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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: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-27-10)
Tens of thousands of Kenyans gathered to celebrate the country’s president Mwai Kibaki signing into law a new constitution promised more than two decades ago.
The new US-style laws include a Bill of Rights and reforms to policies designed to address long-held grievances over land stolen by corrupt politicians.
Demands for the constitution stretch back to the end of one-party rule by former president Daniel Arap Moi at the beginning of the 1990s.
Two-thirds of Kenyans voted to approve the new document in a referendum held earlier this month....
The new US-style laws include a Bill of Rights and reforms to policies designed to address long-held grievances over land stolen by corrupt politicians.
Demands for the constitution stretch back to the end of one-party rule by former president Daniel Arap Moi at the beginning of the 1990s.
Two-thirds of Kenyans voted to approve the new document in a referendum held earlier this month....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 15:57
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SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-25-10)
The Germans planned to invade Britain in 1940 by dressing up in British uniforms and making use of two stairways cut in the cliffs at Dover to creep along the beach, MI5 files disclose.
The invasion plans are revealed in a report by a member of a German intelligence unit called Sonderstab (Special Force) Hollmann.
It was led by Wilhelm Hollmann, described as 45 years old “but looks at least 50…a trifle stooped” with a “gold right incisor” tooth and “very little hair.”
“What hair he has is clear blond,” a US intelligence report added. “Has long arms, very thin legs, blue eyes.”
Hollmann had begun as a former secretary to the Jahnke Buro, a freelance intelligence unit run during the 1930s by Kurt Jahnke for Rudolph Hess.
According to the report, members of the Hollmann group spent March 1940 training on embarking and disembarking from barges that had been constructed on the rivers and canals of Germany and the Low Countries and then towed down the Channel coast and concentrated on the beaches opposite Dover.
The informant says that landings were planned along the English coast and in Scotland and Southern Ireland but the attack would be centred around Dover.
The invasion would begin with a “heavy aerial attack” followed by “specially trained shock troops” who were to “attempt to make landings with a view to seizing and holding strategic positions until the main body of German troops could be brought across the channel in barges.”
The informant, Werner Janowski, said his unit was to arrive under cover of darkness, wearing Allied uniforms, as others had during the invasions of France and the Low Countries....
The invasion plans are revealed in a report by a member of a German intelligence unit called Sonderstab (Special Force) Hollmann.
It was led by Wilhelm Hollmann, described as 45 years old “but looks at least 50…a trifle stooped” with a “gold right incisor” tooth and “very little hair.”
“What hair he has is clear blond,” a US intelligence report added. “Has long arms, very thin legs, blue eyes.”
Hollmann had begun as a former secretary to the Jahnke Buro, a freelance intelligence unit run during the 1930s by Kurt Jahnke for Rudolph Hess.
According to the report, members of the Hollmann group spent March 1940 training on embarking and disembarking from barges that had been constructed on the rivers and canals of Germany and the Low Countries and then towed down the Channel coast and concentrated on the beaches opposite Dover.
The informant says that landings were planned along the English coast and in Scotland and Southern Ireland but the attack would be centred around Dover.
The invasion would begin with a “heavy aerial attack” followed by “specially trained shock troops” who were to “attempt to make landings with a view to seizing and holding strategic positions until the main body of German troops could be brought across the channel in barges.”
The informant, Werner Janowski, said his unit was to arrive under cover of darkness, wearing Allied uniforms, as others had during the invasions of France and the Low Countries....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 11:49
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-5-10)
An early piano believed to have been played by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has surfaced in Germany and could be worth millions of pounds.
Public broadcaster SWR said the instrument was built in 1775 and acquired in the 1980s by piano manufacturer Martin Becker in the southern German city of Baden-Baden from an antiques dealer in Strasbourg, eastern France....
Public broadcaster SWR said the instrument was built in 1775 and acquired in the 1980s by piano manufacturer Martin Becker in the southern German city of Baden-Baden from an antiques dealer in Strasbourg, eastern France....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 10:41
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-26-10)
Archaeological remains dating back to the last Ice Age have been found during work to upgrade a major road, the Highways Agency said.
The remains, along with Iron Age and Roman settlements, were uncovered during work to upgrade the A46 between Newark and Widmerpool in Nottinghamshire.
The Highways Agency said the finds included ancient flint tools and flint knapping debris dating back to about 11,000 BC - around the end of the last Ice Age when Stone Age hunter-gathers returned as the climate began to warm up.
A46 Highways Agency project manager Geoff Bethel said: ''As the A46 follows the route of the old Roman road, we expected to uncover a number of artefacts from Roman Britain and we were not disappointed....
The remains, along with Iron Age and Roman settlements, were uncovered during work to upgrade the A46 between Newark and Widmerpool in Nottinghamshire.
The Highways Agency said the finds included ancient flint tools and flint knapping debris dating back to about 11,000 BC - around the end of the last Ice Age when Stone Age hunter-gathers returned as the climate began to warm up.
A46 Highways Agency project manager Geoff Bethel said: ''As the A46 follows the route of the old Roman road, we expected to uncover a number of artefacts from Roman Britain and we were not disappointed....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 10:39
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-25-10)
A beautiful and refined Russian ballerina working as a Nazi spy helped to turn the course of the first major conflict of the Second World War, newly released files from MI5 disclose.
Marina Lie – who also used the names Marina Goubonina, Marie Alexevna, and Luise Lohmann – stole plans that helped turn the campaign in Norway against the Allies just as they were about to claim victory.
The defeat led to the resignation of Neville Chamberlain and his replacement as prime minister with Winston Churchill....
Marina Lie – who also used the names Marina Goubonina, Marie Alexevna, and Luise Lohmann – stole plans that helped turn the campaign in Norway against the Allies just as they were about to claim victory.
The defeat led to the resignation of Neville Chamberlain and his replacement as prime minister with Winston Churchill....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 10:38
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-26-10)
The boffins of Bletchley cut their teeth on the Telegraph crossword, says Sinclair McKay.
"We were very good at crosswords," says one of the veteran codebreakers of Bletchley Park, ''and also anything to do with anagrams. And of course Scrabble.”
When I wrote my book The Secret Life of Bletchley Park I interviewed brilliant men and women – mathematicians, linguists, debutantes – who had smashed the German Enigma codes in the Second World War. I found that they were not your average eggheads or scientists. Cryptography was a fine art that required an aptitude for lateral thinking, even a certain amount of psychological acuity....
"We were very good at crosswords," says one of the veteran codebreakers of Bletchley Park, ''and also anything to do with anagrams. And of course Scrabble.”
When I wrote my book The Secret Life of Bletchley Park I interviewed brilliant men and women – mathematicians, linguists, debutantes – who had smashed the German Enigma codes in the Second World War. I found that they were not your average eggheads or scientists. Cryptography was a fine art that required an aptitude for lateral thinking, even a certain amount of psychological acuity....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 10:37
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-26-10)
The prehistoric hunter known as Oetzi the Iceman may have been ceremonially buried on a high Alpine pass rather than killed there in a deadly ambush, experts say.
Researchers believe they have found evidence which shows that Oetzi, named after the Oetz Valley in which he was found, died lower down the valley, probably violently, but was then carried up to the 10,500ft high pass for a ceremonial burial.
The new theory suggests that he may have been an important figure in his tribe or village, possibly a chieftain.
After being frozen in ice for 5,300 years, Oetzi’s remains, along with a treasure trove of prehistoric artefacts, were found in a remarkable state of preservation by two German hikers in 1991, close to the modern day border between Italy and Austria....
Researchers believe they have found evidence which shows that Oetzi, named after the Oetz Valley in which he was found, died lower down the valley, probably violently, but was then carried up to the 10,500ft high pass for a ceremonial burial.
The new theory suggests that he may have been an important figure in his tribe or village, possibly a chieftain.
After being frozen in ice for 5,300 years, Oetzi’s remains, along with a treasure trove of prehistoric artefacts, were found in a remarkable state of preservation by two German hikers in 1991, close to the modern day border between Italy and Austria....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 14:09
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-25-10)
The Nuremberg Laws, which laid the legal groundwork for the execution of six million Jews during the Holocaust, have been handed over to the US National Archives.
Consisting of four pages, and signed by Adolf Hitler, the anti-Semitic documents were appropriated by US General George Patton at the end of the Second World War after being discovered in Bavaria.
