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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: Washington Times
SOURCE: Washington Times (7-8-10)
A statue of three soldiers installed at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial after critics thought the V-shaped memorial wall was too abstract has been restored to its original finish in a six-week project completed Thursday.
A private foundation that built the memorial raised about $125,000 to restore the bronze "Three Servicemen" statue of three soldiers for the first time. After 25 years, weather and the hands of millions of visitors wore down the patina finish on the soldiers' faces, arms, hands and guns, turning those areas a greenish-blue color.
Retired Marine Master Sgt. Fred Burns, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Laurel, Md., visited the sculpture Thursday as he does at least twice each year. It brings back memories, he said, recalling the towel draped around one soldier's neck to wipe away sweat.
"This is more realistic" than the previous worn finish, said Mr. Burns, who works for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "We carried a little bit more gear than that, though - a lot more gear."...
A private foundation that built the memorial raised about $125,000 to restore the bronze "Three Servicemen" statue of three soldiers for the first time. After 25 years, weather and the hands of millions of visitors wore down the patina finish on the soldiers' faces, arms, hands and guns, turning those areas a greenish-blue color.
Retired Marine Master Sgt. Fred Burns, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Laurel, Md., visited the sculpture Thursday as he does at least twice each year. It brings back memories, he said, recalling the towel draped around one soldier's neck to wipe away sweat.
"This is more realistic" than the previous worn finish, said Mr. Burns, who works for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "We carried a little bit more gear than that, though - a lot more gear."...
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 17:13
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Name of source: Guardian (UK)
SOURCE: Guardian (UK) (7-7-10)
Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian dictator, was sentenced to seven years in jail today after a French court found him guilty of laundering €2.3m (£1.9m) worth of drug profits during his time in power.
Noriega, who was ousted by Washington in 1989 and has spent the past 20 years in jail the United States, looked startled as the verdict was read out in the austere Tribunal correctionnel in Paris and had to be helped from the court by gendarmes.
During his trial last week the general insisted he was innocent of the charges, which he said were the "imaginary" creations of a US-led conspiracy.
A former ally of Washington, who for years was on the payroll of the CIA, the former strongman nicknamed Pineapple Face became an enemy whose clutch on power George Bush Sr became determined to end....
Noriega, who was ousted by Washington in 1989 and has spent the past 20 years in jail the United States, looked startled as the verdict was read out in the austere Tribunal correctionnel in Paris and had to be helped from the court by gendarmes.
During his trial last week the general insisted he was innocent of the charges, which he said were the "imaginary" creations of a US-led conspiracy.
A former ally of Washington, who for years was on the payroll of the CIA, the former strongman nicknamed Pineapple Face became an enemy whose clutch on power George Bush Sr became determined to end....
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 17:10
Name of source: Politico
SOURCE: Politico (7-1-10)
A new poll of leading presidential scholars ranks Barack Obama as the 15th best president of the United States, just below Bill Clinton but ahead of Ronald Reagan.
The Siena College poll, which surveyed 238 presidential scholars at U.S. colleges and universities, asked scholars to rate the nation’s 43 chief executives on 20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination.
In the overall ranking, Obama rated two places below Clinton, who was 13th best, and three better than Reagan, who is ranked as the 18th best.
Franklin D. Roosevelt again earned the top spot, as he has every time since the poll was first conducted in 1982. He and the Mount Rushmore presidents — Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — have consistently been the top five presidents in the poll’s findings....
The Siena College poll, which surveyed 238 presidential scholars at U.S. colleges and universities, asked scholars to rate the nation’s 43 chief executives on 20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination.
In the overall ranking, Obama rated two places below Clinton, who was 13th best, and three better than Reagan, who is ranked as the 18th best.
Franklin D. Roosevelt again earned the top spot, as he has every time since the poll was first conducted in 1982. He and the Mount Rushmore presidents — Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — have consistently been the top five presidents in the poll’s findings....
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 17:09
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-8-10)
Its most historic attractions may well be the jokes in the end-of-the-pier show, and children rather than archaeologists dig in its sands for lost treasures. But Blackpool could soon boast the same exalted status as the Pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China.
The Lancashire bucket and spade resort, famed for its tower, the illuminations and its amusement park, is on a typically eccentric list of British locations that could be put forward as new World Heritage sites.
Also vying to be included on the Government’s shortlist for UNESCO are a disused RAF base, a large telescope, a bridge famous for its never-ending paint jobs, and the remote island where Napoleon was exiled....
The Lancashire bucket and spade resort, famed for its tower, the illuminations and its amusement park, is on a typically eccentric list of British locations that could be put forward as new World Heritage sites.
Also vying to be included on the Government’s shortlist for UNESCO are a disused RAF base, a large telescope, a bridge famous for its never-ending paint jobs, and the remote island where Napoleon was exiled....
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 17:07
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-9-10)
Two Australian towns have become engaged in a fierce war of words over which can lay the bigger claim to the legacy of Mary Poppins creator Pamela Travers.
Maryborough, on the south east coast of Queensland, Australia, has been hosting a Mary Poppins festival for several years in honour of Travers, who was born in the town in 1899.
The five-day event draws tourists to the region during the quiet winter months to enjoy Poppins-themed activities such as nanny races, umbrella-decorating and kite-making.
But this year festival organisers have been angered by plans for a New South Wales town to hold a rival event.
Picturesque Bowral in the southern Highlands outside Sydney is planning to hold a Mary Poppins Birthplace Centenary Celebration at the end of July. Travers moved to the town with her family in 1907 after the death of her father and organisers of the event claim that she devised the character of the beloved British nanny while she was living there....
Maryborough, on the south east coast of Queensland, Australia, has been hosting a Mary Poppins festival for several years in honour of Travers, who was born in the town in 1899.
The five-day event draws tourists to the region during the quiet winter months to enjoy Poppins-themed activities such as nanny races, umbrella-decorating and kite-making.
But this year festival organisers have been angered by plans for a New South Wales town to hold a rival event.
Picturesque Bowral in the southern Highlands outside Sydney is planning to hold a Mary Poppins Birthplace Centenary Celebration at the end of July. Travers moved to the town with her family in 1907 after the death of her father and organisers of the event claim that she devised the character of the beloved British nanny while she was living there....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 14:05
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-10-10)
A former president of Bosnia, Ejup Ganic, says he fears being murdered in a Serbian prison if a British court sends him to Belgrade to face war crimes charges.
Serbian prosecutors accuse Dr Ganic, 64, of responsibility for the shooting of Serbian soldiers after they had surrendered in May 1992 at the chaotic outbreak of Bosnia's civil war.
Dr Ganic, now a professor of engineering who spends much of his time in Britain, was arrested at Heathrow in March on a warrant issued by the Serbian authorities.
This week his lawyers argued at City of Westminster magistrates' court against his extradition, on the grounds that the charges against him are politically motivated and because he would not get a fair trial in Belgrade....
Serbian prosecutors accuse Dr Ganic, 64, of responsibility for the shooting of Serbian soldiers after they had surrendered in May 1992 at the chaotic outbreak of Bosnia's civil war.
Dr Ganic, now a professor of engineering who spends much of his time in Britain, was arrested at Heathrow in March on a warrant issued by the Serbian authorities.
