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This page features brief excerpts of news 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.
Highlights
Breaking News
This page features brief excerpts of news 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. Because most of our readers read the NYT we usually do not include the paper's stories in HIGHLIGHTS.
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (3-4-09)
Chinese leaders have prepared for the worst, ordering the largest troop deployment since the Sichuan earthquake last spring. This reporter got a rare look at the clampdown because he was recently driven through the Tibetan areas of arid Gansu Province while being detained by the police for 20 hours.
SOURCE: NYT (3-2-09)
SOURCE: NYT (3-2-09)
Name of source: International Herald Tribune
SOURCE: International Herald Tribune (3-5-09)
Pieds-noirs - the term's origins are obscure, but perhaps had something to do with black boots - emigrated to Algeria mostly from Spain, Italy, Germany, Malta and other European countries, often as laborers and farmers. They became French citizens during the 130-odd years that the nation was under French rule.
Then, during the chaotic weeks and months after France, under Charles de Gaulle, ended its colonial war with Algerian nationalists in March 1962, more than a million pieds-noirs fled to cities like this one. Others who stayed were massacred in places like Oran. Still others disappeared....
From Marseille to Montpellier, museums about colonialism and the pieds-noirs, encouraged by nostalgic and militant pieds-noirs like Scotto, have been proposed or are soon to open, to the consternation of many French who feel that the pied-noir story, told by some of its more right-wing partisans, is incendiary and not one anyone needs to hear now.
Name of source: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com
SOURCE: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com (3-3-09)
Congress has just budgeted another $650,000 to finish the job - really, they're serious this time -- of poring through some 8 million postwar pages.
"There's a million pages of Army and CIA documents left" to read and catalog, said Miriam Kleiman, a spokeswoman for the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA.
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (3-5-09)
The controversial plan comes after a television documentary exposed the scale of human losses during one of the conflict's bloodiest battles.
The programme stirred deep emotions in a country that has traditionally glorified the heroic exploits of ordinary soldiers during the 'Great Patriotic War' but has often ignored the immense human cost behind the victory over Nazi Germany.
As anger among veterans swelled, the government sensed an opportunity to capitalise on the public mood at a time when the threat of economic recession is threatening prime minister Vladimir Putin's popularity.
Sergei Shoigu, the respected emergency situations minister, has called for a law, based on Holocaust denial legislation in Germany, that would make it a criminal offence to suggest that the Soviet Union did not win the War.
Mr Shoigu indicated that the legislation would also seek to punish eastern European or former Soviet states which deny they were liberated by the Red Army. The leaders of those countries could be banned from Russian soil, he said.
Mr Shoigu has won support for his proposal from the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, and other legislators who say that a bill will be presented before parliament in the next few months.
Liberal Russians fear that the legislation will be used to punish anyone who criticises the manner in which Stalin conducted the war or addresses incidents such as the Soviet massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war at Katyn Forest in 1940, which Moscow maintains was not a war crime.
Academics estimate that more than 26 million Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed between 1941 and 1945, a death toll that dwarfed the losses of any other country. Yet in Russia itself, where Stalin is still revered as the country's wartime saviour, the subject remains a forbidden one.
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (3-4-09)
Their decision comes after masked officers from the Russian general prosecutor's office raided the offices of Memorial, a human rights organisation which helped Professor Figes research the book.
As well as confiscating about a third of the material used for the book, the officers seized Memorial's entire St Petersburg archive, according to Prof Figes.
The archive included vast historical databases containing information on repression in the country, as well as recordings and transcripts of interviews, he said.
Writing in The Guardian, Prof Figes said: "The raid was part of a broader ideological struggle over the control of history publications and teaching in Russia that may have influenced the decision of Atticus to cancel my contract."
He added: "The history in my book... is inconvenient to the current regime in Russia... The Kremlin has been actively for the rehabilitation of Stalin. Its aim is not to deny Stalin's crimes but to emphasise his achievements as the builder of the country's 'glorious Soviet past'."
Prof Figes, the chair of history at Birkbeck College, University of London, pointed out that in 2007, Vladimir Putin, who was then president and is now prime minister, "called on Russia's schoolteachers to portray the Stalin period in a more positive light".