Gen Patton disobeyed orders that Nazi documents were to be handed over to the government and spirited them out of Germany, later depositing them at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, close to where he grew up.
The library placed them in a bomb proof vault and they were a missing piece of evidence at the Nuremberg trials that followed the war.
Prosecutors had to use photocopies and the existence of the originals was only disclosed in 1999....
Consisting of four pages, and signed by Adolf Hitler, the anti-Semitic documents were appropriated by US General George Patton at the end of the Second World War after being discovered in Bavaria.
Gen Patton disobeyed orders that Nazi documents were to be handed over to the government and spirited them out of Germany, later depositing them at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, close to where he grew up.
The library placed them in a bomb proof vault and they were a missing piece of evidence at the Nuremberg trials that followed the war.
Prosecutors had to use photocopies and the existence of the originals was only disclosed in 1999....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 14:06
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-26-10)
A politician tipped as a future Japanese prime minister has said the British are not very likeable, but admitted the way British prisoners marched in The Bridge on the River Kwai demonstrated their best qualities.
Ichiro Ozawa, the former secretary-general of Japan’s ruling Democratic Party, also said he values US democracy but dismissed the American people as “simple-minded”.
The 68-year-old veteran politician, who resigned as the second most important official in the ruling party in June after coming under fire for campaign finance scandals, reportedly said: “I don’t like British people,” before praising British democracy and their discipline, citing the 1957 Second World War II film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, in which British prisoners of war march in orderly ranks....
Veterans of the Second World War who fought against Japan said Mr Ozawa’s comments about Britain were insensitive but they would “not get into a sweat about it”....
Ichiro Ozawa, the former secretary-general of Japan’s ruling Democratic Party, also said he values US democracy but dismissed the American people as “simple-minded”.
The 68-year-old veteran politician, who resigned as the second most important official in the ruling party in June after coming under fire for campaign finance scandals, reportedly said: “I don’t like British people,” before praising British democracy and their discipline, citing the 1957 Second World War II film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, in which British prisoners of war march in orderly ranks....
Veterans of the Second World War who fought against Japan said Mr Ozawa’s comments about Britain were insensitive but they would “not get into a sweat about it”....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 12:07
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-25-10)
The residents of an entire Leicestershire village have joined a dig to find archaeological remains, with over 200 people involved in the excavation which found relics stretching back as far as the Roman Empire.
The dig took place in Kibworth, just off the A6. It even involved taking up the tarmac of the car park at the local pub, the Coach and Horses, so that the earth below could be excavated.
The results will be seen in a new series on BBC Four this autumn, Story of England, presented by the historian Michael Wood.
Finds from the dig included Samian pottery from Roman times, prehistoric flint blades and part of an Anglo-Saxon bone comb, as well as 1,200-year-old Middle Saxon pottery....
The dig took place in Kibworth, just off the A6. It even involved taking up the tarmac of the car park at the local pub, the Coach and Horses, so that the earth below could be excavated.
The results will be seen in a new series on BBC Four this autumn, Story of England, presented by the historian Michael Wood.
Finds from the dig included Samian pottery from Roman times, prehistoric flint blades and part of an Anglo-Saxon bone comb, as well as 1,200-year-old Middle Saxon pottery....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:32
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-25-10)
Archaeologists discovered a Roman "industrial estate" near a ruined fort that may once have been home to a legendary missing legion.
The unearthed site includes the remains of a water-powered flour mill used to grind grain and produce food for the soldiers, clothes, food remains, graves and pottery.
It also contains evidence the Roman occupants might have worn socks, experts who analysed ancient sandals said.
The site was excavated as part of a £318 million Highways Agency scheme to upgrade the A1 between Dishforth and Leeming in North Yorkshire.
It is close to a ruined fort at Healam Bridge, which formed part of the Roman frontier 2,000 years ago....
The unearthed site includes the remains of a water-powered flour mill used to grind grain and produce food for the soldiers, clothes, food remains, graves and pottery.
It also contains evidence the Roman occupants might have worn socks, experts who analysed ancient sandals said.
The site was excavated as part of a £318 million Highways Agency scheme to upgrade the A1 between Dishforth and Leeming in North Yorkshire.
It is close to a ruined fort at Healam Bridge, which formed part of the Roman frontier 2,000 years ago....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:20
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (8-27-10)
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il reportedly met top Chinese leaders on Friday in an apparent bid for Beijing's diplomatic and financial support for a succession plan involving his third and youngest son, who is said to be traveling with him.
Many North Korea watchers predict the son -- Kim Jong Un, believed to be in his 20s -- will be appointed to a key party position at a ruling Workers' Party meeting early next month -- the first such gathering in decades.
China, as North Korea's biggest diplomatic ally and a major source of food aid and oil, would expect to be kept in the loop about major political transitions in Pyongyang, but the Beijing leadership is not likely to be enthusiastic about the prospect of another dynastic succession next door, said Zhu Feng, director of Peking University's Center for International and Strategic Studies....
Many North Korea watchers predict the son -- Kim Jong Un, believed to be in his 20s -- will be appointed to a key party position at a ruling Workers' Party meeting early next month -- the first such gathering in decades.
China, as North Korea's biggest diplomatic ally and a major source of food aid and oil, would expect to be kept in the loop about major political transitions in Pyongyang, but the Beijing leadership is not likely to be enthusiastic about the prospect of another dynastic succession next door, said Zhu Feng, director of Peking University's Center for International and Strategic Studies....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 15:54
SOURCE: AP (8-27-10)
Sudan's president defied an international arrest warrant by visiting Kenya on Friday, causing an outcry from the International Criminal Court which fruitlessly pressured authorities here into arresting the man accused of masterminding the genocide in Darfur.
Rather than arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was invited along with other regional leaders for the signing of Kenya's new constitution, officials here treated him with the dignity accorded a head of state. Wearing a dark suit and tie, al-Bashir had a front-row position for the historic ceremony.
The ICC has no police force and depends on member states to enforce its orders. Al-Bashir's presence in Kenya underscored that the system to bring the world's worst human rights violators to justice depends on member states and raised doubts about Kenya's willingness to hand over suspects expected to soon be charged by the ICC for postelection violence that left more than 1,000 Kenyans dead in 2007-08....
Rather than arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was invited along with other regional leaders for the signing of Kenya's new constitution, officials here treated him with the dignity accorded a head of state. Wearing a dark suit and tie, al-Bashir had a front-row position for the historic ceremony.
The ICC has no police force and depends on member states to enforce its orders. Al-Bashir's presence in Kenya underscored that the system to bring the world's worst human rights violators to justice depends on member states and raised doubts about Kenya's willingness to hand over suspects expected to soon be charged by the ICC for postelection violence that left more than 1,000 Kenyans dead in 2007-08....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 15:51
SOURCE: AP (8-26-10)
LURGAN, Northern Ireland – Bursts of laughter. Young men playing ping pong. Battles of the bands.
In a Northern Ireland determined to put conflict behind it, the Links teen center bridges the divide between Catholic and Protestant teens in this struggling town, giving them something to do, an alternative to streets that offer a toxic mix of drugs and violence. It's working, but like the peace process itself, it is under strain amid looming budget cuts.
"We're just keeping our heads above water," said Martin Larkham, 52, a youth work manager. "Everybody is."
Tough times are hitting promising initiatives like Links — and causing unease about the very fate of Northern Ireland's peace deal. As the troubled territory slogs through the worst economic downturn in decades, dissident Irish nationalist militias are getting increasingly restless — carrying out a string of violent acts including a recent bombing that injured three children....
In a Northern Ireland determined to put conflict behind it, the Links teen center bridges the divide between Catholic and Protestant teens in this struggling town, giving them something to do, an alternative to streets that offer a toxic mix of drugs and violence. It's working, but like the peace process itself, it is under strain amid looming budget cuts.
"We're just keeping our heads above water," said Martin Larkham, 52, a youth work manager. "Everybody is."