This week his lawyers argued at City of Westminster magistrates' court against his extradition, on the grounds that the charges against him are politically motivated and because he would not get a fair trial in Belgrade....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 14:03
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-11-10)
Vlad the Impaler, the medieval Romanian prince who inspired the character of Count Dracula, was not a blood-thirsty tyrant, he was simply a misunderstood victim of bad Western European propaganda, a new exhibition has claimed.
The show, which has just opened in Bucharest, attempts to rehabilitate Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, who ruled Wallachia in the 15th century.
The exhibition includes portraits of Vlad from the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna and the Schloss Ambras museum in Innsbruck, as well as manuscripts which depicted him as a blood-thirsty maniac.
One of the engravings, dating back to 1500, shows him having a meal under the eyes of a dozen impaled men, while others have their limbs lopped off and their heads boiled in cauldrons....
The show, which has just opened in Bucharest, attempts to rehabilitate Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, who ruled Wallachia in the 15th century.
The exhibition includes portraits of Vlad from the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna and the Schloss Ambras museum in Innsbruck, as well as manuscripts which depicted him as a blood-thirsty maniac.
One of the engravings, dating back to 1500, shows him having a meal under the eyes of a dozen impaled men, while others have their limbs lopped off and their heads boiled in cauldrons....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:59
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-11-10)
Historians claim to have finally located the site of King Arthur’s Round Table – and believe it could have seated 1,000 people.
Researchers exploring the legend of Britain’s most famous Knight believe his stronghold of Camelot was built on the site of a recently discovered Roman amphitheatre in Chester.
Historians believe regional noblemen would have sat in the front row of a circular meeting place, with lower ranked subjects on stone benches grouped around the outside.
They claim rather than Camelot being a purpose built castle, it would have been housed in a structure already built and left over by the Romans....
Researchers exploring the legend of Britain’s most famous Knight believe his stronghold of Camelot was built on the site of a recently discovered Roman amphitheatre in Chester.
Historians believe regional noblemen would have sat in the front row of a circular meeting place, with lower ranked subjects on stone benches grouped around the outside.
They claim rather than Camelot being a purpose built castle, it would have been housed in a structure already built and left over by the Romans....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:57
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-7-10)
The Queen placed a wreath on the site of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in her first visit to New York City in more than 30 years.
The monarch, 84, braved 100F (38C) heat to pay respects at Ground Zero near the footprint of the World Trade Center's south tower.
She wore a straw hat and pastel-colored long-sleeved dress while greeting victims' family members and first responders....
The monarch, 84, braved 100F (38C) heat to pay respects at Ground Zero near the footprint of the World Trade Center's south tower.
She wore a straw hat and pastel-colored long-sleeved dress while greeting victims' family members and first responders....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:00
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-8-10)
Britain's ambassador to Lebanon has been condemned by victims of Middle East terror groups for writing an appreciation of the spiritual leader of Hizbollah who masterminded the 1980s Lebanese hostage crisis.
Frances Guy, who has been ambassador since 2008, wrote a blog marking the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah who died last week. She described the ayatollah as a "decent" man who ranked as the person she most admired out of all those she had encountered.
Hizbollah has been proscribed by the UK as a terrorist organisation since 2008.
Ayatollah Fadlallah was a hugely divisive figure in the Middle East. He help found the Hizbollah movement that fought the American intervention in Lebanon and then went on to take dozens of foreigners as hostages, including Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan....
Frances Guy, who has been ambassador since 2008, wrote a blog marking the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah who died last week. She described the ayatollah as a "decent" man who ranked as the person she most admired out of all those she had encountered.
Hizbollah has been proscribed by the UK as a terrorist organisation since 2008.
Ayatollah Fadlallah was a hugely divisive figure in the Middle East. He help found the Hizbollah movement that fought the American intervention in Lebanon and then went on to take dozens of foreigners as hostages, including Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 18:57
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-8-10)
Four US senators have written a letter calling on Britain to investigate the circumstances surrounding last year's release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi.
New York Democratic senators Frank Lautenberg, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer and New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez have written to the British ambassador in Washington.
The letter follows British cancer expert Professor Karol Sikora's admission to a newspaper earlier this week that Megrahi's survival past a three-month prognosis was ''embarrassing''....
New York Democratic senators Frank Lautenberg, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer and New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez have written to the British ambassador in Washington.
The letter follows British cancer expert Professor Karol Sikora's admission to a newspaper earlier this week that Megrahi's survival past a three-month prognosis was ''embarrassing''....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 18:54
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-8-10)
A woman from a remote mountain village in Georgia is turning 130, making her the oldest person on Earth, officials in the former Soviet republic said.
A spokesman for the national register said Antisa Khvichava from western Georgia was born on July 8, 1880.
Authorities visited the woman on Thursday in her village of Sachire and displayed two Soviet-era documents noting her date of birth as indicated in her birth certificate, which had been lost....
A spokesman for the national register said Antisa Khvichava from western Georgia was born on July 8, 1880.
Authorities visited the woman on Thursday in her village of Sachire and displayed two Soviet-era documents noting her date of birth as indicated in her birth certificate, which had been lost....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 18:52
Name of source: Great Falls Tribune
SOURCE: Great Falls Tribune (7-11-10)
Word spread far and wide that gold was discovered in Yogo Creek more than 130 years ago, calling miners to its remote riverbeds with greed gleaming in their eyes.
At one point, newspapers — perhaps falsely — boasted that the approximately 70 acres that made up Yogo Town was home to 1,500 miners.
Two years after the first flood of prospectors, the 1880 census recorded only a few dozen people in the area....
Six University of Montana archeology students spent the last three weeks digging for clues that could unravel one of Montana history's big mysteries.
"It became fascinating to me that this woman would come all the way out here alone and would live alone for so many years," said Jono Mogstad, a UM graduate student who is leading the research team....
At one point, newspapers — perhaps falsely — boasted that the approximately 70 acres that made up Yogo Town was home to 1,500 miners.
Two years after the first flood of prospectors, the 1880 census recorded only a few dozen people in the area....
Six University of Montana archeology students spent the last three weeks digging for clues that could unravel one of Montana history's big mysteries.
"It became fascinating to me that this woman would come all the way out here alone and would live alone for so many years," said Jono Mogstad, a UM graduate student who is leading the research team....
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 17:06
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (7-11-10)
You could certainly make the argument that New York’s upper classes hardly want these days for personal attention, surrounded as they are by helicopter pilots who fly them to the Hamptons and private stylists who make haircut house calls. But even with today’s apparently recession-proof forms of conspicuous consumption, it would be hard to find a servant with the all-encompassing talents — the cradle-to-grave service — of Isaac H. Brown.
Mr. Brown, who died 130 years ago, was the longtime sexton at Grace Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village, an official title that belied his real role as the amanuensis to, and the arbiter of fashion in, Knickerbocker society. Working at the church from 1845 until his death in 1880, he was a handyman to the smart set: planning their weddings, arranging their soirées and seeing to their funerals when they died....