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (3-4-09)
It was the base of a group of around 20 French auxiliaries of the Gestapo – mostly convicted criminals - who between 1941 and 1944 tortured and killed dozens of resistance members. Its notorious leaders were disgraced policeman Pierre Bonny and gangster Henri Lafont.
Claude Goasguen, the mayor of the 16th arrondissement, this week proposed "de-christening" the address and turning it into 91 bis, "in order not to weigh down the current and future occupants with this monstrous past". But his proposal has been criticised by several councillors and former resistance fighters and historians.
"How could they even consider it?" asked Suzanne Teboul, 85, a former member of the R7 Parisian resistance group.
"The people who want to de-christen it are wrong: changing a number doesn't rub out the past," she told Le Parisien newspaper.
"Between ourselves we called it the 'street of horrors'. All resistance members knew of this address and all feared being caught by the French Gestapo to be tortured. It is a strong landmark for those who fought for Free France."
Maurice Rafsjus, a historian who specialises in the collaborationist Vichy regime, said: "It's an idea that I find unbearable as a historian. It proves that France is still not at peace with its vichyste past."
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (3-3-09)
"Operation Torch" followed closely on the heels on the battle of el-Alamein which allowed Churchill to declare that he had seen the "end of the beginning" of the war, as the Allies took control of the Mediterranean.
But the invasion and the carefully planned deception operation almost came to nothing, new files released by MI5 reveal.
A telegram of October 28 1942, 11 days before the invasion, noted that they had been closely watching the activities of the ostensibly neutral Portuguese fishing fleet off the banks of Newfoundland and had "reason to believe that one or more of these vessels carried German agents."
Referring to an intercepted message, decoded by Enigma, it added: "We have now obtained from the most secret sources, information which not only proves our suspicions but actually identifies the man concerned."
"You will of course appreciate that if any action is to be taken, it must be taken forthwith," it added.
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (3-3-09)
The opinions showed that after the September 11, 2001 attacks former President George W Bush's administration determined that certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within two weeks, government lawyers were discussing ways to wiretap US conversations without warrants.
A memo from Oct 23, 2001, said constitutional free-speech protections and a prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure could take a back seat to military needs in fighting terrorism inside the country.
The power to dispose of the liberty of individuals captured ... remain in the hands of the president alone," said a 2002 opinion written by then-assistant attorney general John Yoo on US methods for transferring suspects.
"Congress can no longer regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements," according to another 2003 opinion written for Alberto Gonzales, then counsel for Bush, which detailed prerogatives for military interrogations...
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SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (3-3-09)
The Schaeffler group is lumbered with close to £14bn worth of debt after buying out the major European auto parts and tyre maker Continental last year in a hostile takeover.
When the global crunch hit shortly after the purchase, the group began teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, threatening the jobs of 220,000 people around the world.
It has asked for German state aid and Berlin was said to be receptive to its overtures "until details of its dark past under the Nazis came to light".
Last week the group issued the findings of an independent historical stocktaking of its activities in the Third Reich, one of numerous concerns to do so in recent years. It admitted the widespread use of forced labourers who worked and died under appalling conditions in its factories in occupied Poland which were switched from consumer goods to armaments in wartime.
The company released the findings on the back of internet rumours that the plants had also utilised the hair from many of the inmates who died at Auschwitz, a charge it vehemently denied.
But the allegations have returned to haunt the company this week with the findings of the deputy director of the Auschwitz memorial site, Dr Jacek Lachendro.
He claims that 1.95 tons of human hair – "it was shaved from the heads of the victims before they were gassed" – was found in a Schaeffler textile factory after the war ended. He says he also has records from the camp of former slave labourers at the camp who were responsible for despatching the hair in two railway car loads to the Schaeffler enterprise, which back then operated under the name Davistan AG.
He said the hair was examined after the war and found to contain traces of Zyklon- B; the pesticide which the Nazis used at Auschwitz to kill an estimated 1.1 million people, most of them Jews.
The company's historian dismissed the allegations.
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (3-5-09)
Archaeologists have examined findings at the 500-acre site as building work continues for the 2012 Games.
Medieval pottery, a Roman coin and four prehistoric skeletons were also uncovered at the east London site.
The Museum of London is documenting the discoveries. Senior archaeologist Kieron Tyler said they revealed a "previously unknown" London.