Tough times are hitting promising initiatives like Links — and causing unease about the very fate of Northern Ireland's peace deal. As the troubled territory slogs through the worst economic downturn in decades, dissident Irish nationalist militias are getting increasingly restless — carrying out a string of violent acts including a recent bombing that injured three children....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 10:43
SOURCE: AP (8-26-10)
A museum official says a bush fire has destroyed the historic site of the encampment of 19th Century warrior King Lobengula in western Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's National Museums and Monuments director Godfrey Mahachi says strong winds swept the fire through the five acre (two hectare) national heritage site, destroying all eight beehive hut structures, including the king's palace, and a palisade of wooden fortifications.
Lobengula's tribal capital was rebuilt as a symbolic national monument near the second city of Bulawayo in 1993 and became a center of academic and historical studies....
Zimbabwe's National Museums and Monuments director Godfrey Mahachi says strong winds swept the fire through the five acre (two hectare) national heritage site, destroying all eight beehive hut structures, including the king's palace, and a palisade of wooden fortifications.
Lobengula's tribal capital was rebuilt as a symbolic national monument near the second city of Bulawayo in 1993 and became a center of academic and historical studies....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 14:01
SOURCE: AP (8-26-10)
Former South African President Nelson Mandela's home was bugged during a tumultuous period for his African National Congress party, a prominent labor leader said Thursday.
Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, said Mandela told him that listening devices were placed in his Johannesburg home, where ANC leaders would come seeking his advice.
Mandela's house was bugged in 2007 during the buildup to an ANC conference at which President Jacob Zuma ousted his predecessor as ANC head, Vavi said. Factions within the ANC were believed to have spied on each other during those tense times....
Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, said Mandela told him that listening devices were placed in his Johannesburg home, where ANC leaders would come seeking his advice.
Mandela's house was bugged in 2007 during the buildup to an ANC conference at which President Jacob Zuma ousted his predecessor as ANC head, Vavi said. Factions within the ANC were believed to have spied on each other during those tense times....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 13:59
SOURCE: AP (8-26-10)
The Auschwitz memorial in Poland says it has obtained around 150 medical instruments believed to have been used by the Nazis in experiments on the death camp inmates.
Memorial spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel said Thursday the gynecological and surgical instruments were recently offered to the museum by a historian who acquired them from a family that found them shortly after World War II at their house, which was located on the former camp grounds.
Bartyzel says given where they were found and that their shape matches that of wartime instruments, it is "almost certain" that they were used by Auschwitz doctor Carl Clauberg, an obstetrician who experimented with the mass sterilization of women....
Memorial spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel said Thursday the gynecological and surgical instruments were recently offered to the museum by a historian who acquired them from a family that found them shortly after World War II at their house, which was located on the former camp grounds.
Bartyzel says given where they were found and that their shape matches that of wartime instruments, it is "almost certain" that they were used by Auschwitz doctor Carl Clauberg, an obstetrician who experimented with the mass sterilization of women....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 13:56
SOURCE: AP (8-26-10)
CALCUTTA, India – Hundreds of nuns, bishops and volunteers attended a Mass on Thursday marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mother Teresa, the selfless nun who dedicated her life to serving the sick and poor in India.
School children, tourists and volunteers, some carrying bunches of flowers or candles, also crowded Mother Teresa's grave in the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns she founded in 1950 in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta....
School children, tourists and volunteers, some carrying bunches of flowers or candles, also crowded Mother Teresa's grave in the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns she founded in 1950 in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 12:06
SOURCE: AP (8-24-10)
William Saxbe, a Republican maverick who became the fourth attorney general to serve under President Richard M. Nixon and presided during the Watergate investigation, died Tuesday. He was 94.
Saxbe, who served in the Ohio Legislature and as state attorney general, died at his home in Mechanicsburg, northwest of Columbus, said his son, Charles "Rocky" Saxbe.
Nixon's first two attorneys general were accused of Watergate-related crimes and the third, Elliot Richardson, resigned to protest Nixon's efforts to limit the investigation into the break-in and cover-up attempts....
Saxbe, who served in the Ohio Legislature and as state attorney general, died at his home in Mechanicsburg, northwest of Columbus, said his son, Charles "Rocky" Saxbe.
Nixon's first two attorneys general were accused of Watergate-related crimes and the third, Elliot Richardson, resigned to protest Nixon's efforts to limit the investigation into the break-in and cover-up attempts....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:17
SOURCE: AP (8-25-10)
For generations, the lore of "One Thousand and One Nights" helped shape Western notions about Muslim culture. The collection of tales described an exotic world of harems and flying carpets, Sinbad and monsters, Aladdin and the jinn, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves.
Now an exhibition about innovation in Muslim civilization seeks to highlight what organizers say is an overshadowed period of history, a "Golden Age" in which advances in engineering, medicine and architecture laid groundwork for Western progress from the Renaissance until modern times.
Now an exhibition about innovation in Muslim civilization seeks to highlight what organizers say is an overshadowed period of history, a "Golden Age" in which advances in engineering, medicine and architecture laid groundwork for Western progress from the Renaissance until modern times....
Now an exhibition about innovation in Muslim civilization seeks to highlight what organizers say is an overshadowed period of history, a "Golden Age" in which advances in engineering, medicine and architecture laid groundwork for Western progress from the Renaissance until modern times.
Now an exhibition about innovation in Muslim civilization seeks to highlight what organizers say is an overshadowed period of history, a "Golden Age" in which advances in engineering, medicine and architecture laid groundwork for Western progress from the Renaissance until modern times....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:15
SOURCE: AP (8-25-10)
Egypt's antiquities department announced Wednesday the discovery of a 3,500-year-old settlement in a desert oasis, showing the existence of vibrant desert trade routes that stretched from the Mediterranean down into Sudan from the early days of the Egyptian civilization.
The settlement at Umm el-Mawagir in Egypt's Kharga Oasis, more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) south of Cairo, has been excavated for the past year by a Yale University expedition, whose initial findings suggest it was an administrative post with massive baking facilities, possibly to feed local troops.
"The amount of bread production was pretty amazing," said John Darnell, head of the expedition, citing discoveries of ovens, bread molds and storerooms at the site, far out of proportion to its size.
"It's probably a good bet they were basically baking enough bread to feed an army, literally," he said....
The settlement at Umm el-Mawagir in Egypt's Kharga Oasis, more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) south of Cairo, has been excavated for the past year by a Yale University expedition, whose initial findings suggest it was an administrative post with massive baking facilities, possibly to feed local troops.
"The amount of bread production was pretty amazing," said John Darnell, head of the expedition, citing discoveries of ovens, bread molds and storerooms at the site, far out of proportion to its size.
"It's probably a good bet they were basically baking enough bread to feed an army, literally," he said....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:13
Name of source: Top News (UK)
SOURCE: Top News (UK) (8-26-10)
Archaeologists have unearthed a Roman industrial estate in North Yorkshire which might once was used by the Roman Ninth Hispanic legion.
The site, which includes remains of a water-powered flour mill, clothes, food remains, pottery and graves, has been linked to a known imperial fort at Healam Bridge built by the Romans around 2,000 years ago.
The industrial area was comprised of a series of huge timber buildings, typically on the north side of a beck, which powered the mill. The mill would have supplied the fort with goods and provisions such as processing meat and flour.
The excavation work was carried out along the route of the A1 upgrade between Dishforth and Leeming. The site is believed to be the military outpost used by the lost Roman Ninth Hispanic legion.
Archeologists said that they found evidences that the Romans might have worn socks. One of the archeologists cited rust on the nail from a Roman sandal that appeared to have impressions from fibres.
Speaking on the topic, archaeologist Blaise Vyner said, “You don't imagine Romans in socks but I am sure they would have been pretty keen to get hold of some as soon as autumn came along.”...
The site, which includes remains of a water-powered flour mill, clothes, food remains, pottery and graves, has been linked to a known imperial fort at Healam Bridge built by the Romans around 2,000 years ago.
The industrial area was comprised of a series of huge timber buildings, typically on the north side of a beck, which powered the mill. The mill would have supplied the fort with goods and provisions such as processing meat and flour.
The excavation work was carried out along the route of the A1 upgrade between Dishforth and Leeming. The site is believed to be the military outpost used by the lost Roman Ninth Hispanic legion.
Archeologists said that they found evidences that the Romans might have worn socks. One of the archeologists cited rust on the nail from a Roman sandal that appeared to have impressions from fibres.
Speaking on the topic, archaeologist Blaise Vyner said, “You don't imagine Romans in socks but I am sure they would have been pretty keen to get hold of some as soon as autumn came along.”...
