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: Jewish Telegraph Agency
Dec 15, 2011
(JTA) -- The European Union has donated more than $5 million to preserve the site of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.Auschwitz authorities announced Wednesday that the $5.3 million awarded by the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, will be used to preserve the women's barracks at the Birkenau site of the camp, improve security and expand the database system....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Dec 15, 2011
In 1971 the US was pulling troops out of Vietnam, and its bases in Germany were full of draftees at a loose end. "You were painting shovels, picking up cigarette butts – it was a lot of busy-work," remembers former serviceman Lewis Hitt. "There was a longing by everyone, especially the draftees, to get home and go back to what you were doing before."This was the crucible in which were formed scores of raucous funk bands made up of servicemen, four of which have just been compiled by Now-Again Records. Adoring crowd noise was crudely dubbed on top of their records, which were then distributed in recruitment centres. These bands were used by the army to present service as varied, even hip. But the songs they cover – the bitter, suspicious likes of Backstabbers and Smiling Faces Sometimes – undermine any potential propagandising.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 15, 2011
It was a rare reflection by Mitt Romney on his life as a young Mormon, offered as proof to struggling Americans that despite being born into privilege and amassing a $250 million fortune, he too had known hard times.A day after being labelled “out of touch” for casually offering a $10,000 bet to a rival candidate, Mr Romney told supporters he had experienced austerity as a missionary in France, using a bucket for a lavatory and a hose for a shower. “You’re not living high on the hog at that kind of level,” he said.
Source: NYT
Dec 15, 2011
SEOUL, South Korea — The unsmiling teenage girl in traditional Korean dress sits in a chair, her feet bare, her hands on her lap, her eyes fixed on the Japanese Embassy across a narrow street in central Seoul. Within a day, the life-size bronze statue had become the focal point of a simmering diplomatic dispute as President Lee Myung-bak prepared to visit Tokyo this weekend.The statue, named the Peace Monument, was financed with citizens’ donations and installed Wednesday, when five women in their 80s and 90s, who were among thousands forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, protested in front of the embassy, joined by their supporters. Such protests have been held weekly for almost 20 years.
Source: NYT
Dec 15, 2011
PARIS — In his dark comedy of 1893, “A Woman of No Importance,” Oscar Wilde has Mrs. Arbuthnot, a respectable woman with a secret past, remark knowingly: “A kiss may ruin a human life.”It can also, apparently, ruin the stone blocks of a tomb.Recently, descendants of Wilde, the Irish dramatist and wit who died here in 1900, decided to have his immense gravestone cleansed of a vast accumulation of lipstick markings from kisses left by admirers, who for years have been defacing, and some say eroding, the memorial in hilly Père Lachaise Cemetery here. But the decision meant not only cleaning the stone, a flying nude angel by the sculptor Jacob Epstein, who was inspired by the British Museum’s Assyrian figures, but also erecting a seven-foot plate glass wall to keep ardent admirers at a distance.
Source: CBS News
Dec 15, 2011
CBS News video: Nanny's secret photography talent on display - Vivian Maier worked as a full time nanny and housekeeper in Chicago. But whenever the opportunity arose, she took to the streets to indulge in her secret talent of taking remarkable photographs. Anthony Mason reports.
Source: Salon
Dec 15, 2011
George Whitman has died. He was 98.You may not know his name but if you speak English and have ever visited Paris you probably know his bookshop: Shakespeare & Co.Whitman set up the shop in 1951. He was one of a generation of Americans — mostly ex GIs on the GI bill — who went to Paris after World War II and tried to re-start the party that made the French capital the center of western culture in the ’20s and ’30s, the place where the Hemingway and Fitzgerald legends were born.The Paris Review was started. William Styron, Norman Mailer, James Jones, George Plimpton, humorist Art Buchwald and jazz musicians too numerous to mention moved back. There were so many Americans in the city that M-G-M made a Gene Kelly musical about ex-patriot life called “An American in Paris” the year Whitman opened his shop. It won the Best Picture Oscar.By the mid-1950′s though it was clear the party was over and New York was the place where cutting edge culture was being created. Paris was something of a perfectly preserved museum of an era comprehensively demolished by war. Most of the ex-pats headed home.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Dec 15, 2011
When the Viking warrior buried his hoard of silver coins and jewellery in a lead container, he doubtless expected to be back for them after his next battle.But thanks to those pesky Anglo Saxons, they remained undisturbed for more than 1,000 years... until Darren Webster discovered them with a metal detector during his lunch break.Found just 18 inches beneath the surface of a field in Silverdale, Lancashire, the 201 objects were yesterday hailed by the British Museum as one of the most important Viking discoveries of recent times.Based on previous finds, they could be worth as much as £500,000....