The prehistoric skeletons were buried in graves around an area of Iron Age settlement, he said, and the boat was used for hunting wild fowl on the River Lea.
SOURCE: BBC (3-4-09)
More than 20,000 people are expected to reach their 100th birthday this year.
The Japanese have one of the longest life expectancies of any nation, but there are concerns about the burden on society of paying for care of the aged.
UN projections suggest there will be about one million Japanese over the age of 100 by 2050.
Last year there were 19,768 new centenarians and the numbers are rising.
The Japanese are so long-lived because of healthy diets, strong communities and relatively easy access to medical care.
SOURCE: BBC (3-5-09)
Culture Minister Ambika Soni said the government would bid for the items if they were unable to stop the auction.
Antiquorum Auctioneers are to sell Gandhi's iconic round glasses, a pocket watch, leather sandals and some other items in a few hours time.
The planned auction has led to an uproar in India.
The government has been under immense pressure to bring back the items.
SOURCE: BBC (3-4-09)
But the ICC in The Hague stopped short of accusing Omar al-Bashir of genocide. He denies the charges and has dismissed any ruling by the court as worthless.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, after the announcement, amid fears of unrest.
The UN estimates 300,000 people have died in Darfur's six-year conflict.
SOURCE: BBC (3-4-09)
Antiquorum Auctioneers are to sell Gandhi's iconic round glasses, a pocket watch, leather sandals and other items.
The planned auction has led to an uproar in India with many saying the government must bring back the items.
On Tuesday, the Delhi high court issued an order against the auction or sale of Mahatma Gandhi's belongings.
The court order followed on a petition filed by Navjivan - a public trust started by Gandhi in 1929.
Navjivan has claimed ownership of all Gandhi's personal items.
SOURCE: BBC (3-3-09)
The subject is the compatibility of evolution and creation.
It is one of two separate international academic conferences being sponsored by the Vatican this year.
They aim to re-examine the work of scientific thinkers whose revolutionary ideas challenged religious belief: Galileo and Charles Darwin.
Scientists, philosophers and theologians from around the world are gathering at the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome to discuss the compatibility of Darwin's theory of evolution and Catholic teaching.
SOURCE: BBC (3-3-09)
State television said Cabinet Secretary Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque are among 10 officials who are stepping down.
It said the move was in line with the president's plan to improve efficiency.
It is the first big reshuffle since Mr Castro took over as president from his ailing older brother, Fidel, last year.
Correspondents say Mr Castro is putting his personal stamp on a government that still bears the mark of his brother.
The major shake-up comes at a time when Cuba and the US have been signalling for the first time in many years that they would welcome the possibility of moving towards improved ties, says the BBC's Americas editor Emilio San Pedro.
SOURCE: BBC (3-2-09)
The agency had previously said that it had destroyed only two tapes.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a lawsuit against the CIA to seek details of the interrogations of terror suspects.
Techniques involved are understood to have included water-boarding, which the Obama administration says is torture.
The acknowledgment of the 92 destroyed tapes came in a letter sent to the judge presiding over the ACLU lawsuit.
In 2005 a judge ordered the preservation of all evidence regarding the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
In December 2007, the CIA revealed that two tapes from interviews had been destroyed five months after the ruling.
But the agency said the ruling did not apply to the destroyed tapes, as they concerned interrogations that took place before the suspects had been transferred to Guantanamo.
In January 2008, the justice department launched an investigation to answer questions over the tapes.
Tapes were a contentious issue during the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who was jailed for his part in the attacks.
Prosecutors initially claimed there were no recordings of his interrogation, but then acknowledged video and audio tapes had been made.
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (3-4-09)
Writing from Philadelphia, Poe blames his friend William Ross Wallace, a poet and lawyer, for making him drink too many "juleps" and for misbehaving on a visit to New York.
The university bought the July 18, 1842, letter in a Sotheby's auction after the document spent years in private hands. University officials declined to disclose the price, but said it was purchased with endowment funds.
SOURCE: AP (2-27-09)
Virginia's high court said that a lower court did not err in its ruling in Adams' favor because Maine didn't prove the document was ever an official town record and that Adams had superior title to the print.
Adams' attorney, Robert K. Richardson, has argued that Wiscasset's town clerk copied the text of the Declaration of Independence into the town's record books on Nov. 10, 1776. It's that transcription, not the document upon which it was based, that is the official town record, Richardson said.
