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)
Jul 15, 2011
An Argentine court on Thursday sentenced two former army officers to life in prison for their role in abuses that took place at a notorious torture camp during the 1976-1983 military regime.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jul 14, 2011
This week, the House Appropriations Committee approved (by a vote of 28-18) the fiscal year (FY) 2012 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill, which provides funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), conservation and heritage programs National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution.National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe Committee funded the NEH at $135 million, which represents a nearly $20 million cut from current year funding and $11 million less than the President’s FY12 request.The Committee did not support Administration’s proposal to discontinue the We the People program. We the People is a grant program designed to promote the teaching, study, and understanding of American history, culture, and democratic principles. Noting that, “We the People is a proven, cost-effective national grant program with broad geographic reach and bipartisan congressional support,” the Committee directed that it be sustained at no less than $4,750,000 in fiscal year 2012.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jul 14, 2011
A proposed new rule published for comment by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) last week would establish updated new procedures for the declassification of historical records containing national security information.These changes include establishing procedures for the automatic declassification of records in NARA’s legal custody and revising requirements for reclassification of information to meet the provisions of Executive Order 13526.Public comments on the proposed NARA rule are due by September 6, 2011.For an in-depth look at the proposed rule, click here to read analysis provided by Steven Aftergood at his Secrecy News blog.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jul 14, 2011
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced $26.7 million in grants from the Historic Preservation Fund to the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories, and three independent Pacific island nations.The Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) is supported by revenue from federal oil leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. The National Park Service administers the fund on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior and uses the majority of appropriated funds to distribute matching grants to State and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers.States officials use the grants to fund preservation projects, such as survey and inventory, National Register nominations, preservation education, architectural planning, historic structure reports, community preservation plans, and bricks-and-mortar repair to buildings.Ten percent of each state’s allocation must be sub-granted to Certified Local Governments – city and county governments certified by the National Park Service and the state as having made a local commitment to historic preservation. These funds are spent on local projects, with selection decisions made at the state level.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jul 14, 2011
Marc Pachter, former director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, has been appointed Acting Director of the National Museum of American History, effective Aug. 15. He will replace Brent D. Glass, who announced that he was leaving the directorship in August and retiring from Smithsonian at the end of the year.Pachter was with the Portrait Gallery for 33 years, beginning as a chief historian in 1974 and serving as director from 2000 until his retirement in 2007. He held a number of positions at the Gallery and at the Smithsonian when he served as chair of the Institution’s 150th anniversary celebration in 1996 and as a deputy assistant secretary for external affairs. Pachter retired in October 2007, one year after the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which share the same historic building, reopened after an extensive six-year renovation.“We are happy to welcome Marc back home to the Smithsonian,” said Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture. “Marc was always an asset to the Institution as a museum director, scholar, author and interviewer. He knows the Institution so well and even served as acting director of American History once before. In 2001-02, he filled in while we searched for a new director at the same time he continued as director of the Portrait Gallery.”
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jul 14, 2011
From July 11-31, 2011, the National Archives is displaying newly declassified documents from 1918 detailing German secret ink formulas. The oldest newly declassified documents held by the National Archives, these materials were released April 19, 2011, by the National Archives National Declassification Center in coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency, as part of the President’s ongoing Open Government initiative.The display, which is free and open to the public, is in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.For 95 years, the documents on display were national security classified material and unavailable to the public. Believed to have been the oldest documents still classified by the United States, they detail German secret ink formulas developed during World War I. One formula – written in French with translation – is described in this June 14, 1918 Office of Naval Intelligence document. The invisible ink’s ingredients – compressed or powdered aspirin mixed with “pure water” – and the method of causing it to appear are provided.
Source: Yahoo News
Jul 14, 2011
...Meet John Rolczynski: The Grand Forks, N.D., resident has been trying to tell his legislators that an error in the state's founding document means that technically, North Dakota is not a state....Here's the story: Back in 1889, North Dakota was carved out of the Dakota Territory and admitted to the Union at the same time as South Dakota. Or so everyone thought.But the state founders who drafted the constitution left out the key requirement that the governor and other top officials take an oath of office, putting the state constitution in conflict with the federal one. So Rolczynski has been arguing for the last 16 years that the omission made the state illegitimate....
