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: Time
Sep 19, 2006
Next month is the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the first popular revolt against Soviet domination in eastern Europe. Young Hungarians took to the streets of their capital on the Danube to raise their fist against communist rule before being crushed by Soviet tanks. Back then, in the midst of the uprising, the editors of Hungarian state radio announced to the country's stunned citizens that they had been lied to about the state of the economy and the activities of the governme
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Sep 19, 2006
Last week, Drew University informed faculty members and graduate students in English and the department of modern history and literature that it planned a review of the two departments’ Ph.D. programs. That announcement alone would not have been news: Such reviews are commonplace and, at a time of heightened scrutiny of doctoral education and the quality of higher education generally, would seem like sound policy.
But Drew’s approach raised eyebrows and, in some circles, hackles, fo
Source: Wa Po
Sep 19, 2006
At a debate in Tysons Corner yesterday between Republican Allen and Democrat Webb, WUSA-TV's Peggy Fox asked Allen, the tobacco-chewing, cowboy-boot-wearing son of a pro football coach, if his Tunisian-born mother has Jewish blood.
"It has been reported," said Fox, that "your grandfather Felix, whom you were given your middle name for, was Jewish. Could you please tell us whether your forebears include Jews and, if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?&
Source: Media Matters
Sep 19, 2006
While discussing Pope Benedict XVI's recent controversial comments about Islam, MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan declared three times that Islam "is a fighting faith." During the discussion, which took place on the September 18 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, host Joe Scarborough asked: "[D]espite the fact ... there are Muslim extremists ... do you not think that this pope should ... reach out to moderate Muslim regimes?" Buchanan replied, "How do you think I
Source: LAT
Sep 19, 2006
When the Macon was launched in 1933, the giant dirigible was more than just the biggest object ever to sail through the skies. To a nation laid low by the Depression, it was a symbol of hope. "Floating majestically in the sky, the Macon is a sight thrilling to every American and an impressive symbol of our Navy's airpower," crackled a newsreel of the day. Newspapers called the Macon "the queen of the airways."
Thousands would gaze skyward when the Macon's immense
Source: Wa Po
Sep 19, 2006
To glimpse the brave new Japan of Shinzo Abe -- the hawkish 51-year-old poised to replace Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister next week -- take a peek inside the eighth-grade history classes at this city's prestigious Tamagawa Academy.
Using new textbooks with lessons hailed by Abe as the foundation of a more confident nation, junior high students at the elite private school are this year being taught something that has been largely taboo in post-World War II Japan -- to take pride
Source: NYT
Sep 19, 2006
Several years ago, a fire buff named Micheal Boucher began a project about death. Mr. Boucher wanted to compile a list of every firefighter killed in the line of duty since 1865, the year the paid Fire Department of New York was founded.
Mr. Boucher knows the world of firefighters. He is a Fire Department dispatcher, the person who sends firefighters to fires, sometimes to their deaths. The work can leave one with a heavy, if misplaced, feeling of accountability, and Mr. Boucher, a
Source: NYT
Sep 19, 2006
Princeton University, one of the leading universities in black studies, yesterday announced an expansion in its program, including at least a doubling in the number of faculty members, the introduction of a major for undergraduates and the creation of a new center for teaching and research on race in America.Shirley M. Tilghman, Princeton’s president, said in a telephone interview yesterday that she hoped the effort would help the university contribute greater insights to is
Source: NYT
Sep 19, 2006
Junichiro Koizumi swept to power in 2001 promising to “destroy” his ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, by extension, Japan’s encrusted postwar order. To a remarkable extent, he succeeded — though hardly as radically as he had hoped. When Mr. Koizumi, 64, retires on Sept. 26, he will leave a Japan with new bearings: a smaller central government, greater faith in free markets and a new assertiveness in world affairs.
But his vision of a new Japan has already produced a backlash amon
Source: NYT
Sep 19, 2006
How sad — if unsurprising — to hear that the heirs of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer are indeed cashing in, as planned, and selling four Klimts at Christie’s in November. A story about justice and redemption after the Holocaust has devolved into yet another tale of the crazy, intoxicating art market.
Wouldn’t it have been remarkable (I’m just dreaming here) if the heirs had decided instead to donate one or more of the paintings to a public institution? Or, failing that, to negotiat
Source: NYT
Sep 19, 2006
Many Muslims insisted Monday that Pope Benedict XVI did not go far enough in his apology on Sunday for the offense caused by a speech he gave last week that discussed Islam and holy war.