SOURCE: AP (2-27-09)
That's the question facing voters in this Vermont ski town, which is asking for permission to raze a 170-year-old former church that has fallen into disrepair. Town officials, who've been trying to decide what to do with the former Congregational Church for more than 20 years, believe its time has come.
But a small group of preservation-minded residents say the 1839 Greek Revival-style building — now known as the Rotary Barn — can be restored and converted into a community center, given the chance. They say it won't cost taxpayers, although it's unclear whether they can raise the estimated $450,000 to rehabilitate it.
SOURCE: AP (3-1-09)
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev traveled to the southern Italian city of Bari for the hand-over, which was aimed at boosting ties between the two countries and improving often-tense Roman Catholic-Russian Orthodox relations.
SOURCE: AP (3-3-09)
But she wanted to find out more about Cmdr. Robert Nicholls Glasgow and what happened , so she turned to her aunt and uncle, who live in Pensacola, home of the National Museum of Naval Aviation. Their search led them to the museum's director, Bob Rasmussen, a retired Navy captain and once a member of the famed flight demonstration team.
"I said to myself, 'Isn't that a coincidence,' " Rasmussen mused. "Of all the people that they might have brought this to, it happened to be the person who was flying with him the morning he was killed in that crash."
SOURCE: AP (3-3-09)
The former Bosnian Serb leader told a hearing at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal that the U.N. court "does not have the right to try me."
Karadzic, 62, claims he was promised immunity from prosecution by U.S. peace envoy Richard Holbrooke in return for stepping down from power and disappearing from the public eye. Holbrooke has denied cutting such a deal.
The new indictment covers the same allegations as the original charges filed against Karadzic in 1995 but reduces the number of crime sites in an attempt to speed up his trial. No date has been set for the trial to start.
Prosecutors say he orchestrated a deadly campaign of ethnic cleansing by Serb forces throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Acts covered in his indictment range from the violent takeover of villages to the shelling and sniping campaign targeting Sarajevo and the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men at the U.N. safe haven of Srebrenica.
Karadzic was arrested in July on a Belgrade bus after 13 years on the run. When he was caught, he was posing as a white-bearded alternative healer called Dr. Dragan Dabic.
SOURCE: AP (3-3-09)
The four-level building in hardest-hit Aceh province exhibits photographs of victims, stories of survivors and an electronic simulation of the massive undersea earthquake that triggered the 30-foot-high waves.
It also describes the tremendous outpouring of support from governments, companies and individuals in the aftermath of the Dec. 26, 2004 disaster, which caused death and destruction in a dozen nations.
More than $13 billion was pledged to house and feed survivors and to rebuild devastated coasts.
The government says the museum, designed by local architect Ridwan Kamil, is an important part of the recovery process, paying tribute to those who died and explaining to future generations what happened and why.
The opening on Feb. 23 was not without controversy.
More than 700 families are still living in barracks in Aceh, which was home to two-thirds of the victims, and some were disappointed to see millions of dollars being spent on a monument.
Name of source: Media Matters (liberal watchdog group)
SOURCE: Media Matters (liberal watchdog group) (3-4-09)
In the past month, CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer has repeatedly characterized President Obama and congressional Democrats as Russian communists intent on"rampant wealth destruction." Specifically, Cramer has referred to Obama as a"Bolshevik" and said he is"taking cues from Lenin." Cramer has also used terms such as"Marx,"" comrades,""Soviet,""Winter Palace," and"Politburo" in reference to Democrats and questioned whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the"general secretary of the Communist Party."
As Media Matters for Americadocumented, on the March 3 edition of NBC's Today, Cramer attacked Obama's purported"radical agenda" and claimed that"this is the most, greatest wealth destructive I've seen by a president." Cramer's statements were subsequently highlighted by congressional Republicans.
