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: NYT
Feb 18, 2011
As a child, Razib Khan spent several weeks studying in a Bangladeshi madrasa. Heather Mac Donald once studied literary deconstructionism and clerked for a left-wing judge. In neither case did the education take. They are atheist conservatives — Mr. Khan an apostate to his family’s Islamic faith, Ms. Mac Donald to her left-wing education.
They are part of a small faction on the right: conservatives with no use for religion. Since 2008, they have been contributors to the blog Secular
Source: NYT
Feb 18, 2011
SEDALIA, Colo. — The mechanics were simple. A trailer latch popped, a gate swung open and three wild bighorn sheep — two females, presumably pregnant, and a year-old lamb, definitely frisky — trotted up the rocky slope of Thunder Butte under a pale afternoon sun.
It is the back story of the animals’ release this week by wildlife biologists here in the mountains southwest of Denver that can stagger the mind with its complications of coincidence, historical accident, devastation and h
Source: NYT
Feb 18, 2011
In the half century since Wisconsin became the first state to give its public workers the right to bargain collectively, government employee unions have mushroomed in size and power — so much so that they now account for more than half of the nation’s union members.
But the legislative push by Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker, a Republican, to slash the collective bargaining rights of his state’s public employees could prove a watershed for public-sector unions, perhaps signal
Source: NYT
Feb 18, 2011
OSWIECIM, Poland — For nearly 60 years, Auschwitz has told its own story, shaped in the aftermath of the Second World War. It now unfolds, unadorned and mostly unexplained, in displays of hair, shoes and other remains of the dead. Past the notorious, mocking gateway, into the brick ranks of the former barracks of the Polish army camp that the Nazis seized and converted into prisons and death chambers, visitors bear witness via this exhibition.
Now those in charge of passing along th
Source: BBC News
Feb 18, 2011
t crops up in our speech dozens of times every day, although it apparently means little. So how did the word "OK" conquer the world, asks Allan Metcalf.
"OK" is one of the most frequently used and recognised words in the world.
It is also one of the oddest expressions ever invented. But this oddity may in large measure account for its popularity.
It's odd-looking. It's a word that looks and sounds like an abbreviation, an acronym.
Source: BBC News
Feb 18, 2011
Four hundred years after his death, Caravaggio is a 21st Century superstar among old master painters. His stark, dramatically lit, super-realistic paintings strike a modern chord - but his police record is more shocking than any modern bad boy rock star's.
An exhibition of documents at Rome's State Archives throws vivid light on his tumultuous life here at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries.
Caravaggio's friendships, daily life and frequent braw
Source: The State (SC)
Feb 17, 2011
The long process for deciding whether the Battle of Camden Site and Historic Camden Revolutionary War Site are worthy of becoming a National Park Service unit took a step forward with public meetings on Wednesday.
About 75 people packed the afternoon meeting room at the Historic Robert Mills Courthouse, and a second meeting was planned in the evening.
The enthusiastic turnout in favor of the proposal prompted Tom Thomas, who is coordinating the Battle of Camden Special
Source: NY Times
Feb 17, 2011
There are various types of archaeology: small test pits, wide-area exposures, architectural reconstruction, regional survey, etc. Our strategy at the Maya site of Ceibal (also written as Seibal in English literature), in the tropical lowlands of western Guatemala, is decidedly a vertical pursuit. Dig deep and trace 2,000 years to Ceibal’s occupation history back to its beginning. This is our fifth season, and this year we have been working in the jungle since early January. Some of our excavatio
Source: Artinfo/AFP
Feb 17, 2011
Much international concern has focused on acts of looting of cultural artifacts during the current revolutionary unrest in Egypt. However, in Tunisia, a far more spectacular cultural crime is making news, this one carried out by the agents of the state themselves. Recently ousted dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his family stand accused of illegal appropriation and plundering of the site of the ancient city of Carthage. A pair of activists are publicizing the crimes in a petition they have l
Source: NYT
Feb 17, 2011
Again with the hand-wringing over what to name a bridge. Edward I. Koch is having as much trouble getting a bridge for himself as George Washington did 80 years ago on the other side of the island. In George Washington’s case, there was actually a public referendum on whether to call the George Washington Bridge the George Washington Bridge. And George Washington actually lost.
