathered in Changzhou, China, to celebrate the opening of what local officials say is the world's tallest pagoda. The towering structure [costing about $13m] stands nearly 505 feet (154 meters) tall—reaching 50 feet (15 meters) higher than Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza.
The wooden tower was recently added to the ancient Tianning Temple, a Buddhist complex dating back to China's Tang Dynasty, which lasted from A.D. 618 to 907. The temple has bee
Source: Press Release -- Historian Stephanie Koontz
May 1, 2007
Is this a "post-feminist" era? Are women opting out of employment to recreate male-breadwinner families? Is the younger generation rejecting the values of the Baby Boomers and returning to more traditional mores? No, no, and no, says a new report to be presented May 4 to the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the Council on Contemporary Families, which will evaluate new trends and research on families over the past decade.
Consider this: 30-40 years ago the rate of men's par
Source: AP
May 1, 2007
JOHANNESBURG -- An eminent South African historian believes he has stumbled on the identity of Jack the Ripper.
Charles van Onselen said at first he wasn't sure he wanted to publicize the conclusions he drew when he noticed parallels in the century-old, unsolved Ripper case and the background of Joseph Silver, who terrorized women as "King of the Pimps" in Johannesburg...
The publicity around van Onselen's The Fox and The Flies: The World of Joseph Silver,
Source: Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch
May 1, 2007
During a remote-sensing survey of the Fort Ancient Earthworks in 2005, Jarrod Burks of Ohio Valley Archaeological Consultants discovered a circular pattern in the soil that stretched nearly 200 feet in diameter.
Fort Ancient is a massive earthwork in Warren County that was built more than 2,000 years ago by the Hopewell culture.
Robert Riordan, an anthropology professor at Wright State University, directed excavations there in 2006 and last month completed a report on h
Source: Los Angeles Times
May 1, 2007
HAMMER, Germany -- The shallow hole widens and a man comes together like a puzzle: hips, fingers, ribs, vertebrae, teeth and crushed skull. A boot surfaces along with a rusted bullet clip. But no dog tags, no wedding ring, nothing to give him a name, so the bones go into a box where they are marked with a number written in white chalk: 1,968...
[Erwin] Kowalke [is] a volunteer who has excavated the remains of 20,000 people, most of them German and Russian soldiers killed in fighting
Source: Herald-Sun (Melbourne, Australia)
May 1, 2007
Stone Age humans may have been as randy as some of their modern-day counterparts.
Research shows humans tens of thousands of years ago may have been having sex for fun as well as for procreation...
Bondage, group sex, transvestism and the use of sex toys were common in primitive societies as a way of building up social bonds, says archeologist Timothy Taylor of Bradford University.
A 30,000-year-old statue of a naked woman -- the Venus of Willendorf -- and
Source: BBC News
May 1, 2007
A 19th century document described as Scotland's Domesday Book has been made available online.
The Napier Report was written following a study into the lives of crofters in the Highlands and Islands in the 1880s...
It was a response to demonstrations against high rents, lack of security of tenure on land that had been in families for generations and the forced evictions of crofters.
The report's four volumes and appendices have gone live on
Source: International Herald Tribune
May 1, 2007
BANGKOK -- For a moment, it appeared that $2,700 [in legal registration fees] might be enough to save the mass killers of the Khmer Rouge from going on trial...
Last week, the Cambodian Bar Association -- which had claimed an affront to its sovereignty -- lowered the fee to $500, and on Monday the foreign judges at the trial said they were satisfied...
But it remained unclear how long it would then be before the first indictments are brought. And even if all goes smooth
Source: ABC News
May 1, 2007
Two decades after President Reagan left office, we're given a new glimpse at his private thoughts, with the publication of the handwritten diaries he kept during his eight years in the White House.
He kept the diaries diligently, using clear orderly handwriting to take note of his daily events and activities and to shed a human light on the most dramatic chapters of his time in office.
"What the style tells you more than anything that … here is a man who is comfort
Source: New York Times
May 1, 2007
It was the fall of 1996, and Boris N. Yeltsin was running for re-election as Russia’s first president in the post-Soviet era. But he faced a crisis far more threatening than any opponent: he was desperately ill.