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 11:53
Name of source: Fox News
SOURCE: Fox News (8-27-10)
Hurricane Devastated Political Futures as Well as New Orleans.
Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf region, killing nearly 2,000 and displacing more than 250,000 others from Louisiana to Florida. This week, in a series titled "Hurricane Katrina: Five Years After," FoxNews.com looks back on the costliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States.
Hurricane Katrina flooded a city five years ago and took with it lives, property and dignity. It also threatened to sweep away the political reputations of nearly everyone it touched.
The roles of the key political figures associated with one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history are rarely discussed in a context of praise. In Katrina lore, the heroes were the citizens, the aid workers and those who opened their homes and cities to the de facto refugees in Texas, Georgia and elsewhere -- not the public officials.
A small handful escaped the storm with their reputations unscathed, but those closest to the action mostly could only apologize for a catastrophe that proved the limits of government.
"Is there anybody who people look at and say, 'You know what? That person really came through'? In terms of political figures, no," said Peter F. Burns, political science professor at Loyola University New Orleans....
Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf region, killing nearly 2,000 and displacing more than 250,000 others from Louisiana to Florida. This week, in a series titled "Hurricane Katrina: Five Years After," FoxNews.com looks back on the costliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States.
Hurricane Katrina flooded a city five years ago and took with it lives, property and dignity. It also threatened to sweep away the political reputations of nearly everyone it touched.
The roles of the key political figures associated with one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history are rarely discussed in a context of praise. In Katrina lore, the heroes were the citizens, the aid workers and those who opened their homes and cities to the de facto refugees in Texas, Georgia and elsewhere -- not the public officials.
A small handful escaped the storm with their reputations unscathed, but those closest to the action mostly could only apologize for a catastrophe that proved the limits of government.
"Is there anybody who people look at and say, 'You know what? That person really came through'? In terms of political figures, no," said Peter F. Burns, political science professor at Loyola University New Orleans....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 11:47
Name of source: CNN
SOURCE: CNN (8-27-10)
Japan, one of the few industrialized countries with the death penalty, showed one of its execution chambers to the media for the first time Friday.
Reporters were shown the death chamber at the Tokyo Detention Facility, one of seven used across the country, according to a report in the Mainichi Daily News.
The unprecedented media access was ordered by Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who after witnessing the deaths of two condemned prisoners last month, said she wanted to have a national debate on capital punishment in Japan, Mainchi reported. Chiba has previously spoken against the death penalty.
Execution in Japan is carried out by hanging.
The chamber showed to the media on Friday had no noose suspended from the ceiling but showed a trap door outlined in red. The condemned fall to a room below the execution chamber where their deaths are confirmed.
Reporters were not shown that room out of "consideration for the inmates' family and wardens," according to the Mainichi report....
Reporters were shown the death chamber at the Tokyo Detention Facility, one of seven used across the country, according to a report in the Mainichi Daily News.
The unprecedented media access was ordered by Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who after witnessing the deaths of two condemned prisoners last month, said she wanted to have a national debate on capital punishment in Japan, Mainchi reported. Chiba has previously spoken against the death penalty.
Execution in Japan is carried out by hanging.
The chamber showed to the media on Friday had no noose suspended from the ceiling but showed a trap door outlined in red. The condemned fall to a room below the execution chamber where their deaths are confirmed.
Reporters were not shown that room out of "consideration for the inmates' family and wardens," according to the Mainichi report....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 11:45
SOURCE: CNN (8-26-10)
A solemn Mass at the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India, marked the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birth on Thursday.
People from all walks of life gathered at the global headquarters of the order of nuns, which Mother Teresa founded 60 years ago.
Mother Teresa was born as Agnes Gonxha Boiaxhiu to ethnic Albanian parents in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910.
She arrived in India in 1929 and dedicated her life to help those in need. She received a Nobel Peace Prize for her work in 1979....
People from all walks of life gathered at the global headquarters of the order of nuns, which Mother Teresa founded 60 years ago.
Mother Teresa was born as Agnes Gonxha Boiaxhiu to ethnic Albanian parents in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910.
She arrived in India in 1929 and dedicated her life to help those in need. She received a Nobel Peace Prize for her work in 1979....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 13:53
Name of source: BBC News
SOURCE: BBC News (8-27-10)
A Catholic school in Australia has apologised to parents after teachers awarded a costume prize to a child dressed as Adolf Hitler.
The class of nine- and 10-year-olds had been asked to dress up as famous people at the school in Western Australia.
Teachers declared the winner to be a boy who dressed as the Nazi leader, who was wearing an outfit featuring the swastika.
The principal said in hindsight the school would have done it differently.
The school in Perth, which has not been identified, was forced to apologise after complaints from the public that the costume was distasteful.
'Sensitivities'
In an interview with the West Australian newspaper, the headteacher said he believed people had made a "mountain out of a molehill" out of the issue.
He said that "some people got upset because kids called out Hitler", but said that they had just been voicing their opinions on who should win.
He defended the school's actions, describing it as a "one-off thing", and adding that Hitler "was a fairly famous person".
In his letter to parents, he said similar activities would be restricted to characters "appropriate for primary school-aged students".
Parents were also told children would be taught to understand the "sensitivities" that surround certain figures....
The class of nine- and 10-year-olds had been asked to dress up as famous people at the school in Western Australia.
Teachers declared the winner to be a boy who dressed as the Nazi leader, who was wearing an outfit featuring the swastika.
The principal said in hindsight the school would have done it differently.
The school in Perth, which has not been identified, was forced to apologise after complaints from the public that the costume was distasteful.
'Sensitivities'
In an interview with the West Australian newspaper, the headteacher said he believed people had made a "mountain out of a molehill" out of the issue.
He said that "some people got upset because kids called out Hitler", but said that they had just been voicing their opinions on who should win.
He defended the school's actions, describing it as a "one-off thing", and adding that Hitler "was a fairly famous person".
In his letter to parents, he said similar activities would be restricted to characters "appropriate for primary school-aged students".
Parents were also told children would be taught to understand the "sensitivities" that surround certain figures....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 11:20
Name of source: Philadelphia Inquirer
SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer (8-22-10)
A few months ago, one of our nation's most famous landmarks was deteriorating badly. Independence Hall had a roof leak and needed numerous expensive repairs. The city's historical commission met in April with the National Park Service to determine a course of action and on June 9, the park service announced that $4.4 million would be provided for a restoration of Independence Hall. The funding came from the stimulus bill.
A few short blocks from Independence Hall there is another icon of American history in desperate need of restoration.
The USS Olympia is moored at Penn's Landing on the Delaware River and is one of several historic vessels at the Independence Seaport Museum. The ship gained its place in history serving as Commodore George Dewey's flagship in the Battle of Manila Bay in the opening days of the Spanish-American War. It was from the deck of the Olympia that Dewey uttered those famous words "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." With these words, the attack on the Spanish fleet was launched and, within six hours, Dewey's Asiatic Squadron had sunk or captured the entire Spanish Pacific fleet and silenced the guns on shore in Manila.
America's victory in the Spanish-American War was an important event in U.S. history, marking the beginning of the nation's emergence as a world power....
A few short blocks from Independence Hall there is another icon of American history in desperate need of restoration.
The USS Olympia is moored at Penn's Landing on the Delaware River and is one of several historic vessels at the Independence Seaport Museum. The ship gained its place in history serving as Commodore George Dewey's flagship in the Battle of Manila Bay in the opening days of the Spanish-American War. It was from the deck of the Olympia that Dewey uttered those famous words "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." With these words, the attack on the Spanish fleet was launched and, within six hours, Dewey's Asiatic Squadron had sunk or captured the entire Spanish Pacific fleet and silenced the guns on shore in Manila.
America's victory in the Spanish-American War was an important event in U.S. history, marking the beginning of the nation's emergence as a world power....
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 10:35
Name of source: LA Times
SOURCE: LA Times (8-26-10)
Go back, through a universe of chalk dust and repeating bells, to a classroom outfitted with a line of squat stoves, a long table stacked with dry goods, a row of teenage girls mixing dough in dented bowls, writing down the equation of a good pie in notebooks tracked by ink and flour. It was 1980, and my freshman high school class was taking home economics, learning how to make a pot of stew, set a proper dinner table, bake and frost a cake, as the last months of the Carter administration clicked down.
