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: Ralph Luker at Cliopatria
Oct 11, 2005
Remember the discussion of Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins six months ago? She'd been acclaimed as an African American novelist by no less an eminence than "Skip" Gates, when a Brandeis student turned up substantial evidence that Kelley-Hawkins was white. Among others, Henry Farrell, Caleb McDaniel, and Scott McLemee discussed the issue. Still, there were difficult holes in the research trail. Now, a researcher known only as Neil seems to have filled some major ones by locating Kelley-Hawki
Source: USA Today
Oct 11, 2005
The year 1948 resonates with Israelis just as 1776 does with Americans — as the year their nation was born in blood during a war for independence against all odds. For Palestinians, 1948 means something very different. It marks the defeat of the Arab armies, the failure of Palestinians to establish their own state and the beginning of exile. It was the year 750,000 Palestinians became refugees in neighboring Arab countries — the start of a period they call "The Catastrophe," or al-Nakb
Source: NYT
Oct 11, 2005
The U.S. government issued a statement of regret Tuesday for the actions of soldiers who took valuables belonging to Hungarian Jews that had been seized on a Nazi ''Gold Train'' during the chaotic end of World War II.
The statement issued by the U.S. Justice Department said that the government ''regrets the improper conduct of certain of its military personnel'' who took items that had been on the train, which was carrying jewelry, gold, artwork, Oriental rugs, china, cutlery, linen
Source: Fred Kaplan in Slate
Oct 11, 2005
Thomas C. Schelling won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences this week. Today's papers note his ingenious applications of "game theory" to labor negotiations, business transactions, and arms-control agreements. But what they don't note what is little-known in general is the crucial role he played in formulating the strategies of "controlled escalation" and "punitive bombing" that plunged our country into the war in Vietnam.
Schelli
Source: AP
Oct 11, 2005
A fresco attributed to 18th-century Italian painter Giandomenico Tiepolo has been discovered during the restoration of a church in Venice. The work, measuring 11.8 feet by 5.25 feet, is painted on a moon-shaped lunette behind the main altar of the Santa Maria Maddalena church and was found about three months ago, said Ilaria Cavaggioni, an architect who made the discovery while supervising restoration works in the church.A research of archive documentation has led experts to
Source: NYT
Oct 11, 2005
Justice Antonin Scalia, the first Italian-American to serve on the Supreme Court, returned to his hometown yesterday to lead the march along Fifth Avenue as grand marshal of the 61st Columbus Day Parade.
The highest-ranking government official to serve as grand marshal, Justice Scalia shares an honor bestowed in the past on the actress Sophia Loren, the racing champion Mario Andretti and the fashion designer Roberto Cavalli.
Despite Justice Scalia's prominence, few para
Source: NYT
Oct 11, 2005
"New Orleans was our womb and for most of us, it was going to be our grave," said Timothy Bordenave, who is living in a cottage here, a five-hour drive away from the city, describing the deep sense of lifelong connection felt to New Orleans by many of the city's Creoles, the population of mixed-race families who trace their roots to the city's French and Spanish colonial era.
The Creoles have been more distinctly connected to a place - New Orleans - than perhaps any other
Source: AP
Oct 11, 2005
The Polish nobleman who fought in New Jersey and in southern Ocean County finally received a hero's funeral on the 226th anniversary of the Revolutionary War battle in which he was mortally wounded. However, the mystery continues over whether the remains buried Sunday are those of Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski, who is considered the father of the American cavalry. He is a hero in Poland and among Polish-Americans for his sacrifice.
Source: CBS San Diego
Oct 11, 2005
The Republican Party chairman on Tuesday defended the GOP's outreach to black voters days after his Democratic counterpart questioned how he could make such an appeal in view of the Bush administration's tepid response to Hurricane Katrina. Ken Mehlman told the Waterbury, Conn.-chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that the "party of Lincoln and the African-American people have an incredible history together."He dismissed critici
Source: AP
Oct 11, 2005
Scientists digging in a remote Indonesian cave have uncovered a jaw bone that they say adds more evidence that a tiny prehistoric Hobbit-like species once existed. The jaw is from the ninth individual believed to have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago. The bones are in a wet cave on the island of Flores in the eastern limb of the Indonesian archipelago, near Australia.The research team which reported the original sensational finding nearly a year ago strongly believes th
Source: WP
Oct 10, 2005
It took a lot of digging to bring back to life the Spanish influenza virus of 1918. Some was done with invisible molecular primers in a PCR machine in Rockville. Some was done with pick and shovel in the frozen ground of Alaska. Either way, it was a huge amount of work on a project whose chance of success at the start seemed very, very slim. Now, it will go down as one of the most astonishing technical feats in the history of science -- the viral equivalent of bringing dinosaurs back in the fict
Source: Times Online (UK)
Oct 10, 2005
A PLAN drawn up by the Bush Administration to combat a pandemic bird flu outbreak reveals that America is grossly unprepared to deal with what would likely be the worst disaster in US history.
