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: Yahoo News
Feb 15, 2006
Three decades after it was made, the movie arrives Tuesday in a two-disc special edition DVD. It includes a commentary from Redford and a featurette on the recent revelation of the identity of Woodward's secret informant, Deep Throat: former FBI agent W. Mark Felt.For the 69-year-old Redford, it's an unusual opportunity to look back on a film he remains proud of. Redford, who co-produced, was largely responsible for the movie getting made.
He s
Source: Haaretz
Feb 15, 2006
Soil tests in Germany have revealed no evidence whatever that Adolf Hitler tested a nuclear weapon just two months before losing the Second World War, government scientists said Wednesday.A Berlin historian, Rainer Karlsch, published a book last year on Nazi nuclear research and offered circumstantial evidence that the Germans may have tested a bomb on March 3, 1945 at the Ohrdruf army training camp in central Germany.
The site, near Gotha, is currently used by
Source: Daily Pennsylvanian
Feb 15, 2006
Archaeology professor Brian Rose wants to make sure ancient artifacts stay in their rightful homes -- even if those homes are in war zones.Rose, who has worked on excavation sites around the world, is trying to ensure that military personnel on duty treat valuable artifacts with respect.
He was struck by the problem after hearing of famous museums and archeological sites in Iraq and Afghanistan being looted by locals in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussei
Source: Press Release--Regnery
Feb 15, 2006
Regnery Publishing has put out the following press release, which claims that "A coalition of professors, students, and organizations has launched a smear campaign to discredit David Horowitz’s newly-released book, The Professors."PRESS RELEASE
Using the misnomer, “Free Exchange on Campus,” the group blatantly distorts the content of The Professors and unscrupulously impugns the Academic Freedom Campaign launched by Horowitz through his organizat
Source: Joel Achenbach blog at the Wa Po
Feb 15, 2006
A Washington Post researcher dug up this notice that ran on page 3 of the July 18, 1804 edition of the Gettysburg Centinel: "By a gentleman from Philadelphia we learn, that last week a duel took place at New York, between Colonel Aaron Burr, Vice President of the U. States, and General Alexander Hamilton, in which the latter was mortally wounded, and expired in a short time after he was taken from the field. The cause of the duel, or who was the challenger, we did not learn."
Source: BBC News
Feb 15, 2006
Records dating back 500 years are being studied in what is believed to be the first comprehensive research of suicide in Scotland throughout the ages. Professor Rab Houston, a historian at the University of St Andrews, is sifting through asylum, medical and legal records as part of his study.
Previous definitions of suicide range from "at the instigation of the devil" to findings of mentally instability.
Some people who committed suicide
Source: BBC
Feb 15, 2006
A US journalist whose broadcasts from London helped rally American public opinion to Britain's side during World War II, has been commemorated.A blue plaque has been unveiled at Edward R Murrow's old home, Weymouth House in Hallam Street, central London.
Murrow, who reported from London at the height of the Blitz, would begin with his "This is London" call sign.
He famously took on Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954, with his television progr
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Feb 15, 2006
The heat over China's media censorship was turned up Tuesday after a baker's dozen of senior Chinese officials warned that preventing freedom of expression would "sow the seeds of disaster for political and social transition." The government's decision to shut down "Freezing Point," an investigative section of the China Youth Daily, came in response to an article written by professor Yuan Weishi, Al Jazeera reports. In the piece, Mr. Yuan questioned the official Chinese line
Source: Radio Free Europe
Feb 15, 2006
Russia today marked the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech," in which he denounced the crimes committed under dictator Josef Stalin and the cult of personality surrounding the deceased Soviet leader. Today was an occasion for Russians to reexamine the impact of this legendary speech on their country's history.Khrushchev's speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- held 14-25 February 1956 -- entered history as the
Source: Yahoo News
Feb 14, 2006
Ancient Native Americans hunted some species of birds and fish almost to extinction in parts of California, according to research that challenges the Utopian myth that native people always lived in harmony with the land. University of Utah anthropologist Jack Broughton concluded in a paper published this month that California wasn't always a lush Eden before settlers arrived in the 1700s to find an astonishing abundance of wildlife.
