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: National Geographic
Feb 3, 2006
One beautification technique of the ancient Norsemen was to file their teeth, a new study shows. A Swedish anthropologist analyzed 557 Viking skeletons dating from A.D. 800 to 1050 and discovered that 24 of them bore deep, horizontal grooves across their upper front teeth.It's the first time that dental modification—a practice found in cultures around the world—has been seen in human skeletons from Europe.
"[These] unique finds of deliberate dental modifica
Source: NY Post
Feb 2, 2006
So says Page Six in the NY Post. Quoting Page Six:
WASHINGTON Post "culture critic" Philip Kennicott should think twice before visiting New York.
The smug book reviewer did an unprovoked hatchet job the other day on Manhattan Assistant DA-turned-war-hero Matthew Bogdanos' otherwise well-received (and decidedly apolitical) new memoir, "Thieves of Baghdad." Needless to say, the highly decorated two-tour Special Forces vet isn't
Source: BBC News
Feb 2, 2006
Millions of pounds worth of "museum quality" art has been stolen from the home of a reclusive property tycoon. Thieves raided Ramsbury Manor - a 17th Century mansion in Wiltshire said to be worth more than £20m, and home of Harry Hyams - on Wednesday night.
A Wiltshire Police spokesman said the items taken, including fine art and porcelain, were "worth a substantial amount - into the millions".
The stolen items included a 1675
Source: BBC News
Feb 2, 2006
Hollywood film Memoirs of a Geisha has been banned in China after coming in for criticism in the country's media. The decision to cast Chinese actresses Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li in leading roles as Japanese women has caused controversy in China.
Critics say it is insensitive because of Japan's atrocities during their occupation of China in the 1930s.
The Oscar-nominated film, based on Arthur Golden's 1997 novel, was due to be released next week.
Source: BBC
Feb 2, 2006
Human remains dating back almost 4,000 years have been uncovered on Rathlin Island off the County Antrim coast. Senior archaeologists are investigating the remains of a man who could have been buried in the Bronze Age.
The skeleton was found in a crouched foetal-like position, which would indicate a cist burial in about 2000 BC.
The body was accompanied by a food vessel. The remains were uncovered on Monday on the north coast, close to Rathl
Source: Economist
Feb 2, 2006
Two of the great historical issues of the past half-century continue to exert a tug on many of those who believe that only by understanding the past can mankind hope to build a better future: how America came to be what it is today and how the Holocaust and the creation of Israel helped to redraw the landscape of the modern Middle East.1. Night. By Elie Wiesel. Hill and Wang; 144 pages; $6.30 Penguin; £6.39. A terrifying account of the horror of a Nazi death camp where a you
Source: Ascribe
Feb 2, 2006
The observance of Black History Month is less edgy today than in the past, partly because Americans' collective memory of racially charged historical events has become a sanitized, feel-good version of the Civil Rights movement, according to Duke University experts in black culture and American history. And, as Americans consider the significance of Black History Month, they need to recognize that the simple dynamic of black and white no longer reflects the complicated rac
Source: National Coalition for History
Feb 2, 2006
Several major history organizations have sent a letter to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings requesting that she find within her department’s discretionary budget the funds necessary to initiate a state by state assessment of student’s performance on history tests.The letter, signed by representatives of the American Historical Association, National Coalition for History, National Council for History Education, National Council for the Social Studies, Organization
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists
Feb 2, 2006
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev nominated the crew of the ill-fated Soviet nuclear submarine K-19, which suffered a loss of coolant accident on July 4, 1961, for a Nobel Peace Prize this week."Through the courage of the heroic sailors, a reactor explosion and a consequent environmental catastrophe in the ocean were averted," Mr.
Gorbachev wrote.
"An explosion on board the K-19 could have been taken for a military provocation or ev
Source: Radio Free Europe
Feb 2, 2006
On the occasion of his 75th birthday on 1 February, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin gave a rare interview to the national network Channel One. Robust and fresh, Yeltsin said he is now physically and intellectually active, and enjoying his current family life.Yeltsin said that he considers the dismantling of the totalitarian machinery of the Soviet regime to be the greatest achievement of his presidency. His biggest failure, he said, was the inability to make profound
Source: The Daily Telegraph
Feb 2, 2006
THE woman who began life as François Mitterrand's secret daughter is considering a political career of her own, having adopted her father's name for the first time.THE woman who began life as François Mitterrand's secret daughter is considering a political career of her own, having adopted her father's name for the first time.