But not long after that, my school and so many others discontinued the classes. And when I talked to my former home ec teacher recently, her raspy 75-year-old voice conflating the three decades since she taught me how to make soup, she wondered aloud where home economics had gone. It's a common question.
But home ec has not disappeared, it's changed, evolving into classes focusing on child development, nutrition, family health, food service and hospitality. It hasn't been lost as much as translated. In 1994, the name of the course in most of the country was officially changed from Home Economics to Family and Consumer Sciences, or FCS, in an effort to dispel the impression that home ec was about teaching girls how to be housewives....
But not long after that, my school and so many others discontinued the classes. And when I talked to my former home ec teacher recently, her raspy 75-year-old voice conflating the three decades since she taught me how to make soup, she wondered aloud where home economics had gone. It's a common question.
But home ec has not disappeared, it's changed, evolving into classes focusing on child development, nutrition, family health, food service and hospitality. It hasn't been lost as much as translated. In 1994, the name of the course in most of the country was officially changed from Home Economics to Family and Consumer Sciences, or FCS, in an effort to dispel the impression that home ec was about teaching girls how to be housewives....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 14:51
Name of source: Washington Post
SOURCE: Washington Post (8-26-10)
...Last week, in the midst of a summer-long archaeological dig, experts using surface-penetrating radar found what are believed to be remnants of two cabins that once made up the small slave village that served L'Hermitage.
And the National Park Service says the find adds another page to the story of the mysterious plantation, whose tropical-influenced main house still stands, an unlikely witness near the banks of the Monocacy, more than 200 years after it was built.
L'Hermitage, 748 acres at its height, was established about 1793 by the far-flung Vincendiere family. They were planters who probably fled from the revolution in France, whence they had gone before the slave revolts in what is today Haiti, where they had large plantations.
They were an unusual family: foreign aristocrats with many children, an absentee father, and a need for an inordinate number of bondservants whom they treated with singular brutality.
And they stood out amid the slave-holding farmers of German descent in central Maryland, where the land and climate called for smaller tracts and populations of 10 to 20 slaves....
And the National Park Service says the find adds another page to the story of the mysterious plantation, whose tropical-influenced main house still stands, an unlikely witness near the banks of the Monocacy, more than 200 years after it was built.
L'Hermitage, 748 acres at its height, was established about 1793 by the far-flung Vincendiere family. They were planters who probably fled from the revolution in France, whence they had gone before the slave revolts in what is today Haiti, where they had large plantations.
They were an unusual family: foreign aristocrats with many children, an absentee father, and a need for an inordinate number of bondservants whom they treated with singular brutality.
And they stood out amid the slave-holding farmers of German descent in central Maryland, where the land and climate called for smaller tracts and populations of 10 to 20 slaves....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 14:21
Name of source: USA Today
SOURCE: USA Today (8-26-10)
Bird calls ring from the forest, echoing amid the crumbling ruins whose darkened doorways have long beckoned explorers and scholars.
The Maya ancients who built the ruins of Kiuic (kee-week) here fled those doorways in a hurry, an international archaeology team now realizes. Left behind may be frozen-in-time clues to the fabled collapse of their civilization.
Archaeologists have explored Kiuic's ruins for more than a century, but working since 2000, Bey and colleagues are now reporting the first evidence of this rapid abandonment. USA TODAY was invited to the site to see what has been uncovered in the latest excavations.
The "classic" Maya peopled the lowland forests of Central America during Europe's Dark Ages, building a civilization of pyramids, palaces and slash-and-burn "milpa" farms made by burning trees and planting seeds in the ash. Maya rulers oversaw city-states that warred with one another, created elaborate calendars and lasted centuries. The abandonment of those monument-strewn centers stands as one of archaeology's most-debated mysteries. The "collapse" was underway in modern-day Guatemala by 800, but didn't take place at Kiuic until almost a century later....
The Maya ancients who built the ruins of Kiuic (kee-week) here fled those doorways in a hurry, an international archaeology team now realizes. Left behind may be frozen-in-time clues to the fabled collapse of their civilization.
Archaeologists have explored Kiuic's ruins for more than a century, but working since 2000, Bey and colleagues are now reporting the first evidence of this rapid abandonment. USA TODAY was invited to the site to see what has been uncovered in the latest excavations.
The "classic" Maya peopled the lowland forests of Central America during Europe's Dark Ages, building a civilization of pyramids, palaces and slash-and-burn "milpa" farms made by burning trees and planting seeds in the ash. Maya rulers oversaw city-states that warred with one another, created elaborate calendars and lasted centuries. The abandonment of those monument-strewn centers stands as one of archaeology's most-debated mysteries. The "collapse" was underway in modern-day Guatemala by 800, but didn't take place at Kiuic until almost a century later....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 14:16
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (8-26-10)
A glamorous Nazi spy may have been behind one of the biggest setbacks suffered by Allied forces during World War II, newly released files suggest.
The secret government papers suggest that Marina Lee, a blonde ballerina, stole battle plans which led to the fall of Norway to Germany in 1940.
According to the files, Germany was close to pulling out of Norway before Lee passed on details of the plan.
The documents were part of an archive released by British spy agency MI5....
The secret government papers suggest that Marina Lee, a blonde ballerina, stole battle plans which led to the fall of Norway to Germany in 1940.
According to the files, Germany was close to pulling out of Norway before Lee passed on details of the plan.
The documents were part of an archive released by British spy agency MI5....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 14:11
SOURCE: BBC (8-25-10)
A man convicted of the 2003 assassination of the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic has been extradited from Croatia to Serbia.
Sretko Kalinic was arrested in June after being shot by an accomplice in Djindjic's murder, Milos Simovic, who was later arrested himself.
Both men had been at large since the reformist Mr Djindjic was killed by a sniper linked to former paramilitaries.
In 2007, they were sentenced in absentia in Serbia to 30 years in jail.
Kalinic had been found guilty of plotting the assassination. The leader of the plot and the sniper were in court for the trial in 2007, and were jailed....
Sretko Kalinic was arrested in June after being shot by an accomplice in Djindjic's murder, Milos Simovic, who was later arrested himself.
Both men had been at large since the reformist Mr Djindjic was killed by a sniper linked to former paramilitaries.
In 2007, they were sentenced in absentia in Serbia to 30 years in jail.
Kalinic had been found guilty of plotting the assassination. The leader of the plot and the sniper were in court for the trial in 2007, and were jailed....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:25
Name of source: Tablet
SOURCE: Tablet (8-26-10)
Russia’s great expanse stretches south from the Arctic for many thousands of miles until it comes to a halt at the long spine of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. The republics on the northern side of the Caucasus, including turbulent Dagestan and Chechnya, still belong to Russia. Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia, on the southern side of the mountains, gained their independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. The high slopes are home to shepherds and the descendants of clans who have long lived there. Lower down, where sleepy towns look up from valleys to the snowy peaks, bigger communities try to scratch out a living.
In one of these towns—Oguz, Azerbaijan, a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Baku, the country’s oil-booming capital on the western shore of the Caspian Sea—live up to 80 Mountain Jews among a population of more than 6,000. The history of the Mountain Jews, who live mainly in Azerbaijan and the Russian republic of Dagestan is, according to members of the community, rooted about 2,500 years ago in their exodus from Israel, their gradual passage through Persia (where they picked up the Farsi-based language they still speak), and their eventual settlement in the Caucasus mountains.
Sitting in the dark-stone building that houses Baku’s Mountain Jewish synagogue, Semyon Ikhilov, the Mountain Jews’ national leader, shakes off the idea that his people might be descended from indigenous Caucasian mountain dwellers who converted to Judaism. “We’re real Jews who came out of Israel,” Ikhilov said, explaining that they acquired the moniker “Mountain Jews” because they settled in the peaks. “We were not mountain people.” And according to a recent genetic study led by researchers in Israel and Estonia, Mountain Jews share a common origin in the Levantine region of the Near East with other Diaspora Jewish communities....
