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: SECRECY NEWS, from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Jul 7, 2006
"It's not a crime to publish classified information," explained Washington Post reporter Dana Priest in an electric moment on last Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, even though "[commentator William] Bennett keeps telling people that it is."
Mr. Bennett, who was sitting right next to Ms. Priest, had declared last April that reporters like Ms. Priest who publish classified information "against the wishes of the President" should be "arrested."
Source: NYT
Jul 6, 2006
The war over some $6 million worth of paintings, flags and trophies inside the Seventh Regiment Armory on the Upper East Side has not been going on for as long as the Hundred Years War, which actually lasted 116 years. It only seems as if it has.But at 10 years and counting, this fight has outlasted the Mexican Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's, both World Wars, the Boer War, the Spanish-American War, even the Civil War. And, as a television corresponde
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jul 6, 2006
Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado at Boulder professor who once said some terrorist victims of the September 11 attacks were like Nazi bureaucrats, filed an appeal today to reverse an effort to fire him by the university’s interim chancellor. According to the Associated Press, Mr. Churchill asked for a review of the process that led the chancellor to announce last week that he would seek to dismiss the controversial professor (The Chronicle. June 27). The chancellor was acting on the re
Source: International Herald Tribune
Jul 6, 2006
One hundred years ago this month, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish army officer who had spent five years on Devil's Island for high treason and another seven years trying to clear his name, was absolved by France's Supreme Court. A few days later, he was reinstated into the army, promoted to lieutenant colonel and given the Légion d'honneur. The Dreyfus Affair, which deeply divided France and sparked a vicious wave of anti-Semitism, was finally over. Or was it?In prac
Source: Slate
Jul 5, 2006
Sixty years ago this week, the world's first bikini made its debut at a poolside fashion show in Paris. The swimsuit is now so ubiquitous—and, when compared with, say, the sight of Britney's pregnant, naked haunches on the cover of Bazaar, so demure—it's hard to comprehend how shocking people once found it. When the bikini first arrived, its revealing cut scandalized even the French fashion models who were supposed to wear it; they refused, and the original designer had to enlist a stripper inst
Source: NBC San Diego
Jul 5, 2006
In November 1969, Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean became the second crew to explore the moon and return safely to earth. Two weeks ago, a discovery at the bottom of an old box showed, for the first time, the final and exciting moments of the mission. It came inside a 16-millimeter film reel.A film of the successful landing had unknowingly been stored away by the mission's helicopter pilot. He had no idea that he had in his possession the only copy of th
Source: HNN Intern Abigail Sauter reporting on an article in findlaw.com
Jul 5, 2006
John W. Dean of Watergate fame recently accused two senators of altering the Congressional Record to deceive the Supreme Court in the key Guantanamo case, Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld.
Dean charges that Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina inserted into the Congressional Record an exchange on the Senate floor that never occurred. The exchange reversed a key promise the senators made to their colleagues. On the floor of the Senate stated plainly that the Supreme Court
Source: http://mesa.arizona.edu
Jul 5, 2006
The Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors jointly released the following statement, titled “Iraq: Higher Education and Academic Freedom in Danger,” on July 5.The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) express continuing concern about the dangers facing academic life in Iraq today.
Virtually every Iraqi institution of higher education is at risk.
Source: NYT
Jul 5, 2006
The day Glenda Taylor placed the white hood and white robe of the Ku Klux Klan in the window of her Harlem shop was one to remember.
At the foot of the Klan gown was an 1868 issue of Harper's Weekly depicting a dead black man, with the caption "One Vote Less." Passers-by of all races stopped, stunned, in front of her memorabilia shop, Aunt Meriam's, on West 125th Street, Ms. Taylor said.
One black woman dispatched her 10-year-old daughter into the shop to conf
Source: The Australian
Jul 5, 2006
Kim Beazley has dismissed the push by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop to reinstate the teaching of traditional Australian history in schools as an "elite preoccupation".The Opposition Leader insisted that the plan, revealed in The Australian yesterday, was part of a trend by the Government "to talk about anything other than those things which matter most".