Source: Researchers puzzled as grave did not hold remains of medieval Swedish king
Dec 15, 2011
Earlier this year, researchers in Sweden excavated what they believe was the tomb of King Magnus Ladulås (1240-1290) at Riddarholmen Church in Stockholm, hoping to learn more about the medieval Swedish ruler and his family. But DNA tests have revealed that the bodies of nine people buried in the tomb actually died sometime between 1430 and 1520.Records show that the King Magnus wished to have his remains buried in the church, and in 1573 the Swedish King, Johan III erected a sarcophagus with an effigy on top of what he believed was the location of the tomb.The researchers said on their blog: “It is a fantastic story that is rolled up in front of our eyes. Johan II had the impressive tomb put up above the wrong grave and this historical hoax has been unchallenged for 400 years! On good grounds we believe instead that Magnus Ladulås was placed in the southern tomb in front of the choir, i.e. the tomb in which King Karl Knutsson placed himself in the 15th century. With the knowledge we have today it is obvious that we have only done half the job. In order to make further progress in this project we need to open also the southern part of the choir-tombs (the tomb of Karl Knutsson) and investigate all individuals there.”
Source: Huffington Post
Dec 15, 2011
WASHINGTON (RNS) How would you feel about taking a razor blade to a Bible?Thomas Jefferson, apparently, didn't have any qualms about it.In his retirement, the nation's third president carried out a project he had contemplated for years: he literally cut and pasted passages from the four Gospels into one integrated narrative of Jesus' life -- minus the miracles and supernatural events.The result, he said, was "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man." Judging by the wear and tear on the book, it appears Jefferson read it regularly.Known as "The Jefferson Bible," the 84-page patchwork book is on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History here through May 28, 2012. Smithsonian Books has released a commemorative full-color edition, and Tarcher/Penguin is publishing a pocket-size version in January....
Source: London Evening Standard
Dec 15, 2011
The Romans founded London as a centre of trade and business in about AD 50 - or so archaeologists have long believed.But new evidence suggests the capital has a more chilling history, built as a military base by slaves who were then slaughtered. Hundreds of skulls discovered along the course of the "lost" river Walbrook suggest London may have been built by forced labour.Dominic Perring, director of the Centre for Applied Archaeology at University College London, says the skulls could be those of Queen Boudica's rebel Iceni tribesmen who were brought to London to build a new military base.
Source: Discovery News
Dec 15, 2011
A hoard of silver found by a metal detector has provided intriguing new clues to a previously unknown Viking king, the British Museum announced on Wednesday.Found some 16 inches beneath the surface of a field in Silverdale, a village in north Lancashire, UK, the hoard materialized as Darren Webster, a 39-year-old stonemason, lifted a lead box signalled by his detector.A shower of 201 pieces of silver revealed an abundance of arm-rings, brooch fragments, ingots and coins."I had a very good idea what it was. The coins, the bracelets, I knew it was possibly Viking, more than likely Viking," Webster told the Lancashire Evening Post....
Source: NYT
Dec 14, 2011
THE ultimate pleasure of taking an online dip into the entirety of the Vogue archives — every issue since 1892 has been digitally scanned, page by page, and made available through a pricey new subscription site — is the sensation that it gives of falling into a fashion time machine and being shot out into different eras at random.Click on the issue of Oct. 1, 1950, and you will find a cover by Horst P. Horst of Margot Smyly, the silver-haired model known as Mrs. Exeter, who appealed to older readers, and the promise inside of finding easy-to-wear clothes “in sizes 10 to 44.”Click on June 24, 1897, and you will see a drawing of a hooked fish, a reference to the sporting theme of the fashions in that issue....
