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: Daily Mail (UK)
Feb 26, 2011
In the Twenties, Margaret Powell worked as a kitchen maid, the lowest level of the servants’ hierarchy.
With unusually sharp observation, Margaret — who died in 1984 — recalled in a fascinating memoir what it was like to be treated as less than human by her wealthy employers in London and at Hove in East Sussex.
As her book, republished next week, reveals, the animosity was very much mutual...
One morning, as I was polishing the brass kn
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 26, 2011
'I am so very fond of him. He is so good and gentle and understanding… and is a real comfort to me.”
These were the words of Queen Victoria speaking to her daughter-in-law, Louise, Duchess of Connaught, on November 3, 1888, at Balmoral. Perhaps surprising, though, is who she was talking about – not her beloved husband, Albert, who had died in 1861. Nor John Brown, her loyal Scottish ghillie, who in many ways filled the void left by Albert, since Brown had died in 1883.
Source: Japan Times
Feb 26, 2011
A terra cotta figurine unearthed from a late fourth-century tomb in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, is thought to be the oldest "haniwa" found yet, according to the local authority.
The figurine, which is holding a shield and appears to be smiling, was apparently meant to guard the Chihara Ohaka tomb, the Sakurai board of education said Thursday.
The earliest haniwa in human form had until now been dated to the first half of the fifth century, but the Sakurai figuri
Source: NYT
Feb 26, 2011
MOSCOW — Let the Middle East and North Africa be buffeted by populist discontent over repressive governments. Here in Lenin’s former territory, across the expanse of the old Soviet Union, rulers with iron fists still have the upper hand....
Nearly two decades ago, the collapse of Soviet Communism offered the promise that power would soon be wielded differently in this region: The newly independent former Soviet republics, sprung from the shackles of totalitarianism, would embrace fr
Source: Business Week
Feb 25, 2011
Tom Hunge knows he's living in the heyday of the modern sutling business. The 67-year-old from Winchester, Va., can't seem to keep enough of his authentic-looking 19th century military supplies—from vintage pencils (25 cents each) to Whitworth rifles ($1,000 and up)—on the shelves. "There have been days when I never put the phone down," he says. "I keep it next to my ear and write new orders for eight hours straight."
This April marks the 150th anniversary of the
Source: CatholicCulture.org
Feb 25, 2011
Pope Benedict XVI will travel in March to the Fosse Ardeatine, the site of a Nazi massacre on the outskirts of Rome.
On March 24, 1944, Nazi troops killed 335 Italians, in revenge for a partisan bomb attack in Rome that had killed 22 Nazi soldiers. The victims included Jews, political prisoners, and ordinary citizens; all were summarily executed and their bodies buried under rubble. On the 67th anniversary of the atrocity, Pope Benedict will visit the Fosse Ardeatine to honor the de
Source: Yahoo News
Feb 25, 2011
LONDON – Papers relating to codebreaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing will go to a British museum after the National Heritage Memorial Fund stepped in to help buy them for the nation.
The government-backed fund said Friday it had donated more than 200,000 pounds ($320,000) to a campaign to stop the notes and scientific papers from going to a private buyer.
The fund's chair, Jenny Abramsky, said the collection would be a permanent memorial to "a true war hero.&qu
Source: Reuters
Feb 25, 2011
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Writings by Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod which have been hidden away for decades have been brought to light at an Israeli court and could reveal more on the life of one of the 20th century's greatest authors.
The long-awaited inventory, obtained by Reuters, details contents of safes in Tel Aviv and Zurich. It was submitted on Thursday to a family court in Tel Aviv where a legal battle is being waged over ownership of Max Brod's estate.
Kafka
Source: Yahoo News
Feb 25, 2011
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ancient megadroughts that lasted thousands of years in what is now the American Southwest could offer a preview of a climate changed by modern greenhouse gas emissions, researchers reported on Wednesday.
The scientists found these persistent dry periods were different from even the most severe decades-long modern droughts, including the 1930s "Dust Bowl." And they determined that these millennial droughts occurred at times when Earth's mean annual te
Source: Irish Times
Feb 25, 2011
AN ARCHAEOLOGY enthusiast in Co Westmeath has unearthed human remains dating back more than 4,000 years in his back garden.
The National Museum of Ireland has described as “significant” the find by Pat Tiernan at Rickardstown, Collinstown.
