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: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 18, 2012
A company of elite longbow archers perished aboard Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose when it sank almost five centuries ago, scientists have discovered.Researchers have identified the elite archers who died alongside sailors on Henry VIII's flagship, due to evidence of repetitive strain in their shoulders and spines.The ship sank off Spithead in The Solent in 1545, while leading an attack on a French invasion fleet. It stayed on the seabed until it was raised in 1982 and put on public display.Over the past two years, scientists from the University of Swansea have been working to identify almost 100 skeletons kept at the Mary Rose Museum, in Portsmouth....
Source: NYT
Nov 18, 2012
WASHINGTON — When President Obama lands in Yangon on Monday, he will be the first sitting American president to visit the country now known as Myanmar. But he will not be the first Obama to visit.The president’s Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, spent part of World War II in what was then called Burma as a cook for a British Army captain. Although details are sometimes debated, the elder Mr. Obama’s Asian experience proved formative just as his grandson’s time growing up in Indonesia did decades later.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 18, 2012
The ancient dwelling was uncovered during an archaeological excavation in a field on the outskirts of Edinburgh.A large oval pit nearly seven metres in length and studded with postholes is all that remains of the dwelling that has been dated to the Mesolithic period, around 10,252 years ago.A survey of the site was being conducted in preparation for the building of the Forth Replacement Crossing in a field in Echline, South Queensferry, just north of Edinburgh.Rod McCullagh, a senior archaeologist at Historic Scotland, said: "This discovery and, especially, the information from the laboratory analyses adds valuable information to our understanding of a small but growing list of buildings erected by Scotland's first settlers after the last glaciation, 10,000 year ago....
Source: AP
Nov 17, 2012
MUMBAI, India — Hundreds of thousands of grieving supporters thronged the streets of Mumbai on Sunday for the funeral of Bal Thackeray, a Hindu extremist leader linked to waves of mob violence against Muslims and migrant workers in India.Nearly 20,000 policemen were on hand because of the violent history of the group. The mourners, however, remained calm and orderly as the body of Thackeray was cremated at Shivaji park where he had made political debut by addressing his first public rally 46 years ago....Thackeray’s Sena is among the most xenophobic of India’s Hindu right-wing political parties and held power in Mumbai from 1995 to 2000. His supporters often called him Hindu Hriday Samrat or emperor of Hindu hearts.In 1992, members of Hindu right-wing groups, including the Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party, were instrumental in destroying a 16th century mosque in north India that they said was the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama, and Thackeray was blamed for the violence and rioting that followed. In Mumbai alone, nearly 1,000 people were killed....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 16, 2012
A 5,500-year-old mystery murder could be one step closer to being solved after forensic experts found Ginger, the Egyptian mummy housed at the British Museum, was a young man stabbed in the back during peacetime.Forensic scientists have moved closer to solving a 5,500-year-old cold case crime after new technology allowed them to study fatal wounds on the body of a famous mummy.The corpse, known officially as the Gebelein Man, has been nicknamed Ginger due to his red hair and seen by millions of visitors to the British Museum.Experts, who used digital images and scanning technology, have now concluded he was almost certainly murdered by an assailant who caught him by surprise....
Source: Discovery News
Nov 16, 2012
The 16th-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe did not die of mercury poisoning, according to a team of researchers who have analysed the scientist's remains.The study started in 2010, as Brahe's remains were exhumed from his grave in Prague in a bid to investigate long standing rumors about the astronomer's untimely death.Brahe died on Oct. 24, 1601, only 11 days after the onset of a sudden illness. The first astronomer to describe a supernova, Brahe was apparently in good health and at the height of his career....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 15, 2012
The widely accepted theory that nuns made the Bayeux tapestry has been disputed by experts who say that it was made by a group of professionals.The tapestry is also revealed to be an embroidery, with the two require differing techniques.A tapestry is woven on a loom whereas an embroidery has what is known as a "ground fabric" on which threads are sewn or embroidered to form a picture.The idea that nuns across England made the Bayeux tapestry in nine sections which were then stitched together has been thrown into doubt by the new research....
