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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: Press Release
SOURCE: Press Release (12-15-10)
NOMINATE AN ELEMENTARY TEACHER
$10,000 NATIONAL HISTORY TEACHER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Nomination deadline: February 1, 2011
National winner receives: $10,000
State winners each receive: $1,000
Do you know an outstanding K-6 teacher passionate about American history? All Social Studies and elementary educators who teach American History are welcome.
The National History Teacher of the Year Award give $10,000 to the best American history teacher. The national winner is chosen from outstanding teachers in each state, district, and U.S. territory. State winners receive $1,000 and an archive of books and other resources for their school. The award is sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute, Preserve America, and HISTORY (The History Channel). Nominations for the National History Teacher of the Year can be made by a student, parent, colleague, supervisor, or other education professional familiar with the teacher’s work. In 2011, the Gilder Lehrman Institute will honor a teacher of grades K-6. Middle and high school teachers are honored every other year. To nominate a teacher and learn more about the award, visit: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/nhtoy
Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - 01:12
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SOURCE: Press Release (12-15-10)
K-12 history, social studies and English teachers are invited to apply to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History 2011 Summer Seminars. Taught by renowned historians on college campuses in the US and the UK, these one-week seminars give educators the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of topics in American history—while gaining practical resources and strategies to take back to their classrooms.
Apply early: seminar space is limited. APPLICATION DEADLINE: February 1, 2011.
NEW Seminars in 2011:
Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Caribbean
Philip D. Morgan
University of West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
William Faulkner and Southern History
Don H. Doyle
University of Mississippi
Culture and Politics in the Age of the Cold War
Alan Brinkley
Columbia University
Native American History
Colin G. Calloway
Dartmouth College
Returning Seminars, among others:
The Era of George Washington
Gordon S. Wood
George Washington’s Mount Vernon
From the Founding of a Nation to the Crisis of the Union
Carol Berkin and Fritz Fischer
Tulane University
For Elementary and Middle School teachers
Twentieth Century Women’s Rights Movements
Nancy F. Cott
Harvard University
The Great Depression and World War II
David M. Kennedy
Stanford University
The Age of Lincoln
Richard Carwardine
St. Catherine's College, Oxford University, U.K.
The Global Cold War
Odd Arne Westad
Clare College, Cambridge University, U.K.
Economic and Financial Crises in American History
Richard Sylla
New York University
For a complete list of Gilder Lehrman’s 2011 seminars, information about full and partial fellowships, graduate credit, and to apply online, visit: www.gilderlehrman.org/summerseminars.html
Friday, December 17, 2010 - 15:01
Name of source: ABC News
SOURCE: ABC News (12-20-10)
It's been 150 years since South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union ahead of Civil War, and today the legacy of that watershed moment in American history remains a flashpoint for debate.
Organizers say the "Secession Gala" in Charleston tonight will commemorate the event as a show of courage in the face of encroachment by the federal government on state's rights. But some historians and civil rights groups are protesting the event as the glorification of a defense of slavery.
Dozens of Civil War buffs and Confederate reenactors are expected to attend the $100-a-head event, where they will sip mint juleps, nibble on Carolina crab dip and mingle to the tune of "Dixie" in the presence of the state's original Ordinance of Secession, signed in 1860.
Organizers say the "Secession Gala" in Charleston tonight will commemorate the event as a show of courage in the face of encroachment by the federal government on state's rights. But some historians and civil rights groups are protesting the event as the glorification of a defense of slavery.
Dozens of Civil War buffs and Confederate reenactors are expected to attend the $100-a-head event, where they will sip mint juleps, nibble on Carolina crab dip and mingle to the tune of "Dixie" in the presence of the state's original Ordinance of Secession, signed in 1860.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - 01:12
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (12-21-10)
SUITLAND, Md. — Stashed in a Smithsonian storage building in this Washington suburb are some of the engineering wonders of the space race.
These marvels are far smaller than the towering rockets and streamlined spacecraft that took men into orbit and to the Moon. Far softer, too. They are the spacesuits that kept the astronauts alive beyond Earth.