In one of these towns—Oguz, Azerbaijan, a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Baku, the country’s oil-booming capital on the western shore of the Caspian Sea—live up to 80 Mountain Jews among a population of more than 6,000. The history of the Mountain Jews, who live mainly in Azerbaijan and the Russian republic of Dagestan is, according to members of the community, rooted about 2,500 years ago in their exodus from Israel, their gradual passage through Persia (where they picked up the Farsi-based language they still speak), and their eventual settlement in the Caucasus mountains.
Sitting in the dark-stone building that houses Baku’s Mountain Jewish synagogue, Semyon Ikhilov, the Mountain Jews’ national leader, shakes off the idea that his people might be descended from indigenous Caucasian mountain dwellers who converted to Judaism. “We’re real Jews who came out of Israel,” Ikhilov said, explaining that they acquired the moniker “Mountain Jews” because they settled in the peaks. “We were not mountain people.” And according to a recent genetic study led by researchers in Israel and Estonia, Mountain Jews share a common origin in the Levantine region of the Near East with other Diaspora Jewish communities....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 13:05
Name of source: Civil War Preservation Trust
SOURCE: Civil War Preservation Trust (8-26-10)
Today a coalition of preservation groups working with local business owners involved in Businesses Against the Casino released an independent assessment of the potential impacts of gaming on Gettysburg and Adams County. The report, Impacts of the Proposed Mason-Dixon Casino on the Gettysburg Area – A Realistic Assessment, found that the application for a resort casino license near Gettysburg greatly exaggerates the economic impact of the proposal and ignores the “serious, substantial and sustained adverse impacts” it poses for existing businesses and the battlefield.
The report was commissioned by the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), National Trust for Historic Preservation and Preservation Pennsylvania on behalf of the Adams County organization Businesses Against the Casino. Author Michael Siegel of Public and Environmental Finance Associates of Washington, D.C., has more than 30 years experience in public and environmental finance and impact analysis....
The report was commissioned by the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), National Trust for Historic Preservation and Preservation Pennsylvania on behalf of the Adams County organization Businesses Against the Casino. Author Michael Siegel of Public and Environmental Finance Associates of Washington, D.C., has more than 30 years experience in public and environmental finance and impact analysis....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 12:08
Name of source: Detroit News
SOURCE: Detroit News (8-26-10)
Detroit -- Once headed to the trash heap, a cache of rare papers have been found that trace the history of the Nation of Islam.
The collection of papers, documents and photos, many dating to the 1930s, detail the innerworkings of the religious group of black Muslims, including the surprisingly prominent role of women in its founding.
They were uncovered earlier this month at a home on Detroit's west side.
The find includes handwritten and typed letters related to the beginning of the Nation of Islam, which was started by W.D. Fard in Detroit in 1930 on Hastings Street in the city's legendary Black Bottom neighborhood....
The collection of papers, documents and photos, many dating to the 1930s, detail the innerworkings of the religious group of black Muslims, including the surprisingly prominent role of women in its founding.
They were uncovered earlier this month at a home on Detroit's west side.
The find includes handwritten and typed letters related to the beginning of the Nation of Islam, which was started by W.D. Fard in Detroit in 1930 on Hastings Street in the city's legendary Black Bottom neighborhood....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:41
Name of source: Daily Mail (UK)
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (8-26-10)
An amateur historian has discovered the mummified body of a World War I solider frozen into an Italian glacier.
Dino De Bernardin made the grim find as he walked in mountains close to his home, which had been the scene of bitter fighting between Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops between 1915 and 1917.
At an altitude of 2,800metres, his attention was drawn to a 'bundle of rags’ that he saw emerging from the melting ice....
Dino De Bernardin made the grim find as he walked in mountains close to his home, which had been the scene of bitter fighting between Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops between 1915 and 1917.
At an altitude of 2,800metres, his attention was drawn to a 'bundle of rags’ that he saw emerging from the melting ice....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:38
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (8-25-10)
For many 19th- and 20th-century immigrants or their children, it was a rite of passage: Arriving in America, they adopted a new identity.
Charles Steinweg, the German-born piano maker, changed his name to Steinway (in part because English instruments were deemed to be superior). Tom Lee, a Tong leader who would become the unofficial mayor of Chinatown in Manhattan, was originally Wong Ah Ling. Anne Bancroft, who was born in the Bronx, was Anna Maria Louisa Italiano.
The rationale was straightforward: adopting names that sounded more American might help immigrants speed assimilation, avoid detection, deter discrimination or just be better for the businesses they hoped to start in their new homeland.
Today, most experts agree, that traditional immigrant gambit has all but disappeared.
“For the most part, nobody changes to American names any more at all,” said Cheryl R. David, former chairwoman of the New York chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association....
Charles Steinweg, the German-born piano maker, changed his name to Steinway (in part because English instruments were deemed to be superior). Tom Lee, a Tong leader who would become the unofficial mayor of Chinatown in Manhattan, was originally Wong Ah Ling. Anne Bancroft, who was born in the Bronx, was Anna Maria Louisa Italiano.
The rationale was straightforward: adopting names that sounded more American might help immigrants speed assimilation, avoid detection, deter discrimination or just be better for the businesses they hoped to start in their new homeland.
Today, most experts agree, that traditional immigrant gambit has all but disappeared.
“For the most part, nobody changes to American names any more at all,” said Cheryl R. David, former chairwoman of the New York chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association....
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 08:02
SOURCE: NYT (8-24-10)
Direct medical evidence? None. Autopsy? Not performed. Medical records? Nowhere to be found. Corpse? Disappeared.
Yet according to a recent article in an academic journal, researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A modest industry of medical speculation has grown up around the subject, evidence of our fascination with what cut down great creative artists in history. In Mozart’s case published speculation began within a month of his death in 1791, and musicologists, physicians and medical scholars have regularly joined the fray ever since.
Dr. William J. Dawson, a retired orthopedic surgeon who is the bibliographer for the Performing Arts Medical Association, decided to organize the theories. He examined most of the 136 entries in the association’s database dedicated to Mozart’s death, a list by no means comprehensive....
Yet according to a recent article in an academic journal, researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A modest industry of medical speculation has grown up around the subject, evidence of our fascination with what cut down great creative artists in history. In Mozart’s case published speculation began within a month of his death in 1791, and musicologists, physicians and medical scholars have regularly joined the fray ever since.
Dr. William J. Dawson, a retired orthopedic surgeon who is the bibliographer for the Performing Arts Medical Association, decided to organize the theories. He examined most of the 136 entries in the association’s database dedicated to Mozart’s death, a list by no means comprehensive....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 10:53
SOURCE: NYT (8-24-10)
The field of archaeology and the timeworn Middle East would not seem the obvious places to look for a wiki revolution. But next month in Jordan, officials who oversee that country’s vast store of antiquities will begin an experiment aimed at bringing 21st-century tools to the task of protecting ancient sites, which is an especially pressing need in neighboring Iraq, where looting is once again on the rise.
Over the last four years the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, with financing from the World Monuments Fund and help from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, has built an ambitious Web-based system that will allow archaeologists and conservators there, for the first time, to gain access to decades’ worth of records about Jordan’s sites and to monitor the condition of those sites much more easily.
Known by the slightly science-fiction-ish name MEGA — for Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities — the system functions in both English and Arabic, and the information in it is obtained via Google Earth satellite images. These let users find any of Jordan’s more than 10,000 sites, from the ancient city of Petra to tiny unearthed remnants from antiquity, like wine presses, threshing floors and burial grounds dating to the Neolithic period....
Over the last four years the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, with financing from the World Monuments Fund and help from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, has built an ambitious Web-based system that will allow archaeologists and conservators there, for the first time, to gain access to decades’ worth of records about Jordan’s sites and to monitor the condition of those sites much more easily.
Known by the slightly science-fiction-ish name MEGA — for Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities — the system functions in both English and Arabic, and the information in it is obtained via Google Earth satellite images. These let users find any of Jordan’s more than 10,000 sites, from the ancient city of Petra to tiny unearthed remnants from antiquity, like wine presses, threshing floors and burial grounds dating to the Neolithic period....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 10:52
SOURCE: NYT (8-24-10)
Conjure, for a moment, a place just steps from City Hall but a world apart. Salaam.
