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: Christian Science Monitor
Dec 20, 2005
(NEW GLOUCESTER, ME.)Wafts of fruitcake, fresh from the oven, lace the brick Dwelling House, built in 1883. In the barn across the field, as the sun hangs low on a winter horizon, three pigs gleefully scuttle toward Brother Arnold."Hello kids, hello kids," he coos, patting their rumps as if they were pet dogs.
In many ways, life has changed little in this pastoral patch of southern Maine, where the Shaker community has toiled for more than two centuries. That's why Brother Arnold winces wh
Source: USA Today
Dec 19, 2005
For the NSA, Bush's executive order authorizing the interception of electronic communication without warrants, signed in late 2001, represents a dramatic shift from restrictions on domestic spying imposed after exposure in the mid-1970s of NSA operations against U.S. citizens.Before Bush's secret order, the NSA operated under strict limits on domestic intelligence collection. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 set up a secret federal court t
Source: NYT
Dec 19, 2005
Steve Blum has been spending his days locked up alone in a silent warehouse in central New Jersey, sorting through boxes of what looks like scrap metal.
But to him, the dusty shingles are buried treasure. These old dies and plates were once used to print items of great worth: bank notes, stock certificates and bond coupons, as well as postage stamps, tickets, playing cards and other types of paper ephemera.
The slabs, about an eighth of an inch thick and ranging from an
Source: KUsports.com
Dec 19, 2005
Aram Goudsouzian, a history professor at the University of Memphis, said Chamberlain's legacy should not be limited to his basketball prowess.
"He was a national icon," Goudsouzian said. "He was the first real, black celebrity star in college basketball."Chamberlain died in 1999, less than two years after seeing his number retired during a dramatic half-time ceremony at Allen Fieldhouse. He was 63.
In "Can Basket
Source: Edwin Black in the JTA
Dec 19, 2005
Iran’s president has shot to the forefront of Holocaust denial in recent days, but it may seem more like self-denial: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad need only look to his country’s Hitler-era past to discover that Iran and Iranians were connected to the Holocaust and the Nazi regime, as was the larger Arab and Islamic world under the leadership of the mufti of Jerusalem.
Iran’s links to the Third Reich began during the pre-World War II years when it welcomed Gestapo agents and other operative
Source: David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
Dec 19, 2005
America's journalism schools and newspaper publishers refused to aid Jewish refugee journalists who were fleeing Hitler, a leading Holocaust scholar revealed at a conference in Washington, D.C. this week.
Another speaker at the conference described how the leaders of elite American universities not only ignored the plight of Jews under Hitler in the 1930s, but actually engaged in actions that helped enhance the Hitler regime's image in the West.The information w
Source: NYT
Dec 19, 2005
WILMINGTON, N.C., Dec. 18 - Beneath canopies of moss-draped oaks, on sleepy streets graced by antebellum mansions, tour guides here spin stories of Cape Fear pirates and Civil War blockade-runners for eager tourists.
Only scant mention is made, however, of the bloody rioting more than a century ago during which black residents were killed and survivors banished by white supremacists, who seized control of the city government in what historians say is the only successful overthrow of
Source: NYT
Dec 19, 2005
First came the excitement over the discovery of a Colonial-era fortification in Battery Park. Now it's decision time: What should the New York City do with this massive relic?
City officials have conceded that the thick stone wall, which sits about nine feet below street level and perpendicular to the path of a planned subway tunnel, is too historically significant to cart off to a landfill. Archaeologists believe it was built at least 240 years ago and was either part of the batter
Source: South Coast Today
Dec 19, 2005
A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book." Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on
Source: Reuters
Dec 19, 2005
Britain ran a secret prison in Germany for two years after the end of World War II where inmates including Nazi party members were tortured and starved to death, the Guardian says.
Citing Foreign Office files that were opened after a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the newspaper says Britain had held men and woman at a prison in Bad Nenndorf until July 1947.
Locals at the time said you could hear prisoners scream at night.