Most of the National Air and Space Museum’s collection of about 300 spacesuits is here, laid out five high on steel racks in a climate-controlled room. Each is protected by a sheet of muslin, giving the room the eerie feel of a morgue or the final resting place of members of an odd space cult.
There are Mercury suits like the one worn by Scott Carpenter, the fourth American in space, its iconic reflective coating coming off in spots. There’s the Apollo 11 suit worn by Neil A. Armstrong, looking about as pristine as when he made his first small step on the moon in 1969, thanks to a cleaning job by NASA that, in retrospect, was ill advised because it damaged the materials the suit was made of. Nearby lies Harrison H. Schmitt’s Apollo 17 outfit, still heavily coated in lunar grit....
These marvels are far smaller than the towering rockets and streamlined spacecraft that took men into orbit and to the Moon. Far softer, too. They are the spacesuits that kept the astronauts alive beyond Earth.
Most of the National Air and Space Museum’s collection of about 300 spacesuits is here, laid out five high on steel racks in a climate-controlled room. Each is protected by a sheet of muslin, giving the room the eerie feel of a morgue or the final resting place of members of an odd space cult.
There are Mercury suits like the one worn by Scott Carpenter, the fourth American in space, its iconic reflective coating coming off in spots. There’s the Apollo 11 suit worn by Neil A. Armstrong, looking about as pristine as when he made his first small step on the moon in 1969, thanks to a cleaning job by NASA that, in retrospect, was ill advised because it damaged the materials the suit was made of. Nearby lies Harrison H. Schmitt’s Apollo 17 outfit, still heavily coated in lunar grit....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 20:38
SOURCE: NYT (12-19-10)
The same people driving the lawsuits that seek to dismantle the Obama administration’s health care overhaul have set their sights on an even bigger target: a constitutional amendment that would allow a vote of the states to overturn any act of Congress....
Tea Party groups and candidates have pushed for a repeal of the 17th Amendment, which took the power to elect United States senators out of the hands of state legislatures. And potential presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin have tried to appeal to anger at Washington by talking about the importance of the 10th Amendment, which reserves for states any powers not explicitly granted to the federal government in the Constitution.
“Washington has grown far too large and has become far too intrusive, reaching into nearly every aspect of our lives,” Mr. Cantor said this month. “Massive expenditures like the stimulus, unconstitutional mandates like the takeover of health care and intrusions into the private sector like the auto bailouts have threatened the very core of the American free market. The repeal amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around.”
Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown who helped draft the amendment, argued that it stood a better chance than others that have failed to win ratification. “This is something state legislatures have an interest in pursuing,” he said, “because it helps them fend off federal encroachment and gives them a seat at the table when Congress is proposing what to do.”...
Tea Party groups and candidates have pushed for a repeal of the 17th Amendment, which took the power to elect United States senators out of the hands of state legislatures. And potential presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin have tried to appeal to anger at Washington by talking about the importance of the 10th Amendment, which reserves for states any powers not explicitly granted to the federal government in the Constitution.
“Washington has grown far too large and has become far too intrusive, reaching into nearly every aspect of our lives,” Mr. Cantor said this month. “Massive expenditures like the stimulus, unconstitutional mandates like the takeover of health care and intrusions into the private sector like the auto bailouts have threatened the very core of the American free market. The repeal amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around.”
Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown who helped draft the amendment, argued that it stood a better chance than others that have failed to win ratification. “This is something state legislatures have an interest in pursuing,” he said, “because it helps them fend off federal encroachment and gives them a seat at the table when Congress is proposing what to do.”...
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 12:15
SOURCE: NYT (12-20-10)
SAN FRANCISCO — During the heady early days of the gay rights movement, there was no place in the nation with more righteous energy than 575 Castro Street.
A small, unremarkable storefront, 575 Castro was home to Castro Camera, owned by Harvey Milk, the trailblazing activist who in 1977 became the first openly gay man elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He ran that campaign — and others for gay and lesbian rights — from the shop and his apartment upstairs.
A year later, that energy was snuffed out when Mr. Milk was murdered by a fellow supervisor, Dan White. But the site has remained sacred for activists, with a plaque emblazoned with Mr. Milk’s motto: “You gotta give ’em hope!”