Mr Tiernan had been excavating soil for the construction of a “lean-to”, or shed, at the rear of his home when a spell of bad weather led to a small landslide.
“I looked out the window and saw bones protruding out the bac
Source: Guardian (UK)
Feb 25, 2011
The face in the sepia photograph is taut and strained, the glare fixed and defiant – for who knows the trials Mary Morrison had already undergone in life before her conviction at Manchester assize courts on 16 July 1883? Nearly 130 years on, her portrait, attached to her prison record, is one of hundreds of Victorian female prisoners placed online for the first time by a genealogy website.
Morrison, 40 and a servant, was convicted of throwing acid in the face of her estranged husban
Source: BBC News
Feb 25, 2011
It is a spectacular work of art and a highlight at Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.
The semicircle of gleaming green feathers held together by rows of golden beads was, it is said, the headdress of Mexico's last Aztec ruler, Moctezuma.
But the spectacular artefact is not real - it's a replica. The original lies thousands of kilometres away in a collection at Vienna's Ethnology Museum.
The exact origin of the headdress or "penacho" is disp
Source: AFP
Feb 25, 2011
Archeologists have discovered a group of ancient tombs in the mountainous jungle of southeastern Peru they say is as important as the discovery of the lost city of Machu Picchu.
The tombs belonging to the Wari culture were found on the jungle-covered eastern slope of the Andes in Cuzco department at a long-abandoned city thought to be the last redoubt of Inca resistance to Spanish colonial rule.
The Waris, a pre-Inca civilization, had an enormous cultural impact in the
Source: NYT
Feb 25, 2011
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a child cremated in central Alaska about 11,500 years ago. They are the earliest known human remains from the North American Subarctic and Arctic region.
The fragments were found in a fire pit in an ancient dwelling and provide new insight into the burial practices of ice age people. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Science.
Although only about 20 percent of the child’s remains was recovered, leaving t
Source: BBC
Feb 25, 2011
It is a spectacular work of art and a highlight at Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.
The semicircle of gleaming green feathers held together by rows of golden beads was, it is said, the headdress of Mexico's last Aztec ruler, Moctezuma.
But the spectacular artefact is not real - it's a replica. The original lies thousands of kilometres away in a collection at Vienna's Ethnology Museum.
The exact origin of the headdress or "penacho" is disp
Source: NYT
Feb 25, 2011
The blind sheik in charge of blowing up New York City had invited reporters to interview him one evening in 1993, so 57 of us stood in his bare living room. The floor shuddered every time another person or camera crew squeezed in. Then, for more than half an hour, the sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman, spoke at a dead sprint, in Arabic. The translators panted. From the sound of things, they apparently were able to render only about one phrase in English for every three he spoke in Arabic.
Th
Source: NYT
Feb 25, 2011
A trove of historic archive documents dating from Catherine the Great that were stolen after the Soviet breakup were returned to Russia on Friday by the United States. The 21 documents include decrees issued by Czar Nicholas II and Marshal Georgy Zhukov....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Feb 25, 2011
Second world war papers by the UK's most famous codebreaker, Alan Turing, have been bought for the nation with an 11th-hour bid by the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Turing's work was in danger of going to a private buyer abroad but will now stay in its "spritual home", Bletchley Park, which was the centre of Britain's top secret code-breaking effort during the war.
The mathematician, often dubbed "the father of computer science", helped crack the
Source: NYT
Feb 25, 2011
ST. LOUIS — They call this the Gateway to the West, but for the past six decades that gateway has more resembled an exit, as this city, once the nation’s fourth largest, has lost roughly half a million people.
Though recent estimates had given city officials reason to believe the downward trend had finally stalled, those hopes were dashed Thursday when the Census Bureau released new data showing that the city’s population had shrunk by 29,000 over the last decade — an 8.3 percent de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 24, 2011
The grandson of a Second World War soldier felt "sick inside" as Muslim demonstrators burnt replica poppies on the anniversary of Armistice Day, a court heard yesterday.
Tony Kibble said tears of anger and rage welled in his eyes as members of Muslims Against Crusades (MAC) chanted "British soldiers burn in hell" while he attempted to mark a two-minute silence.
At Belmarsh magistrates' court, sitting at Woolwich Crown Court, two members of the Islam