Mr. Brown, who died 130 years ago, was the longtime sexton at Grace Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village, an official title that belied his real role as the amanuensis to, and the arbiter of fashion in, Knickerbocker society. Working at the church from 1845 until his death in 1880, he was a handyman to the smart set: planning their weddings, arranging their soirées and seeing to their funerals when they died....
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 17:04
SOURCE: NYT (7-9-10)
Wry and cranky, droll and cantankerous — that’s the Mark Twain we think we know, thanks to reading “Huck Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” in high school. But in his unexpurgated autobiography, whose first volume is about to be published a century after his death, a very different Twain emerges, more pointedly political and willing to play the role of the angry prophet.
Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic — at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as “uniformed assassins” — that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld....
Twain’s opposition to incipient imperialism and American military intervention in Cuba and the Philippines, for example, were well known even in his own time. But the uncensored autobiography makes it clear that those feelings ran very deep and includes remarks that, if made today in the context of Iraq or Afghanistan, would probably lead the right wing to question the patriotism of this most American of American writers.
In a passage removed by Paine, Twain excoriates “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War” and Gen. Leonard Wood’s “mephitic record” as governor general in Havana. In writing about an attack on a tribal group in the Philippines, Twain refers to American troops as “our uniformed assassins” and describes their killing of “six hundred helpless and weaponless savages” as “a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory.”...
Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic — at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as “uniformed assassins” — that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld....
Twain’s opposition to incipient imperialism and American military intervention in Cuba and the Philippines, for example, were well known even in his own time. But the uncensored autobiography makes it clear that those feelings ran very deep and includes remarks that, if made today in the context of Iraq or Afghanistan, would probably lead the right wing to question the patriotism of this most American of American writers.
In a passage removed by Paine, Twain excoriates “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War” and Gen. Leonard Wood’s “mephitic record” as governor general in Havana. In writing about an attack on a tribal group in the Philippines, Twain refers to American troops as “our uniformed assassins” and describes their killing of “six hundred helpless and weaponless savages” as “a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory.”...
Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 08:49
SOURCE: NYT (7-5-10)
The gates of the Gulf Coast International Jousting Championships opened at 6 p.m. one Friday in January at a 4,500-seat arena 13 miles outside Pensacola, Fla. Some of the spectators were dressed in leather doublets and velvet gowns; some wore jeans and cowboy hats or American-flag-patterned do-rags. Most seemed to have come out of idle curiosity rather than any previous knowledge of the sport. “From what I hear, the combat’s going to be smackin’,” a man named Paul Johnson told me, punching his knuckles together. He estimated he had seen the movie “A Knight’s Tale” a couple dozen times, and he hoped this event would measure up. He leaned over to a man in front of him. “When they ride in, are they going to be hitting really hard?” he asked.
RENAISSANCE MAN Jeffrey Hedgecock, an artisan armorer, in Leeds, England, where he was one of the few Americans to compete in the Sword of Honour Tournament.
“Oh, yeah, this is the real deal,” replied the other, a Renaissance-fair regular named Renzy Hill. “There’s a real possibility of getting hurt.”
Johnson nodded happily. “That’s what I want to see,” he said.
Things lagged a bit in the first half of the competition, which was taken up with mounted games like spearing targets painted on bales of hay. The crowd of about 750 was tipsy and eager for action, and it took in the proceedings restlessly. But then, in the third jousting match of the evening, Shane Adams, who was heavily favored to win the championships, faced Rhos Tolle, a 54-year-old retired Marine who was jousting competitively for the first time. Adams struck Tolle squarely in the chest with his lance and sent him flying from his horse.
It was as if someone had sent an electric current through the arena’s aluminum bleachers. Men leapt to their feet with their fists in the air. Teenage girls clutched one another’s arms. Tolle lay on his back on the ground flanked by two squires and didn’t move for a full minute. When the squires pulled him to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell again before limping off.
“I want to see another guy get paralyzed,” a boy in front of me squealed, waving a toy sword....
RENAISSANCE MAN Jeffrey Hedgecock, an artisan armorer, in Leeds, England, where he was one of the few Americans to compete in the Sword of Honour Tournament.
“Oh, yeah, this is the real deal,” replied the other, a Renaissance-fair regular named Renzy Hill. “There’s a real possibility of getting hurt.”
Johnson nodded happily. “That’s what I want to see,” he said.
Things lagged a bit in the first half of the competition, which was taken up with mounted games like spearing targets painted on bales of hay. The crowd of about 750 was tipsy and eager for action, and it took in the proceedings restlessly. But then, in the third jousting match of the evening, Shane Adams, who was heavily favored to win the championships, faced Rhos Tolle, a 54-year-old retired Marine who was jousting competitively for the first time. Adams struck Tolle squarely in the chest with his lance and sent him flying from his horse.
It was as if someone had sent an electric current through the arena’s aluminum bleachers. Men leapt to their feet with their fists in the air. Teenage girls clutched one another’s arms. Tolle lay on his back on the ground flanked by two squires and didn’t move for a full minute. When the squires pulled him to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell again before limping off.
“I want to see another guy get paralyzed,” a boy in front of me squealed, waving a toy sword....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 15:02
SOURCE: NYT (7-7-10)
In his barbershop on Church Street here, 78-year-old Sam Johnson can close his eyes and dance once more as a teenager inside the cracker box Emerson Street branch of the Y.M.C.A.
“Oh, the music, the ballgames,” said Mr. Johnson, who also remembers scraped knees, games of checkers and first kisses. “It was the place to be.”
The place not to be, for Mr. Johnson and other blacks in the 1950s, was the main branch of the Y.M.C.A. in this lakefront Chicago suburb. Even in Evanston, a place that likes to boast about its diversity, black people were forbidden to join the main Y, just as they were unwelcome at many clubs and beaches.
“It was the only place we could go,” said Byron Wilson, 91, recalling his childhood at the Emerson Street branch.
Known around town as “the black Y,” it served as the heart of the African-American community for more than 50 years after opening in 1914. Young people played basketball, learned to swim, box and play Ping-Pong. The little Y.M.C.A. branch hosted proms for black students, father-and-son banquets, even a performance by Nat King Cole.
“Oh, the music, the ballgames,” said Mr. Johnson, who also remembers scraped knees, games of checkers and first kisses. “It was the place to be.”
The place not to be, for Mr. Johnson and other blacks in the 1950s, was the main branch of the Y.M.C.A. in this lakefront Chicago suburb. Even in Evanston, a place that likes to boast about its diversity, black people were forbidden to join the main Y, just as they were unwelcome at many clubs and beaches.
“It was the only place we could go,” said Byron Wilson, 91, recalling his childhood at the Emerson Street branch.
Known around town as “the black Y,” it served as the heart of the African-American community for more than 50 years after opening in 1914. Young people played basketball, learned to swim, box and play Ping-Pong. The little Y.M.C.A. branch hosted proms for black students, father-and-son banquets, even a performance by Nat King Cole.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 14:46
SOURCE: NYT (7-7-10)
You can find just about anything on the sidewalks of New York, so when John Lankenau happened upon a tombstone while walking his dog one night a few years ago, he took his grim discovery in stride. Then he did what any self-respecting citizen would do: He carted the two-and-a-half-foot-high granite marker, home for safe-keeping.
