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 7, 2013
The two sites have little in common, save perhaps the fact that each was started by a small group of women who have developed deep expertise in their particular field of interest: American Food Roots on the history and evolution of U.S. gastronomy and Food Tank on the contradictory and problematic Western food system.In early December, four D.C.-area food writers launched American Food Roots, led by NPR contributor Bonny Wolf , who conceived of the project years ago. Wolf recruited three other culinary scribes — Domenica Marchetti, Michele Kaya l and Carol Guensburg — to start building out the site in September 2011.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 5, 2013
Crude and vicious anti-Semitism; narrow, bigoted nationalism; and total indifference to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people – these are not attitudes we expect from philosophers. On the contrary, these academic thinkers are supposed to have sophisticated ethical outlooks. They aim to be supremely rational, and to believe only what they can show to be true.
Source: NYT
Jan 3, 2013
“For 63 years, I lived with the stigma of being a traitor. The truth is I helped save South Korea during one of its most critical times.”
Source: NYT
Jan 3, 2013
New light cast on an era that shaped Britain for decades, crushing the power of labor unions and establishing an ideological reverence for market forces.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 3, 2013
Cristina Kirchner, the Argentine President, has been left “frustrated” by the refusal of other Latin American nations to back Argentina’s long-standing claim to the Islands, Klaus Dodds, Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, said.An emotional open letter from Kirchner to David Cameron demanding the return of the Islands which she claims were “forcibly stripped” from her country, published today in the Guardian newspaper, is a sign of “profound weakness,” Prof Dodds said.The Islands had no established Argentine population at the time the British took control - and Mrs Kirchner's country was itself an ambitious colonial power in the nineteenth century, he added....
Source: CNN.com
Jan 3, 2013
(CNN) - One of the most anticipated articles in religion circles will be absent from the pages of the January edition of the Harvard Theological Review. Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King's final article on the "Jesus wife" fragment did not make the scholarly journal because further testing on the Coptic papyrus fragment has not been finished.King announced the findings of the 1.5-by-3 inch, honey-colored fragment in September at the International Association for Coptic Studies conference in Rome. In a draft version of the article submitted for publication in the January edition, King and her co-author said the scrap had written in Coptic, a language used by Egyptian Christians, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife," but was then cut off.King said the fragment dates to the 4th century but could be a copy of an early gospel from the 2nd century. King and her research partners dubbed the hypothetical text "the Gospel of Jesus' Wife."Despite King's insistence, the discovery did not prove anything definitive on the marital status of Jesus....
Source: Discovery News
Jan 3, 2013
Swedish scientists have solved the mystery over a a zinc coffin found 21 years ago at the German estate of Hitler's right-hand man, Hermann Göring, by identifying the skeletal remains as those of Göring's first wife Carin.Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Carin Fock married the decorated pilot Hermann Göring in 1923. The couple settled in Germany, where Carin enjoyed a high social status as the wife of a central leader in the growing National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)."Adolf Hitler liked her. She has been called the mascot of the Nazi party," Marie Allen, professor of forensic genetics at Uppsala University, Sweden, and colleagues wrote in the journal PLoS ONE....
Source: ScienceNordic
Jan 2, 2013
The hedge around your house is much more than just a random shrub with green leaves. It’s a symbol of private property and marks the boundary between what’s mine and what’s yours.The idea to enclose and define with straight lines is actually an ancient one.Some of the first archaeological evidence of landscape boundaries dates back to England around 1,500 BC, but 500 years later it also appears in the rest of Northwestern Europe.“From being a predominantly open landscape with large commons with scattered trees and bushes, the landscape became dominated by linear demarcation lines. People started to enclose their fields and suddenly started building embankments and trenches around their houses and villages,” says PhD student Mette Løvschal, who works at Aarhus University’s Department of Culture and Society – Section for Prehistoric Archaeology, where she is using archaeological finds and anthropological theories to try and solve the riddle of when, how and why we suddenly started enclosing what was ours....
Source: Fox News
Jan 2, 2013
A Washington-based group that has long questioned the official version of John F. Kennedy's assassination says the city of Dallas is trampling its rights by barring it from Dealey Plaza for this year's 50th anniversary of the murder of the nation's 35th president.The Coalition on Political Assassinations has gathered every year since 1994 at the site where Kennedy was killed by a sniper on Nov. 22, 1963. The group typically observes a moment of silence and members often give speeches. But this year it was denied a permit, the group's director told FoxNews.com. "It's ironic that the city wants to celebrate JFK's life -- and not his death -- at the very place where he was assassinated," John Judge, the executive director of the group, said. "They are afraid of the thousands of people that will come to the site to commemorate his death and call for the truth."...
Source: Fox News
Jan 1, 2013
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Hatfield clan New Year's attack on Randolph McCoy's cabin marked a turning point in America's most famous feud -- the homestead was set ablaze, and two McCoys were gunned down. Hatfield family members and supporters were soon thrown in jail.Artifacts recently unearthed appear to pinpoint the location of the 1888 ambush in the woods of Pike County in eastern Kentucky. Excavators found bullets believed to have been fired by the McCoys in self-defense, along with fragments of windows and ceramic from the family's cabin."This is one of the most famous conflicts in American history, and we've got bullets fired from one of the key battles. It doesn't get any better than that," said Bill Richardson, a West Virginia University extension professor who was part of the recent discovery....