Yes, that is the fragrance of strong coffee in the air, of sweet figs and tart lemons, of pastries that remind buyers of childhoods in Damascus and Beirut. Bazaars abound with handmade rugs and brass lamps and water pipes. Men wear fezzes. A few women retire behind veils. Al-Hoda is the leading newspaper. Business signs — at least those legible to a non-Arabic speaker — proclaim “Rahaim & Malhami,” “Noor & Maloof” and “Sahadi Bros.”
This is not what the lower west side of Manhattan would look like if the much-debated Islamic community center were built two blocks from the World Trade Center site. This is what it looked like decades before the World Trade Center was even envisioned. This is its heritage.
All but lost to living memory and forgotten in the current controversy, Washington Street was the “heart of New York’s Arab world,” as The New York Times described it in 1946, shortly before that Arab-American community was almost entirely displaced by construction of entrance ramps to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel....
Yes, that is the fragrance of strong coffee in the air, of sweet figs and tart lemons, of pastries that remind buyers of childhoods in Damascus and Beirut. Bazaars abound with handmade rugs and brass lamps and water pipes. Men wear fezzes. A few women retire behind veils. Al-Hoda is the leading newspaper. Business signs — at least those legible to a non-Arabic speaker — proclaim “Rahaim & Malhami,” “Noor & Maloof” and “Sahadi Bros.”
This is not what the lower west side of Manhattan would look like if the much-debated Islamic community center were built two blocks from the World Trade Center site. This is what it looked like decades before the World Trade Center was even envisioned. This is its heritage.
All but lost to living memory and forgotten in the current controversy, Washington Street was the “heart of New York’s Arab world,” as The New York Times described it in 1946, shortly before that Arab-American community was almost entirely displaced by construction of entrance ramps to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 10:40
SOURCE: NYT (8-25-10)
Two dozen members of an association to abolish the monarchy were settled around a table in a spacious apartment in the north end of the capital when someone in the back of the room muttered, “Two hundred years since the French Revolution, and still we have a king.”
In other times and in other places, these would-be regicides might have been hounded by the king’s agents. But here in liberal Sweden, they are thriving.
Indeed, so fast has membership in the Swedish Republican Association grown in recent months, rising to more than 7,300 from 2,500 one year ago, that the meeting was called to discuss a number of ambitious proposals, including the opening of a permanent office, the founding of an antimonarchist newspaper and the formation of a pan-European antimonarchist movement....
“Support for monarchy is falling across Europe,” said Mona Abou-Jeib Broshammar, the association’s secretary general.
To be sure, 7,300 members is not much in a country of nine million, yet the association’s growth is notable, given that Sweden is riding a monarchist high in the wake of the fairy-tale wedding in June of Crown Princess Victoria, 33, to her former fitness trainer....
In other times and in other places, these would-be regicides might have been hounded by the king’s agents. But here in liberal Sweden, they are thriving.
Indeed, so fast has membership in the Swedish Republican Association grown in recent months, rising to more than 7,300 from 2,500 one year ago, that the meeting was called to discuss a number of ambitious proposals, including the opening of a permanent office, the founding of an antimonarchist newspaper and the formation of a pan-European antimonarchist movement....
“Support for monarchy is falling across Europe,” said Mona Abou-Jeib Broshammar, the association’s secretary general.
To be sure, 7,300 members is not much in a country of nine million, yet the association’s growth is notable, given that Sweden is riding a monarchist high in the wake of the fairy-tale wedding in June of Crown Princess Victoria, 33, to her former fitness trainer....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 10:34
Name of source: ABC News
SOURCE: ABC News (8-24-10)
The remains of a prehistoric child were removed from an underwater cave in Mexico four years after divers stumbled upon the well-preserved corpse that offers clues to ancient human migration.
The skeletal remains of the boy, dubbed the Young Hol Chan, are more than 10,000 years old and are among the oldest human bones found in the Americas.
The corpse was discovered in 2006 by a pair of German cave divers who were exploring unique flooded sandstone sinkholes, known as cenotes, common to the eastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
Scientists spent three years studying the remains where they lay before deciding it was safe to bring the skeleton to the surface for further study, according to the Mexican National Institute for Anthropology and History....
The skeletal remains of the boy, dubbed the Young Hol Chan, are more than 10,000 years old and are among the oldest human bones found in the Americas.
The corpse was discovered in 2006 by a pair of German cave divers who were exploring unique flooded sandstone sinkholes, known as cenotes, common to the eastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
Scientists spent three years studying the remains where they lay before deciding it was safe to bring the skeleton to the surface for further study, according to the Mexican National Institute for Anthropology and History....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:34
Name of source: China Digital Times
SOURCE: China Digital Times (8-24-10)
Cao Cao was one of the three warlords competing for control of China after the downfall of the mighty Han empire (BC206 – AD 220 CE). Cao’s life was popularized in The Legend of Three Kingdoms, a novelized history which has been revered as one of the four Chinese literature classics.
According to the Modern Express, 23 experts at an academic forum in Suzhou have declared that the tomb is a fake, citing anachronistic styles of engraving Chinese characters as one of the sources of their suspicion. The reports says that Chinese historians are now divided into “pro-Cao” and “anti-Cao” factions....
According to the Modern Express, 23 experts at an academic forum in Suzhou have declared that the tomb is a fake, citing anachronistic styles of engraving Chinese characters as one of the sources of their suspicion. The reports says that Chinese historians are now divided into “pro-Cao” and “anti-Cao” factions....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:30
Name of source: Discovery News
SOURCE: Discovery News (8-25-10)
The smell of freshly baked bread wafted through Egypt’s western desert more than 3,500 years ago, according to new findings at the El-Kharga Oasis announced on Wednesday.
During excavation work for the Theban Desert Road Survey, a project to map the ancient desert routes in the Western desert, a team of Egyptian and US archaeologists from Yale University stumbled upon the remains of what appears to be an ancient bakery town.
About 1 km (0.6 miles) long from north to south and 250 meters (820 feet) wide from east to west, the settlement dates to the Second Intermediate Period (about 1650-1550 B.C.).
According to John Coleman Darnell, who led the Yale mission, archaeological evidence indicates that the site was an administrative center along the bustling caravan routes which connected the Nile Valley and the western oasis with points as far as Darfur in western Sudan....
During excavation work for the Theban Desert Road Survey, a project to map the ancient desert routes in the Western desert, a team of Egyptian and US archaeologists from Yale University stumbled upon the remains of what appears to be an ancient bakery town.
About 1 km (0.6 miles) long from north to south and 250 meters (820 feet) wide from east to west, the settlement dates to the Second Intermediate Period (about 1650-1550 B.C.).
According to John Coleman Darnell, who led the Yale mission, archaeological evidence indicates that the site was an administrative center along the bustling caravan routes which connected the Nile Valley and the western oasis with points as far as Darfur in western Sudan....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:27
Name of source: Press Release from the National Archives
SOURCE: Press Release from the National Archives (8-25-10)
In a transfer ceremony at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens today, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero accepted on behalf of the U.S. Government the original Nuremberg Laws presented by Steven S. Koblik, Huntington president. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. deposited the documents at the Library for safekeeping at the end of World War II. He died in December of 1945 in an automobile crash before he could discuss their final disposition.
In presenting the Laws to Mr. Ferriero, Dr. Koblik said, “These documents should have been part of the National Archives, had Gen. Patton followed instructions from his commander-in-chief in Europe, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower directed that all documents related to the persecution of the Jews should be sent to a common collection point in Germany that was preparing for the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. These materials eventually were deposited at the National Archives. The Huntington felt strongly that it wanted the Nuremberg Laws to be placed with the other original documentation of war crimes against Jews during World War II. We are pleased that we are able to present these documents to the Archivist of the United States today so that the collection is now complete.”
“I am pleased and honored to accept these originals of the Nuremberg Laws on behalf of the National Archives and Records Administration and the Government of the United States,” said Mr. Ferriero.
“September 15, just a few weeks away, will mark the 75th anniversary of the signing of these laws by Adolf Hitler, which he used as the legal underpinning for the persecution of Jews in Germany, culminating in the Holocaust. We are very grateful that the Huntington Library is now providing these historically important documents to the National Archives, where they will join other original documents relating to horrors of the Third Reich,” he continued.
