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
Oct 10, 2011
Occupy Wall Street has arrived. Facebook is all-aflutter, and Twitter is all-atweeter, as news of “occupations” and clashes with the powers-that-be spread like wildfire around the country.Now entering its fourth week, the Wall Street occupation has become a national phenomenon. The president is interested, celebrities are popping by, and pizza shops are adding the OccuPie to their menus. There is even an Occupy video game in development. The movement has spawned hundreds of Occupy locales in a national Occupy Together network. And now there is talk of going global: Occupy the World.Inquiring minds want to know: Who are these people? What exactly are they demanding? Who is leading this thing?On these issues, the movement has been clear: This is a leaderless movement without an official set of demands. There are no projected outcomes, no bottom lines and no talking heads. In the Occupy movement, We are all leaders....
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Oct 10, 2011
NEW DELHI – History Channel launched in India Sunday, promoted by AETN18, a joint venture between History parent A+E Networks and leading Indian broadcasting group Network18.The high definition channel roped in top Bollywood star Salman Khan as its brand ambassador, who features in the channel's launch campaign. AETN18 claims the channel is already available in over 40 million households distributed via various cable and direct to home (DTH) platforms. In addition, History is available in six languages, including English....
Source: The Star Phoenix
Oct 10, 2011
EDINBURGH -- An exhibition devoted to one of Scotland's most colourful sailors, and inspiration for such fictional heroes of the Napoleonic wars as Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey, is giving visitors a taste of a bygone age at the national museum in Edinburgh.The exhibition devoted to Admiral Lord Cochrane (1775-1860) has brought together a number of documents and memorabilia never seen in public before, and includes portraits, weaponry and charts from the Napoleonic wars. It runs to next February 19.Through a turbulent career, Fife-born Thomas Cochrane went from naval hero as a famed frigate commander and a Radical member of parliament to scandal and disgrace over an 1814 stock market fraud.He reinvented himself to command Chile's rebel navy in its fight to overthrow Spanish colonial rule - he remains a national hero in Chile to this day - and finally to participate in the Greek war of independence from Turkish rule....
Source: Discovery News
Oct 10, 2011
They had endured months of cold and hunger. The Donner-Reed party had set out for California in 1846 in a journey that normally took four to six months. But after trying a new route, called Hastings Cutoff, rugged terrain left the group snowbound in the Sierra Nevada.Now a new book analyzing one of the most spectacular tragedies in American history reveals what the 81 pioneers ate before resorting to eating each other in a desperate attempt to survive. On the menu: family pets, bones, twigs, a concoction described as "glue," strings and, eventually, human remains.The book, "An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp," centers on recent archaeological investigations at that campsite near Truckee, Calif., where one quarter of the 81 emigrants spent their nightmarish winter of 1846-47.No human bone was identified in the fragments analyzed from the extensive bone sample at Alder Creek, but the researchers conclude that "some Donner Party members participated in cannibalism" during the last week of February 1847....
Source: NYT
Oct 10, 2011
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who often waxes nostalgic about his small-town roots, grew up in an almost all-white rural area where many referred to slingshots as “niggershooters.” One elderly black resident recalls being introduced by her boss at a party decades back as “my maid, Nigger Mae Lou,” while just four years ago, a black high school student found a noose in his locker.In 1968, Mr. Perry left home for Texas A&M, a deeply conservative university whose yearbooks early in the century included Ku Klux Klan-robed students and a dairy group called the Kream and Kow Klub. The school, having just graduated its first two black undergraduates, was in the early throes of desegregation; at the end of Mr. Perry’s four years there, blacks still made up less than 1 percent of the student body.By the time he inherited the governorship from George W. Bush in 2000, Mr. Perry appeared to have moved well beyond his racially sheltered background....
Source: Star Tribune (MN)
Oct 10, 2011
In the early 1960s, Minnesota Rep. John Blatnik lobbied for a new national holiday, Leif Erikson Day. The farthest he got was an annual presidential proclamation to commemorate the Norwegian explorer's accomplishments on Oct. 9, but Erikson's supporters might be getting the last laugh.Columbus Day -- originally Oct. 12 but now the second Monday in October -- has become largely ignored....But while Scandinavians take credit for undermining Columbus' celebrity status with their insistence that Erikson was the first European to reach North America, there's more to the holiday's falling profile.Increasing numbers of people consider paying homage to Columbus an insult to the nation's indigenous populations....Related LinksHNN Hot Topics: Columbus Day
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Oct 9, 2011
It is one of the most decisive and famous battles ever fought on English soil.The Battle of Hastings in 1066 – long accepted as taking place in the fields around Battle Abbey a few miles north of the Sussex seaside town – launched the Norman Conquest.Generations of schoolchildren have been taught the story of how England's King Harold was killed by a Norman arrow through the eye – and thousands of visitors every year walk the famous battlefield.But now the history books may have to be rewritten after a claim that the bloody encounter between the armies of Harold and William the Conqueror did not take place at Battle at all....