Of late, however, 575 Castro has been the focus of a more familial squabble. A major gay rights group based in Washington, the Human Rights Campaign, has leased the space as an “action center” and store, selling T-shirts ($25), tote bags ($19), celebratory snow globes of same-sex newlyweds ($7.50) and items bearing Mr. Milk’s words or image....
A small, unremarkable storefront, 575 Castro was home to Castro Camera, owned by Harvey Milk, the trailblazing activist who in 1977 became the first openly gay man elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He ran that campaign — and others for gay and lesbian rights — from the shop and his apartment upstairs.
A year later, that energy was snuffed out when Mr. Milk was murdered by a fellow supervisor, Dan White. But the site has remained sacred for activists, with a plaque emblazoned with Mr. Milk’s motto: “You gotta give ’em hope!”
Of late, however, 575 Castro has been the focus of a more familial squabble. A major gay rights group based in Washington, the Human Rights Campaign, has leased the space as an “action center” and store, selling T-shirts ($25), tote bags ($19), celebratory snow globes of same-sex newlyweds ($7.50) and items bearing Mr. Milk’s words or image....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 12:14
SOURCE: NYT (12-18-10)
LONDON — It was the worst of times in the siege of Sarajevo. No venture outside the Holiday Inn, which had become a media fastness in a city under siege, was safe from the daily staccato of sniper fire, mortars and artillery shells. And there at my door, in the first winter of the war, was Richard C. Holbrooke, asking if he could borrow space on my floor for him and his sleeping bag....
He had come to experience for himself Europe’s first war since the 1940s — and to prepare for a role he felt sure he would be offered, as part of an American-led bid to end it....
He was America’s most seasoned envoy, a consummate insider tempered by nearly a half-century of deal-making in Saigon and Manila, Kabul and Islamabad, and many other capitals. But he coupled that with something that explains why the discord and active dislike he prompted among some of his colleagues found scant resonance among reporters he met along the way, many of whom he courted assiduously, and many of whom became friends....
He had come to experience for himself Europe’s first war since the 1940s — and to prepare for a role he felt sure he would be offered, as part of an American-led bid to end it....
He was America’s most seasoned envoy, a consummate insider tempered by nearly a half-century of deal-making in Saigon and Manila, Kabul and Islamabad, and many other capitals. But he coupled that with something that explains why the discord and active dislike he prompted among some of his colleagues found scant resonance among reporters he met along the way, many of whom he courted assiduously, and many of whom became friends....
Sunday, December 19, 2010 - 15:30
SOURCE: NYT (12-19-10)
When it comes to the future of the Obama administration’s health care plan, the judicial math can seem simple.
So far in three lawsuits against the plan, two federal judges appointed by Democrats have upheld the law; one Republican-appointed judge has declared an important part of it unconstitutional. Use party as your measure, send the cases up the appeals ladder, and you quickly get to a 5-4 decision at the Supreme Court: the justices appointed by Republican presidents will vote to strike down the law. Game over, thanks for playing.
But the votes of the Supreme Court are not that easy to divine, and while political considerations can creep into any judge’s views, deeper factors are at play, said Mark Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School. Supreme Court justices, for the most part, “are attuned to their reputations as individuals in history, and their overall place in the government as a whole,” he said.
Supreme Court justices work differently from judges at the District Court level, noted Jack Balkin, a constitutional scholar at Yale. “Federal District Court judges do not have to deliberate with anyone else,” he said. “Multimember courts are affected by who sits with them,” and “this is especially true of a nine-person Supreme Court.”...
So far in three lawsuits against the plan, two federal judges appointed by Democrats have upheld the law; one Republican-appointed judge has declared an important part of it unconstitutional. Use party as your measure, send the cases up the appeals ladder, and you quickly get to a 5-4 decision at the Supreme Court: the justices appointed by Republican presidents will vote to strike down the law. Game over, thanks for playing.
But the votes of the Supreme Court are not that easy to divine, and while political considerations can creep into any judge’s views, deeper factors are at play, said Mark Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School. Supreme Court justices, for the most part, “are attuned to their reputations as individuals in history, and their overall place in the government as a whole,” he said.
