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
Jun 15, 2006
On Wednesday, officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration donated objects related to Katrina, including Ricks's weather message and his rosary, to the National Museum of American History. "When we issued the warning, the response we got was, 'This is clearly over the top -- you are hyping the storm,' " said retired Brig. Gen. David L. Johnson, director of NOAA's National Weather Service.One reason the predictions were so precise, Johnson said,
Source: The Australian
Jun 15, 2006
A rare Roman coin celebrating the murder of Julius Caesar has been returned to Greece after an operation by British Customs.The 1st-century-BC Brutus coin, which portrays the Roman politician's assassination of Julius Caesar as a patriotic act, was excavated illegally and brought to London by two Greek citizens.
European law on stolen cultural items was used for the first time in Britain to secure its recovery.
The Greek Government took the unpreced
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Jun 15, 2006
A French court ruling has reopened the country's wartime record and revived a question that has shadowed it for years: Who should be held responsible for the mistreatment and deportation of French Jews during World War II?An administrative tribunal in Toulouse, France, ruled last week that the state-owned railroad, the SNCF, was liable for its part in transporting some 76,000 Jews to transit centers in France and then on to Nazi concentration camps.
The railroad
Source: USA Today
Jun 15, 2006
A new wave of books critical of the Bush administration's war on terror will hit bookstores this summer, reminiscent of the flood of titles bashing the president during the 2004 campaign.
Two years ago, Against All Enemies by former anti-terrorism chief Richard Clark and The Price of Loyalty, Ron Suskind's account of the disillusionment of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, hit the top of the best-seller list.
This year, books on Iraq and the war on terror haven't
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jun 15, 2006
Scholarly groups line up against open access legislation, but
anthropologists ask whether researchers' views are being
represented.
Source: NYT
Jun 15, 2006
James Cameron, who survived an attempted lynching by a white mob and went on to found America's Black Holocaust Museum, died here on Sunday. He was 92.
He had battled lymphoma for about five years, said Marissa Weaver, chairwoman of the museum's board.
In 1930, in Marion, Ind., Mr. Cameron, then 16, and two friends were arrested and accused of killing a white man during a robbery and raping the man's companion. A mob broke them out of the local jail and hanged Mr. Camer
Source: NYT
Jun 15, 2006
An American poet, John Balaban, who first came to Vietnam as a conscientious objector during the war and who has nurtured a love affair with the country ever since, is leading a drive to revive Nom, which was banned in 1920 by the French colonial government and officially replaced by script based on the Roman alphabet that Alexander de Rhodes, a French missionary, devised in the 17th century.
"Nom keeps a flavor of a culture washed away with the language of the Roman alphabet,
Source: PR Newswire
Jun 14, 2006
American Express today announced a
$10 million, five-year commitment to historic preservation and the launch
of the American Express(R) Partners in Preservation program, expanding the
Company's focus on securing the use of cultural assets for the future. The
American Express Partners in Preservation program builds upon the Company's
decade-long relationship with the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and
establishes a partnership with the National Trust for Historic
Preservation. The program is d
Source: MSNBC
Jun 14, 2006
Thousands of years before screen idols began beautifying themselves with cosmetic dentistry ancient Mexicans were getting ceremonial dentures.
Researchers report Wednesday that they found a 4,500-year-old burial in Mexico that had the oldest known example of dental work in the Americas.
