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: NYT
Jan 9, 2006
BERLIN - Some buildings are harder to love than others. No matter how many good citizens jump to their defense, they can't seem to shake a bad reputation.
But by any standard, the Palace of the Republic here is a particularly tough case. Opened in 1976 as the home of the East German Parliament, the huge steel-and-concrete building, clad in bronze-colored windows, has become an emblem of a failed ideology. The government padlocked it soon after reunification of the two Germanys in 19
Source: NYT
Jan 9, 2006
Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, has finished serving a prison term in Istanbul on charges in another case and will be freed this week, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported Sunday.
Mr. Agca served 19 years in Italy for shooting the pope and then was sent back to Turkey, in 2000, and has been in prison since then for killing Abdi Ipekci, a newspaper editor, in 1979.
Italy pardoned Mr. Agca in 1999, and the Vatican
Source: Armenian News Network Groong
Jan 9, 2006
According to Aksam, Jean-Louis Debre, the president of the French Assembly who is entrusted with investigating laws concerning colonialism and historical issues, said that the law concerning the
so-called Armenian genocide will be looked at again. Speaking to radio Europe-1, Debre said that he would report on the matter to President Jacques Chirac. Nineteen prominent French historians last month called for annulment of the laws urging recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide and the
Source: CBC
Jan 9, 2006
Forensic scientists in Austria have been unable to determine if a skull believed to be that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is really that of the composer. Scientists admitted on Austrian public TV Sunday that DNA tests on the skull were inconclusive.A team from the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck and the U.S. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory analyzed a tooth drawn from the skull, which the Mozarteum foundation in Salzburg obtained in 1902.
The
Source: Globe and Mail
Jan 9, 2006
On the face of it, Maria Romanova's legal application to Russian prosecutors might seem straightforward. As the self-described head of the surviving family of Nicholas II, Russia's last czar, Ms. Romanova wants rehabilitation for her ancestors, according to her lawyer. Under Russian law, this would mean a formal admission that Nicholas II was unjustly killed along with his wife, children and attendants after revolution swept away Russia's monarchy.Boris Yeltsin went far beyo
Source: WTOP Dallas
Jan 9, 2006
The discovery of a long-lost letter offers rare insight into Robert Johnson's life and confirms that the bluesman recorded at a downtown Dallas building, music historians said.
Blues fans have long thought Johnson recorded 13 songs in 1937 in a building two blocks east of Dallas City Hall. The building was home to Brunswick Records at the time, but there was no known documentation to confirm where the recordings took place.That was until San Diego blues en
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Jan 9, 2006
The last surviving member of the Gang of Four - the fanatical Maoists who were blamed for the terror of the Cultural Revolution - has died at the age of 74, the Chinese Government announced.Nicknamed "the killer with a pen", Yao Wenyuan was the chief propagandist of the ultra-leftist cabal, who helped to turn children on their parents, students on their teachers and civilians on bureaucrats in a class struggle that destroyed millions of lives between 1966 and 1976.
Source: nature.com
Jan 9, 2006
Thanks to political tensions easing in Lebanon, archaeologists have finally managed to locate the sites of ancient Phoenician harbours in the seaports that dominated Mediterranean trade thousands of years ago.
By drilling out cores of sediment from the modern urban centres of these cities, geologists have mapped out the former coastlines that the sediments have long since buried. From this they have pinpointed the likely sites of the old harbours, and have marked out locations that
Jan 9, 2006
A petition is circulating on the Internet to rally academics to the defense of their colleagues in Iraq. As the petition states:"A little known aspect of the tragedy engulfing Iraq is the systematic
liquidation of the country's academics. Even according to conservative
estimates, over 250 educators have been assassinated, and many hundreds
more have disappeared. With thousands fleeing the country in fear for their
lives, not only is Iraq undergoing a major brain drain, the secular
midd
Source: NYT
Jan 8, 2006
A federal appeals court has reversed its own ruling and upheld a $54.6 million jury verdict against two retired generals from El Salvador who were held responsible in a 2002 trial for the torture of three Salvadorans during the country's civil war in the 1980's.