The tombstone, which John Lankenau found leaning against a fire hydrant in Manhattan, cited the year — 1910 — that Hinda Amchanitzky died.
“I didn’t think it would last long there until it got vandalized or dogs urinated on it,” Mr. Lankenau recalled. “It once meant something to somebody. I just couldn’t imagine someone’s life sitting on the street.”
But a tombstone is not the sort of missing object people ordinarily claim. So Mr. Lankenau kept it, first in his apartment on the Lower East Side, not far from where he found it, and later in the garden behind his building, a tantalizing totem of urban anonymity and fleeting mortality.
His own life as an artist and a part-time cook went on. But he was periodically sidetracked by the puzzling questions his discovery posed: How did a tombstone wind up propped against a fire hydrant on East Fourth Street between Avenues C and D? And who was Hinda Amchanitzky?...
The tombstone, which John Lankenau found leaning against a fire hydrant in Manhattan, cited the year — 1910 — that Hinda Amchanitzky died.
“I didn’t think it would last long there until it got vandalized or dogs urinated on it,” Mr. Lankenau recalled. “It once meant something to somebody. I just couldn’t imagine someone’s life sitting on the street.”
But a tombstone is not the sort of missing object people ordinarily claim. So Mr. Lankenau kept it, first in his apartment on the Lower East Side, not far from where he found it, and later in the garden behind his building, a tantalizing totem of urban anonymity and fleeting mortality.
His own life as an artist and a part-time cook went on. But he was periodically sidetracked by the puzzling questions his discovery posed: How did a tombstone wind up propped against a fire hydrant on East Fourth Street between Avenues C and D? And who was Hinda Amchanitzky?...
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 08:44
Name of source: Daily Progress
SOURCE: Daily Progress (7-10-10)
At James Madison’s house, Montpelier, archaeologists are unearthing the undisturbed remains of slave dwellings.
The actual dwellings of house, stable, garden and field slaves were abandoned abruptly in about 1840. But the sites on which they had stood were never dug up again, leaving a trove for researchers.
Researchers are in the first year of a three-year program backed by a $250,000 We the People grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The digging has begun with stable and garden slave quarters, which were closer to the main house than the quarters of field slaves, but not as close as those of house slaves.
In an article this year in the Journal of Archaeological Research he reported that researchers are approaching the question of African experiences outside of Africa in a variety of ways and from a variety of angles....
The actual dwellings of house, stable, garden and field slaves were abandoned abruptly in about 1840. But the sites on which they had stood were never dug up again, leaving a trove for researchers.
Researchers are in the first year of a three-year program backed by a $250,000 We the People grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The digging has begun with stable and garden slave quarters, which were closer to the main house than the quarters of field slaves, but not as close as those of house slaves.
In an article this year in the Journal of Archaeological Research he reported that researchers are approaching the question of African experiences outside of Africa in a variety of ways and from a variety of angles....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 14:16
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (7-11-10)
Artifacts of a battle between a Native American tribe and English settlers, a confrontation that helped shape early American history, have sat for years below manicured lawns and children's swing sets in a Connecticut neighborhood.
A project to map the battlefields of the Pequot War is bringing those musket balls, gunflints and arrowheads into the sunlight for the first time in centuries. It's also giving researchers insight into the combatants and the land on which they fought, particularly the Mystic hilltop where at least 400 Pequot Indians died in a 1637 massacre by English settlers.
Historians say the attack was a turning point in English warfare with native tribes. It nearly wiped out the powerful Pequots and showed other tribes that the colonists wouldn't hesitate to use methods that some consider genocide....
A project to map the battlefields of the Pequot War is bringing those musket balls, gunflints and arrowheads into the sunlight for the first time in centuries. It's also giving researchers insight into the combatants and the land on which they fought, particularly the Mystic hilltop where at least 400 Pequot Indians died in a 1637 massacre by English settlers.
Historians say the attack was a turning point in English warfare with native tribes. It nearly wiped out the powerful Pequots and showed other tribes that the colonists wouldn't hesitate to use methods that some consider genocide....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 14:15
SOURCE: AP (7-11-10)
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who already decides whether liberals or conservatives win the Supreme Court's most closely contested cases, is about to take on an even more influential behind-the-scenes role.
Kennedy will inherit retiring Justice John Paul Stevens' power to choose the author of some court opinions, an authority that has historically been used to subtly shape a ruling or preserve a tenuous majority.
David Garrow, a Cambridge University historian who has written about the court, said the 74-year-old Kennedy already writes a disproportionate share of the court's big decisions and will have even more chances to do so now because he can assign opinions to himself....
Kennedy will inherit retiring Justice John Paul Stevens' power to choose the author of some court opinions, an authority that has historically been used to subtly shape a ruling or preserve a tenuous majority.
David Garrow, a Cambridge University historian who has written about the court, said the 74-year-old Kennedy already writes a disproportionate share of the court's big decisions and will have even more chances to do so now because he can assign opinions to himself....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:53
SOURCE: AP (7-11-10)
Taiwan's president urged his Chinese counterpart to work toward improving historically testy ties following the signing of a landmark trade deal.
Ma Ying-jeou — who has sought to build better relations with the mainland since taking office in May 2008 — said this was an opportunity for the two sides to end decades of mistrust and search for common ground.
Taiwan and China signed a broad trade pact last month....
Ma Ying-jeou — who has sought to build better relations with the mainland since taking office in May 2008 — said this was an opportunity for the two sides to end decades of mistrust and search for common ground.
Taiwan and China signed a broad trade pact last month....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:50
SOURCE: AP (7-11-10)
Hoisting hundreds of coffins aloft, a line of weeping relatives stretched for at least a mile (1.6 kilometers) Sunday as they honored Srebrenica massacre victims on the 15th anniversary of the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.
A whole hillside in the eastern Bosnian town was dug out with graves, waiting for 775 coffins covered in green cloths to be laid to rest at the biggest Srebrenica funeral so far.
Still, that was less than a tenth of the total number of Muslim men and boys executed after Serb forces overran the U.N.-protected town on July 11, 1995, during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war....
A whole hillside in the eastern Bosnian town was dug out with graves, waiting for 775 coffins covered in green cloths to be laid to rest at the biggest Srebrenica funeral so far.
Still, that was less than a tenth of the total number of Muslim men and boys executed after Serb forces overran the U.N.-protected town on July 11, 1995, during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:48
SOURCE: AP (7-11-10)
British veterans of the Battle of Britain, the furious aerial conflict between British and German aircraft in 1940, joined Sunday in a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the battle.
Around 5,000 people, including Prince Michael of Kent and Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, the senior commander of the Royal Air Force, converged at the Battle of Britain memorial at Capel-le-Ferne near the English Channel port of Dover.
It is believed that about 100 British air force veterans who served in the Battle of Britain survive....
Around 5,000 people, including Prince Michael of Kent and Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, the senior commander of the Royal Air Force, converged at the Battle of Britain memorial at Capel-le-Ferne near the English Channel port of Dover.
It is believed that about 100 British air force veterans who served in the Battle of Britain survive....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:47
SOURCE: AP (7-7-10)
Israel's antiquities agency says workers found a century-old hand grenade in Jerusalem's Old City.
