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: Baltimore Sun
Mar 21, 2007
Since the Smithsonian Institution was created by Congress in 1846, top lawmakers have held seats on its board, along with the chief justice and the vice president of the United States.
Now, after an audit found questionable spending by the Smithsonian's chief, watchdogs are wondering who's paying attention. In January, an internal audit found that since 2000, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small had $90,000 in unauthorized expenses and charged the Smithsonian
Source: Boston Globe
Mar 20, 2007
EDINBURGH -- On A winter’s day in 1707, this old, stone town saw the Scottish Parliament sign itself and the independence of Scotland out of existence by voting for a treaty of union with England that created Great Britain. Today, 300 years later, polls suggest that Scots who would undo all that seem poised for a significant victory in a restored Scottish Parliament during elections in May.
Source: BBC News
Mar 20, 2007
If you have ever signed a petition, worn a charity wristband or taken part in a demonstration you owe something to Thomas Clarkson.
The preacher's son from Cambridgeshire is one of the great unsung heroes of the fight to abolish slavery and the slave trade.
But what is even less well known is the extent to which Clarkson and his fellow abolitionists set the template for all future protest movements.
Every modern campaigning technique -- from celebrity endor
Source: Telegraph
Mar 20, 2007
Councils should work harder to preserve the character of the suburbs, where more than eight out of 10 people live, English Heritage said yesterday.
The Government's conservation advisers said special historical and architectural character was at risk of being eroded by insensitive developments, such as "garden grabbing" to build blocks of flats.
Other threats include plastic windows, inappropriately designed extensions and the conversion of front gardens to ca
Source: AFP
Mar 20, 2007
NEW DELHI -- One paints a dispassionate view of the man better known as Mahatma Gandhi, the other stirs controversy about his murder. Both are fuelling renewed interest in the humble father of modern India.
Two newly-released chronicles of Gandhi's life and death, written by his descendants, have sold more than 10,000 copies each in nearly a month since they were launched. In India, a non-fiction book can become a bestseller with more than 7,000 copies sold.
Publishers
Source: AP
Mar 20, 2007
WASHINGTON -- More than $300 million in previously unpaid insurance claims were awarded to 48,000 Holocaust survivors for harm they suffered during World War II, an international commission said Tuesday.
The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims concluded its claims and appeals process after a worldwide outreach campaign began in 1998 to ensure that insurance companies fulfilled their obligations.
Its review was able to match those survivors submitting claims with more
Source: Media Matters
Mar 20, 2007
On the March 19 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh highlighted a March 19 Los Angeles Times op-ed that described Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as"running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination -- the"Magic Negro" -- a term used by critics of pop culture to describe certain benevolent African-American characters.
Limbaugh stated:"The term 'Magic Negro' has been thrown into the political presidential
Source: Fox News
Mar 20, 2007
An anti-smoking group called on the U.S. National Slavery Museum to return a donation from tobacco giant Philip Morris USA, saying the company targets children "for another form of slavery."
Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, sent a letter to the museum's executive director, Vonita Foster, last week. Myers said the association with the nation's largest cigarette manufacturer would counter the museum's goal of educating children.
Source: Reuters
Mar 20, 2007
When Vladka Soudkova was nursing her baby in the autumn of 1989, she hoped the upheaval across central Europe she was watching on her television screen would bring freedom and choice to her tiny daughter.
She has not been disappointed.
Eighteen this year, Kristyna has opportunities that Vladka and her computer technician husband, Tomas, could only dream of and the chance to travel and study wherever she likes.
"My husband went out to demonstrate and I
Source: AP
Mar 20, 2007
VISALIA, Calif. -- Tulare County supervisors approved a permit Tuesday to build a pair of mammoth dairies next to a state historic park devoted to black settlers, but a deal was in the works to keep the farms far from the monument to a freed slave.
