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
Sep 15, 2005
Presidents have displayed a tendency to declare more disasters in years when they face re-election. Mary W. Downton of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Roger A. Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado, Boulder, for example, looked at the flood-related disasters that were declared from 1965 to 1997 in an article published in "Natural Hazards Review" in 2001. Even after accounting for the amount of precipitation and flood damage each year, they found that the average num
Source: Helsingin Sanomat (Finland)
Sep 15, 2005
Finland repatriated most Soviet citizens who tried to defect by crossing into Finland from the late 1950s onward.
A new book claims that contrary to suspicions in Western countries, the tough line was not based on any secret agreements between Finland and the Soviet Union, but rather a policy that was unilaterally implemented by President Urho Kekkonen after he took office in 1956.Nevertheless, according to the book Ei armoa Suomen selkänahasta ("No mercy a
Source: AP
Sep 15, 2005
Records showing that Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith was arrested while living in upstate New York have resurfaced after a three-decade absence. The documents dating back to the late 1820s were recently handed over to the Chenango County Historical Society by a man whose mother used to be the county's historian.The current county historian, Dale Storms, says the records pertain to Smith's arrests for "glass looking," a 19th-century term for treasure
Source: AP
Sep 15, 2005
E.H. Gombrich's "A Little History of the World" was an instant success and has been translated into 18 languages, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. But for decades there was no English translation, even though Gombrich spent much of his life in London and wrote his other books in English.
Seventy years after it was rushed into print, a history book beloved by readers of all ages around the world is finally coming out in English.Unemployed at th
Source: WSJ
Sep 14, 2005
The 372,000 schoolchildren displaced by Hurricane Katrina are stirring an old debate about whether separate education can really be equal. A number of states, including Utah and Texas, want to teach some of the dispersed Gulf Coast students in shelters instead of in local public schools, a stance supported by the Bush administration and some private education providers. But advocates for homeless families and civil rights oppose that approach. At the center of the dispute is whether the McKinney
Source: AP
Sep 14, 2005
It took more than 60 years, but the final letter of a soldier killed in World War II finally made it home. Gary Mathis bought a box of old newspapers at a yard sale in Kansas, and discovered the letter inside a newspaper from 1915. The letter, with military markings from France, was postmarked March 6, 1944. It was addressed to W.J. Krotz of nearby Poole, about 120 miles west of Lincoln.
Mathis placed an announcement and picture of the letter in the Ravenna New
Source: Boston Globe
Sep 14, 2005
More than 116 years before Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, a flood in Johnstown exposed the rift between rich and poor, the kindness of strangers and, in the end, the power of the human spirit to rebuild. "It's more than just a disaster. It was the biggest story of the late 19th century," said Richard Burkert, executive director of the Johnstown Flood Museum.
In 1889, flooding wasn't anything new to the approximately 25,000 residents in this v
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/14/politics/14terror.html
Sep 14, 2005
American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," according to previously secret portions of a report prepared last year by the Sept. 11 commission. The officials also realized months before the Sept. 11 attacks that two of the three airports used in the hijackings had suffered repeated security lapses.
Source: NYT
Sep 14, 2005
A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday, a decision that could put the divisive issue on track for another round of Supreme Court arguments.
The case was brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words ''under God'' was rejected last year by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds.
Source: Korea.net
Sep 14, 2005
A document retrieved nearly 40 years ago from Bulguk-sa Temple in Gyeongju, South Korea has been identified as an 11th or 12th century Goryeo Kingdom record of the restoration work done on the temple's Seokgatap Pagoda, one of the nation's most famous structures, said the National Museum of Korea on Wednesday.
Experts expect the handwritten document, made up of some 100 palm-sized sheets of mulberry paper, will provide a more accurate account of the stone pagoda's history.
Source: Scoop
Sep 14, 2005
Thirty-two Tibetan cultural relics returned to the mainland will be auctioned by Chengming International Auction Company on September 17 in Beijing. The relics are now on display at the Asia Hotel until September 15.
Huang Jing, president of Chengming International Auction Company, said these relics, held previously by a Taiwan collector, are all from Tibet and most of them are connected with Tibetan Buddhism. Experts say these relics are of high historical and
Source: Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Sep 14, 2005
During the next two weeks students in public schools and colleges will learn about the United States Constitution while abiding by a new federal law. A provision tacked onto an appropriations bill late last year by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., requires federally funded educational institutions - elementary schools and universities alike - to observe the first Constitution Day.Byrd, a history buff known for keeping a copy of the Constitution in his pocket at all times, sough
Source: Boston Globe
Sep 14, 2005
It has taken 60 years for Germany's soccer federation to face up to a dark period in its history when it collaborated with the Nazis. A new book, "Fussball underm Hakenkreuz" ("Soccer under the Swastika") is a first, if belated, attempt by the federation (DFB) to look at the dirt swept under the carpet immediately after the collapse of the Nazi regime it once wholeheartedly backed.The book illuminates how closely the DFB cooperated with the Na
Source: AP
Sep 14, 2005
More than 116 years before Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, a flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania exposed the rift between rich and poor, the kindness of strangers and, in the end, the power of the human spirit to rebuild. "It's more than just a disaster. It was the biggest story of the late 19th century," said Richard Burkert, executive director of the Johnstown Flood Museum.
In 1889, flooding wasn't anything new to the approximately 25,000 residents in this valley t
Source: Salon
Sep 13, 2005
New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward was a historic black neighborhood, home to Fats Domino, abandoned by government, and the "murder capital of the murder capital." Now that it has been destroyed by Katrina, will its loyal inhabitants be able to return?
Source: Guardian (UK)
Sep 13, 2005
For more than half a century, historians have wondered what the Nazis would have done had they won the second world war. Now the matter can be settled. A report, unread for 65 years, reveals the Nazis' top priority once they had destroyed the allies, exterminated the Jews and occupied Europe. They were going to build a big, flash nightspot in Berlin.
"It'll be the most beautiful, the most modern, the most elegant in Europe", enthused the report's author, Giuseppe Renzetti.
Source: NYT
Sep 13, 2005
An early reference to Alexander of Macedon is the first hint of where the British Museum is heading in its new exhibition, "Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia." After all, to Persians then and Iranians now, there was nothing great about the Alexander who crushed the largest empire the world had yet known. Indeed, his burning of Persepolis in 331 B.C. was considered an act of vandalism.But the show, which runs through Jan. 8, goes further, challenging the
Source: NYT
Sep 13, 2005
In the years since the first book was published in the United States in 1941, "George" has become an industry. The books have sold more than 27 million copies. There have been several "Curious George" films, including an animated one featuring the voice of Will Ferrell that is scheduled for release this February, and theater productions, not to mention the ubiquitous toy figure. Next year, PBS will begin a Curious George series for pre-schoolers. But in truth, "Curious G
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Sep 13, 2005
Iraq's children have returned to school for the start of a fresh academic year with a new syllabus that has all but erased Saddam Hussein from its history. After two years of debate, the education department has completed textbooks to replace those that portrayed the past purely from a Baathist view.However, in a tribute to the sensitivities of post-Saddam Iraq, the revised version of history is, on some subjects, as partial and shot through with gaps as the old.
Source: NYT
Sep 13, 2005
China said on Monday that it would no longer treat the death toll in natural disasters as a state secret, a step that could lead to greater transparency in a country that has a long history of providing partial or misleading data about diseases, accidents, and state-directed atrocities.Information about casualties in storms and floods is no longer routinely suppressed in China, as it was before the country opened its doors to the outside world a quarter century a