Examples of Cramer characterizing Obama and congressional Democrats as Russian communists in the past month include:
- During the February 2 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Cramer discussed January 29 remarks by Obama in which, referring to an"article today indicating that Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses," Obama stated:"And so, you know, we're going to be having conversations as this process moves forward directly with these folks on Wall Street to underscore that they have to start acting in a more responsible fashion if -- if we are to, together, get this economy rolling again. There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time. And that's a message that I intend to send directly to them, I expect [Treasury] Secretary [Tim] Geithner to send to them." Cramer claimed of Obama's remarks:
Well, there's people who think I look like Lenin. Let me tell you something. We heard Lenin. There was a little snippet last week with,"Now is not the time for profits." I -- look, in Lenin's book What Is To Be Done?, the simple text of what I always thought was for the communists, it was remarkable to hear very similar language from What Is To Be Done?, which is that we have no place for profits. Thank heavens for the Chinese communists, deeply rooted in a profit government, because we have decided that profits have no place in the system.
After co-host Joe Scarborough said"[t]hat was a stunning quote," Cramer replied:"I was thinking, 'is he the New Economic Policy Lenin or the initial storm-the-Winter-Palace Lenin?' I'm not quite sure yet, it's a mid-20 situation. It could go either way."
- During the February 2 edition of Mad Money, Cramer echoed his Morning Joe comments by claiming that the"Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Pa -- Obama got elected. Hard to tell the difference when he's talking about how now is not the time for profits. By the way, my great-great-granduncle [Lenin] often said that now is not the time for profits."
- During the February 6 edition of Mad Money, Cramer said of Obama:"[H]e has to repudiate a lot of what's happened so far. For example, bizarrely, he gave Nancy Pelosi free rein to create a stimulus package full of pork -- extended unemployment benefits but without, you know, any stimulus. What is she? The general secretary of the Communist Party -- I mean, of the Democratic Party?" Cramer then added:"Then he took his Leninist line, telling us now -- telling us that now is not the time for profits and instituting salary caps for executives at banks who take more TARP money." While Cramer spoke, he held up a picture of Lenin:
- During the February 13 edition of Mad Money, Cramer claimed:"Some people actually believe that we are going to slash our $600 billion defense budget just because the Bolsheviks stormed the Winter -- just because Barack Obama got elected and went to the White House." Cramer added of the defense budget claim:"[T]here is no way Obama wants to tarnish himself -- some would say further tarnish himself -- by getting into a big fistfight with the Pentagon."
- During the February 26 edition of Mad Money, Cramer claimed of Obama:
He's crushing the margins of the health-care insurance companies like Aetna and Cigna. He's turning them into charities, for heaven's sakes, right before our eyes. Reimbursements could be cut for everyone, including the drugs not just made by Big Pharma places like Lilly but biotechs like Genzyme. Companies we had thought were near and dear to the hearts of the Bolshe -- of the Democrats everywhere.
After noting that"[m]y charitable trust owns some health care," Cramer later said of health-care stocks:"All of which goes to show in this new commun -- in this new Democratic revolution -- don't worry, after about another four years, I will get it right. Nothing is safe." Cramer then asked from who Obama is"taking his cues" and answered:"[H]e's taking cues from Lenin, and I don't mean the 'All We Need is Love' [John] Lennon. I'm talking about the we'll-take-every-dime-Cramericans-have Lenin, a man whom I revere as an ancestor but not as a manager of a capitalist country. With this assault, no stocks can be considered truly free from danger."
Name of source: AFP
SOURCE: AFP (3-5-09)
SOURCE: AFP (3-3-09)
The Japanese team believes the tomb belongs to Isisnofret, a granddaughter of Ramses II, the famed 19th Dynasty pharaoh who reigned over Egypt for about 68 years from 1304 to 1237 BC, and who is said to have lived to the age of 90.
Name of source: Deutsche Welle
SOURCE: Deutsche Welle (3-4-09)
They are also investigating 204 suspects. Though no one was arrested, the head prosecutor in Stuttgart, where the operation was based, characterized it as a significant contribution in combating racist and neo-Nazi subcultures.
"Music represents the gateway through which young people are lured in," Siegfried Mahler said at a press conference. "Millions of euros of business is done every year producing and distributing recordings of extreme right-wing music."
Bands such as Landser or Macht und Ehre -- whose lyrics glorify the Third Reich and encourage hatred of and violence toward ethnic minorities -- have been part of a small, but difficult-to-eradicate neo-Nazi music scene in Germany.
"Using aggressive, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and Anti-democratic lyrics, they spread extreme right-wing ideas and expressions of hate," Mahler said.
