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: CSM
Dec 29, 2005
For a month 100 years ago, a quiet New England port held the focus of the world. From Aug. 9 to Sept. 5, diplomats were thrown together with local ladies clubs, and foreign reporters swooped onto picket-fenced streets and called the town a beacon of hope to end the cataclysm between "East" and "West." In fact, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, fought mostly in Manchuria, was so profound in its effect that some historians now call it "World War 0."
Toda
Source: NYT
Dec 29, 2005
Donald S. Dawson, who as a presidential aide marshaled Harry S. Truman's crucial whistle-stop tour in the 1948 election campaign and who later had a long career as a Washington lawyer, died on Sunday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 97. Mr. Dawson was personnel director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, created by the government to help fight the Depression, when Truman took him on in 1947 as a special executive assistant. He became perhaps the nation
Source: BBC News
Dec 29, 2005
A Holocaust survivor's support group has said 40% of survivors in Israel are living below the poverty line, Israel Radio has reported.
Most of the 170,000 people affected emigrated from the former Soviet bloc and now get little financial help.
Zeev Factor, the chairman of the Holocaust Survivors' Welfare Fund, says many survivors get no pensions and have to live off $390 a month.
Israel officially sets the poverty line at an income of $400 a month.
Source: BBC News
Dec 29, 2005
British cabinet papers from 1975 detailing the government's plans in the event of nuclear war are among new documents released by the National Archives. They reveal that government bunkers would be manned by civil servants, emergency legislation would be passed, and hospitals would be emptied.
TV was to close down, and the BBC to begin a wartime service on radio. The prime minister would be taken to his bunker but there were no plans at that time to evacuate civilians.
Source: AP
Dec 29, 2005
About 3,000 people have been cleared to receive the first payments from an Austrian fund to compensate Holocaust survivors, and another 3,000 should be approved shortly, the fund's chief overseer said Thursday.Hannah Lessing, general secretary of the General Settlement Fund, told the Austria Press Agency that the first cash payments will be made by Saturday.
Lessing said the fund hopes to have processed all of the 19,300 survivors' claims by the end of 2006, alt
Source: Baltimore Jewish Times
Dec 29, 2005
Fact may be stranger than fiction, but when it comes to espionage, fiction makes for better storytelling. That was the conclusion drawn by many veterans of -- and experts on -- the Israeli intelligence service Mossad when they heard about Steven Spielberg's new thriller "Munich," which opens Friday in North America. "The basis for this film has no relation to reality, though it may be a cracking tale," said Eitan Haber, a Mossad historian.
In his portrayal of the
Source: Reuters
Dec 29, 2005
Black History Month no longer is just about Martin Luther King Jr. biographies and classic black movies.
Indie distributor ThinkFilm is giving the traditional Black History Month home video promotion a serious bent in February with "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till," the acclaimed documentary that details the true story of one of the country's most notorious civil rights killings. The DVD is scheduled to arrive in stores February 28, at a time whe
Source: LA Times
Dec 29, 2005
The myth of a unified Iraqi identity may have finally been laid to rest this month. More clearly than any other measurement since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion, preliminary results from the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections show Iraq as three lands with three distinct identities, divided by faith, goals, region, history and symbols.
Though Iraqis often speak lovingly of golden ages when they were one big happy family, Iraq has been a shaky proposition since its 1920s founding. Rather tha
Source: Times Online (UK)
Dec 28, 2005
THE German Government angrily rebuked a former hostage yesterday who is determined to return to Iraq despite being held captive for three weeks by a Sunni gang.
Susanne Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, announced this week on al-Jazeera television that she would go back to her work in northern Iraq, trying to set up a German cultural centre in Arbil. Angela Merkel’s new Government, which regards the freeing of Frau Osthoff this month as its first foreign po
Source: NYT
Dec 28, 2005
It may seem half a shame to get rid of a church tradition, however cruel and antiquated, if it can inspire poetry like "The Inferno" or spooky lines like these from Seamus Heaney: "Fishermen at Ballyshannon/Netted an infant last night/Along with the salmon."