The 381-page draft plan, leaked by health officials who claim that it contains fundamental failures, predicts that a full-scale outbreak could kill as many as 1.9 million Americans and put 8.5 million in hospital at a cost of more than $450 billion (£256 billion).`
Source: altweeklies.com
Oct 10, 2005
North Carolina historian Timothy B. Tyson's review of Jesse Helms'"Here's Where I Stand" apparently was a little too tough for News & Observer editors. They balanced it with R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.'s valentine to Helms. Tyson says of the Raleigh newspaper's move:"I see it as an unprincipled change in a paper's policy for one book that won't be applied to other books, and the only explanation is Helms' fame, power and popularity. It tends to marginalize the work that I had done. The piece that I wr
Source: Chicago Tribune
Oct 10, 2005
Abraham Lincoln's story has been told in plays and movies, in poems and multi-volume biographies. Now it's being told in a guidebook for idiots."The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Legacy of Lincoln" promises readers a review of his life, presidency, oratory and impact on modern life — all in 332 pages chock full of bullet-points and info boxes.
Author Pamela Oldham admits the idea of an "idiot's guide" to such a complex, important figure sound
Source: Chicago Tribune/AP
Oct 10, 2005
The National Museum of American History recently acquired the 34-year-old modified soft-serve ice cream machine that was first used to mass-produce frozen margaritas."I have a pretty fertile imagination. I have big dreams," said Mariano Martinez, owner of the Dallas restaurant Mariano Hacienda where the margaritas were made. "But this is beyond what I ever imagined."
In 1971, Martinez hoped margaritas would set his eatery apart. But his barte
Source: Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
Oct 10, 2005
It's Columbus Day. Good luck finding a party.
Columbus, Ohio, which once celebrated Christopher Columbus with a parade and fireworks, has more modest plans today.
Columbus, Ind., has none.
Columbus, N.D. -- population 100 -- says it's too small to throw a shindig.Columbus, Pa., says the weather is usually too cold.
Does no Columbus celebrate the federal holiday anymore?
Actually, some do -- though not necessari
Source: Herald (Glasgow)
Oct 10, 2005
John Knox, whose name became a byword for strict and joyless Scots Protestantism, almost left Scotland after labelling the nation as "unthankful and miserable".
Five letters written by Knox which give details of the final years of Scotland's most famous Protestant reveal he came close to leaving Scotland to help spread Protestantism in Ireland, and was passing intelligence to the English government about Irish political intrigue.
The letters focus on
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Oct 10, 2005
Even though the National Capital Commission says it won't be using taxpayers' money to build a monument at LeBreton Flats, many Ottawa residents think the suggested $5-million price tag is too high.
The monument is being envisioned as about four storeys high and with a location at the intersection of Booth and Wellington streets. However, it is still unclear what kind of monument is being considered for the site.Yesterday, the Citizen polled about 20 Ottawa resi
Source: NYT
Oct 10, 2005
The new statue was bound to make a vivid impression in Trafalgar Square, a place as redolent of past military glory as any in London. For one thing, it depicts someone who is not male, not wearing a uniform and not dead.
But there's more. The statue, 11 feet 7 inches of snow-white Carrara marble, shows the naked, eight-and-a-half-month-pregnant figure of 40-year-old Alison Lapper, a single mother who was born with shortened legs and no arms. Ms. Lapper is a frie
Source: Al-Jazeera
Oct 10, 2005
Turkey's foreign minister says he is confident a court will dismiss charges against a best-selling Turkish writer who faces prison for his views on the massacres of Armenians 90 years ago.Orhan Pamuk has been charged with insulting Turkish identity for supporting Armenian claims that they suffered a genocide under Ottoman Turks in 1915. He faces three years in jail if convicted.Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Sunday sought to play down the controversy, telling Canal television that he expected