Mr. Yeltsin had had a heart attack. He was experiencing chest pain from angina. He needed a coronary bypass operation. But his Russian doctors said he could not survive such surgery.
For independent advice, Mr. Yeltsin reached out to an American doctor
Source: CNN
May 1, 2007
President Bush is coming to Jamestown. So is England's Queen Elizabeth II, albeit a week early.
The centerpiece of the 18-month commemoration of the 400th anniversary of America's first permanent English settlement finally is almost here after a decade of planning, and visits by those dignitaries will give organizers two of their biggest wishes.
But the "America's Anniversary Weekend" extravaganza May 11-13 now will be taking place less than a month after a gu
Source: AP
May 1, 2007
LONDON -— Britain's Prince Charles said Tuesday that urgent action is needed to fight climate change, likening the struggle to Britain's battle against Nazi Germany in World War II.
The environmentalist prince told a business conference at his St. James's Palace residence that "the crisis of climate change is far too urgent and discussion simply isn't enough."
"I do not want my children and grandchildren, or anyone for that matter, saying to me, 'Why didn
Source: BBC News
May 1, 2007
Work on the controversial M3 motorway in County Meath near Tara has been halted after the discovery of a highly significant archaeological find.
The project has been bitterly opposed by environmental campaigners.
They are opposed to the route because of its proximity to the historic sites of Tara and Skryne.
The find is thought to be the size of several football fields and is a circular structure used possibly for ceremonies in ancient times.
O
Source: AP
May 1, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Anti-war legislation on the way to President Bush for his promised veto represents a rare rebuke by Congress of a large and ongoing ground conflict, even eclipsing challenges made during the Vietnam War. [The bill was vetoed at 6 p.m. EDT.]
While a bill ordering troops home from an ongoing military mission is not unprecedented -- legislation aimed at conflicts in Somalia and Haiti are other examples -- the Iraq bill is an unusually swift feat by a Congress forcefully
Source: AP
May 1, 2007
ATLANTA -- Georgia's public schools walk a delicate line as they decide whether to offer the nation's first state-funded Bible classes -- measuring the difference between preaching and teaching with the likelihood of costly lawsuits looming for those that miss the mark.
The state school board approved curriculum in March for teaching the Bible in Georgia's high schools, but there hasn't been a rush of schools to start up the classes. Only a handful of the state's 180 school district
Source: New York Times
May 1, 2007
The gripping black-and-white photographs of civil rights protesters in the South reflect the black-and-white morality tale that generally accompanies them. Hateful, jeering white mobs and attack dogs versus peaceful marchers asking to vote and to walk in the front door.
That story line is true, but so are others. A new generation of historians is exploring some of the untold stories of the civil rights movement and its legacies: the experiences not of heroes or murderous villains, b
Source: AP
May 1, 2007
KENT, Ohio -- Survivors of the National Guard shooting that killed four Kent State University students during an anti-war rally released an audio tape Tuesday that they said includes a military order to fire on the demonstrators.
"The evidence speaks for itself," said Alan Canfora, 58, one of nine students wounded during the 1970 shooting.
Canfora released two versions of a 20-second clip -- the original and an amplified version -- in which he says a Guard off
Source: Guardian
May 1, 2007
HEILIGEDAMM, Germany -- Looking for a cunning business venture after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Neumann had the foresight to go into fencing -- predicting the demand the new free market would create for chic enclosures to cordon off everything from private gardens to sports arenas.
Now, 18 years on, Neumann and his team of workers are putting the finishing touches to their biggest commission yet -- a 7.5 mile long, 2.5-metre (8ft) high steel fence topped with barbed wire, vi
Source: AFP
May 1, 2007
BERLIN -- One of the world's most renowned orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic, said Tuesday it plans an investigation into its role during the Nazi era.
"We've never really come to terms with the history of the Philharmonic Orchestra under National Socialism," general manager Pamela Rosenberg said.
A book is to be published this year by Mischa Aster with the cooperation of the 125-year-old orchestra on the period between 1933 and 1945 and above all on the com