"Fundamentally, what we need now from our education ministers is a
Source: starbeacon.com
Jul 4, 2006
An Abolitionist flag associated with Ashtabula County is flying in Cyberspace this July 4th holiday.
The flag, which was purchased from an estate auction in Cherry Valley Township 10 years ago, is part of an online exhibition posted by The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York, at http://gilderlehrman.org. The exhibition, "Freedom: A History of US," opened online June 30.The flag, a variation on t
Source: The Australian
Jul 4, 2006
Students will again be taught traditional Australian history in classrooms across the nation under a plan from federal Education Minister Julie Bishop.Ms Bishop will press the states and territories to follow the lead of NSW under former premier Bob Carr and reinstate Australian history so every student "knows why Captain James Cook sailed along the east coast".
If they refuse, The Australian understands the Government will consider making the t
Source: http://www.columbusdispatch.com/
Jul 4, 2006
Various theories have been proposed to explain how social complexity developed and why it developed in some areas and not others, but archaeologists and historians have not formulated any one satisfying explanation.
Nick Brooks, a climate-change researcher at the University of East Anglia in England, offers his idea in the latest issue of Quaternary International. "The emergence of complex societies coincided with or followed a period of increased aridity," which began 8,
Source: AP
Jul 4, 2006
Seems like anyone who can run for president in 2008 is considering it.
And who can blame them?
For the first time since 1928, there is no president running for re-election or vice president seeking his party’s nomination.
Source: National Security Archive
Jul 4, 2006
Forty years ago, President Johnson signed the landmark Freedom of Information Act while vacationing at his Texas ranch. But documents from the LBJ Library show that the normally gregarious President, who loved handing out pens at bill signings, refused even to hold a formal ceremony for the FOIA, personally removed strong openness language from the press statement, and only agreed to approve the bill after the Justice Department suggested the tactic that has become President Bush’s favorite – a
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jul 4, 2006
Civil War battlefields, magnets for tourists and the media, are a new target of the Ku Klux Klan.
The white supremacist organization will demonstrate Sept. 2 at Gettysburg National Military Park, site of the Civil War's bloodiest battle.
It will be the second event of its type in three months. About 30 Klansmen and members of like-minded groups rallied June 10 at Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Md.
Gordon Young, a Sharpsburg resident and i
Source: ABC.net.au
Jul 4, 2006
apan's Foreign Minister has become the nation's most senior politician to offer a prayer for former allied prisoners of the Japanese during the Second World War. However, he stopped short of apologising for Japan's harsh treatment of the prisoners.
Taro Aso is one of the candidates competing to replace Junichiro Koizumi as Prime Minister in a few months' time.
As Shane McLeod reports, in making a public prayer for prisoners of war, the minister may have been trying to d
Source: NYT
Jul 3, 2006
FOURTH of July weekend is justly renowned for its celebrations of beaches, barbecues, baseball and, of course, fireworks. But if you're yearning for a slightly more soul-stirring way to celebrate our nation's independence, perhaps you should make a trip to the national Revolutionary War museum.
Unfortunately, you'll need patience. Though the idea was first proposed more than a century ago, a national Revolutionary War museum still does not exist. Thank the federal government for th
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jul 3, 2006
The provost of the University of Wisconsin at Madison announced last week that he would conduct a "review" of the teaching of an instructor at the university who believes that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were orchestrated by the U.S. government.
The provost's announcement came amid calls from state legislators to fire the instructor, Kevin Barrett, after he discussed his views on a local conservative radio talk show. Mr. B
Source: Reuters
Jul 3, 2006
Wartime Pope Pius XII's views on the Jews, one of the sorest points in Catholic-Jewish relations, could be in for an important reappraisal when archives from his years as Vatican prime minister are opened in Rome in September.The Vatican said on Friday it would open all files from the Pius XI papacy which ran from 1922 until just before the 1939 outbreak of World War Two. Critics say successor Pius XII, whose views as a Vatican official would be reflected in the files, did t