Supreme Court justices work differently from judges at the District Court level, noted Jack Balkin, a constitutional scholar at Yale. “Federal District Court judges do not have to deliberate with anyone else,” he said. “Multimember courts are affected by who sits with them,” and “this is especially true of a nine-person Supreme Court.”...
Sunday, December 19, 2010 - 15:28
SOURCE: NYT (12-18-10)
...The founding fathers originally required Congress to convene on the first Monday in December — a mandate that automatically created a lame-duck session. And because Congressional terms did not expire until March, lame-duck sessions had the potential to run for three months. The 20th Amendment, ratified in 1933, dramatically shortened — but did not eliminate — the sessions by moving the swearing-in date for lawmakers to Jan. 3.
John Copeland Nagle, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who has researched the amendment, argues that the current session, with its jam-packed legislative agenda, contradicts the authors’ intent. “We went through the extraordinary trouble of amending the Constitution to prevent this from happening,” Professor Nagle said.
And yet, lame-duck sessions have hardly disappeared. There have been 17, including the current one, since 1940. Congress has used them to grapple with great issues facing the nation, like war in Europe (1940, 1942 and 1944), the censure of Senator Joe McCarthy in 1954, the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002....
John Copeland Nagle, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who has researched the amendment, argues that the current session, with its jam-packed legislative agenda, contradicts the authors’ intent. “We went through the extraordinary trouble of amending the Constitution to prevent this from happening,” Professor Nagle said.
And yet, lame-duck sessions have hardly disappeared. There have been 17, including the current one, since 1940. Congress has used them to grapple with great issues facing the nation, like war in Europe (1940, 1942 and 1944), the censure of Senator Joe McCarthy in 1954, the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002....
Sunday, December 19, 2010 - 15:23
SOURCE: NYT (12-16-10)
Richard M. Nixon has long been the Freddy Krueger of American political life. You know in your bones that he is destined to keep returning....
Nixon’s hard-wired anti-Semitism is an old story. What has caused many heads to swivel is a recording of Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser. Mr. Kissinger is heard telling Nixon in 1973 that helping Soviet Jews emigrate and thus escape oppression by a totalitarian regime — a huge issue at the time — was “not an objective of American foreign policy.”
“And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union,” he added, “it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
In New York, the epicenter of Jewish life in the United States, some jaws are still not back in place after dropping to the floor....
“Despicable,” “callous,” “revulsion,” “hypocrite,” “chilling” and “shocking” were a few of the words used this week by some leaders of Jewish organizations and by newspapers that focus on Jewish matters....
Nixon’s hard-wired anti-Semitism is an old story. What has caused many heads to swivel is a recording of Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser. Mr. Kissinger is heard telling Nixon in 1973 that helping Soviet Jews emigrate and thus escape oppression by a totalitarian regime — a huge issue at the time — was “not an objective of American foreign policy.”
“And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union,” he added, “it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
In New York, the epicenter of Jewish life in the United States, some jaws are still not back in place after dropping to the floor....
“Despicable,” “callous,” “revulsion,” “hypocrite,” “chilling” and “shocking” were a few of the words used this week by some leaders of Jewish organizations and by newspapers that focus on Jewish matters....
Friday, December 17, 2010 - 12:40
SOURCE: NYT (12-16-10)
WASHINGTON — At a dinner for Iowa Democrats back in November 2007, Senator Barack Obama lobbed a less than subtle insult in the direction of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, seated just a few feet away. “Triangulating and poll-driven positions because we’re worried about what Mitt or Rudy might say about us,” Mr. Obama said, referring to two of their Republican rivals, “just won’t do.”
Now the tax deal approved by the House late Thursday has given rise to an emotional debate among Democrats in Washington and online. Is President Obama himself a triangulator? Has he become the kind of compromiser he once disdained?
Perhaps the better question might be: So what if he has?
The term “triangulation,” politically speaking, dates back to the days after President Bill Clinton lost control of Congress in 1994. Mr. Clinton sought the advice of the pollster Dick Morris, who used the term (primarily with the news media) to describe the way in which he thought Mr. Clinton might claw his way back into the public’s esteem....
