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: WaPo
Jan 16, 2013
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — While the nation struggles to agree on how to curb gun violence, followers of a man gunned down nearly 45 years ago think his wisdom offers an answer.The words of Martin Luther King Jr. and the role he set for churches in leading a nonviolent response to civil injustice are as applicable today as they were in the 1960s, say his younger daughter and other followers.Bernice King, chief executive of the King Center in Atlanta, recalls a sobering statement from her father: “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence, but nonviolence and nonexistence.”King’s lessons take on new urgency after one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, when a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., last month, killing 20 children and 6 adults....
Source: LiveScience
Jan 16, 2013
A series of storms that hit Scotland's Shetland Islands over the holidays revealed what archaeologists believe could be 2,000-year-old human remains.Police were initially called to the scene when storms eroded a cliff at Channerwick and exposed the skeleton, but officials soon determined that they wouldn't have to open a homicide investigation.Local archaeologist Chris Dyer said the ancient skeleton looked as if it were contemporary with the remains of Iron Age structures revealed nearby. Researchers then identified evidence of one or possibly two more burials at the site, but another storm caused a further chunk of the cliff to crumble, covering up the discovery....
Source: NYT
Jan 16, 2013
MIAMI BEACH — When South Beach was little more than a forlorn chunk of beachfront property, preservationists clung to the idea that the faded, often derelict pastel buildings lining the streets were too precious to knock down.Their campaign to preserve the area’s fanciful Art Deco buildings ushered in one of the country’s most successful urban revivals. Years later, South Beach is still a juggernaut.Preservationists are now pushing hard to bolster historic preservation laws, a move that has ruffled wealthy property owners (and potential buyers) and stepped up pressure on local commissioners who are reluctant to wade into the politically precarious battle....
Source: LiveScience
Jan 15, 2013
Ignorance about the extent of racism in history might explain why some people perceive less racism today than others, researchers say.
Source: WaPo
Jan 15, 2013
JERUSALEM — Israel’s national museum said Tuesday it will open what it calls the world’s first exhibition devoted to the architectural legacy of biblical King Herod, the Jewish proxy monarch who ruled Jerusalem and the Holy Land under Roman occupation two millennia ago.The display includes the reconstructed tomb and sarcophagus of one of antiquity’s most notable and despised figures, curators say.Modern day politics are intruding into this ancient find. Palestinians object to the showing of artifacts found in the West Bank. The Israeli museum insists it will return the finds once the exhibit closes....
Source: WaPo
Jan 15, 2013
As he looked across a room filled with civil rights veterans, White House officials and leaders from corporate America, Martin Luther King III said that the issues his father championed and died for have yet to be fulfilled in many communities across the country.“My heart is heavy today! A people who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat their mistakes,” said King, who spoke at a luncheon in the District, sponsored by the National Action Network, that was held on what would have been his father’s 84th birthday.The Rev. Al Sharpton, the group’s president, hosted events in Washington and New York on Tuesday in honor of the slain civil rights leader, but he told community leaders to beware of reducing King’s legacy to the commemorative events held around his birthday.“Martin Luther King can’t be reduced to a ceremony,” Sharpton said....
Source: NYT
Jan 15, 2013
WASHINGTON — When the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence wanted to promote more restrictions on firearms after the Connecticut school shootings in December, it turned to a firm to help publicize its position. The firm’s name? Point Blank Public Affairs....The ubiquitous nature of such language has caused people on both sides of the emotional debate in recent weeks to take back, or at least think twice about the phrases they use, lest they inadvertently cause offense in a moment of heightened sensitivity.“It’s almost second nature,” said Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs for the National Rifle Association. “They’re such mainstream phrases, you almost have to check yourself and double-check yourself.”But it also says something about the long American romance with guns and the nation’s self image. “All of that ties into the frontier tradition, rugged individualism, a single American with a flintlock or a gun of some kind holding off the Indians or fighting off the British,” said Robert Spitzer, a scholar of gun control at the State University of New York at Cortland....
Source: Politico
Jan 15, 2013
President Obama had fewer press conferences during his first term than any other president since Ronald Reagan, Politico reports.With Monday's event, Obama has done a total of 79 over four years. That's 10 fewer than George W. Bush, 54 fewer than Bill Clinton and 63 fewer than George H.W. Bush.Reagan had only 27 press conferences during his first term.
Source: PressZoom
Jan 14, 2013
University of Virginia history professor Philip Zelikow stands by the statue of the “Bird Man,” as many on Grounds call it, and tells who the statue represents and how the sculptor interpreted the man’s story. Zelikow describes the statue as a symbol of how the world entered the modern age after World War I.His lesson is part of the video that introduces his massive open online course, or MOOC. “The Modern World: Global History Since 1760” debuts today on Coursera, an online education company started last year by two Stanford University professors.Zelikow, the White Burkett Miller Professor of History, is one of five U.Va. professors teaching the first group of MOOCs this semester, who have been working hard to make interesting videos and adapt educational materials to virtual classrooms full of unprecedented numbers of students.U.Va. is among 33 universities whose faculty are offering courses through Coursera. More than 2 million people around the world have signed up for the classes....
Source: WaPo
Jan 14, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History working with farmers to build a new collection showing the evolution of modern agriculture.The museum announced Monday that it’s working with the American Farm Bureau Federation to collect items that reflect innovation in farming and ranching over the past 70 years. Curators are seeking stories, photographs and objects for a future exhibition.The first donation was announced by a Tennessee farmer at the farm bureau’s annual meeting in Nashville. A multigenerational dairy will donate a computer cow tag system and photographs to show how the dairy became a modernized operation.The museum will open a web portal in March to collect stories and photographs online....