Source: Mirror
Dec 19, 2005
Black people should appear on bank notes to show how Britain has evolved, a Labour think tank will say this week. A report from the Fabian Society will call for "practical measures" to create a new definition of Britishness which includes blacks and Asians.One measure recommended includes getting rid of Florence Nightingale, Edward Elgar, and Charles Darwin from notes, or even remove the Queen's face altogether.
In their place could come Victorian blac
Source: AP
Dec 19, 2005
Violence in 1898 that resulted in the only known forceful overthrow of a city government in U.S. history has historically been called a race riot but actually was an insurrection that white supremacists had planned for months, a state commission concludes.
The violence in Wilmington, which resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of black people, "was part of a statewide effort to put white supremacist Democrats in office and stem the political advances of black citizens,&qu
Source: Weekly Standard
Dec 19, 2005
FOR THE SECOND TIME IN recent weeks the Department of Defense has denied a request from The Weekly Standard to release unclassified documents recovered in postwar Iraq. These documents apparently reveal, in some detail, activities of Saddam Hussein's regime in the years before the war. This second denial could also be the final one: According to two Pentagon sources, the program designed to review, translate, and analyze data from the old Iraqi regime may be shuttered at the end of December, not
Source: ITP Business
Dec 18, 2005
Former art smuggling kingpin Michel van Rijn is less than impressed with police forces’ efforts to crack down on the black market for Iraqi antiquities.
Michel Van Rijn is well versed in the dark arts of antiquity trading, as well as the riches that can be made from them. Claimed by some to have once been responsible for 90% of international art smuggling, the Dutchman admits to having made millions from less than legal activities — and to having lost millions as well.
Source: AP
Dec 18, 2005
A German aid worker and archaeologist kidnapped in Iraq with her driver has been freed after three weeks in captivity, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced Sunday night.
He did not disclose any details about Susanne Osthoff's release.
''I am glad to be able to announce to you ... that Mrs. Susanne Osthoff is no longer in the hands of the kidnappers,'' Steinmeier said at a hastily arranged news conference. ''As of today, she is safely in the care of the Ger
Source: Independent on Sunday (London)
Dec 18, 2005
A huge bronze statue by Henry Moore, worth more than £3m and hailed by art historians as of 'exceptional' importance, has been stolen and, police fear, may be melted down and sold for scrap.
The massive modernist art-work, entitled A Reclining Figure, was taken from the Henry Moore Foundation sculpture park at Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, late on Thursday night.Police believe that a crane was used to hoist the 11ft by 8ft, two- ton statue on to a Mercedes f
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Dec 18, 2005
During the holiday season, George W. Bush is not only commander in chief, he is entertainer in chief. Before escaping to Camp David for Christmas later this week, President and Mrs. Bush will have welcomed 9,500 guests to the White House for 26 parties spread over 21 days.The events vary in tone and size. For intimacy and prestige, it's hard to top the small dinner for Bush family members and close friends. Legislators are feted at a black tie congressional ball.
Source: Australian
Dec 18, 2005
LISBON: Pope John Paul I, who died from an apparent heart attack just 33 days after becoming pontiff in 1978, was assassinated because of his plans to radically reform the Catholic church, according to a novel to be published next year.
Portuguese author and scriptwriter Luis Miguel Rocha said he based The Last Pope on documents he obtained through an undisclosed Vatican source, which he will make public when the novel is published in April.The nove
Source: NYT
Dec 18, 2005
FEW people who knew her could have been surprised when Susanne Osthoff was taken hostage in Iraq three weeks ago.
Impetuous, imperious and fearless, Ms. Osthoff, a German, had worked for years in Iraq as an archaeologist. After the American-led invasion, she campaigned to stop the looting of Iraq's spectacular archaeological sites.I have a personal interest in her fate. In June 2003, I bet my life on her and let her guide me to a scene of plundering
Source: Guardian (UK)
Dec 18, 2005
History teaching in British schools has become obsessed with the Second World War, at the expense of understanding other events that shaped Britain's national identity, an expert report warns.
Pupils are getting a 'Yo! Sushi experience of historical understanding', sampling a series of short, unconnected modules on detailed issues but unable to connect them into a broader picture, according to the Labour MP Gordon Marsden, who heads an informal advisory group on history teaching for