Music with such lyrical content is prohibited by the German Constitution. Selling neo-Nazi music is a crime, although possessing it isn't, as Mahler said at the press conference.
Name of source: Spiegel Online
SOURCE: Spiegel Online (3-4-09)
"It's an inconceivable loss," Eberhard Illner, a former archivist for the city, told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper. "It's a catastrophe, not just for the city of Cologne but for the history of Europe." Cologne's archives are one of the only collections in Germany to have survived World War II completely intact. Because of Cologne's long history, much of its heritage was stored locally rather than in a state archive.
SOURCE: Spiegel Online (3-4-09)
The board of the Federation of Expellees said it had accepted a proposal from Steinbach that, for the time being, she not be named as a member of the board for the documentation center. The federation, which is the main group promoting the creation of the museum, said it would symbolically leave its seat on the board empty. With the withdrawal of Steinbach's nomination, the group said, "we want to eliminate a blockade that was not of our creation."
In a statement, the group wrote that "the seat will remain unfilled to make clear no one can dictate" how it fills the position. The group did not state, however, when it would fill its seat or whether it might reconsider Steinbach in the future, leaving open the possibility that the controversy surrounding her appointment might be reignited at some point in the future.
Steinbach has been a source of great agitation in German-Polish relations. The Poles suspect Steinbach's group of having revanchist views. They note that, in the 1990s, Steinbach questioned the legitimacy of the current German-Polish border, known as the Oder-Neisse line. And prior to its accession in 2004, Steinbach also questioned Poland's fitness for the European Union. Poles also tend to react strongly whenever Germans appear to be presenting themselves as victims of World War II.
Name of source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Ed (3-4-09)
To the Editors of the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review and The Brainstorm:In his vituperative attack on me (“The Moyers Controversy,” February 25), Brainstorm Blogger Mark Bauerlein irresponsibly and egregiously misrepresented my journalism, relied on second hand and groundless sources to support his venom, and distorted the record beyond recognition – all the while failing to ask for my comment on his charges and ignoring what I have in fact published about them.
Bauerlein is not telling the truth when he says that my broadcast on shock jocks in the media “asserts” that “the vitriol spilling from conservative books and talk radio spurred him on,” referring to the shooter in the Knoxville church massacre. The report was far more nuanced and careful than Bauerlein’s account of it, and I concluded it with these words: “We may never know what finally triggered the killer’s rage, unless he chooses at his trial or later to tell us. But not for a moment do I think any of the talk show hosts mentioned by the police would have wished it to happen.”
He then cites a recent Washington Post piece reporting FBI documents relating to the investigation 45 years ago of a White House aide’s sexual preference, claiming that the newspaper “calls into question whether Bill Moyers has any standing at all to raise the tolerance issue.” That is not what the Washington Post claimed. Other outlets, including the Associated Press and USA Today, didn’t even mention me in their reporting on the newly released FBI materials. Then Bauerlein buttresses his assault by quoting from other vitriolic and bizarre attacks on me from Slate’s Jack Shafer, whose own former colleague, Miami Herald’s Glenn Garvin, has admitted that “Shafer has totally declared war on Moyers.” Finally, Bauerlein invokes another attack on me from The Weekly Standard, the neo-conservative bible whose editors have long engaged in partisan, personal, and distorted attacks on me.
Those I understand, coming as they do from the right-wing noise machine. But as a long-time reader and admirer of The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Review, I am saddened by your irresponsibility in lending your reputation and site to Bauerlein’s shameful performance. Are bloggers on your site relieved of the burden of fact-checking? I would hope that at the least you would look at the response I made to the Shafer polemic and ask Bauerlein why he ignored it.
Sincerely,
Bill Moyers
[HNN: Bauerlein provides a response to Moyers's statement at his blog. Click on the SOURCE link above.]
Name of source: http://www.breckenridgeamerican.com
SOURCE: http://www.breckenridgeamerican.com (3-3-09)
By 1978, women historians had begun to take on the task of integrating the accomplishments of women into the study of history by promoting the celebration of a “Women’s History Week.” That week was chosen to coincide with the already established International Women’s Day on March 8.
By 1981 Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Barbara Milulski co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national “Women’s History Week” that included the International Women’s Day.