Source: USAF
Dec 14, 2011
November marked the 21st anniversary of the observance of American Indian and Alaskan Native Heritage Month. President George H.W. Bush made the proclamation in 1990 and declared 1992 as the "Year of the American Indian" by way of congressional legislation. The U.S. Military has a long and storied tradition of extraordinary contributions from American Indians and Alaska Natives. From the Revolutionary War where Gen. George Washington enlisted the skills of American Indians to liberate the colonies, to the War of 1812 where Native Americans served on state and continental ships, Native Americans have added to the strong foundation we enjoy today. Their excellence continued in World Wars I and II where nearly 35,000 American Indians fought for their country. The most famous of these were the Navajo Code Talkers who used their native language to communicate along the front lines. This led to Maj. Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, saying, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would have never taken Iwo Jima."...
Source: WaPo
Dec 14, 2011
WASHINGTON — With Dakota Meyer standing at attention in his dress uniform, sweat glistening on his forehead under the television lights, President Barack Obama extolled the former Marine corporal for the “extraordinary actions” that had earned him the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor.Obama told the audience in the White House East Room on Sept. 15 that Meyer had driven into the heart of a savage ambush in eastern Afghanistan against orders. He’d killed insurgents at near-point-blank range, twice leapt from his gun turret to rescue two dozen Afghan soldiers and saved the lives of 13 U.S. service members as he fought to recover the bodies of four comrades, the president said.But there’s a problem with this account: Crucial parts that the Marine Corps publicized and Obama described are untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated, according to dozens of military documents McClatchy Newspapers examined.
Source: Yahoo News
Dec 14, 2011
GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich stirred up plenty of controversy last week when he called Palestinians an "invented people" in an interview from the campaign trail."I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places,' Gingrich told the Jewish Channel last week.All of which makes the above 1993 photo of Gingrich, then House Minority Whip, embracing the late Palestinian Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat, published by the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, perhaps noteworthy....
Source: NewsScotland
Dec 14, 2011
The William Wallace Letter is to be returned to Scotland this coming January following a successful six year campaign during which a parliamentary petition played a pivotal role.The letter was written by King Philip IV of France commanding his agents in Rome to recommend ‘our beloved William le Wallace of Scotland’ to the Pope.Historians believe the letter dates to 1300 and was written to assure Sir William Wallace would receive safe passage as he journeyed through Europe on his way to Rome....
Source: Gulf News
Dec 14, 2011
Seoul: South Korean women forced into wartime sexual slavery held their 1,000th weekly protest outside Japan's embassy yesterday, demanding compensation and an apology from Tokyo as they have since 1992."Apologise!" shouted five women in their 80s or 90s and an estimated 500 supporters, waving banners reading "Compensate" and "Admit the war crime".Demonstrators campaigning to publicise Second World War crimes braved near-freezing temperatures to unveil a "peace monument" across the street from the mission, despite protests from the Japanese government over the statue....
Source: Live Science
Dec 14, 2011
Nearly 450 years ago, when England was tearing itself apart over religion, a Catholic woman named Lady Elizabeth Dacre wrote an elegant but at times erotic Latin love poem to Sir Anthony Cooke, a Protestant and tutor to King Edward VI, the successor of Henry VIII. That poem was rediscovered recently in the West Virginia University library, inside a 1561 copy of Chaucer. It hints at a love affair that was not to be."It's a very beautiful piece and I think for her it was quite a prized possession, because it's been so very carefully copied out and looked after," Elaine Treharne, a professor at Florida State University, told LiveScience.
Source: Live Science
Dec 14, 2011
An ancient piece of wood found at the bottom of Lake Huron hints at time, about 8,900 years ago, when this area was dry land where ancient hunters may have lived. The piece of wood measures about 5-feet, 6-inches (1.7 meters) and seems to have been a tool of some kind....