Source: Discovery News
Nov 14, 2012
Evidence of the miserable life lived by the Maya during the Spanish conquest of the 16th century has emerged in an ancient settlement of Mexico's east coast, as archaeologists unearthed dozens of infant skeletons with signs of malnutrition and acute anemia.Found in the recently opened archaeological site of San Miguelito, in the middle of the hotel chain area of Quintana Roo, near Cancun, the human burials were excavated within 11 housing buildings dating to the Late Postclassic Mayan Period (1200 – 1550).Archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) estimate that at least 30 burials belong to infants between the ages of three and six. The majority suffered from hunger and most likely died of related diseases....
Source: NBC 17 (NC)
Nov 14, 2012
Wednesday morning, a petition calling for North Carolina to secede from the United States reached 25,000 signatures, meaning the White House will respond following a review of the petition.......[T]he overriding question is whether [the petition is] worth [its] salt.Not so much, says University of North Carolina professor Joseph Glatthaar. A professor of history in Chapel Hill, Glatthaar specializes in the American Civil War and American military history; he is also president of the Society for Military History.Glatthaar explains that secession is unconstitutional, citing the Supreme Court's 1869 ruling in "Texas v. White."The decision said that Texas, as well as the rest of the Confederacy, never left the Union during the Civil War, because a state cannot secede from the United States without agreement from both the state and federal government....
Source: Tom Blanton in Foreign Policy
Nov 14, 2012
Tom Blanton is director of the independent non-governmental National Security Archive (at George Washington University), which has published 2,163 of Kissinger's "memcons" in The Kissinger Transcripts: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977, edited by William Burr (Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest, 2005), and 15,502 of Kissinger's telcons, The Kissinger Telephone Conversations, also in the Digital National Security Archive series from ProQuest. The CIA director was blackmailing the secretary of state; a nuclear deal with Iran was in the works; and the U.S. president wanted to pursue Middle East peace. President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger -- then serving as both secretary of state and national security adviser -- discussed all of this and more on the morning of March 5, 1975. Loyal assistant Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft took notes to provide this practically verbatim Secret memorandum of conversation, published here for the first time, which the National Security Archive obtained through a Mandatory Declassification Review request to the Gerald R. Ford Library.
Source: WaPo
Nov 14, 2012
VATICAN CITY — Reviving a long-dead language might sound like a tall order for a church that’s already weakened by widespread secularization and the fallout from decades of a painful child abuse scandal.But Pope Benedict XVI seems convinced that revitalizing the study and use of Latin among priests and seminarians is a necessary step for the church’s future.On Saturday (Nov. 10), Benedict established a “Pontifical Academy of Latinity” tasked with “promoting the use of Latin” inside and outside the Catholic Church.Ever since its earliest days, the church “has spoken and prayed in all the languages of humanity,” the pope wrote in the letter announcing the creation of the new Vatican department....
Source: Religion News Service
Nov 14, 2012
It’s tempting to view the sex scandal surrounding retired Army Gen. David Petraeus through a religious lens.After all, most faiths forbid adultery, and even before his fall from grace, some Pentagon colleagues compared Petraeus to the biblical King David — another proud and powerful warrior.The comparison seemed even more apt after the former four-star general’s resignation from the CIA on Friday. “More than one officer cited the biblical adultery of King David and Bathsheba,” wrote The New York Times.The Bible says that David acted righteously and kept God’s commandments — except in the case of Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband....
Source: WaPo
Nov 14, 2012
Before Abraham Lincoln generated Oscar buzz or hunted vampires, he did something extraordinary on film: he spoke.Just as the last few years have produced a few Lincoln films (“Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter” and “The Conspirator”), several films about Lincoln came out in the dawning era of “talkies.” Then, just as now, the films drew crowds to their Washington premieres, which were covered in the Post. How do some of the other Lincoln flicks stack up?
Source: NYT
Nov 14, 2012
When David H. Petraeus resigned as director of the C.I.A. because of adultery he was widely understood to be acknowledging a misdeed, not a crime. Yet in his state of residence, Virginia, as in 22 others, adultery remains a criminal act, a vestige of the way American law has anchored legitimate sexual activity within marriage.In most of those states, including New York, adultery is a misdemeanor. But in others — Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin — it is a felony, though rarely prosecuted. In the armed forces, it can be punished severely although usually in combination with a greater wrongdoing.This is yet another example of American exceptionalism: in nearly the entire rest of the industrialized world, adultery is not covered by the criminal code.
