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: PennLive.com
Sep 12, 2010
Gettysburg will forever be linked to confrontation. And unfortunately, the Civil War was just the beginning.
Forget about the casino debate for a moment to consider the quandary Gettysburg National Military Park officials continue to face regarding the future of the old Cyclorama Center just off Taneytown Road....
...When officials geared up to tear down the concrete 1962 building this year, a flag was thrown....
Source: Athens News Agency
Sep 12, 2010
A scientific paper published in the "International Journal of Medical Science" by prominent researchers of Bristol, Manchester and Oxford universities has questioned claims that an ancient tomb found in Vergina in northern Greece contains the remains of Philip III Arrhidaios, half-brother of Alexander the Great.
According to the paper published on Sept. 8, the skull of the male body in the tomb bears marks of injuries consistent with those known to have occured to Alex
Source: WaPo
Sep 12, 2010
The old Holleywood tavern at Ninth and U streets NW, one of just eight bars in Washington listed as open to blacks in 1949, is now the indie-rock bar, DC9. Where the Brass Rail restaurant once served blacks who were excluded from most downtown eateries, there is now a day-care center for toddlers and infants. Green's, a beauty parlor on 18th, south of U, is now a Peruvian restaurant.
Half a century after the edition of the Negro Motorist Green Book with those D.C. listings was publ
Source: Fox News
Sep 12, 2010
The imam in the middle of the Ground Zero mosque controversy said Sunday he would never have picked that location if he knew it would create the conflict it did, but he has no plan to move the Islamic center from the proposed site two blocks from where the World Trade Center fell.
In a recent poll taken by the Washington Post, 49 percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable view of Islam.
But Giuliani said Islamophobia has nothing to do with moving the mosque, wh
Source: BBC News
Sep 12, 2010
Nelson Mandela felt so betrayed by Tony Blair's decision to join the invasion of Iraq that he made a furious phone call to a UK minister to protest.
Labour MP Peter Hain, whose biography of the ex-South African president is published on Monday, said Mr Mandela was "breathing fire" down the line.
The former Welsh Secretary said Mr Mandela felt Mr Blair's good work was "blown out of the water" by the war.
Mr Hain said the criticisms were m
Source: NYT
Sep 12, 2010
Forget whether it was brig or brigantine. The archaeologists who are trying to decipher the 18th-century ship recovered this summer from an old landfill at the World Trade Center site had to agree first on whether they were looking at its bow or its stern....
It wasn’t until the wooden elements of the hull were gingerly removed by AKRF, a consulting firm, from the excavation site in Lower Manhattan, cleaned up at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory and inspected by s
Source: NYT
Sep 12, 2010
There are the bicentennial buses. Bicentennial roads. A bicentennial marathon. A bicentennial song. The bicentennial digital library. A bicentennial video game. Even a bicentennial bird, the mountain trogon, and plant, the owl agave. And of course the bicentennial fireworks extravaganza, planned to be the largest the country has ever seen.
What appears to be missing is bicentennial enthusiasm.
By accident of timing, as Mexico approaches the 200th anniversary on Thursday
Source: AFP
Sep 12, 2010
The small Bulgarian town on the Greek border was isolated for decades under communist rule -- and Greece was very much considered an enemy at the time, remembers Pavlov, now 67.
But now the town is banking on a newly opened border crossing to boost tourism and cultural links with its neighbour.
Now Bulgaria's government hopes the new link will attract tourists, drawn by the region's heritage and unspoilt nature....
Source: BBC
Sep 12, 2010
A French legal team has arrived in Rwanda to begin a week-long inquiry into the killing of President Juvenal Habyarimana 16 years ago.
The plane carrying Mr Habyarimana was shot down in April 1994, triggering the Rwandan genocide in which more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.
An earlier French investigation blamed forces close to current President Paul Kagame, and caused Rwanda to break off diplomatic ties with France in 2006.
Relations were
Source: BBC
Sep 12, 2010
Art historians are one step closer to discovering the identity of a royal painter thanks to scientific research.
Analysis by the National Portrait Gallery of two renowned portraits of Elizabeth I has shown they were painted on wood from the same two trees.
The 16th century paintings have been associated with artist Nicholas Hilliard for many years.