Now the tax deal approved by the House late Thursday has given rise to an emotional debate among Democrats in Washington and online. Is President Obama himself a triangulator? Has he become the kind of compromiser he once disdained?
Perhaps the better question might be: So what if he has?
The term “triangulation,” politically speaking, dates back to the days after President Bill Clinton lost control of Congress in 1994. Mr. Clinton sought the advice of the pollster Dick Morris, who used the term (primarily with the news media) to describe the way in which he thought Mr. Clinton might claw his way back into the public’s esteem....
Friday, December 17, 2010 - 12:39
SOURCE: NYT (12-16-10)
WASHINGTON — Nightfall on the Kennedy era in Washington looks like this: Representative Patrick J. Kennedy’s office space surrendered to a Republican, his family memorabilia in boxes, and Mr. Kennedy yearning for a role away from the public eye.
When the lame-duck session of Congress wraps up, Mr. Kennedy, 43, will return to Rhode Island, settling into his recently renovated farmhouse in Portsmouth. When his eighth term ends early next month, it will be the first time since 1947 — when John F. Kennedy became a congressman from Massachusetts — that no member of his family will hold a federal office.
With Mr. Kennedy’s father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, dead for more than a year now and no one else in the family voicing plans to run for office, Capitol Hill will be left with ghosts and memories. The only politician left among them is Bobby Shriver, whose mayoral term in Santa Monica, Calif., just ended but who still sits on the City Council there....
When the lame-duck session of Congress wraps up, Mr. Kennedy, 43, will return to Rhode Island, settling into his recently renovated farmhouse in Portsmouth. When his eighth term ends early next month, it will be the first time since 1947 — when John F. Kennedy became a congressman from Massachusetts — that no member of his family will hold a federal office.
With Mr. Kennedy’s father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, dead for more than a year now and no one else in the family voicing plans to run for office, Capitol Hill will be left with ghosts and memories. The only politician left among them is Bobby Shriver, whose mayoral term in Santa Monica, Calif., just ended but who still sits on the City Council there....
Friday, December 17, 2010 - 12:38
SOURCE: NYT (12-16-10)
With little fanfare, Google has made a mammoth database culled from nearly 5.2 million digitized books available to the public for free downloads and online searches, opening a new landscape of possibilities for research and education in the humanities.
The digital storehouse, which comprises words and short phrases as well as a year-by-year count of how often they appear, represents the first time a data set of this magnitude and searching tools are at the disposal of Ph.D.’s, middle school students and anyone else who likes to spend time in front of a small screen. It consists of the 500 billion words contained in books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Russian.
The intended audience is scholarly, but a simple online tool allows anyone with a computer to plug in a string of up to five words and see a graph that charts the phrase’s use over time — a diversion that can quickly become as addictive as the habit-forming game Angry Birds....
“The goal is to give an 8-year-old the ability to browse cultural trends throughout history, as recorded in books,” said Erez Lieberman Aiden, a junior fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard. Mr. Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, assembled the data set with Google and spearheaded a research project to demonstrate how vast digital databases can transform our understanding of language, culture and the flow of ideas....
The digital storehouse, which comprises words and short phrases as well as a year-by-year count of how often they appear, represents the first time a data set of this magnitude and searching tools are at the disposal of Ph.D.’s, middle school students and anyone else who likes to spend time in front of a small screen. It consists of the 500 billion words contained in books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Russian.
The intended audience is scholarly, but a simple online tool allows anyone with a computer to plug in a string of up to five words and see a graph that charts the phrase’s use over time — a diversion that can quickly become as addictive as the habit-forming game Angry Birds....
“The goal is to give an 8-year-old the ability to browse cultural trends throughout history, as recorded in books,” said Erez Lieberman Aiden, a junior fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard. Mr. Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, assembled the data set with Google and spearheaded a research project to demonstrate how vast digital databases can transform our understanding of language, culture and the flow of ideas....
Friday, December 17, 2010 - 12:37
SOURCE: NYT (12-15-10)
On the brink of extinction last spring, the nonprofit organization charged with restoring Ellis Island will benefit from a $100,000 gift from American Express, the credit card company is to announce on Thursday.