Source: National Catholic Register
Jul 14, 2011
DENVER (CNA) — An expert on Pope Pius XII says new discoveries show that the Jewish community strongly supported the Holy Father for his stand against anti-Semitism and support for Jewish rights during World War II.Researcher William Doino outlined evidence that he says makes it clear the late Pope “wanted to break down walls of anti-Jewish prejudice, not erect them.”Doino shared his findings exclusively with CNA, pointing to magazine articles from the 1930s that feature Jewish-American veterans lauding Pius XII for his deep respect for the Jewish community and their customs.In April of 1939, just one month after Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope, the U.S. Jewish Veteran magazine called the new Pope’s leadership “a source of great satisfaction to Jews.”...
Source: Reuters
Jul 14, 2011
An unfinished Indian canoe, apparently abandoned 500 years ago, has been discovered in a remote section of an Alaska rain forest, according to officials.The canoe, carved from cedar, was discovered under a thick layer of moss and is surrounded by trees that are several hundred years old, Sealaska Corp., the Alaska Native corporation that owns the land, said in a statement.The artifact was first spotted last winter by a surveyor checking potential timber-harvest sites, but the discovery was kept confidential until now, the company said....
Source: New York Daily News
Jul 14, 2011
...A group of Egyptian antiquities dealers have been charged with illegally smuggling ancient funerary objects into the U.S., authorities said Thursday.Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say Mousa "Morris" Khouli, the owner of Windsor Antiques in Manhattan, conspired with dealers in Michigan and Dubai to smuggle sarcophagi and other artifacts for a collector in Virginia.Khouli, 37, is charged with trying to dupe Customs officials by labeling shipments of coffins and other items as "antiques" and "wood panels," prosecutors said.He allegedly bought the items from Salem Alshdaifat, who runs Holyland Numismatics in West Bloomfield, Mich., and Ayman Ramadan, an antiquity dealers in the United Arab Emirates who helped him ship the items to the U.S.
Source: BBC
Jul 14, 2011
Human remains including parts of a skull and leg bones have been found during an archaeological dig at an Iron Age site in Caithness.The police and procurator fiscal service have been notified of the finds at Thrumster, near Wick, as normal procedure by archaeologists.The remains have still to be radiocarbon dated to determine how old they are.Ancient human remains have previously been uncovered in Caithness....
Source: BBC
Jul 14, 2011
The world's oldest football rulebook, belonging to the first ever club Sheffield FC, has been sold at auction for £881,250.The handwritten pamphlet from 1857 is thought to be one of the earliest instructions on the sport and was sold as part of an archive of the club.It was sold to an anonymous bidder at auctioneer Sotheby's which described it as an important historical document....
Source: BBC
Jul 14, 2011
A rare Jane Austen manuscript has sold for £993,250 ($1.6m) in London, three times more than its estimated price.Auction house Sotheby's had originally valued the unfinished novel - entitled The Watsons - at £200,000-300,000.The manuscript, originally owned privately, was purchased by the Bodelian Libraries of Oxford.It is thought Austen wrote the tale, about a young woman who returns home to her father's household after being brought up by a wealthy aunt, in 1804.The work is particularly important because few of Austen's draft works have survived, with the exception of two draft chapters of Persuasion, Lady Susan, and Sanditon....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 14, 2011
Scientists have rediscovered a spindly-legged toad species almost 90 years after it was last sighted in Malaysia's Borneo jungle, an environmental group said on Thursday.The Sambas Stream Toad, or Borneo Rainbow Toad, was found by a team of scientists after months of scouring remote forest in Sarawak state on Borneo island, Conservation International (CI) said in a release.The endangered toad was last seen in 1924 and was previously known from only three individuals.The toad was listed as one of the "World's Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs" as part of a campaign by CI and another group to encourage scientists around the world to seek out amphibians that had not been seen in a decade or longer.After months of combing through the jungle, the Sarawak team eventually discovered a small toad up a tree, which turned out to be the missing Sambas Stream Toad. In total, they found three individuals up three different trees....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 14, 2011
The FBI has launched an investigation into allegations that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp tried to hack the mobile phones of September 11 victims, it has been disclosed.Several powerful congressmen had demanded an inquiry into the claims, which had sparked a furious response from the families of those who lost their lives in the atrocity.The FBI inquiry follows the intervention of Peter King, a New York congressman, who wrote directly to the Bureau demanding an inquiry into the 9/11 claims. Reports had suggested that the News of the World attempted to buy the phone records of victims of the 2001 bombings....