The Israel Antiquities Authority says workers doing restoration at the city's historic stone walls were digging through crushed stone when they found a "fist-sized chunk of metal."
The antiquities agency said on Wednesday the workers concluded it was a grenade hidden there about 100 years ago....
The Israel Antiquities Authority says workers doing restoration at the city's historic stone walls were digging through crushed stone when they found a "fist-sized chunk of metal."
The antiquities agency said on Wednesday the workers concluded it was a grenade hidden there about 100 years ago....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:18
SOURCE: AP (7-8-10)
A collection of paintings, antiques and assorted household items owed by the aristocratic family of the late Princess Diana sold for a total of 21.1 million pounds ($32 million) in London, Christie's auctioneers said Thursday.
The eclectic collection featured hundreds of items in a range of prices — from a masterpiece portrait by Peter Paul Rubens to horse carriages, dishes and jugs.
All the items offered at the three-day sale once belonged at Althorp House, the Spencer family's country estate in Northhamptonshire, and in Spencer House, their historic London home. While none of the lots were owned by Diana, many have been in her family for centuries....
The eclectic collection featured hundreds of items in a range of prices — from a masterpiece portrait by Peter Paul Rubens to horse carriages, dishes and jugs.
All the items offered at the three-day sale once belonged at Althorp House, the Spencer family's country estate in Northhamptonshire, and in Spencer House, their historic London home. While none of the lots were owned by Diana, many have been in her family for centuries....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 18:47
SOURCE: AP (7-8-10)
Some of the most notorious figures of Argentina's "dirty war" were convicted Thursday of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 22 people at the beginning of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship when the country cracked down on leftist dissent.
Family members of the victims cheered and hugged as a judge handed down the sentences for Gen. Luciano Menendez and former police intelligence chief Roberto Albornoz: life in prison for crimes against humanity committed at a secret detention center in provincial Tucuman.
Two former police officers — brothers Luis Armando de Candido and Carlos Esteban de Candido — were sentenced to 18 and 3 years, respectively....
Family members of the victims cheered and hugged as a judge handed down the sentences for Gen. Luciano Menendez and former police intelligence chief Roberto Albornoz: life in prison for crimes against humanity committed at a secret detention center in provincial Tucuman.
Two former police officers — brothers Luis Armando de Candido and Carlos Esteban de Candido — were sentenced to 18 and 3 years, respectively....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 18:46
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (7-11-10)
A Scottish bishop has criticised Prime Minister David Cameron for failing to act quickly to scrap the law preventing Catholics from taking the throne.
Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell, said the Act of Settlement was a "scandalous" law that discriminated against members of his faith.
The act was passed by the English parliament in 1701 and extended to Scotland after the union.
It applies in countries where the Queen is head of state.
The Act of Settlement bars any Catholic or anyone married to a Catholic from ascending the throne....
Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell, said the Act of Settlement was a "scandalous" law that discriminated against members of his faith.
The act was passed by the English parliament in 1701 and extended to Scotland after the union.
It applies in countries where the Queen is head of state.
The Act of Settlement bars any Catholic or anyone married to a Catholic from ascending the throne....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 14:12
SOURCE: BBC (7-9-10)
A painting that depicts the body of Nelson Mandela undergoing an autopsy has been condemned by South Africa's ruling party.
The African National Congress (ANC) said the artwork, which is being completed at a Johannesburg shopping centre, violated Mr Mandela's dignity.
The piece shows Mr Mandela's body being cut open, while prominent leaders crowd around.
But artist Yiull Damaso says his aim is to make people confront death....
The African National Congress (ANC) said the artwork, which is being completed at a Johannesburg shopping centre, violated Mr Mandela's dignity.
The piece shows Mr Mandela's body being cut open, while prominent leaders crowd around.
But artist Yiull Damaso says his aim is to make people confront death....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 14:09
SOURCE: BBC (7-9-10)
A Rwandan priest captured last week and accused of helping to orchestrate the 1994 genocide has pleaded not guilty at a UN-backed tribunal.
Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi was arrested after entering western Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
He is accused of ordering the killing of ethnic Tutsis after they sought refuge in his church.
Mr Uwinkindi was indicted in 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is based in Tanzania, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity....
Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi was arrested after entering western Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
He is accused of ordering the killing of ethnic Tutsis after they sought refuge in his church.
Mr Uwinkindi was indicted in 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is based in Tanzania, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 14:08
SOURCE: BBC (7-8-10)
A beam of light will be shone from the highest point of the Clwydian Range, to mark the 200th anniversary of Moel Famau's Jubilee Tower.
The tower's foundation stone was laid on 25 October 1810 to commemorate King George III's Golden Jubilee.
Wrexham-based artist Chris Oakley has been commissioned by Flintshire and Denbighshire councils to install a light beam in the tower.
It will be one of a series of events planned in October.
The councils hopes residents and visitors will attend a procession on 24 October to recreate the celebrations 200 years ago....
The tower's foundation stone was laid on 25 October 1810 to commemorate King George III's Golden Jubilee.
Wrexham-based artist Chris Oakley has been commissioned by Flintshire and Denbighshire councils to install a light beam in the tower.
It will be one of a series of events planned in October.
The councils hopes residents and visitors will attend a procession on 24 October to recreate the celebrations 200 years ago....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:09
SOURCE: BBC (7-8-10)
A wedding outfit on show at a Scottish museum is to take a starring role in a film being directed by Madonna.
She has asked for the dress for her directorial feature debut, W.E., about Edward VIII's wife Wallis Simpson.
The outfit is currently part of a Marriage in the Movies exhibition at the National Museum of Costume at Shambellie House near Dumfries.
The dress was worn by Joely Richardson, who starred in the 2005 television production Wallis and Edward.
The outfit was designed by Michael O'Connor and will be worn by actress Andrea Riseborough, who will play Wallis Simpson in the film co-written by Madonna....
She has asked for the dress for her directorial feature debut, W.E., about Edward VIII's wife Wallis Simpson.
The outfit is currently part of a Marriage in the Movies exhibition at the National Museum of Costume at Shambellie House near Dumfries.
The dress was worn by Joely Richardson, who starred in the 2005 television production Wallis and Edward.
The outfit was designed by Michael O'Connor and will be worn by actress Andrea Riseborough, who will play Wallis Simpson in the film co-written by Madonna....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:08
SOURCE: BBC (7-8-10)
A Turner masterpiece has sold for almost £30m - a new auction record for the British master.
Joseph Mallord William Turner's Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino, fetched £29,721,150 at Sotheby's in London.
The painting was sold by a descendant of the fifth Earl of Rosebery, who bought it in 1878 while on honeymoon with his wife Hannah Rothschild.
The previous record for a Turner was £20.5m for a view of Venice, which went under the hammer in April 2006....
Joseph Mallord William Turner's Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino, fetched £29,721,150 at Sotheby's in London.
The painting was sold by a descendant of the fifth Earl of Rosebery, who bought it in 1878 while on honeymoon with his wife Hannah Rothschild.
The previous record for a Turner was £20.5m for a view of Venice, which went under the hammer in April 2006....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:06
SOURCE: BBC (7-8-10)
One of the largest ever finds of Roman coins in Britain has been made by a man using a metal detector.