“It’s an enormous boost,” said Judith R. McAlpin, the president of the organization, Save Ellis Island. “American Express has long been associated with the very best in historic preservation. It’s like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.”...
“It’s an enormous boost,” said Judith R. McAlpin, the president of the organization, Save Ellis Island. “American Express has long been associated with the very best in historic preservation. It’s like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.”...
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 13:13
SOURCE: NYT (12-16-10)
WASHINGTON — When President Obama signed the health care bill into law last spring, White House aides predicted that the political benefit to their party would be almost immediate, going so far as to suggest that some provisions, like the one requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, would help Democratic chances in the November elections....
The pattern here is perhaps best illustrated by Social Security. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the program into law in 1935, but it didn’t begin to pay out benefits until 1941. It was attacked both by conservatives, who tried repeatedly to repeal it, and by some on the far left, who thought the program insufficiently generous, and its survival remained in doubt for more than a decade.
Even as the political maelstrom raged, though, Social Security was slowly expanded to cover more categories of workers, and a generation of retirees began receiving their checks. “It basically gets woven into the way employers are operating and people are planning,” says the political scientist Theda Skocpol, a Harvard professor who has written extensively on the history of American social policy. “People didn’t get used to the benefits to which they were entitled until the ’50s.”...
The pattern here is perhaps best illustrated by Social Security. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the program into law in 1935, but it didn’t begin to pay out benefits until 1941. It was attacked both by conservatives, who tried repeatedly to repeal it, and by some on the far left, who thought the program insufficiently generous, and its survival remained in doubt for more than a decade.
Even as the political maelstrom raged, though, Social Security was slowly expanded to cover more categories of workers, and a generation of retirees began receiving their checks. “It basically gets woven into the way employers are operating and people are planning,” says the political scientist Theda Skocpol, a Harvard professor who has written extensively on the history of American social policy. “People didn’t get used to the benefits to which they were entitled until the ’50s.”...
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 13:12
Name of source: Jewish Telegraph Agency
SOURCE: Jewish Telegraph Agency (12-20-10)
SOLOTVYN, Ukraine (JTA) -- On a sloping green hill tucked between small farmsteads, the mottled graves of Jews buried here since the 1600s rise up like a forgotten forest.
Trudging through the mud between the tilted stones, their chiseled Hebrew lettering and renderings of menorahs sometimes barely visible, Vladimer Levin, an animated young historian who specializes in Jewish art, wants to save the gravestones.
"When we talk about preserving Jewish history, it's not just about the spiritual life, thought and books but the material culture Jews produced for themselves. And that is what remains in this place," he said, looking at the tombstones. "They are the artistic remnants of this small Jewish community."
Levin, a 39-year-old immigrant to Israel from St. Petersburg, Russia, is part of a team of Israeli historians attempting to document what remains of a once populous and vibrant Jewish life in the regions of Galicia and Bukovina, most of which is in the western edge of present-day Ukraine.
As part of efforts to recover the world that once was in these towns and shtetls, where some 1 million Jews lived before the Holocaust, the researchers are partnering with Ukrainian academics. The idea is not only to boost the level of scholarship but to highlight to Ukrainian locals a Jewish past that spanned centuries but is rarely remembered publicly in the country....
Trudging through the mud between the tilted stones, their chiseled Hebrew lettering and renderings of menorahs sometimes barely visible, Vladimer Levin, an animated young historian who specializes in Jewish art, wants to save the gravestones.
"When we talk about preserving Jewish history, it's not just about the spiritual life, thought and books but the material culture Jews produced for themselves. And that is what remains in this place," he said, looking at the tombstones. "They are the artistic remnants of this small Jewish community."
Levin, a 39-year-old immigrant to Israel from St. Petersburg, Russia, is part of a team of Israeli historians attempting to document what remains of a once populous and vibrant Jewish life in the regions of Galicia and Bukovina, most of which is in the western edge of present-day Ukraine.