The opinion, issued Wednesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, was a surprising turn in decade-long efforts by American human rights groups to punish abuses that occurred during the con
Source: NYT
Jan 8, 2006
Slowly, Serbia is prosecuting some of the war crimes cases from the Kosovo fighting of 1999 and the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia, even while it has failed to deliver major suspects to the tribunal in The Hague.
Seven cases have been brought to trial so far. In the past two years, five of them in a war crimes court that has been financed partly by the United States. Prosecutors say they have plans to bring dozens more cases to trial. They and others following the cases say the trials s
Source: LAT
Jan 8, 2006
With hundreds, even thousands, of bills to navigate over a career, there is danger in every ambiguous vote, like the one pitting insurgent hordes against caribou herds.
As political handicapper Charlie Cook put it, "A career in the Senate is like a paper trail of little time bombs ready to blow up."
Indeed, in the history of the republic, just two senators have gone directly from the Senate to the White House. John F. Kennedy was one. The other was Warren G. H
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 8, 2006
DeLay said he would continue to serve in his suburban Houston district. He will seek a 12th term this fall, in what promises to be a tough campaign against Nick Lampson, a Democrat and a former congressman.
While members pushed to oust DeLay in part out of fear about their own reelection prospects this fall, the revolt that led DeLay to step aside could send the opposite message to voters. DeLay's decision to resign on the heels of the Abramoff plea might suggest a "hint of gui
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jan 8, 2006
Other historians are joining Marc Stein's attack on the fairness of the National Endowment for the Humanities, claiming that the NEH discriminates against queer studies scholarship.
Stein's attack published on HNN and presented as a paper at the American Historical Association this past weekend was widely discussed at the history meeting, with other gay scholars saying that he had demonstrated that their work was being unfairly evalua
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jan 8, 2006
Fewer new historians and more job openings translate into one of the healthiest job markets in the field in years.
Data that will be published this month in Perspectives, the magazine of the American Historical Association, show that 966 history positions were advertised there in the 2004-5 academic year, a 13 percent increase in one year. During the same year, the number of new Ph.D.’s reported by departments fell by 14 percent, to 840.
As a result, the number of posit
Source: BBC News
Jan 7, 2006
Archaeologists have unveiled two Iron Age "bog bodies" which were found in the Republic of Ireland. The bodies, which are both male and have been dated to more than 2,000 years old, probably belong to the victims of a ritual sacrifice.
In common with other bog bodies, they show signs of having been tortured before their deaths. Details of the finds are outlined in a BBC Timewatch documentary to be screened on 20 January.
Hund
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 7, 2006
Brown University's library boasts an unusual anatomy book. Tanned and polished to a smooth golden brown, its cover looks and feels no different from any other fine leather. But here's its secret: the book is bound in human skin.A number of prestigious libraries -- including Harvard University's -- have such books in their collections. While the idea of making leather from human skin seems bizarre and cruel today, it was not uncommon in centuries past, said Laura Hartma
Source: Seattle P-I
Jan 7, 2006
BURG, Switzerland -- Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD, walked slowly across the small corner office of his modernist home on a grassy Alpine hilltop here, hoping to show a visitor the vista that sweeps before him on clear days. But outside there was only a white blanket of fog. He picked up a photograph of the view on his desk instead, left there perhaps to convince visitors of what really lies beyond the window.
Hofmann will turn 100 on Wednesday, a milestone to be marked by a sym
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
Jan 7, 2006
Update Sunday 1-8-06: This morning the AHA Council unanimously approved the resolution denouncing the use of torture.
Alarmed by reports that the United States is torturing foreign prisoners American historians meeting in Philadelphia sharply criticized the practice after a brief debate lasting just under 15 minutes. The historians, members of the American Historical Association, the nation’s oldest and most revered historical society, acted at the recommendation of their former presiden
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
Jan 7, 2006
Update Sunday 1-8-06: This morning the AHA Council unanimously approved the resolution referred to below.
In a pointed response to the growing campaign to pressure universities to hire more conservative professors in the humanities, historians meeting in Philadelphia today said the effort smacks of McCarthyism and vowed to oppose it. They passed a resolution to put the American Historical Association—the nation’s oldest and most revered historical society—on record against the effort.