George had popped up entirely from out of the blue. Not once from the very conception of the world’s might
Source: AP
Feb 17, 2011
JACKSON, Miss. – Does Haley Barbour have a Confederate problem?It's a question hounding Mississippi's Republican governor as he gears up for a possible 2012 presidential run. Barbour refused this week to condemn a proposed state license plate to honor
Source: Art Info
Feb 17, 2011
Much international concern has focused on acts of looting of cultural artifacts during the current revolutionary unrest in Egypt. However, in Tunisia, a far more spectacular cultural crime is making news, this one carried out by the agents of the state themselves. Recently ousted dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his family stand accused of illegal appropriation and plundering of the site of the ancient city of Carthage. A pair of activists are publicizing the crimes in a petition they have l
Source: Monsters and Critics
Feb 17, 2011
Croatian police have completed the exhumation of remains from mass grave in a Zagreb suburb, on one of more than 200 known sites where thousands of Germans, both soldiers and civilians, were buried in the closing days of the Second World War.
Yugoslav communist partisans carried out executions across the c country as the Nazi regime crumbled and fell in 1945. So far the Croatian interior ministry has compiled a list of the sites more than 200 German mass graves.
Yet jus
Source: AP
Feb 17, 2011
Egypt said it will reopen historical sites to tourism on Sunday as it sought to revive a key industry shattered in the turmoil that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Archaeologists were cheered by the recovery of the most important artifact stolen from Cairo's Egyptian Museum, a rare statue of King Tut's father.
A 16-year-old anti-government protester found the statue of the Pharaoh Akhenaten next to a garbage can and his family returned it, the antiquities ministry said.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 17, 2011
Scientists have discovered the remains of three humans – including a child-of-three – that appear to have been killed for food, their bodies butchered and then eaten.
The bones showed precision cuts to extract the maximum amount of meat and the skulls had been carved into cups and bowls for drinking and eating.
The fragments – which are 14,700 years old- are thought to be the oldest examples in the world of skull cups and the first evidence of ritual killing in Britain.
Source: BBC News
Feb 17, 2011
A rare Andy Warhol self-portrait has sold for £10.79m ($17.44m) at auction, having been in private hands since 1974.
The red and white portrait, which measures 6ft (1.8m) by 6ft, had been expected to fetch no more than £5m.
It was bought by an anonymous bidder at the auction held by Christie's in London.
The 1967 work was part of a historic series of 11 large-scale self-portraits created that year.
Warhol was at the height of his fame when he f
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Feb 17, 2011
Not even in his wildest dreams could Martin Luther King Jr have imagined that he would one day find himself honoured alongside two of America's best-known and best-loved presidents.
But Dr King is soon to stand shoulder to shoulder with Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson when a statue of the slain civil rights leader is unveiled in the National Mall in Washington, DC.
The memorial will be positioned in a direct line between those dedicated to legendary former leaders
Source: Guardian (UK)
Feb 16, 2011
James Cameron and his team of minions may have produced the high watermark for 3D technology in the 21st century, but it seems the Nazis got there first. The Australian film-maker Philippe Mora says he has discovered two 30-minute 3D films shot by propagandists for the Third Reich in 1936, a full 16 years before the format first became briefly popular in the US.
The first of the films, titled So Real You Can Touch It, features shots of sizzling stereoscopic bratwursts on a barbecue
Source: AFP
Feb 16, 2011
Iceman Oetzi, whose mummified body was famously found frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991, will get a new face for the 20th anniversary of his discovery.
As part of a new exhibit at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano (www.iceman.it), two Dutch experts -- Alfons and Adrie Kennis -- have made a new model of the living Oetzi, this time with brown eyes.
Indeed, recent research has shown the Iceman, now approaching the tender
Source: PBS
Feb 16, 2011
As the dust settles on Egypt's recent protests, one less-discussed outcome of the uprising is the damage done to some of the country's ancient artifacts. After would-be looters broke into the famous Egyptian museum in Cairo in search of gold on Jan. 29, approximately 70 artifacts were damaged.
Among the items were several small statues, a 3,000-year-old tomb, and a statue of King Tutankhamun. The king, who formerly stood atop a panther, was severed from the animal after the break-in