In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, protesters burned an effigy of the pope, and an Iraqi group linked to Al Qaeda posted a warning on a Web site threatening war against “worshipers of the cross.”
The supreme leader in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the pope’s remarks “the latest
Source: Financial Times
Sep 19, 2006
Indonesian authorities have launched a criminal investigation into a group of historians and education ministry officials over new school texts offering an alternative version of events surrounding the failed 1965 coup that led to the rise of former President Suharto.Schoolchildren were taught throughout Mr Suharto’s 32-year rule that the then-general led a successful campaign to eliminate the Indonesian Communist party, or PKI, after a failed communist coup on September 30
Source: Stone Pages
Sep 18, 2006
A method of imaging rock carvings in 3D using everyday electronic equipment could help document decaying carvings before they disappear forever, researchers say. Archaeologists are struggling to document many rock carvings before they are eroded by pollution or weather. Bulky laser scanners can capture detail in 3D down to 0.2 millimetres. However, such instruments are too costly and cumbersome for general use.
A system being trialled by archaeologist Kalle Sognnes and colleagu
Source: Guardian
Sep 18, 2006
Three UNESCO World Heritage sites in Lebanon, including some of the Middle East's most significant ancient ruins, are in urgent need of repairs after a month of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the U.N. agency said Monday.
In one case, frescos in a Roman-era tomb in Tyre were shaken to the ground when a building 500 feet away was bombed, said U.N. experts, who visited Lebanon and reported on their findings. Some of the paintings were destroyed.
In the ancient Ph
Source: Wa Po
Sep 18, 2006
BAGHDAD -- A silence has fallen upon Mutanabi Street.
In the buttery sunlight, faded billboards hang from old buildings. Iron gates seal entrances to bookstores and stationery shops. On this Friday, like the past 13 Fridays, the violence has taken its toll. There is not a customer around, only ghosts.
Perched on a red chair outside a closet-sized bookshop, the only one open, Naim al-Shatri is nearly in tears. Short, with thin gray hair and dark, brooding eyes, his voice
Source: IHT
Sep 18, 2006
Perhaps you've never heard of Henry Timrod, sometimes known as the poet laureate of the Confederacy.
But maybe you've heard his words, if you're one of the 320,000 people so far who have bought Bob Dylan's latest album, "Modern Times," which made its debut two weeks ago at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.
It seems that many of the lyrics on that album, Dylan's first No. 1 album in the United States in 30 years (down to No. 3 last week), bear some strong ech
Source: Cox News Service
Sep 18, 2006
GEORGETOWN, S.C. ˜ Two miles off a deserted beach, the research vessel
C-Hawk, its course plotted by satellite navigation signals, makes a
180-degree turn and heads back the way it came.
One mile and it will turn again, recording the ocean floor's magnetic
profile as systematically as if it were a tractor plowing a field.
In the past month, the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and
Anthropology research vessel has surveyed 6 square miles of the ocean
bottom outside the mouth of
Source: The Raw Story
Sep 18, 2006
At a closed door meeting of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said that with better intelligence the South would have won the Civil War, today's Roll Call is reporting.
Conflicting reports have emerged about what was said, one from a source to Roll Call's “Heard on the Hill” column, the other from a spokesperson for Chambliss.
According to Roll Call's source, Chambliss said, “We need better intelligence. If we had better intelligence in the Civil
Source: CBS
Sep 18, 2006
Nearly four decades after the Gee's Bend ferry stopped running, a new vessel is once again crossing the Alabama River, connecting the mostly black residents of Gee's Bend to Camden, the seat of Wilcox County.
For 78-year-old Willie Quill Pettway, it's long overdue.
"Yeah, I want it to come back. That's what you call winning," Pettway says. "It didn't last. Treating me wrong don't last."
The "wrong" that Pettway is talking ab
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Sep 18, 2006
Scholars who work on large archival projects have struggled during the Bush administration. The president has repeatedly proposed eliminating the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which is one of the two federal programs that supports the intense, decades-long projects that involve editing and publishing of collections of documents. Congress has saved the program, but just barely.
Now the National Endowment for the Humanities has revamped the rules for the oth