In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month and March was declared Women’s History Month. The study of women’s history has changed significantly since the 1960s when there was little or no attention on women in history. Now, almost every college offers women’s history courses and most major graduate programs offer doctoral degrees in the field of women’s studies.
Name of source: WaPo
SOURCE: WaPo (3-3-09)
"Military families have done their duty, and we as a grateful nation must do ours. We must do everything in our power to honor them by supporting, not just by word but by deed," said Obama, adding that her visit to the cemetery was her first event to help commemorate Women's History Month.
Military families, Obama said, "are mothers and fathers who have lost their beloved children to war. They are husbands and wives keeping the family on track while their wives and husbands are deployed on duty. They are grandparents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers who are taking care of children while their moms and dads in uniform are away."
Name of source: http://www.artdaily.org
SOURCE: http://www.artdaily.org (3-4-09)
Exhibition
“First Ladies at the Smithsonian” showcases premier objects from the nearly century-old collection, including 14 dresses ranging from those of Martha Washington to Laura Bush. An introductory section explores the evolution of the collection and how it has been displayed at the Smithsonian. The centerpiece of the gallery is a large exhibit case that features selected gowns, portraits, White House china, personal possessions and associative objects from the Smithsonian’s unique collection of first ladies’ material. A section discussing the tradition of the first lady’s inaugural gown coming to the Smithsonian will answer some of the public’s most frequently asked questions. It highlights the gown worn by Helen Taft (the first inaugural gown presented by the first lady herself in 1912) and the 2001 inaugural gown worn by Bush. The final section focuses on the contributions of America’s first ladies and the ways in which they have influenced the most powerful office in the country—through their shaping of the first ladies’ role, the country’s expectations of public women and the needs of the presidential administration.
Name of source: Times (UK)
SOURCE: Times (UK) (3-4-09)
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, set up to re-examine the 1972 killings of 14 Catholic civilians by soldiers during a civil rights march in Londonderry, is expected to cost around £190 million, Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said.
A further three inquiries, also established under the peace process during negotiations over power-sharing, are estimated to have cost £117 million.
The total bill for an exercise that has been heavily criticised by Unionists is expected to come in at £307 million.
Name of source: Daily Mail (UK)
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (3-4-09)
Conservative MPs and Peers condemned as 'inappropriate' the decision to make a man closely linked to the Irish nationalist movement a 'Sir'.
Senior British politicians also expressed unease at honouring the Democrat who was embroiled in controversy when he was involved in an infamous car accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 in which a young woman was killed.
The Queen agreed to knight the 77-year-old - brother of assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy - for 'services to the British-American relationship and to Northern Ireland'.
Name of source: History Today
SOURCE: History Today (3-4-09)
Name of source: Times Online (UK)
SOURCE: Times Online (UK) (3-3-09)
A road named after the man who betrayed Captain Juan Rodríguez Lozano, who was shot by a Francoist firing squad in the Spanish Civil War, is to be changed.
Captain Lozano’s fate was sealed by General Vincente Lafuente, who denounced him as a Socialist.
For his service to the Franco regime, Lafuente was promoted to general and had a street named after him in Leon, the home town of Mr Zapatero.
But now this street will be renamed under a law introduced by Mr Zapatero’s Socialist Government to remove statues, symbols and street names that commemorate General Franco or his supporters.
Leon Council promised that “within months” a new name would be found.
SOURCE: Times Online (UK) (3-2-09)
The red quartzite statue, one of a set that stood around the courtyard of his funerary temple at Kom el-Hettan, near Luxor, fell centuries ago. In the early 19th century the British collector Henry Salt acquired its head, together with a second head from the same site, and both finished up in the British Museum; the museum published Salt’s manuscript on some of his work in the recent book The Sphinx Revealed.
Michael Nielson, of the British Museum, made the replica head, which was then transported to Egypt and repositioned on top of the restored torso with the permission of the Egyptian authorities. The project, which has already assembled large portions of other statues, of which there were probably a dozen, involved a team of 30 from a dozen nationalities, and continues its work this year.
Name of source: Time
SOURCE: Time (3-2-09)
Many of the actions discussed in the Oct. 23, 2001, memo to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief lawyer, William Haynes, were never actually taken.