Source: NYT
Oct 9, 2011
BEIJING — Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president who was said to have fallen gravely ill in July, appeared at a ceremony in Beijing on Sunday, fanning speculation about his health and the role he might play in power struggles accompanying the long-planned shift in the top leadership next year.A visibly frail Mr. Jiang, 85, was seen on state television on Sunday morning standing with other Chinese leaders in the Great Hall of the People and singing the national anthem along with others to honor the 100th anniversary of the revolution that ended the Qing Dynasty. One photograph showed Mr. Jiang, dressed in a dark suit and red tie and wearing square-rimmed glasses, waving as he took a seat.
Source: NYT
Oct 9, 2011
[F]or the better part of five decades, the most notable tombstones at Mormon Island were those without names: 36 anonymous decedents whose grave markers shared a single, shocking label: “Moved from Nigger Hill Cemetery.”
Source: BBC
Oct 8, 2011
A rail consultant has told of his surprise at finding a Victorian engineer's proposals for a rail link between Scotland and Ireland.Edinburgh-based David Spaven believed the plans for a tunnel, causeway or an undersea bridge between Stranraer and Belfast were not widely known today.The plans feature in a new book, Mapping the Railways, Mr Spaven has co-written with author Julian Holland.It also includes abandoned ideas for light railways on Skye and Lewis.Published for the The Times by Collins, the book has been described as the most comprehensive collection of British railway maps dating from 1819 to the present day....
Source: LA Times
Oct 7, 2011
Coral reefs have been dying off at alarming rates because of modern human activity, and conservationists struggle to preserve them. Now scientists have found such efforts have a long history. By the beginning of the 15th century, native Hawaiian islanders were engaging in sustainable practices to preserve their reefs — ushering in 400 years of recovery. The research, published Monday in the journal PLoS One, shows that sustainable practices go back a long way and that coral reefs may be better able to regenerate than previously thought. Coral reefs are some of the world's richest ecosystems, supporting a diverse array of marine life, including reef fish and mollusks. But they're highly susceptible to modern-day threats such as changing water temperatures, pollution and aggressive fishing practices....
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Oct 7, 2011
The Taj Mahal will collapse within five years unless urgent work is carried out at the site of the famous domed building, an Indian historian says.The 358-year-old mausoleum, one of the wonders of the world which attracts some four million visitors each year, is suffering the consequences of a drying nearby Yamuna River, Britain's Daily Express newspaper reports.Mahogany posts driven into wells which form the main support for the construction are drying and cracking and causing sections of the building to tilt.Advertisement: Story continues below
"If the crisis is not tackled on a war-footing, the Taj Mahal will collapse in between two and five years," said MP Ramshankar Katheria, who is leading a campaign to build a STG71 million ($114 million) dam to preserve water levels....
Source: Reuters
Oct 7, 2011
(Reuters) - When Paul Friedman met the rag-tag youth camped out near Wall Street to protest inequality in the American economy, he felt he was witnessing the start of a protest movement not seen in America since the 1960s.And Friedman should know. The 64-year-old was a student organizer during the anti-Vietnam War movement, protesting from 1964 for 11 years until the war ended. He also joined Civil Rights actions against racial segregation in America.On Wednesday, as thousands of union workers marched to show solidarity with the movement called Occupy Wall Street, he walked shoulder-to-shoulder with dreadlocked college dropouts, unemployed youth and students, who for three weeks have camped out near Wall Street and who have no plans to leave."It felt in my gut very much like what I was a part of in the 1960s," Friedman said. "What people are expressing ... is an experience that their opportunities are shrinking, not growing and their hopes are shrinking, not growing, and that is an unnatural feeling for the young," he said.The protesters object to the Wall Street bailout in 2008, which they say left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from the federal government.
Source: LiveScience
Oct 7, 2011
A miniature airborne drone has helped archaeologists capture images for creating a 3-D model of an ancient burial mound in Russia, scientists say.Archaeological sites are often in remote and rugged areas. As such, it can be hard to reach and map them with the limited budgets archaeologists typically have. Scientists are now using drones to extend their view into these hard-to-reach spots."There are a lot possibilities with this method," said researcher Marijn Hendrickx, a geographer at the University of Ghent in Belgium....