Source: Discovery News
Jan 1, 2013
Two centuries after the French people beheaded Louis XVI and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, scientists believe they have authenticated the remains of one such rag kept as a revolutionary souvenir.Researchers have been trying for years to verify a claim imprinted on an ornately decorated calabash that it contains a sample of the blood of the French king guillotined in Paris on January 21, 1793.The dried, hollowed squash is adorned with portraits of revolutionary heroes and the text: "On January 21, Maximilien Bourdaloue dipped his handkerchief in the blood of Louis XVI after his decapitation"....
Source: BBC/AFP
Jan 1, 2013
A team of scientists have said they believe an old gourd contains the blood of French King Louis XVI.
The monarch was killed by guillotine by French revolutionaries more than 200 years ago, on 21 January 1793.
The scientists said the DNA is very similar to genetic material from what is believed to be the mummified head of an earlier French king, AFP reports...
The team of experts from Spain and France has published its findings in Forensic Science International journal.
Analysis of DNA taken from blood traces found inside the vegetable container had already revealed that it probably matched someone of Louis' description but scientists could not prove it belonged to the beheaded king as they had no genetic material from any of his relatives...
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Dec 31, 2012
A new documentary has cast doubt on Neil Armstrong's claims that he came up with his iconic 'one small step' line hours after touching down on the surface of the moon.The first man on the moon had stubbornly maintained up until his death in September that his historic words were unplanned, but a recent interview with his brother claims that he thought up the famous speech months before the July 1969, Apollo mission - and that the phrase he planned to utter did include an 'a'.Hundreds of millions around the world heard the NASA astronaut say, 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind', but Armstrong insisted that he said 'a man' but that the 'a' was not heard because of static.In a rare interview three months after the NASA pioneers death, his brother, Dean, recalled that Neil showed him a written version of the speech months before the Apollo 11 launch, clearly stating, 'that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.'...
Source: CNN.com
Dec 31, 2012
(CNN) -- Forty years after they were convicted by a jury of firebombing a grocery store in Wilmington, North Carolina, civil rights activists who became known as the "Wilmington 10" were pardoned Monday by the state's outgoing governor."These convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina's criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer," said Gov. Beverly Purdue. "Justice demands that this stain finally be removed."In 1972, nine black men and one white woman were convicted in the store firebombing in the coastal city despite their claims of innocence and their supporters' vehement argument that the defendants were victims of racially biased prosecutors....
Source: UCLA
Dec 31, 2012
A metal detector received as a Christmas gift led a young boy to find a WWII bomb buried in a British field.Parents do not typically expect a stocking stuffer, this one a metal detector from National Geographic, to make the headlines. This holiday present is worthy of attention for leading to the discovery of a WWII bomb buried in a field in Norfolk, England.During his first jaunt with the detector, seven-year-old Sonny Cater was scanning a field near his home when he discovered the metal capsule. The boy, accompanied by his parents and brother, was alerted to the buried object when the metal detector began beeping....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Dec 31, 2012
It has stood the test of time for 3,000 years - enduring harsh winters and millennia of use.But the recent deluge of rain has become too much for one of Britain's oldest bridges and it has been swept away by a raging river.The 180ft iconic clapper bridge Tarr Steps in Exmoor, Somerset, which dates back to around 1000 B.C., is the latest landmark to be hit by the aftermath of weeks of relentless downpours....
Source: Fox News
Dec 30, 2012
ALBANY, N.Y. – The upstate New York village that bills itself as the birthplace of the U.S. Navy hasn't done much to preserve one of the service's oldest warship relics: the hull of a schooner that was the first in a long line of American vessels to carry the name Ticonderoga.The wooden remains of the War of 1812 ship are displayed in a long, open-sided shed on the grounds of the Skenesborough Museum in Whitehall. They've been stored there since being raised from the southern end of Lake Champlain by a local historical group more than 50 years ago. Now, with the approach of 200th anniversary of the battle at which the first Ticonderoga gained its fame, a maritime historian is hoping something can be done to stem the deterioration of a rare naval artifact."It was recovered for all the right reasons but before we knew all the implications of a shipwreck and bringing it up into an air environment," said Arthur Cohn, senior adviser and special projects developer at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes, Vt....
Source: Fox News
Dec 30, 2012
ALBANY, N.Y. – The upstate New York village that bills itself as the birthplace of the U.S. Navy hasn't done much to preserve one of the service's oldest warship relics: the hull of a schooner that was the first in a long line of American vessels to carry the name Ticonderoga.The wooden remains of the War of 1812 ship are displayed in a long, open-sided shed on the grounds of the Skenesborough Museum in Whitehall. They've been stored there since being raised from the southern end of Lake Champlain by a local historical group more than 50 years ago. Now, with the approach of 200th anniversary of the battle at which the first Ticonderoga gained its fame, a maritime historian is hoping something can be done to stem the deterioration of a rare naval artifact....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Dec 30, 2012
A poignant account of the German general Erwin Rommel being led away to his death told by his teenage son has been discovered.In a revealing letter written by Manfred Rommel, he tells of his father's last moments after he was ordered to commit suicide by Adolf Hitler.His father explained to him he had to poison himself after being implicated in a plot to assassinate the Nazi dictator.The 15-year-old described watching Rommel, known as the 'Desert Fox', being led into a staff car by two German generals minutes later....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Dec 30, 2012
She is regarded as our greatest black Briton, a woman who did more to advance the cause of nursing - and race relations - than almost any other individual.On the Crimea's bloody battlefields, she is said to have saved the lives of countless wounded soldiers and nursed them to health in a clinic paid for out of her own pocket.Her name was Mary Seacole, and today she is almost as famous as that other nursing heroine, Florence Nightingale.For decades after her death in 1881, Seacole's story was largely overlooked, but for the past 15 years her reputation and exploits have undergone a remarkable rehabilitation....