Source: WSJ
Nov 14, 2012
Sotheby's sold a Mark Rothko abstract for $75 million on Tuesday in a contemporary-art auction whose total—$375 million—surpassed any in its company history. Fittingly, the Rothko painting is titled, "No. 1 (Royal Red & Blue)."The sale of the 1954 Rothko—with its floating red, pink and blue rectangles—pushed the auction house's sale total over the $362 million it got from a similar evening sale in May 2008 that marked the peak of the last market cycle. It's unclear whether Tuesday's performance amounts to a similar cresting, but in the short term it could boost collectors' confidence in art values—especially after last week's disappointing sales of Impressionist and modern art.The sellers of the Rothko, John Marion, a former Sotheby's president, and his oil-heiress wife, Anne, only expected their painting to sell for up to $50 million. But at least five bidders chased after the abstract, and bids came quickly for a few minutes before the competition slowed to a pair of dogged telephone bidders. The winning bid was ultimately fielded by Charlie Moffett, a Sotheby's specialist who typically works with American collectors....
Source: Huffington Post
Nov 13, 2012
Murgan Salem al-Gohary, an Egyptian jihadist who claims he has links to the Taliban, has called for the “destruction of the Sphinx and the Giza Pyramids in Egypt."Al-Gohary, an Islamist leader and jihadist sentenced twice under President Hosni Mubarak for advocating violence, urged Muslims to "destroy the idols" in Egypt -- specifically the Giza Pyramids and the Great Sphinx -- during a television interview on Saturday on Egypt's Dream TV, according to Al Arabiya News.“God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols,” he said, according to Al Arabiya News. “When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do.”...
Source: WSJ
Nov 13, 2012
A dazzling diamond of Indian origin that belonged a member of a European royal family sold for $21.5 million at a Christie’s auction in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday.The white stone, named after Archduke Joseph August of Austria (1972-1962) stands out for its size, its clarity and its historical importance. The price it attracted at the auction was a world record for a colorless diamond. Christie’s had expected the diamond, which weighs a whopping 76.02 carats, to sell for between $15 million and $25 million.It didn’t disclose the name of the buyer....
Source: WSJ
Nov 13, 2012
P.S. The postscript is becoming an afterthought.As people increasingly communicate in short bursts of words, via text messaging and emails, they are finding less use for "P.S." The Latin abbreviation refers to something "written after" the body of a letter. But it is also a cherished part of epistolary tradition that entered the spoken language, inspiring songs and movies.One reason for the decline of "P.S." is that anything after a sign-off may get missed. Today, emails are landing in crowded in-boxes and never get read beyond the subject line or first few sentences. "I don't think people are reading email, they're scanning," says Janelle Estes, a specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, a Fremont, Calif.-based firm that studies how people interact with technology....
Source: WaPo
Nov 13, 2012
If you are sitting next to someone snacking down on a tub of buttered popcorn, you might miss important details in Steven Spielberg’s epic film, “Lincoln.”So lean in during the scene in which Daniel Day-Lewis, starring as President Abraham Lincoln, sits in the dim light of his White House study deep in thought — a man bearing the weight of a torn Union while devising a political strategy to persuade the House of Representatives to pass a 13 th Amendment that would abolish slavery.A gold watch swings across his desk, cutting the shadows.Listen closely for the loud beat of the swinging pendulum.That pure, unadulterated tick is the sound of an original watch that Lincoln carried....Related Links
Source: WaPo
Nov 13, 2012
Here’s something you may not realize about politics in the United States: We’re seeing fewer and fewer dynastic politicians.That may seem unlikely during a period when George W. Bush was the most recent president, when Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and Andrew Cuomo are all regularly mentioned as presidential candidates, and where even the next generation of the Bush family is getting started in electoral politics. But nevertheless, it’s true, and the elections last week nudged the process forward a bit.