The hoard of more than 52,000 coins dating from the 3rd Century AD was found buried in a field near Frome in Somerset.
The coins were found in a huge jar just over a foot (30cm) below the surface by Dave Crisp, from Devizes in Wiltshire.
Since the discovery in late April, experts from the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum have been working through the find....
The hoard of more than 52,000 coins dating from the 3rd Century AD was found buried in a field near Frome in Somerset.
The coins were found in a huge jar just over a foot (30cm) below the surface by Dave Crisp, from Devizes in Wiltshire.
Since the discovery in late April, experts from the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum have been working through the find....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:04
SOURCE: BBC (7-8-10)
Speculation is mounting that the Austrian capital, Vienna, might be the venue for a cloak and dagger prisoner exchange straight out of a Cold War thriller.
And with a long history as a stomping ground for secret services from all over the world, Vienna has what it takes for a smooth spy swap.
After all, it is the capital of a neutral country at the heart of Europe.
And more than a century of spying history makes this romantic city a place where, 20 years after the end of the Cold War, agents and informants still feel at ease....
And with a long history as a stomping ground for secret services from all over the world, Vienna has what it takes for a smooth spy swap.
After all, it is the capital of a neutral country at the heart of Europe.
And more than a century of spying history makes this romantic city a place where, 20 years after the end of the Cold War, agents and informants still feel at ease....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:01
Name of source: CNN
SOURCE: CNN (7-11-10)
Two years ago, U.S. military officials came knocking on Michael Frisbie's door asking for information on his family tree.
They returned about a year ago, this time informing him that the remains of his great-great-uncle -- a soldier missing in action since World War I -- had been identified.
More than 90 years after his death, Costello will finally be buried with full military honors Monday.
Costello, from New York City, enlisted in the Army on September 19, 1917, and was part of the 60th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division, according to military documents.
On September 16, 1918, with World War I nearing an end, Costello and his fellow troops encountered heavy artillery and machine-gun fire near Jaulny, in northern France. He died of a shrapnel head wound, Frisbie said....
They returned about a year ago, this time informing him that the remains of his great-great-uncle -- a soldier missing in action since World War I -- had been identified.
More than 90 years after his death, Costello will finally be buried with full military honors Monday.
Costello, from New York City, enlisted in the Army on September 19, 1917, and was part of the 60th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division, according to military documents.
On September 16, 1918, with World War I nearing an end, Costello and his fellow troops encountered heavy artillery and machine-gun fire near Jaulny, in northern France. He died of a shrapnel head wound, Frisbie said....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:43
Name of source: AOL News
SOURCE: AOL News (7-11-10)
New photographs of a smiling, tracksuit-clad Fidel Castro greeting workers at a scientific think tank were posted on the blogs of two Cuban journalists and a media website Saturday, offering a rare glimpse of the reclusive revolutionary leader in a public forum.
Castro, 83, appears slightly stooped but otherwise healthy in the pictures, which were said to have been taken Wednesday during a visit to the National Center for Scientific Investigation in Havana.
One set of four photos appeared on the blogs of two official Cuban journalists and apparently were taken with a worker's mobile phone. The former Cuban leader is seen raising his hand to wave in one picture and seemingly being led away in another.
More images from the same event were posted later in the day on Cubadebate, a state-run media website. In those pictures, Fidel is seen laughing and talking with the workers, some of whom line an overhead walkway to wave and clap at him. In one, he leans back casually against a desk, looking animated....
Castro, 83, appears slightly stooped but otherwise healthy in the pictures, which were said to have been taken Wednesday during a visit to the National Center for Scientific Investigation in Havana.
One set of four photos appeared on the blogs of two official Cuban journalists and apparently were taken with a worker's mobile phone. The former Cuban leader is seen raising his hand to wave in one picture and seemingly being led away in another.
More images from the same event were posted later in the day on Cubadebate, a state-run media website. In those pictures, Fidel is seen laughing and talking with the workers, some of whom line an overhead walkway to wave and clap at him. In one, he leans back casually against a desk, looking animated....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:40
SOURCE: AOL News (7-11-10)
When a devastating war has displaced half the population, it might be time for a new census. But many in Bosnia say such a reckoning would entrench the ethnic divisions that were forced upon it with a brutal violence unknown in Europe since World War II.
Bosnia's last census was in 1991, a year before it seceded from the former Yugoslavia. At the time, its population of 4.4 million consisted of 43 percent Muslim Bosniaks, 31 percent Eastern Orthodox Serbs and 17 percent Catholic Croats, many of them living in a patchwork of mixed communities. But then came the spring of 1992 and a war that would leave 2.2 million uprooted and at least 100,000 dead by the time it ended three years later.
The European Union is pushing hard for a census next year and warns that failure would damage Bosnia's prospects of joining the union. Yet such a count would end up reflecting a demographic reality skewed by war and ethnic cleansing.
The obvious compromise -- a census with optional questions about religion and ethnicity -- is being debated in parliament. But if many people in a municipality choose to respond to these questions, the census will still give a fairly detailed picture of the ethnic composition....
Bosnia's last census was in 1991, a year before it seceded from the former Yugoslavia. At the time, its population of 4.4 million consisted of 43 percent Muslim Bosniaks, 31 percent Eastern Orthodox Serbs and 17 percent Catholic Croats, many of them living in a patchwork of mixed communities. But then came the spring of 1992 and a war that would leave 2.2 million uprooted and at least 100,000 dead by the time it ended three years later.
The European Union is pushing hard for a census next year and warns that failure would damage Bosnia's prospects of joining the union. Yet such a count would end up reflecting a demographic reality skewed by war and ethnic cleansing.
The obvious compromise -- a census with optional questions about religion and ethnicity -- is being debated in parliament. But if many people in a municipality choose to respond to these questions, the census will still give a fairly detailed picture of the ethnic composition....
Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 13:38
Name of source: WaPo
SOURCE: WaPo (7-9-10)
An elaborate spy swap reminiscent of the Cold War took place Friday at Vienna International Airport -- a minutely choreographed operation involving 10 members of a Russian espionage ring that infiltrated American suburbia and four Russians who had been jailed in Russia for their contacts with the West....
Though in some ways a throwback to the Cold War, Friday's drama was a far cry from the last major spy swap, which took place in 1986 at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge, an Iron Curtain crossing between East Germany and West Berlin that at the time was floodlit and guarded by soldiers with guns and dogs. That deal traded Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky -- now Natan Sharansky -- and three Western agents for five Soviet bloc spies.
During the Cold War, "every crossing point from East to West had the tenseness of a major surgical operation," wrote John le Carré in "Smiley's People," a classic novel of East-West skullduggery. Friday's runway ballet of jets, by contrast, took place in bright sunlight amid signs of unusual U.S.-Russia cooperation....
Though in some ways a throwback to the Cold War, Friday's drama was a far cry from the last major spy swap, which took place in 1986 at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge, an Iron Curtain crossing between East Germany and West Berlin that at the time was floodlit and guarded by soldiers with guns and dogs. That deal traded Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky -- now Natan Sharansky -- and three Western agents for five Soviet bloc spies.