Source: NYT
Jul 14, 2011
We’ve written before about some of the work of Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, grade inflation chroniclers extraordinaire. They have put together a new, comprehensive study of college grading over the decades, and let me tell you, it is a doozy.The researchers collected historical data on letter grades awarded by more than 200 four-year colleges and universities. Their analysis (published in the Teachers College Record) confirm that the share of A grades awarded has skyrocketed over the years....
Source: Boston Globe
Jul 14, 2011
The Kennedy clan will gather tomorrow for a wedding at its Cape Cod compound amid tensions about the future of the property and following a public airing of dissension within the storied political family.Negotiations are underway to transfer ownership of the main Kennedy home in coming months to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, a proposal that has raised concerns among family members who live on adjacent property, according to two associates close to the family who spoke on condition of anonymity.The senator, who died in August 2009, had stated in his will that he ultimately wanted the property to be turned over to the institute, which is now being built next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library at Columbia Point. He gave the rights to the house to his widow, Vicki, and his three children, and they are expected to relinquish them very soon, according to the family associates.Vicki Kennedy, while carrying out her husband’s wishes, has unsettled other family members in and around the compound, particularly Ethel Kennedy, whose compound home is next to the main house. Delicate negotiations are attempting to placate those concerns, the associates said.
Source: WSJ
Jul 14, 2011
MISSOULA, Mont.—With a homemade .22-caliber rifle he calls the Montana Buckaroo, Gary Marbut dreams of taking down the federal regulatory state.He's not planning to fire his gun. Instead, he wants to sell it, free from federal laws requiring him to record transactions, pay license fees and open his business to government inspectors...."This is really about states' rights and federal power rather than gun control," Mr. Marbut says. There is "an emerging awareness by the people of America that the federal government has gone too far," he maintains, "and it's dependent on a really weird interpretation."He is talking about the 1942 Supreme Court case of Wickard v. Filburn, which looms for him the way the Dred Scott decision denying rights to blacks did to antebellum abolitionists....The narrow question in 1942 was whether the federal government could regulate wheat a farmer grew for use on his own farm. But the constitutional issue concerned how far Congress's authority to oversee interstate commerce stretched....
Source: AFP
Jul 13, 2011
JERUSALEM — Israel has approved the start of work on a controversial Museum of Tolerance that will be built on the site of an old Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, a spokeswoman said on Wednesday.The project, organised by the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre, was the subject of a lengthy legal battle, with Palestinians and some Israeli supporters arguing the museum would desecrate the burial site.Israel's courts rejected the argument, saying the site was deconsecrated decades ago, and the project has received planning approval from local authorities despite the protests....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jul 13, 2011
German nuclear experts believe they have found nuclear waste from Hitler’s secret atom bomb programme in a crumbling mine near Hanover.More than 126,000 barrels of nuclear material lie rotting over 2,000 feet below ground in an old salt mine. Rumour has it that the remains of nuclear scientists who worked on the Nazi programme are also there, their irradiated bodies burned in secret by S.S. men sworn to secrecy.A statement by a boss of the Asse II nuclear fuel dump, just discovered in an archive, said how in 1967 'our association sank radioactive wastes from the last war, uranium waste, from the preparation of the German atom bomb'....
