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: LiveScience
Mar 21, 2013
A medieval monastery in Belgium went to major effort to drain wetlands on its land, building structures on artificially raised soil, a new study finds.Archaeologists excavated the Boudelo Abbey, once part of the medieval county of Flanders, in the 1970s. Until now, however, they had no idea that an extensive drained wetland surrounded the site. "They placed these abbeys in all sorts of marginal areas to cultivate," said study researcher Philippe De Smedt, a soil scientist at Ghent University in Belgium. In the High Middle Ages between the 12th and 14th centuries, Europe's population was growing, De Smedt told LiveScience. Monk labor provided a solution to the crowding by making the land livable....
Source: Trust
Mar 21, 2013
, A pre-Viking woollen tunic found beside a thawing glacier in south Norway shows how global warming is proving something of a boon for archaeology, scientists said on Thursday.
The greenish-brown, loose-fitting outer clothing - suitable for a person up to about 176 cms (5 ft 9 inches) tall - was found 2,000 metres (6,560 ft) above sea level on what may have been a Roman-era trade route in south Norway.
Carbon dating showed it was made around 300 AD....
Source: SciDaily
Mar 21, 2013
In the middle of the Bronze Age, around 1000 BC, the amount of metal objects increased dramatically in the Baltic Sea region. Around the same time, a new type of stone monument, arranged in the form of ships, started to appear along the coasts. New research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden shows that the stone ships were built by maritime groups....
Source: NYT
Mar 21, 2013
HAVANA — Kathleen Murphy Skolnik gasped one recent morning as she gazed up into the stairwell of a 1939 downtown apartment building here and pointed at the chevron pattern in the ironwork, at the unpolished rust-pink marble and a simple alcove on the stairway crowned by a stepped arch.“It’s so beautiful,” said Ms. Skolnik, an architectural historian who lives in Chicago. “And it’s so run-down.”Ms. Skolnik’s words serve as an unofficial motto for the rich, wide-ranging and often neglected buildings that, experts say, make Cuba one of the world’s most significant but overlooked troves of Art Deco architecture. As some 250 Cuban and foreign connoisseurs gathered last week in Havana for the World Congress on Art Deco, there was hope the event would foster wider recognition of the island’s Art Deco heritage and the urgent need to preserve it. (The gathering, of the World Congress of the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies, ends on Thursday.)...
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 21, 2013
London in the 1830s was the biggest city in the world and among the innovations that catered to its vast population was the gin palace. Shops at the time had been spruced up to entice the increasing number of locals who had a disposable income and these businesses, alluringly lit by newly arrived gas lighting and with large plate-glass windows to showcase their wares, provided inspiration for the first wave of gin palaces in the capital.The arrival of London’s gin palaces was preceded by a growing understanding of how to make increasingly sophisticated, palatable spirits, and a desire to consume them in an agreeable setting. Up to that point, most establishments selling alcohol were gloomy, unattractive places; the introduction of gin palaces, illuminated by gaslight and with an unusually ornate exterior, was an exciting addition to the urban landscape. (That said, the palaces’ interiors didn’t mirror their external elegance – they typically contained a long bar at one end, which faced a simple open space without seating.)...
Source: Guardian (UK)
Mar 21, 2013
It is probably the only town in Britain campaigning against a new library. But many in Glossop, nestled on the western edge of the Peak District, are very attached to their old one, Victoria Hall, a grand gothic revival hall purpose-built in 1888 on land donated by Francis Edward Howard, 2nd Lord Howard of Glossop.The hall, which is in need of major renovation after years of neglect, including to its unused upper floor with its retro-sprung dancefloor, is now at the centre of a complex and entrenched battle over a £4m pot of public money waiting to be spent.High Peak borough council is trustee of Victoria Hall but leases the ground floor for free to Derbyshire county council, the library service authority....