During the Cold War, "every crossing point from East to West had the tenseness of a major surgical operation," wrote John le Carré in "Smiley's People," a classic novel of East-West skullduggery. Friday's runway ballet of jets, by contrast, took place in bright sunlight amid signs of unusual U.S.-Russia cooperation....
Friday, July 9, 2010 - 13:53
Name of source: The Columbus Dispatch
SOURCE: The Columbus Dispatch (7-8-10)
These days, Edward Low is fighting on two fronts: to get his precious "Indian rock" back from the Ohio Historical Society and to stay alive.
The 77-year-old Reynoldsburg man has been in a three-year battle with the Historical Society to recover an artifact he found as a boy - a piece of pre-history from the Early Woodland Adena culture that was probably created 400 years or more before the birth of Christ. Its value at auction has been estimated at $200,000, possibly much more.
But now Low is dying. And he isn't worried about money. He's more concerned about getting back the boyhood treasure that he kept in a sock drawer for years and took to school for show-and-tell. Low wants to donate it to a museum in Parkersburg, W.Va., near where he grew up and where he found the 3-inch-by-5-inch sandstone tablet carved with human faces and birds.
Low sued the Historical Society last year in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, claiming he loaned the artifact for research and display back in 1971 and now wants it back. The society asserts that Low gave it to the museum, but can provide no paperwork or documentation as evidence....
The 77-year-old Reynoldsburg man has been in a three-year battle with the Historical Society to recover an artifact he found as a boy - a piece of pre-history from the Early Woodland Adena culture that was probably created 400 years or more before the birth of Christ. Its value at auction has been estimated at $200,000, possibly much more.
But now Low is dying. And he isn't worried about money. He's more concerned about getting back the boyhood treasure that he kept in a sock drawer for years and took to school for show-and-tell. Low wants to donate it to a museum in Parkersburg, W.Va., near where he grew up and where he found the 3-inch-by-5-inch sandstone tablet carved with human faces and birds.
Low sued the Historical Society last year in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, claiming he loaned the artifact for research and display back in 1971 and now wants it back. The society asserts that Low gave it to the museum, but can provide no paperwork or documentation as evidence....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:20
Name of source: Science Daily
SOURCE: Science Daily (7-6-10)
Among various important discoveries, the 2010 Kinneret Regional Project discovered an ancient synagogue, in use at around 400 AD. This year's archeological focus is the first systematic excavation on Horvat Kur, a village inhabited from the Early Roman through the Early Medieval periods located on a gentle hill two kilometers west of the Lake of Galilee.
Thirty volunteers -- mostly students of theology, religious studies, and archeology -- and staff from the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Romania, Belgium, Spain, Israel, and Germany explore the material remains of the village life in Galilee, a region that features very prominently in Early Christian and Rabbinic tradition. The 2010 campaign lasts from June 21 until July 16 and is sponsored by the Universities of Bern, Helsinki, and Leiden.
Already after two weeks of excavation, the hardships of digging in the blazing Galilean sun were revealed. Archeologists worked in two different areas. In area A -- situated on the hill-top -- a narrow test trench dug in 2008 was expanded to a larger area of three squares, 5 x 5 meters each, now being fully excavated. At this location, remains of an elaborately built monumental wall were discovered already at an early stage of excavation. This wall, preserved up to 80 centimeters, runs North-South for at least 10 meters and clearly divides the excavated space into two different areas. To the west of it, a cobblestone pavement covered with what the researchers think was a small courtyard. In 2008, a large number of coins were found on the surfaces of this open space, indicating that the building represented by the above mentioned monumental wall might already have been in use at around 400 AD. During the 2010 campaign, another large amount of coins came to light in the same area which are likely to corroborate this dating once numismatic analysis of the newly found coin material is completed. Fragments of pilasters and other architectural elements were found close by in tumble, which will eventually contribute to the reconstruction of layout and design of the building....
Thirty volunteers -- mostly students of theology, religious studies, and archeology -- and staff from the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Romania, Belgium, Spain, Israel, and Germany explore the material remains of the village life in Galilee, a region that features very prominently in Early Christian and Rabbinic tradition. The 2010 campaign lasts from June 21 until July 16 and is sponsored by the Universities of Bern, Helsinki, and Leiden.
Already after two weeks of excavation, the hardships of digging in the blazing Galilean sun were revealed. Archeologists worked in two different areas. In area A -- situated on the hill-top -- a narrow test trench dug in 2008 was expanded to a larger area of three squares, 5 x 5 meters each, now being fully excavated. At this location, remains of an elaborately built monumental wall were discovered already at an early stage of excavation. This wall, preserved up to 80 centimeters, runs North-South for at least 10 meters and clearly divides the excavated space into two different areas. To the west of it, a cobblestone pavement covered with what the researchers think was a small courtyard. In 2008, a large number of coins were found on the surfaces of this open space, indicating that the building represented by the above mentioned monumental wall might already have been in use at around 400 AD. During the 2010 campaign, another large amount of coins came to light in the same area which are likely to corroborate this dating once numismatic analysis of the newly found coin material is completed. Fragments of pilasters and other architectural elements were found close by in tumble, which will eventually contribute to the reconstruction of layout and design of the building....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:16
Name of source: The Boston Globe
SOURCE: The Boston Globe (7-5-10)
...Vic Mastone, a state archeologist, is an excited bundle of animation as he scans the Revolutionary War battlefield. Like a general on high ground, he surveys a checkerboard of fuel tanks, mountains of road salt, rotted wharf pilings, and a jumble of shoehorned tenements.
Welcome to Chelsea Creek.
The two-day fight in May 1775 is largely forgotten, overshadowed by the momentous clashes at Lexington and Concord the month before, and the Battle of Bunker Hill in June. But that obscurity, even among many local residents, could soon change.
Buoyed by a grant from the National Park Service, Mastone and two researchers have launched an unprecedented project to map the battlefield, search for the sunken British warship, and illuminate the public to a long-overlooked event on the American road to independence....
Welcome to Chelsea Creek.
The two-day fight in May 1775 is largely forgotten, overshadowed by the momentous clashes at Lexington and Concord the month before, and the Battle of Bunker Hill in June. But that obscurity, even among many local residents, could soon change.
Buoyed by a grant from the National Park Service, Mastone and two researchers have launched an unprecedented project to map the battlefield, search for the sunken British warship, and illuminate the public to a long-overlooked event on the American road to independence....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:15
Name of source: The China Post
SOURCE: The China Post (7-8-10)
Archaeologists working at a site in Hanoi's Dong Anh District have stumbled across 11 tombs dating back to the Phung Nguyen culture, days before they were about to wind up the dig.
The Phung Nguyen remains, the best-preserved of any found in and around the city, date back about 4,000 years, archaeologists from the Viet Nam Archaeology Institute said.
The tombs were discovered 1.5 meters below ground.
One of the tombs, provisionally called number nine, contained the well-preserved remains of a woman aged between 35 and 40, Nguyen Laan Cuong, deputy general secretary of the Viet Nam Archaeologists Association told Viet Nam News....
The Phung Nguyen remains, the best-preserved of any found in and around the city, date back about 4,000 years, archaeologists from the Viet Nam Archaeology Institute said.
The tombs were discovered 1.5 meters below ground.