But limbo, that netherworld of unbaptized babies and worthy pagans, is very much on the way out - another lesson that while belief in God may not change, the things people believe about him most certainly do
Source: LAT
Dec 28, 2005
It will be three years before George W. Bush becomes an ex-commander in chief, but he's already boning up on the post-retirement adventures of the original Cowboy President.
Bush is reading "When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House" by Patricia O'Toole while he relaxes at his Texas ranch during the week between Christmas and New Year's, the White House said Tuesday.Roosevelt, who was 50 when his second term ended in 1909, liv
Source: Independent (UK)
Dec 28, 2005
THE belief that every Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military honour, is made from cannon captured during the Crimean War is nothing more than a myth, says a book marking the 150th anniversary of the medal.
John Glanfield, a historian and author of Bravest of the Brave, to be published next month, claims to have exposed the truth about the metal used to make the awards.It has long been believed that all 1,351 Victoria Crosses awarded have been made of b
Source: First Amendment Center
Dec 27, 2005
PITTSFIELD, N.H. — An assignment intended to teach students about tolerance and the Holocaust angered some students at Pittsfield Middle High School, who claimed it violated their religious freedom.
English teacher Harry Mitchell last week asked students to make and wear yellow stars similar to those Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis. The graded assignment, part of a lesson on The Diary of Anne Frank, was intended to teach empathy, he said.
But some students protest
Source: Reuters
Dec 27, 2005
The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.
The Hollywood director has called "Munich", which dramatises the 1972 raid and Israel's reprisals against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), his "prayer for peace".Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack on be
Source: AP
Dec 27, 2005
The impeachment of former President Clinton is in a gray area of history, too long ago to be a current event, too recent to be judged in perspective.
Yet history is already judging Clinton in the place where millions of students get their information about him -- textbooks. Seven years after he was impeached in a scandal of sex, perjury and bitter politics, Clinton has become a fixture in major high school texts. The impeachment is portrayed in the context of his two-term tenure, a
Source: AP
Dec 27, 2005
The Atlanta History Center has obtained Civil War field orders handwritten by Union General William T. Sherman. The history center got the field orders in a deal that was clinched with the offer of a bundle of Confederate currency that was donated to the center.
Of the documents, 50 are field orders written by Sherman and two are orders written by his aides. They join another 12 orders the Atlanta History Center already had."Sherman surrendered," said
Source: AP
Dec 27, 2005
Workers digging a subway extension unearthed the skeletal remains of 108 people that officials believe were buried in the city's original cemetery for the poor.
The discoveries on the grounds of an old brick crematorium in East Los Angeles revealed a forgotten layer of history, stunning Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials and nearby residents."I've lived in the same house for 70 years," said Diana Tarango, a longtime Eastside resident. &quo
Source: Guardian
Dec 27, 2005
Britain's biggest cads, rogues and evil-doers from the past 1,000 years have been given special recognition by historians. Academics have put together a list of 10 rogues whose deeds and behaviour they feel sets them apart as the worst of the worst. Kings, politicians, archbishops and mass murderers all feature in the run-down, which sees one villain nominated for each of the past 10 centuries.
The vilest character of the 20th century was said to be Oswald Mosley, founder of the Br
Source: Jerusalem Post
Dec 27, 2005
With the approach of Munich's US opening today - a month before its premiere in Israel - media coverage has only intensified, putting those on both sides of the debate on guard. In a short telephone interview, the film's Israeli public relations representative slammed the "anti-Spielberg rumors" he says have been circulating in the Israeli press. Israel's consul-general in Los Angeles, not normally looked to for his views on film, generated international headlines after attending a pre
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 27, 2005
WHEN Channel 4 recently polled its viewers to find the Britons We Love To Hate, the list was led by politicians and television personalities from Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher to Jordan and Jade Goody. The latest list of Britons we like to hiss is, however, more Blackadder than Big Brother.
Chosen by professional historians who nominated a villain from each of the past 10 centuries, the list includes a king, a serial killer, several lawyers and, more controversially, a saint.