Source: NYT
Mar 21, 2013
NAIROBI, Kenya — American officials on Wednesday said that a team from the International Criminal Court was on its way to Rwanda to collect a war crimes suspect who had turned himself in to the American Embassy and that they were hoping Rwanda would cooperate.Rwanda has indicated that it would not interfere with the transfer of the suspect, Bosco Ntaganda, a rebel commander nicknamed the Terminator, to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, where he has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Source: NYT
Mar 21, 2013
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right government said Wednesday that it would not try to ban a far-right political party deemed “racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist” by domestic intelligence, choosing instead to focus on combating neo-Nazi extremism through other channels.The decision comes as Germany’s main political camps stake out their positions ahead of a general election in September, in which Ms. Merkel is seeking a third term in office. The chancellor’s main rivals, the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens, who control the upper house of Parliament, announced in December that they would seek to have the far-right National Democratic Party, or N.P.D., banned on grounds that it violated the Constitution.
Source: Salon
Mar 21, 2013
Guccifer, the notorious hacker who shared George W. Bush’s magnificent nude portraits with the rest of the world, is at it again, having released six more paintings in Bush’s seemingly expanding collection. Since images of the paintings first surfaced, the nation has learned that the former president is also an accomplished dog painter, having painted more than 50 dogs....
Source: Jamestown
Mar 20, 2013
A stunning historical discovery was made at the first meeting of the revived Russian Military History Society when President Vladimir Putin asserted that the Bolsheviks used Finnish “armed formations” for executing the coup in October 1917 (Rossiskaya Gazeta, March 14). Even more remarkable was his reinterpretation of the Winter War with Finland (1939–1940) as not an act of aggression aimed at subjugating a neighbor that rejected the Communist model, but merely an attempt to correct earlier mistakes of drawing the border too close to St. Petersburg (Vedomosti, March 14). Putin conceded that the first months of that war were “bloody and inefficient” but concluded on a positive note that necessary forces were eventually mobilized and “everything fell into their right places” so that “the other side felt the entire might of the Russian—then Soviet—state” (RIA Novosti, March 14). This glorification of Stalin’s militaristic expansionism adds only a tiny fresh dose of poison to Russian-Finnish relations, but it speaks volumes about Putin’s perception of the modern world and Russia’s place in it....
Source: Archaeology News Network
Mar 20, 2013
A 14,000-year-old engraved reindeer antler is possibly the first piece of early human art ever found. The specimen was uncovered in the 1800s and has been in the vast collections of the Natural History Museum. Its scientific importance, and clues as to how it was made are only now being revealed, scientists report today.Natural History Museum scientists have pieced together the antler's history. It was found between 1830 and 1848 in Neschers, France, by local village priest Jean-Baptiste Croizet. There are no known records of early human artwork finds before this time and so it is the first, or one of the first, discoveries of Stone Age portable art....
Source: NYT
Mar 20, 2013
An eight-cylinder 1933 Essex-Terraplane briefly used by the notorious bank robber and jail escapee John Dillinger is on display at the Indianapolis International Airport, where, according to airport representatives, it is attracting crowds of visitors.The car is owned by the Crime Museum in Washington, but has been shown at various other locations for the past four years. It was a guest at Baltimore-Washington Airport for two years, spent two more at the Richmond Convention Center and has now arrived in Indianapolis, where it appears roped off near the ticket counters. The Essex will be at the airport until March 2015....