Instead, from 2,600 to
Source: Wa Po
Feb 14, 2006
All depictions of Muhammad -- or so we hear daily -- are now and have always been forbidden in Islam. Art's history disputes this. True, that strict taboo today is honored now by almost all Muslims, but old paintings of the prophet -- finely brushed expensive ones, made carefully and piously by Muslims and for them -- are well known to most curators of Islamic art.There are numerous examples in public institutions in Istanbul, Vienna, Edinburgh, London, Dublin, L
Source: AP
Feb 14, 2006
People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are "idiots," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says. In a speech Monday sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, Scalia defended his long-held belief in sticking to the plain text of the Constitution "as it was originally written and intended."
"Scalia does have a philosophy, it's called originalism," he said. "That'
Source: Live Science
Feb 14, 2006
Many art historians and anthropologists believe Paleolithic cave wall art was done by accomplished shaman-artists, but mixed in with the finer paintings are graffiti-like scenes of sex and hunting.An analysis of thousands of paintings from the late Pleistocene epoch suggests the graffiti artists back then were likely the same as today—teenage males.
Most cave art from 10,000 to 35,000 years ago was done by hand, quite literally. Artists would chew up a bit of re
Feb 14, 2006
Persian speaking websites have published a letter from Haaroon Yashayayi, the president of Tehran’s Jewish Association, to the Iranian President. Following is an English translation provided by Hossein Alizadeh, Program staff of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Iran Initiative. Dear Mr. President,
Our apologies for interrupting your busy schedule and your around-the-clock efforts to solve the people’s problems, but we felt compelled to discuss a series of conc
Source: BBC News
Feb 14, 2006
A County Antrim man who helped discover an intact Egyptian tomb has said he was privileged to be involved in the find. Alistair Dickey, 26, from Broughshane, was part of the University of Memphis-led team which found the tomb and five mummies.
It was the first intact tomb to be found in the Valley of the Kings since Tutankhamun's in 1922.
"The first half hour after we found it, we actually saw into the chamber - the whole team was on cloud ni
Source: NYT
Feb 14, 2006
A small tablet in a special display this month in the Istanbul Museum of the Ancient Orient is thought to be the oldest love poem ever found, the words of a lover from more than 4,000 years ago. The ancient Sumerian tablet was unearthed in the late 1880's in Nippur, a region in what is now Iraq, and had been resting quietly in a modest corner of the museum until it was brought back to the limelight this year by a company that made it part of a Valentine's Day promotion
Source: NYT
Feb 14, 2006
All told, almost half of American presidents from 1789 to 1974 had suffered from a mental illness at some point in life, according to a recent analysis of biographical sources by psychiatrists at Duke University Medical Center. And more than half of those presidents, the study found, struggled with their symptoms — most often depression — while in office. "What is hopeful about this is that it is evidence that people can suffer from depression or other mental problems a
Source: WGMS (Washington D.C.)
Feb 14, 2006
A Dutch expert has confirmed that two paintings, part of Warsaw's royal palace collection, are authentic works by the famous 17th-century artist Rembrandt, a Polish art official said on Tuesday. The conclusion reached by the expert, Ernst van den Wetering, puts an end to the uproar over whether they were genuine works by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), which art historians have been insisting on since 1969.
"Polish art historians, convinc
Source: Reuters
Feb 14, 2006
Key documents and historical treasures relating to the turbulent birth of modern Ireland are due to go under the hammer later this year in what has been billed as "the Irish sale of the century".Scheduled for mid-April to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, when Irish rebels staged an ill-fated insurrection against British rule, the auction will comprise nearly 500 lots, many of them previously unseen.
The star attractio
Source: Inside Higher Education
Feb 13, 2006
New book names the "101 most dangerous academics in America." Some included feel honored, and others see McCarthyism.Caroline Higgins is 66 years old, and at 5’2” she’s not a daunting figure. Walking on the Earlham College campus last week, she ran into one of her students, a football player who very much towers over her. She mentioned that she was about to be named to a list of the “101 most dangerous academics in America.”
Higgins said that her