Source: WaPo
Jan 14, 2013
Now that the Treasury Department has nixed the odd idea of issuing a platinum coin to get around the federal debt limit, Congress once again will be forced to decide whether to raise the debt limit.When this issue last loomed in 2011, we looked deeply at the question of whether the United States had ever defaulted before. (Answer: It is not entirely unprecedented. There are three instances when the United States could be seen to have defaulted on its obligations — in 1790, in 1933 and in 1971.)The debt limit covers both publicly-held debt and debts the United States owes to itself (bonds to Social Security and Medicare for future obligations) so no matter what happens, the debt limit will have to be raised, one way or the other....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 13, 2013
It is the most famous battle in British history, fought, as every schoolboy knows, in 1066 at a site now marked by Battle Abbey, near the town of Hastings.But while the date of the Battle of Hastings might still be universally accepted, the location has been called into question, with two experts proposing not one but two different sites for where the fighting actually took place.They believe that for almost a 1,000 years, the battle has been commemorated at the wrong spot, with one historian claiming the fighting actually occurred a mile to the north, on Caldbec Hill, and another stating it was two miles away, to the south, at a place called Crowhurst....
Source: Joel Achenbach in the WaPo
Jan 13, 2013
Your reporter worked hard this week on a story describing the evolution of the NRA. I can’t imagine there’s anything controversial here. Here’s the top:By Joel Achenbach, Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz (with contributions from Alice Crites, Julie Tate, Magda Jean-Louis and Tom Hamburger)In gun lore it’s known as the Revolt at Cincinnati. On May 21, 1977, and into the morning of May 22, a rump caucus of gun rights radicals took over the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association.The rebels wore orange-blaze hunting caps. They spoke on walkie-talkies as they worked the floor of the sweltering convention hall. They suspected that the NRA leaders had turned off the air-conditioning in hopes that the rabble-rousers would lose enthusiasm....
Source: NYT
Jan 12, 2013
NEW ORLEANS— The project has already taken almost as long as the war it chronicles, and the most difficult part is yet to come. But on Sunday, when the National World War II Museum opens its third building here, it will be just midway through a strategic expansion, creating a $325 million campus of six buildings, extending along three square blocks near the Pontchartrain Expressway. What is promised by 2016 is an epic survey of the American experience during the war.
Source: WaPo
Jan 12, 2013
It was in Union-occupied Alexandria in 1863 that Pvt. Henry Vanderwater, a member of the 1st District of Columbia Volunteers stationed there to defend Washington, got himself in trouble. He gave a military roster to a local newspaper, which promptly printed it. For the offense of aiding the enemy — the roster would indicate how well or poorly the town was protected — he faced a court-martial, was found guilty and received a sentence of three months hard labor and a dishonorable discharge.Vanderwater’s court-martial would have remained a minor and forgotten piece of history if prosecutors in the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning hadn’t cited the case during pre-trial hearings this past week. Manning is charged with indirectly aiding the enemy. While on active duty in Baghdad, he allegedly sent thousands of military records to the whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks, which then published them, giving the world, including al-Qaeda, access to the material....
Source: WaPo
Jan 12, 2013
A new year was just beginning — an extraordinary year, in which so much would change.Half a century ago, on Jan. 14, 1963, George Wallace took the podium to give his inaugural address as governor of Alabama. His words framed a fiery rejoinder to a civil rights movement gathering strength.“I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny,” he thundered, “and I say, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”Fifty years later, the words still have the power to shock. In college classes like “The Sixties in History and Memory,” today’s students recoil....
Source: AP
Jan 12, 2013
New York City police say an 18th century cannon was found loaded with gun powder and a cannon ball during a routine cleaning at the Central Park Conservancy....
Source: Fox News
Jan 12, 2013
The U.S. military is preparing its first search in eight years for remains of American soldiers lost in Myanmar during World War II, an official said Friday.The resumption of the search is a product of the revived U.S. ties with the country also known as Burma after its government initiated democratic reforms....About 730 Americans are missing, mostly U.S. air crews that went down in the rugged northern mountains and dense jungles while flying supplies from India to China....
Source: Fox News
Jan 12, 2013
The sweepstakes to become the site of the future Barack Obama presidential library is underway with universities in Chicago and Hawaii the apparent frontrunners.The University of Hawaii, where Obama’s parents attended college, has made the most public effort – purportedly talking to officials at existing presidential libraries and at the National Archives, which plays an A-to-Z role from supplying artifacts to running the facilities.However, the University of Chicago, where Obama was a law professor for 12 years, is widely expected to be chosen, despite making no public comments about its reported interest....
Source: AP
Jan 12, 2013
HARTBEESPOORT, South Africa — Do you remember your first kiss? If you have a few years under your belt, maybe you stole it in the back of the movie theater, the projector whirring in the darkness. Or rather, back of the “bioscope,” a word for the cinema in South Africa in the old days.The fantasy world of “Pretville,” a Grease-style film musical in the Afrikaans language, celebrates 1950s Americana, the thrill of first love and foot-tapping classics that evoke innocence and discovery.It is also an affirmation of an Afrikaner identity that spent years in the doghouse after 1994 elections and the end of apartheid, the system of white minority rule imposed by Afrikaner nationalists in 1948. And while most of the actors are white, two who are not play authority figures, lampooning the now-discarded racial order....