Source: NYT
Mar 20, 2013
As a Dartmouth student in the early 1970s, William McDonough went, somewhat casually, to hear a lecture by a visiting celebrity. Mr. McDonough had little idea beforehand who Buckminster Fuller was, but listening to the designer and futurist had a long-term effect.Mr. McDonough was late and took one of the last seats left, in the front row. Three hours later, he realized that the rest of the audience was gone but that Mr. Fuller was still talking. “Do you want me to keep going?” Mr. Fuller asked politely but unnecessarily. They ended up taking a walk around campus, Mr. Fuller expostulating all the way.That evening put Mr. McDonough on the path to becoming a prominent architect, but it exists only in his memory, which used to be where just about everything about our pasts resided. Now Mr. McDonough is in the forefront of efforts to change that, to record instantaneously the major intellectual events in our lives. He will be the first living archive at Stanford University....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 20, 2013
Francisco Jalics, a Hungarian native who now lives in a German monastery, said that he was following up on comments about the case last week because he had received a lot of questions and "some commentaries imply the opposite of what I meant."He did not elaborate.Fr Jalics and another priest, Orlando Yorio, were kidnapped in 1976.Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, has said he told the priests to give up their work in slums for their own safety, and they refused. Yorio, who is now dead, later accused Fr Bergoglio of effectively delivering them to the death squads by declining to publicly endorse their work....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Mar 20, 2013
They are known for nothing if not their patience – which may be one explanation as to why it has taken anglers from the former East and West Germany 23 years to call a cold war truce.What gymnasts, chess players, swimmers and footballers managed fairly soon after unification in 1990, Germany's anglers have finally achieved, but only after years of bitter recrimination, deep suspicion and copious amounts of cultural prejudice on both sides.From autumn, the West German Association of German Sport Fishers (VDSF) and the East German Anglers' Association (DAV) will come together to form the Deutsche Angelfischerverband (German Anglers' Association) or DAFV....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Mar 20, 2013
The pope is infallible when, as head of the bishops of the church, he requires the faithful to believe a matter pertaining to faith or morals. This is the standard definition of infallibility. It goes no further. Should the pope stick his head out of doors and remark that it will be a nice day, he is just as liable to be snowed on as the next man.In practice, this means that the church debates a subject at great length and when the bishops and laity are in agreement, the pope makes an infallible pronouncement. The bishops' discussions before the announcement can take a long time; the doctrine of the immaculate conception was in debate for at least 1,300 years before being made official....
Source: WSJ
Mar 20, 2013
Officials in Memphis, Tenn., are girding for a rally called by a faction of the Ku Klux Klan at the end of the month, to protest the City Council's decision earlier this year to change the name of three Confederate-themed city parks.The council voted Feb. 5 to change the names of Confederate Park, Jefferson Davis Park, named for the Confederacy's president, and Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, named for a Confederate lieutenant general who was also the KKK's first grand wizard. The new names are Memphis Park, Mississippi River Park and Health Sciences Park, respectively, though the council may change those names later.The council's move came in response to a bill moving through the Tennessee Legislature this year that would forbid local governments from changing names of any parks or monuments named for wars or war heroes, including those involving the Civil War....
Source: NYT
Mar 20, 2013
...For decades public officials and countless city skeptics have insisted nothing can be done. Penn Station is a black hole of politics, they say. The owners of Madison Square Garden, which squats on top of the station preventing real improvement, would never budge, especially not with the millions of dollars in tax breaks they’ve been getting or the nearly $1 billion they have poured into the aging arena.But there are precedents for achieving the impossible.
Source: WaPo
Mar 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — Last year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked the Democratic convention platform for its “shameful” decision to omit a reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But in a sign of how U.S. politics have changed in 40 years, President Richard Nixon complained in 1972 of the Democrats’ ”dishonest” platform language declaring the city Israel’s capital.Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, agreed with his condemnation during a previously unreported taped conversation from June 29, 1972. “To make Jerusalem the capital of Israel is not the platform of a major American national party,” Henry Kissinger told Nixon. “That is what I find so revolting here.” The tape is one of a collection housed at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.On Wednesday, Barack Obama arrived in Israel for his first visit there as president — about six months after telling Democratic Party officials to reinstate language from previous convention platforms stating Jerusalem is the Israeli capital....
Source: WaPo
Mar 20, 2013
...On Friday, Young and several of his relatives gathered at David and Patricia Young’s residence, set to fulfill Guiffre’s request by giving the sword to Hungarian officials in a ceremony at the Hungarian Embassy in Washington. An event after the ceremony honored the 165th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight in 1848-49.Andras Szorenyi, political and public affairs officer with the Embassy of Hungary, said in an email the saber is a ceremonial sword that dates back to the 19th century, and is therefore an important part of Hungarian history.“The experts need to do further research to link it to a specific event or period of time but we appreciate the symbolic value of receiving it from Mr. Young,” Szorenyi wrote. “It is a good example of the excellent people-to-people relations between our countries. ... We will do our best to find the most fitting venue for the sword to be displayed and contribute to telling Hungarian history.”...