The plan to put more than 12,000 cows within two miles of Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park pitted Sam Etchegaray against environmentalists and park supporters who said the dairies would be an offensive neighbor, bringing stink, fli
Source: BBC
Mar 20, 2007
As the UK marks 200 years since it abolished the slave trade, Sierra Leone has decided to purge its capital, Freetown, of streets named after the British and replace them with the names of Africans who fought in the abolition movement.Freetown, as its name implies, was founded in 1787 as a home for freed slaves and many residents have welcomed the move to recognise African heroes on its streets.
"Since the British came and went, they have done nothing for u
Source: Times (of London)
Mar 20, 2007
Mighty rivers that inspired religions, civilisations and explorers are among the ten most threatened in the world.
Rivers such as the Nile, the Indus and the Ganges are dying because of stresses put on them by mankind, the [World Wildlife Federation] says in a report published today.
Each of the ten river systems identified in the report is beset by man-made problems, including water being siphoned off, dams destroying ecosystems and pollution. They flow across six continents and the
Source: Telegraph
Mar 20, 2007
PARIS -- Greece is putting pressure on the Louvre museum in its long-running campaign to retrieve the Elgin marbles from Britain.
The Greeks have refused to lend the French an ancient sculpture for an exhibition because, they say, it is too fragile to be moved from Athens.
But Louvre sources believe the bronze artwork is being used as a bargaining chip to pressure the museum into joining Greek calls for the Elgin marbles -- taken from Greece in the nineteenth century an
Source: BBC News
Mar 20, 2007
Over 50 years since they appeared on London's streets, the Routemasters are still running -- but not everyone is delighted.
The veteran vehicle with its curvy design and its open platform has been called "the last bus to be a proper bus".
Many Londoners remember fondly how they used to hop on and off them and pull the string to ring the bell.
But a Disability Rights Commission spokesman says it is "a bashed-up old relic from a bygone age"
Source: Telegraph
Mar 20, 2007
The image of Captain Cook stepping onto the shores of Botany Bay has been a staple of British history books for generations but now it seems the explorer may have been beaten to Australia by the Portuguese, who arrived 250 years earlier.
A new appraisal of 16th century maps offers evidence that a small Portuguese fleet charted much of Australia's coast as early as 1522.
It has long been known that Cook was preceded by Dutch navigators, whose ships were wrecked on the co
Source: New York Times
Mar 20, 2007
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York
Source: AP
Mar 19, 2007
ATLANTA -- Georgia's governor sounded skeptical Monday about issuing a public apology for slavery, an idea that got a boost last week with the support of a Republican leader.
"Repentance comes from the heart," Gov. Sonny Perdue said Monday. "I'm not sure about public apologies on behalf of other people as far as the motivation for them."
A resolution acknowledging and apologizing for Georgia's role in the slave trade had been expected Monday but now
Source: AP
Mar 19, 2007
LOS ANGELES -- Administrators at a Los Angeles charter school fired two teachers after canceling a planned Black History Month presentation honoring Emmett Till, the slain black teenager whose death was pivotal in the civil rights movement.
Seventh-graders at Celerity Nascent Charter School had planned to read a poem based on the book, "A Wreath for Emmett Till," and lay flowers in a circle during the February program.
But school officials said the 14-year-old
Source: Reuters
Mar 19, 2007
ELMINA, Ghana -- For many, it was their last glimpse of Africa.
Pushed through the"door of no return", millions of Africans were shipped from places like this whitewashed fort in Elmina, Ghana, to a life of slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean and America...
As Britain marks the bicentenary of its abolition of the slave trade on March 25, Ghanaians are still coming to terms with slavery's impact on their country's development and the role Africans played in the capture and sale of fellow
Source: UPI
Mar 19, 2007
LONDON -- A screenplay has been commissioned for a movie about Margaret Thatcher, the strong-willed conservative former prime minister of Britain.
Brian Fillis has been hired to develop the screenplay, which is expected to key on Thatcher's decision to take Britain to war against Argentina over the Falklands in 1982 at a time when her popularity was at its lowest, Daily Variety said Monday...
The film project about Britain's so-called "Iron Lady" is being purs
