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: Armenian News Network/Groong
Sep 8, 2005
In letters sent to to the Speakers of parliaments of Switzerland,Poland, Slovakia, Lebanon, Canada, Argentina, Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Uruguay, Sweden, Russian Federation and Venezuela, Turkey's Parliament Speaker, Bulent Arinc expressed sorrow and disappointment about the adoption of resolutions accusing Turkey of carrying out a genocide, and said: "It is unacceptable that the history be used as a tool for political intentions that can cause prejudice agai
Source: The Australian
Sep 8, 2005
Academics have been warned to defend themselves against renewed attacks by history warriors as a dispute between traditional and private landowners in western Victoria becomes the focus of a new battleground in the Aboriginal history wars. Monash University Associate Professor Bain Attwood yesterday used the launch of his new book, Telling The Truth About Aboriginal History, to attack history commentator Keith Windschuttle and others he labels the new conservatives.ACADEMICS
Source: NYT
Sep 8, 2005
Many curators, archivists and preservation advocates are beginning to tally the losses in the areas hardest hit by the hurricane, even as emergency workers turn to the more essential tasks of gathering the dead and providing supplies. For preservationists in Mississippi no less is at stake than the region's architectural patrimony.
Source: US Newswire
Sep 8, 2005
At a press conference this morning, Dr. Kenneth Thibodeau, Director of the Electronic Records Archives Program, announced the formation of a high-level committee to advise and make recommendations to Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein on issues related to the development, implementation and use of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) system. This committee is named the Advisory Committee on the Electronic Records Archives (ACERA).In making the announcement, Dr.
Source: MSNBC
Sep 7, 2005
With rescue operations in New Orleans focused on saving lives and restoring order in the hurricane battered city, little effort has been made so far to catalog the damage to the city’s considerable historic and cultural landmarks. With no official accounting yet available, the best those charged with assessing such things could do is to study satellite photos of the city and rely on eyewitness accounts and bloggers for their information.The hurricane and subsequent flooding
Source: NYT
Sep 7, 2005
The Palestinian who masterminded the raid on the 1972 Munich Olympics has complained that the director Steven Spielberg did not seek his expertise in making his new film about the events that led to the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and the Israeli revenge assassinations that followed, Reuters reported. The planner, Mohammad Daoud, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location in the Middle East, told Reuters: "If someone really wanted to tell the truth about what happened, he should t
Source: NYT
Sep 7, 2005
School districts from Maine to Washington State were enrolling thousands of students from New Orleans and other devastated Gulf Coast districts yesterday in what experts said could become the largest student resettlement in the nation's history. Schools welcoming the displaced students must not only provide classrooms, teachers and textbooks, but under the terms of President Bush's education law must also almost immediately begin to raise their scholastic achievement unless some provisions of th
Source: Romanesko
Sep 7, 2005
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they go out to search for storm victims. Also, the agency says: "We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media."
Source: OpenTheGovernment.org
Sep 7, 2005
A new publication from the coalition OpenTheGovernment.org provides some quantitative benchmarks that confirm and document the rise in official secrecy. Metrics cited in the report range from formal classification -- which is at a record high -- to the fraction of federal advisory committee meetings closed to the public -- nearly two-thirds.
Source: Boston Globe
Sep 7, 2005
Willa Cather won the Pulitzer Prize and appeared on the cover of Time magazine when that meant something. She gained critical and eventual commercial success for books like "O Pioneers!" and "My Antonia" and wrote one of the great books of the 20th century, "Death Comes for the Archbishop." Her work is secure in the American literary canon. ... Tonight, PBS's "American Masters" reintroduces her to us in a 90-minute documentary, a solid, earnest eff
Source: Seattle Times
Sep 7, 2005
Recently conservative columnist Michelle Malkin argued in "In Defense of Internment" that the rounding up of Japanese Americans during World War II was justified on military grounds. Most historians dispute that judgment. And now Greg Robinson, assistant professor of history at the University of Quebec at Montreal, has drawn attention to a letter written by John J. McCloy that undermines Malkin's argument. The letter, dated July 23, 1942, is to Robert Patterson,
Source: Nature.com
Sep 7, 2005
Scientists have discovered a way to slow the disintegration of old manuscripts. The technique involves bathing papers in an organic solution doped with alkali compounds and antioxidants. These help to tie up atoms of copper and other metals in the ink that may eat the paper away. It is the first successful treatment that is not water-based, the researchers announced at the annual conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Dublin on 5 September.Th
Source: NYT
Sep 7, 2005
We are just beginning to appreciate the human disaster occurring in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast. It also faces the loss of some of America's most notable historical architecture. Maybe not in the French Quarter, which may emerge relatively intact, or the Garden District, which was spared most of the flooding. The dangers lie in neighborhoods like Treme and Mid-City, which extend along Bayou Road toward Lake Pontchartrain and are rich in 18th and 19th century homes, shops, churches and soci
Source: History Today
Sep 6, 2005
MI5 files declassified at the National Archives detail the propaganda techniques intended for use against Britain by Nazi agents. In the Second World War the security services uncovered plots including an exploding chocolate bar, shaving brush detonators and bombs disguised as coal. False copies of the London Evening Standard were produced by the British, intended to cover-up reports of RAF fatalities. One Nazi propaganda leaflet stated: "Germany wants to live in peace
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2005
A book about the deadly 1927 flood along the Mississippi River has become a strong online seller since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, The Associated Press reported. "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America" had risen to No. 11 on Amazon.com's best-seller list by yesterday afternoon. The book, by a New Orleans resident, John M. Barry, describes the history and politics behind a flood that killed 1,000 people and displaced 900,000 from Lo
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2005
A coin owned by generations of a California family has been confirmed by numismatists as one of 12 known quarter eagle coins that were made of Gold Rush ore in 1854 at the San Francisco Mint. "The coin is only about the size of a dime and contains just one-eighth ounce of California gold, but I guarantee it will be worth much more than its weight in gold when it's sold at the auction," said John Kraljevich, director of research at American Numismatic Rarities of Wolfeboro, which authen
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2005
As a Supreme Court law clerk more than two decades ago, John G. Roberts Jr. learned how not to be chief justice. His boss back in 1980-81 was an associate justice, one who often chafed under the leadership style of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and who freed, even encouraged, his law clerks to poke fun at what they saw as the chief justice's pomposity and penchant for self-aggrandizement.Later, when Mr. Roberts was working in the White House counsel's office, me
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2005
Dr. Daniel A. Ruge, the White House physician who made crucial decisions in the care of President Ronald Reagan after he was shot in 1981, died Aug. 30 in Denver. He was 88. Mr. Reagan went back to the White House 12 days after the shooting. Many doctors credited his recovery, if not his survival, to Dr. Ruge's decision not to disrupt the hospital's routine.
But Dr. Ruge later said in interviews with this reporter that he erred in neglecting to invoke the 25th A
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Sep 6, 2005
Olaudah Equiano's famous first-person account of the Middle Passage in his 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, has become the definitive version of the harrowing journey endured by slaves transported across the ocean. But what if Equiano did not make the journey?Vincent Carretta did not set out to question Equiano's tale, but in the process of his research, he uncovered evidence in public records that E
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Sep 6, 2005
Tulane University announced Friday and Loyola University on Sunday that they would not open for the fall semester in the wake of the damage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The universities’ announcements came as leaders of key higher education groups issued guidelines for colleges to use in helping students unable to attend college in New Orleans. Other colleges in New Orleans may well be forced to make similar decisions. And academic meetings scheduled to t