Several former allies of the late socialist president are said to be pressing behind the scenes for Mazarine, 31, to make her first
Source: Reno Gazette Journal
Feb 2, 2006
Students must navigate through changes in their student loans after the U.S. House passed a budget reconciliation bill Wednesday that cuts a record $11.9 billion in government-backed student loan programs.The cut in student loans, the largest in the program's history, represents nearly a third of the almost $40 billion Congress backed to reduce the federal deficit during the next five years. The Senate approved the bill in December and it now goes to President Bush, who is e
Source: NYT
Feb 2, 2006
Conservative lawyers in the administration of President Ronald Reagan had an ambitious agenda. They wanted the courts to pay closer attention to the Constitution's text, to fashion a more limited role for the federal government, to allow religion to have a larger presence in public life, to use skepticism in reviewing race-based classifications in the law and to stop the expansion of protections for criminal defendants.Many of those ideas, considered bold, and even ext
Source: Inside Higher Education
Feb 2, 2006
Boycotts of academic institutions are antithetical to academic freedom and should not be used as a means of protest, according to a new policy being adopted by the American Association of University Professors.The policy follows considerable controversy in the last year over a boycott declared by Britain’s main faculty union against two Israeli universities. The AAUP and many other faculty groups condemned the boycott, which was ultimately withdrawn. But tensions
Source: Discover
Feb 1, 2006
Epidemics followed the Spanish arrival in the New World, but the worst killer may have been a shadowy native—a killer that could still be out there.
When Hernando Cortés and his Spanish army of fewer than a thousand men stormed into Mexico in 1519, the native population numbered about 22 million. By the end of the century, following a series of devastating epidemics, only 2 million people remained. Even compared with the casualties of the Black Death, the mortality rate was extraord
Source: Jason Emerson in American Heritage
Feb 1, 2006
Abraham Lincoln signed it. A lot of scholars say he didn’t write it. Now, newly discovered evidence helps solve an enduring mystery.In a records box in a back office in a house in the hills of Vermont, six letters about Abraham Lincoln’s famous “letter to the Widow Bixby” lay unknown and undisturbed. For how long is uncertain, although this author’s fingerprints made last March were the only ones visible in the thick chalky dust of years. The letters, received and writ
Source: NYT
Feb 1, 2006
When President Bush vowed on Tuesday to reduce drastically American dependence on oil from the Middle East, he had plenty of company.President Richard M. Nixon promised in 1971 to make the United States self-sufficient in energy by 1980. President Jimmy Carter promised in 1979 that the nation would "never again use more foreign oil than we did in 1977."
And Mr. Bush has called in each of his past four State of the Union addresses for a reduction
Source: NYT
Feb 1, 2006
By any conventional measure, Yale's exhibition about Machu Picchu would seem a windfall for Peru. As one of the most ambitious shows about the Inca ever presented in the United States, drawing over a million visitors while traveling to half a dozen cities and back again, it has riveted eyes on Peru's leading tourist attraction. Yet instead of cementing an international partnership, the exhibition, which returned to the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in September, has brought a low ebb
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 1, 2006
"African American Lives," a two-night, four-part PBS series is scheduled for February 1 and 8. The host and executive co-producer is Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of the department of African and African-American studies at Harvard. Gates has assembled eight notably successful African-Americans, among them the media entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey, the legendary music producer Quincy Jones, and the film star Whoopi Goldberg. Each participant, along with Gates, is the subject of some seri
Source: Romanesko
Feb 1, 2006
The Times has opened its archives to Ric Burns for his two-part, four-hour PBS documentary. Burns tells Gabriel Sherman he'll cover the history of the paper from its founding in 1851 to today."We’re going to cover the warts and all. For example, you don’t want to look too closely at the reporting the paper did during the Holocaust -- but we will."