Curator Tarnya Cooper said the research meant the work is probably that of Hilliard or someone working with hi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 12, 2010
The Muslim cleric behind plans to build a mosque close to the Ground Zero site has blamed politicians such as Sarah Palin for fuelling a "growing Islamophobia" that led to the burning of Korans on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
The Reverend Terry Jones abandoned his "international burn a Koran day" in Gainesville, Florida on Saturday but there were isolated instances in Tennessee and New York of the Muslim holy book being set alight.
Source: AP
Sep 12, 2010
The movie that Mexican director Luis Estrada is putting out for his country's bicentennial is bluntly named "Hell."
Like many Mexicans, Estrada says there is little to celebrate in Mexico today, with its violence, corruption and inequity. Yet in another way, the harshly critical movie shows how far the country has come — it was made with government funding, and nobody tried to censor it.
The bicentennial marks the 1810 uprising led by Catholic priest Miguel Hi
Source: LA Times
Sep 11, 2010
Reporting from Litchfield, Conn. — The scenic village green of Litchfield has long symbolized the charms of Connecticut small-town life. Settled in 1721, it hosts tourists drawn by its Revolutionary War history: Litchfield served as a "safe town" for Continental forces seeking refuge while the British occupied New York City.
But this fall, the celebrated tourist town of about 8,500 will receive publicity for quite a different reason: charges of religious discrimination.
Source: Irish Central
Sep 11, 2010
A researcher looking into the deaths as a result of neglect at the Bethany mother and baby home in Dublin has discovered a further 200 graves, which date between 1922 and 1949.
Many of the babies in the Bethany Home died from malnutrition and their deaths were never recorded.
Niall Meehan, a Griffith College lecturer, has previously discovered 40 unmarked graves, but he has now uncovered a further 200.
Meehan has published his discoveries in the publication
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 11, 2010
Modern military wives typically don't ship out alongside their husbands, but the young wife of a British naval officer did just that during the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century. Now a historian who tracked down 40 unpublished volumes of her diaries has gotten the go-ahead to write a book investigating her life.
Elizabeth "Betsey" Wynne accompanied her husband aboard his warship during a disastrous British assault on the Spanish Canary Islands. She spent the voyage home-
Source: AP
Sep 11, 2010
For nearly three centuries after the Reformation, Catholics in England were outlaws.
But in the turmoil and persecution that followed the break between King Henry VIII and Rome, noble families such as the Stonors clung to their faith, "in spite of dungeon, fire and sword," as the Victorian hymn "Faith of our Fathers" put it.
"We're just stubborn, really," says Ralph Thomas Campion Stonor, the seventh Lord Camoys, a title bestowed on an ance
Source: NYT
Sep 11, 2010
ALL cities change over time, but Chicago may be in a class by itself. It took a measure of sheer willpower to transform the “hog butcher for the world,” as Chicago was known around the middle of the last century, into one of the most forward-looking of cities, with an abundance of public art and green space alongside an ever-expanding skyline.
The greater part of the transformation took place over the last two decades, under the command of Mayor Richard M. Daley, who manifested his
Source: New York Times
Sep 11, 2010
William H. Goetzmann, who in a Pulitzer Prize-winning book overturned the idea of Western exploration in the 19th century as a series of random thrusts into the hinterland, finding instead that it was a far more systematic effort, died on Tuesday at his home in Austin, Tex. He was 80.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his wife, Mewes, said.
Mr. Goetzmann’s book “Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West” (Knopf, 1
Source: BBC
Sep 11, 2010
Competing demonstrations have been held in New York on the anniversary of 9/11 over plans for an Islamic cultural centre close to Ground Zero.
Hundreds of people attended both demonstrations which became heated but passed off without violent incident.
The radical Dutch politician Geert Wilders addressed one demonstration, calling for an end to the plans.
The demonstrations were held after ceremonies honouring those killed in the World Trade Center nine year
Source: LiveScience
Sep 10, 2010
Modern military wives typically don't ship out alongside their husbands, but the young wife of a British naval officer did just that during the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century. Now a historian who tracked down 40 unpublished volumes of her diaries has gotten the go-ahead to write a book investigating her life.
Elizabeth "Betsey" Wynne accompanied her husband aboard his warship during a disastrous British assault on the Spanish Canary Islands. She spent the voyage home-