The National Archives also released today a 3:49 minute video short from its series “Inside the Vaults,” highlighting the background of the Nuremberg Laws. The video, which includes historic footage and interviews with National Archives expert Greg Bradsher and Huntington president Steven Koblik, is hosted online on the National Archives YouTube Channel, http://www.youtube.com/USNationalArchives, and the National Archives website, www.archives.gov/. This video is in the public domain and not subject to any copyright restrictions. The National Archives encourages its free distribution.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:25
Name of source: Sky News
SOURCE: Sky News (8-25-10)
white farmer has accused the South African government of genocide in a petition submitted to the United Nations.
The man, who has remained anonymous for fear of reprisals, blamed the African National Congress' (ANC) policies for a wave of murders and criminal attacks against the white community, what he called the "Afrikaner Boer."
At least 3,000 white farmers have been killed in South Africa since the end of apartheid.
The petition was sent to the U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Francis Deng, in a move that the South African government has dismissed as "ludicrous."....
The man, who has remained anonymous for fear of reprisals, blamed the African National Congress' (ANC) policies for a wave of murders and criminal attacks against the white community, what he called the "Afrikaner Boer."
At least 3,000 white farmers have been killed in South Africa since the end of apartheid.
The petition was sent to the U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Francis Deng, in a move that the South African government has dismissed as "ludicrous."....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:14
Name of source: CNN.com
SOURCE: CNN.com (8-25-10)
Key West, Florida (CNN) -- For more than 20 years, the bulletproof museum case housed a small piece of yesteryear: a gold bar recovered from a sunken Spanish galleon. Today, its case is broken, littered with black fingerprint dust. The treasure is gone. Stolen. Two thieves were caught in the act by the museum's security cameras.
"This is a special piece," said Melissa Kendrick, executive director of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, Florida.
"All the pieces have an incredible historic value, but this is the piece that was shared with the public in a whole totally different way."
It was different because visitors could touch it. By reaching into the specially designed display case, more than 6 million people have touched the 74.85-ounce bar, valued at more than $550,000....
"This is a special piece," said Melissa Kendrick, executive director of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, Florida.
"All the pieces have an incredible historic value, but this is the piece that was shared with the public in a whole totally different way."
It was different because visitors could touch it. By reaching into the specially designed display case, more than 6 million people have touched the 74.85-ounce bar, valued at more than $550,000....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 15:05
Name of source: Bill Donahue in the Atlantic
SOURCE: Bill Donahue in the Atlantic (9-1-10)
[Bill Donahue is a writer living in Portland, Oregon.]
When he went marauding about the known world some 800 years ago, Genghis Khan almost certainly never slept on a bed scattered with rose petals. He was a hard guy. So it seems fitting that the journey east from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, toward a 131-foot stainless-steel statue of the infamous Mongol warlord is a stark experience. The roadside is barren of trees and unpeopled, and brown rubbly mountains stretch into the distance. When you travel the 35-mile route on a bicycle, as I did recently, the headwinds can be cruel.
Still, I pedaled on, for Genghis Khan is Mongolia’s future. After his conquests were downplayed in the history books during seven decades of de facto Soviet rule, the nomad who ruled an empire stretching from the Caspian Sea to Siberia reemerged in 1990, as democracy was being established. Today, he is a poor nation’s avatar of hope—and he’s becoming a major industry.
In Ulaanbaatar, you can drink Chinggis beer at the Grand Khaan Irish Pub. (For obscure reasons, the local spelling differs from the Western.) The Genco Tour Bureau, an Ulaanbaatar-based company, has spent about $7 million on the Chinggis Khaan Statue Complex, a commercially minded homage where the giant steel Chinggis will soon be flanked by an artificial pond, a skating rink, and 200 small gers, or round tents, for paying campers. Nearby, Genco has also built a 13th-century living history museum, sort of a Colonial Williamsburg on the steppes, where artisans make felt by beating wool with wood sticks. And at the Chinggis Khaan Golf Country Club, the greens are tiny, bright patches of artificial turf on the infinite brown....
When he went marauding about the known world some 800 years ago, Genghis Khan almost certainly never slept on a bed scattered with rose petals. He was a hard guy. So it seems fitting that the journey east from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, toward a 131-foot stainless-steel statue of the infamous Mongol warlord is a stark experience. The roadside is barren of trees and unpeopled, and brown rubbly mountains stretch into the distance. When you travel the 35-mile route on a bicycle, as I did recently, the headwinds can be cruel.
Still, I pedaled on, for Genghis Khan is Mongolia’s future. After his conquests were downplayed in the history books during seven decades of de facto Soviet rule, the nomad who ruled an empire stretching from the Caspian Sea to Siberia reemerged in 1990, as democracy was being established. Today, he is a poor nation’s avatar of hope—and he’s becoming a major industry.
In Ulaanbaatar, you can drink Chinggis beer at the Grand Khaan Irish Pub. (For obscure reasons, the local spelling differs from the Western.) The Genco Tour Bureau, an Ulaanbaatar-based company, has spent about $7 million on the Chinggis Khaan Statue Complex, a commercially minded homage where the giant steel Chinggis will soon be flanked by an artificial pond, a skating rink, and 200 small gers, or round tents, for paying campers. Nearby, Genco has also built a 13th-century living history museum, sort of a Colonial Williamsburg on the steppes, where artisans make felt by beating wool with wood sticks. And at the Chinggis Khaan Golf Country Club, the greens are tiny, bright patches of artificial turf on the infinite brown....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 13:39
Name of source: Cleveland Plains-Dealer
SOURCE: Cleveland Plains-Dealer (8-25-10)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The city has condemned the Cleveland house where celebrated 20th century writer Langston Hughes lived during high school.
It's the latest twist for the 120-year-old house on East 86th Street that has been vacant, slated for renovation and nominated for landmark designation.
But city officials don't expect the three-bedroom house to be torn down.
The city's building and housing department condemned the house June 4 -- unaware of its historic significance -- after inspectors discovered major problems. The plumbing and furnace were ripped out and electrical wires were hanging from the ceiling....
It's the latest twist for the 120-year-old house on East 86th Street that has been vacant, slated for renovation and nominated for landmark designation.
But city officials don't expect the three-bedroom house to be torn down.
The city's building and housing department condemned the house June 4 -- unaware of its historic significance -- after inspectors discovered major problems. The plumbing and furnace were ripped out and electrical wires were hanging from the ceiling....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 13:33
Name of source: WaPo
SOURCE: WaPo (8-25-10)
...It is no secret the residents of these isles like a drink, or three. An inebriated King James I once fell to the royal floor while greeting the King of Denmark, and a room at the Priory - the London rehabilitation clinic - is something of a rite of passage for British celebrities. But even here, the national outcry is reaching a fevered pitch over lager lad hooligans and increasingly, their female counterparts, ladettes, turning British cities and towns into what the new Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron denounced this month as "the wild west."...
Some compare the current push to the restrictive Gin Acts of the 1700s, which aimed to limit a cheap spirits craze that saw Londoners guzzling an average of two pints of dry comfort per week. Peter Brown, the British author and a self-described "drinker," recently labeled the hysteria over binge drinking a movement whipped up by "neo prohibitionists." Fintan O'Toole, the Irish-born author, penned a commentary in the Guardian newspaper suggesting some nations are simply predisposed to heavy drinking, and that the British (and the Irish) should not only accept but embrace it.
Mark Hastings, who represents the British Beer and Pub Association, served the $44 billion-a-year industry's opinion straight up. "Binge drinking is British," he said. "Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens are littered with references to heavy drinking. Harold lost the battle of Hastings because of a big night on the mead. You're not going to change this by fiddling about with a few laws."...
Some compare the current push to the restrictive Gin Acts of the 1700s, which aimed to limit a cheap spirits craze that saw Londoners guzzling an average of two pints of dry comfort per week. Peter Brown, the British author and a self-described "drinker," recently labeled the hysteria over binge drinking a movement whipped up by "neo prohibitionists." Fintan O'Toole, the Irish-born author, penned a commentary in the Guardian newspaper suggesting some nations are simply predisposed to heavy drinking, and that the British (and the Irish) should not only accept but embrace it.
Mark Hastings, who represents the British Beer and Pub Association, served the $44 billion-a-year industry's opinion straight up. "Binge drinking is British," he said. "Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens are littered with references to heavy drinking. Harold lost the battle of Hastings because of a big night on the mead. You're not going to change this by fiddling about with a few laws."...
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 11:03