Source: ScienceNews
Oct 6, 2011
South America’s ancient Inca rulers didn’t establish the largest empire in the New World by being sweethearts. But their reputation as warmongers, at least according to some influential 16th- and 17th-century Spanish accounts of Inca history, appears to be undeserved, a new study of skeletal remains suggests.It’s more likely that Inca bigwigs adopted a range of largely nonviolent takeover tactics starting around 1000, say anthropologists Valerie Andrushko of Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven and Elva Torres of the National Institute of Culture in Cuzco, Peru, once the capital of the Inca empire. Head injuries suggestive of warfare appear on only a small proportion of skeletons previously excavated at Inca-controlled sites located near Cuzco, the researchers report in a paper published online September 30 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.“It appears that the Inca relied less on warfare to conquer other groups and more on political alliances, bloodless takeovers and ideological control tactics,” Andrushko says....
Source: CBS News
Oct 6, 2011
(AP) MEXICO CITY - Archaeologists found a round Aztec ceremonial platform studded with stone carvings of serpent heads at Mexico City's Templo Mayor ruin, raising hopes in the search for an emperor's tomb, authorities said Thursday.No Aztec ruler's tomb has ever been located and researchers have been on a five-year quest to find a royal tomb in the area of the Templo Mayor, a complex of two huge pyramids and numerous smaller structures that contained the ceremonial and spiritual heart of the pre-Hispanic Aztec empire.Mexico's National Institute of History and Anthropology said the stone platform is about 15 yards (meters) in diameter and probably built around A.D. 1469. The site lies in downtown Mexico City, which was built by Spanish conquerors atop the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan."The historical records say that the rulers were cremated at the foot of the Templo Mayor, and it is believed to be on this same structure — the 'cuauhxicalco' — that the rulers were cremated," said archaeologist Raul Barrera....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 6, 2011
The World Monuments Fund (WMF), a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of historic buildings and attractions, included the sites on its annual watch list.They include Newstead Abbey, the ancestral home of Lord Byron, the ruins of Coventry’s old cathedral, which was struck by bombs during the Second World War, the isolated island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, where Napoleon was imprisoned and died, and Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight.Birmingham Central Library, The Hayward Gallery in London and Preston Bus Station, a trio of concrete buildings grouped under the umbrella “British Brutalism”, were also declared under threat.“The World Monuments Watch is a call to action on behalf of endangered cultural heritage sites across the globe,” said Bonnie Burnham, the WMF president, at a press conference in New York....
Source: Penn State Press
Oct 5, 2011
The state of North Carolina unveiled a commemorative license plate for the Civil War yesterday, promoting the official themes of the state's sesquicentennial observance: Freedom, Sacrifice, and Memory. While some state legislatures established official commissions to guide their commemorative programs, North Carolina's did not. Instead, the state's Office of Archives and History in the Department of Cultural Resources formed a Civil War 150 committee to devise programs to mark the sesquicentennial. The office ought to be commended for consciously choosing themes that cover a wide range of subjects and engage a variety of perspectives on the war, from men and women to secessionists and unionists, soldiers and non-combatants, and slaves and freedpeople, among others....
Source: Science Daily
Oct 5, 2011
ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2011) — A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash.The road, known as a "sacbe," is roughly 6 feet across and is made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living there in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered the buried village known as Ceren near the city of San Salvador in 1978. In Yucatan Maya, the word "sacbe" (SOCK'-bay) literally means "white way" or "white road" and is used to describe elevated ancient roads typically lined with stone and paved with white lime plaster and that sometimes connected temples, plazas and towns.The sacbe at the buried village of Ceren -- which had canals of water running on each side -- is the first ever discovered at a Maya archaeology site that was built without bordering paving stones, said Sheets. The road was serendipitously discovered by the team while digging a test pit through 17 feet of volcanic ash in July to analyze agricultural activity on the edges of Ceren, considered the best preserved Maya village in Central America....
Source: The Australian
Oct 5, 2011
ORGANISERS of an auction of Adolf Hitler's reading glasses and other personal effects were on the verge of abandoning the sale last night after an outcry over profiting from Germany's Nazi past. The Fuhrer's glasses were due to be put up for auction for a reserve price of €4800 ($A6700) at a Munich auction house this month, while bidding for a silver cigarette case monogrammed with the initials of the non-smoking dictator was set to begin at €10,000. Stung by accusations that the sale was a "stain" on modern Germany, Hermann Historica, the auction house, issued a statement last night insisting that it never intended to cause offence and had not sought publicity for the items on sale. But it refused to confirm who would receive the money, although some items, such as a fob watch starting at €10,000, were believed to originate from the estate of Rudolf Hess, Hitler's former deputy....