The upper front teeth of the remains had been ground down so they could be mounted with animal teeth, possibly wolf or panther teeth, for ceremonial purposes, according to researchers le
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jun 14, 2006
A James Joyce scholar is suing the Irish author's estate, claiming that it is abusing copyright law to prevent her from disseminating research findings that the estate wants to cover up. The case may clarify how much control copyright holders can exert over scholars seeking to take advantage of the law's fair-use exemption. Researchers in several disciplines rely on the exemption, which permits scholars and students to use copyrighted material for scholarly and educational p
Source: http://www.nsarchive.org
Jun 14, 2006
The National Security Archive today filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), challenging the Agency's recent practice of charging Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) fees to journalists pursuing news. The FOIA says that "representatives of the news media" can be charged only copying fees since they help to carry out the mission of the law by disseminating government information; but the CIA last year began
Source: OAH
Jun 14, 2006
Nearly a century ago, representatives of seven state historical societies gathered in Lincoln, hoping to organize a new historical association to encourage collaboration, improve professional standards, and highlight our regional and national histories. Little did they know that the organization they founded, the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, and the new historical journal they eventually created, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, would outgrow the Midwest, take on national
Source: cronaca.com
Jun 14, 2006
The John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, in collaboration with the Rhode Island Rochambeau Commission, will host a symposium and historical re-enactment on Saturday, June 17, 2006, in commemoration of the 225th anniversary of the historic march to Yorktown, Va. The symposium, titled France and the American Revolution, will be followed by a horse-led procession from The College Green to the Rhode Island State House for a military review and ceremony. The public is invited to take part i
Source: Times (UK)
Jun 14, 2006
Menachem Begin, the late Israeli Prime Minister, actively encouraged a plot to blow up Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of West Germany, according to disclosures today.The dramatic claim by the author and researcher Henning Sietz is sure to stoke resentment on the German far Right and send shockwaves through the always delicate relationship between Germany and Israel.
The details of the 1952 parcel bomb attack, in which a policeman died, have been kep
Source: Yahoo
Jun 13, 2006
Scientists at a British university hope to use digital technology in reassembling some 300,000 tiny fragments of an 800-year-old Jewish philosopher's oeuvre. The University of Manchester's Center for Jewish Studies is reassembling the life works of Moses Maimonides, a scholar and writer whose findings were hugely influential on modern Judaic thought.
A British government grant of $670,000 will fund the center's use of digital imaging software, a crucial ai
Source: Yahoo
Jun 13, 2006
For the first time in possibly 170 years, a Roman marble statue of Venus will be reunited with its head as both are coming to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, where conservators will piece them back together. The museum bought the charmingly prudish portrait of the goddess of love, whom the Greeks called Aphrodite and the Romans Venus, for $968,000 at a Sotheby's auction in New York on June 6. A private collector in Houston, Texas, agreed to sell to t
Source: BBC
Jun 13, 2006
A geology team has contradicted claims that bluestones were dug by Bronze Age man from a west Wales quarry and carried 240 miles to build Stonehenge.
In a new twist, Open University geologists say the stones were in fact moved to Salisbury Plain by glaciers.
Last year archaeologists said the stones came from the Preseli Hills.
Recent research in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology suggests the stones were ripped from the ground and moved by glaciers during the I
Source: Rocky Mountain News
Jun 13, 2006
A majority of the University of Colorado committee leading an inquiry into Ward Churchill recommended today that the ethnic studies professor be fired. Of the 10 voting members, six said he should be fired. One said he should be suspended without pay for two years, while two others recommended a five-year suspension without pay. Another member of the committee was absent, and the panel's chairman is a non-voting member.
In a 22-page report, the committee — made up of nine CU facult
Source: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Jun 13, 2006
Ted Junker seems like an ordinary, 87-year-old retired farmer until he starts to talk about his passion: Adolf Hitler.
Junker, who says was an SS officer during World War II, believes Hitler was a great leader who was just misunderstood, so he built a memorial to the Führer next to Junker's home near Millard in Walworth County (Michigan)It's a beautiful location for a memorial to a man who most believe started World War II, in which 50 million peop
Source: cronaca.com citing story in Time
Jun 13, 2006
For more than 17,000 years, the bestiary of the Lascaux cave in southwestern France survived the ravages of history, unseen and undiscovered. . . But despite its robust longevity, Lascaux is surprisingly fragile. Five years ago, after the ill-conceived installation of new climatic equipment, Lascaux suffered a fungal infection that threatened to destroy in a few years what thousands of years had left largely unscathed. The cave's custodians are still struggling to eradicate this scourge, a nasty