Name of source: VOA
SOURCE: VOA (3-2-09)
Nestled deep in a Mekong River valley, Luang Prabang was cut-off from the outside world by decades of war and political isolation. A fusion of traditional Lao dwellings, French colonial architecture and more than 30 monasteries, the whole town was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995. The United Nations agency described it as "the best preserved city of Southeast Asia."
Name of source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
SOURCE: Stone Pages Archaeo News (2-28-09)
Name of source: Archaeo News Stone Pages
SOURCE: Archaeo News Stone Pages (2-28-09)
Name of source: CNN
SOURCE: CNN (3-3-09)
The regulation, issued a few weeks before George W. Bush left office, made it easier for federal agencies to skip consultations with government scientists before launching projects that could effect endangered wildlife.
By doing overturning the regulation, Obama said during an enthusiastic reception at the Interior Department, he had restored "the scientific process to its rightful place at the heart of the Endangered Species Act, a process undermined by past administrations."
Under the Bush administration rule, there was no need for a federal agency to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Services if that agency determined that no harm would come to an endangered species as a result of its project.
But the determination of what "no harm" meant rested with agency bureaucrats instead of scientists.
Obama issued a memorandum that effectively suspends the regulation while ordering a review to determine whether it promotes "the purposes of the [Endangered Species Act]."
Obama also helped celebrate the 160th anniversary of the Interior Department on Tuesday.
Name of source: The Free Lance Star (Fredericksburg)
SOURCE: The Free Lance Star (Fredericksburg) (3-3-09)
George's mother, Mary Ball Washington, stayed at Ferry Farm until 1772, when she moved across the Rappahannock River to 1200 Charles St. in Fredericksburg, where she died in 1789. The Washington estate buildings vanished, and the land was turned over to crops. Decades of plowing further fragmented artifacts. When the Union army swept over the farm in 1862, during the Civil War battles at Fredericksburg, nothing was visible above ground.
Some 140 years later the extensive dig for the foundation of the boyhood home began. After eight digging seasons the mystery was declared solved in July, with the public unveiling of the foundation. Last week, Stafford County Historical Society members heard from Ferry Farm's chief archaeologist, Dave Muraca, about how the case was cracked.
Name of source: Daily Times (New Mexico)
SOURCE: Daily Times (New Mexico) (3-3-09)
Studying pottery and other artifacts found near the graves, scientists estimate the skeletons are at least 700 years old, and potentially older.
Further research likely will confirm the genders and ages of the dead and potentially a cause of death for some. Following the archaeological assessment, the remains and artifacts will return to a descendant tribe for reburial.
The remains first were found last week while construction crews were grading and removing dirt, although a preconstruction archaeological assessment of the site showed no indication of a burial ground. Crews noticed the bones while a dump truck was emptying its load.
The Aztec Police Department and state Office of the Medical Examiner initially treated the site as a crime scene before confirming the remains were ancient. Following the discovery, the site was turned over to the New Mexico Historic Preservation Office, which works with developers to ensure the burial ground is properly excavated.
Name of source: Reuters
SOURCE: Reuters (3-2-09)
Christie's, which had triggered Chinese anger by holding the sale, would not say what action it would take against the bidder, only that the bronze sculptures of the heads of a rat and a rabbit would not be released until it had been paid.
Cai Mingchao, a collector and adviser to a private foundation in China that seeks to retrieve looted treasures, said he successfully bid for the items which sold for 15 million euros ($20 million) each at an auction for the art collection of late designer Yves Saint Laurent.
But Cai said the relics should not have been put up for sale as they had been stolen from Beijing's Summer Palace, which was razed in 1860 by French and British forces.
Five other bronze heads looted from the Summer Palace are still unaccounted for and it is unknown if they were destroyed or in private collections.
Name of source: Yahoo News
SOURCE: Yahoo News (3-1-09)
In 1880 Swedish Egyptologist Karl Piehl uncovered the tomb of Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer of the Pharaoh King Tuthmosis III, in the city of Luxor, about 600 km (375 miles) to the south of the capital Cairo.
"It later disappeared under the sand and archaeologists kept looking for it to no avail until it was found by the Belgian expedition," a statement from the Supreme Council of Antiquities quoted Hosni as saying.
Laurent Bavay, the head of the Belgian team, said most of the inscriptions on the walls of the tomb were damaged, a sign that the place had probably been robbed in the early 19th century, the statement quoted him as saying.