One of the tombs, provisionally called number nine, contained the well-preserved remains of a woman aged between 35 and 40, Nguyen Laan Cuong, deputy general secretary of the Viet Nam Archaeologists Association told Viet Nam News....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 19:13
Name of source: Catholic.net
SOURCE: Catholic.net (7-1-10)
The recently opened sections of the Vatican Secret Archives have revealed that Pope Pius XII not only helped save thousands of Jews, but also their patrimony, from the Nazis.
Pave the Way Foundation reported Tuesday that its researchers found documents of "great importance."
Michael Hesemann, a historian and foundation representative from Germany, has been researching documents in the Vatican archives and he found a letter sent by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who would later become Pius XII, on Nov. 30, 1938, only three weeks after the Kristallnacht.
In this letter, which was sent to the nunciatures and apostolic delegations as well as 61 bishops, the cardinal requested 200,000 visas for "non-Aryan Catholics." Just over a month later, on Jan. 9, 1939, he sent three additional letters.
Pave the Way Foundation reported Tuesday that its researchers found documents of "great importance."
Michael Hesemann, a historian and foundation representative from Germany, has been researching documents in the Vatican archives and he found a letter sent by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who would later become Pius XII, on Nov. 30, 1938, only three weeks after the Kristallnacht.
In this letter, which was sent to the nunciatures and apostolic delegations as well as 61 bishops, the cardinal requested 200,000 visas for "non-Aryan Catholics." Just over a month later, on Jan. 9, 1939, he sent three additional letters.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 16:17
Name of source: Slate
SOURCE: Slate (7-8-10)
It's a question that drives the extraordinary German site Lost Films. Begun in December 2008 by the Berlin museum Deutsche Kinemathek, it's a collaborative effort with other archives that now encompasses an astonishing range of films: The more than 4,000 movies listed as M.I.A. range from an actual jazz-era version of The Great Gatsby (1926) to a re-enactment of The Battle of Gettysburg (1913) staged while the veterans were still alive. But even more curious is the site's "Identify" section—an open call to other museums and the public to I.D. films that sometimes survive without title cards, without canister labels, without so much as a cast or director or country of origin....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 12:32
Name of source: Talking Points Memo
SOURCE: Talking Points Memo (7-8-10)
...As we'd reported, Glenn Beck kicked off his "Beck University" online lecture series last night, and the first topic was "Faith 101." We signed up for the $9.95/month "university." Last night's class was subtitled "Black-Robed Regiment," and "Professor" and right-wing historian David Barton talked for half an hour about happier times in American history, when clergy were a welcome and influential part of American politics.
The lecture, which was followed by an interactive Q&A session, had only a short intermission -- cartoon Glenn Beck showed up to give viewers a pop quiz on Barton's class. But don't worry, cartoon Beck assured us. Pop quizzes were never his thing either....
The lecture, which was followed by an interactive Q&A session, had only a short intermission -- cartoon Glenn Beck showed up to give viewers a pop quiz on Barton's class. But don't worry, cartoon Beck assured us. Pop quizzes were never his thing either....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 12:25
Name of source: LA Times
SOURCE: LA Times (7-7-10)
The Mexican media conglomerate Televisa employs actors in blackface during a popular morning program on the World Cup, underscoring once more the conflicting attitudes held by Mexico and the United States about race and racism. Tracy Wilkinson writes in The Times:
But this is Mexico, and definitions of racism are complicated and influenced by the country's own tortured relationship with invading powers and indigenous cultures.
Many Mexicans will say they are not racist and that very little racism exists in Mexico, a nation, after all, of mestizos, who are of European and indigenous blood.
As proof, they point to the fact that slavery was ended in Mexico decades before it was abolished in the United States, and that Mexico never institutionalized racism the way the U.S. did with its segregationist laws that lasted into the 1960s.
Mexicans, it turns out, just don't see caricatures of Africans or black people as inherently racist, bringing to mind the flap in 2005 over a historic comic book character named Memin Pinguin, beloved by Mexicans but reviled in the U.S. for his exaggerated African features....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 12:17
Name of source: Houston Chronicle
SOURCE: Houston Chronicle (7-7-10)
Those gooey dime- and quarter-size tar balls washing up in the Texas surf last weekend bore more than just an ugly reminder of the catastrophic oil gushing into the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Tar balls carry a biological legacy of the algae, plants and marine life that died and, over millions of years, formed oil. And this particular oil has much to tell us about the hot, dry and salty origins of the Gulf.
"With each bit of oil you have a window into the chemistry of what the world was like when these oils formed," said Norman Guinasso, Jr., director of the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group at Texas A&M University.
The distinctive chemistry of oil found a mile deep in the Mississippi Canyon, off the Louisiana coast, allowed the U.S. Coast Guard to promptly and unambiguously determine that tar balls found on Crystal Beach during the July Fourth weekend came from the BP spill.
Tar balls carry a biological legacy of the algae, plants and marine life that died and, over millions of years, formed oil. And this particular oil has much to tell us about the hot, dry and salty origins of the Gulf.
"With each bit of oil you have a window into the chemistry of what the world was like when these oils formed," said Norman Guinasso, Jr., director of the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group at Texas A&M University.
The distinctive chemistry of oil found a mile deep in the Mississippi Canyon, off the Louisiana coast, allowed the U.S. Coast Guard to promptly and unambiguously determine that tar balls found on Crystal Beach during the July Fourth weekend came from the BP spill.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 08:44
Name of source: BBC News
SOURCE: BBC News (7-8-10)
One of the largest ever finds of Roman coins in Britain has been made by a man using a metal detector.
The hoard of more than 52,000 coins dating from the 3rd Century AD was found buried in a field near Frome in Somerset.
The coins were found in a huge jar just over a foot (30cm) below the surface by Dave Crisp, from Devizes in Wiltshire.
"I have made many finds over the years, but this is my first major coin hoard," he said....
The hoard of more than 52,000 coins dating from the 3rd Century AD was found buried in a field near Frome in Somerset.
The coins were found in a huge jar just over a foot (30cm) below the surface by Dave Crisp, from Devizes in Wiltshire.
"I have made many finds over the years, but this is my first major coin hoard," he said....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 08:43
Name of source: Inside Higher Ed
SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed (7-8-10)
An economist's research into the Nazi regime's dismissals of Jewish mathematics professors in the 1930's has led him to conclude that in Ph.D. supervision, big is beautiful.
Between 1933 and 1934, about 18 per cent of all mathematics professors in Germany were stripped of their posts by the Nazis, including some of the most eminent scholars of the day. Fabian Waldinger, assistant professor in the department of economics at the University of Warwick, in Britain, studied the impact of those dismissals on the mathematicians' doctoral students.
He found that the students whose subsequent careers were most adversely affected by the dismissals were those who had been supervised by highly cited professors....
Between 1933 and 1934, about 18 per cent of all mathematics professors in Germany were stripped of their posts by the Nazis, including some of the most eminent scholars of the day. Fabian Waldinger, assistant professor in the department of economics at the University of Warwick, in Britain, studied the impact of those dismissals on the mathematicians' doctoral students.
He found that the students whose subsequent careers were most adversely affected by the dismissals were those who had been supervised by highly cited professors....
Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 08:42