As part of efforts to recover the world that once was in these towns and shtetls, where some 1 million Jews lived before the Holocaust, the researchers are partnering with Ukrainian academics. The idea is not only to boost the level of scholarship but to highlight to Ukrainian locals a Jewish past that spanned centuries but is rarely remembered publicly in the country....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 18:57
Name of source: Boston Globe
SOURCE: Boston Globe (12-20-10)
Though climate change seems a particularly modern predicament — one that generates alarm about the fate of the planet and how people and businesses will adapt — scientists are finding evidence that climate fluctuations influenced cultural changes among inhabitants of prehistoric New England.
Research is revealing the interconnected relationship between environmental shifts and changes in prehistoric people’s tools and settlement patterns. At the end of a cold period came the end of a particular type of chipped stone point used in hunting; when surface water temperatures cooled, burial traditions shifted.
“It’s a reminder that climate has changed in the past, but it’s also a reminder that cultures either have to change or get changed, whether they like it or not, when the climate changes,’’ said Arthur Spiess, senior archeologist at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
Archeologists have long debated how environmental changes shaped the lives of people. Today, big sets of data are allowing them to look more closely at possible correlations between human and ecological changes in prehistory. Research published this month found that every time the climatic needle jumped in the Northeast, so did human culture. That work builds on a 2005 study that looked closely at a 1,300-year mini ice age followed by rapid warming, and the simultaneous abrupt change in both the landscape and hunting tools....
Research is revealing the interconnected relationship between environmental shifts and changes in prehistoric people’s tools and settlement patterns. At the end of a cold period came the end of a particular type of chipped stone point used in hunting; when surface water temperatures cooled, burial traditions shifted.
“It’s a reminder that climate has changed in the past, but it’s also a reminder that cultures either have to change or get changed, whether they like it or not, when the climate changes,’’ said Arthur Spiess, senior archeologist at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
Archeologists have long debated how environmental changes shaped the lives of people. Today, big sets of data are allowing them to look more closely at possible correlations between human and ecological changes in prehistory. Research published this month found that every time the climatic needle jumped in the Northeast, so did human culture. That work builds on a 2005 study that looked closely at a 1,300-year mini ice age followed by rapid warming, and the simultaneous abrupt change in both the landscape and hunting tools....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:28
Name of source: Medievalists.net
SOURCE: Medievalists.net (12-20-10)
A chapel in the Welsh town of Llantwit Major has been awarded nearly £300,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to transform the ruined 13th century building into a new learning and exhibition centre. The Galilee Chapel adjoins the Grade I listed St. Illtud’s Church, has been described as the Westminster Abbey of Wales for its unique collection of Celtic carved stones and statues of prominent individuals.
A place of worship was first established in Llantwit Major in 500AD, including a school which is now recognised as one of Britain’s earliest centres of Christian learning. The church is integral to the story of Christianity in South Wales and has strong links with Caldey Island, St David’s, Llancarfan and Llandaff.
The Rectorial Benefice of Llantwit Major will use the £298,100 of HLF funding to create a space dedicated to displaying the Celtic Stones and telling the story of Christianity as it developed from the site. Funding will also be used to train local people as volunteer guides to interpret the story for pilgrims and casual visitors.
Dan Clayton Jones, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Wales said: “St Illtud’s is hugely important to the development of early Christianity and we are delighted to play a part in ensuring that it is properly interpreted and conserved. By moving the Celtic stones into the Galilee Chapel, space within the main body of the Church will be freed up for other wider activities, ensuring that the whole site remains a focal point for the whole community.”...
A place of worship was first established in Llantwit Major in 500AD, including a school which is now recognised as one of Britain’s earliest centres of Christian learning. The church is integral to the story of Christianity in South Wales and has strong links with Caldey Island, St David’s, Llancarfan and Llandaff.
The Rectorial Benefice of Llantwit Major will use the £298,100 of HLF funding to create a space dedicated to displaying the Celtic Stones and telling the story of Christianity as it developed from the site. Funding will also be used to train local people as volunteer guides to interpret the story for pilgrims and casual visitors.
Dan Clayton Jones, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Wales said: “St Illtud’s is hugely important to the development of early Christianity and we are delighted to play a part in ensuring that it is properly interpreted and conserved. By moving the Celtic stones into the Galilee Chapel, space within the main body of the Church will be freed up for other wider activities, ensuring that the whole site remains a focal point for the whole community.”...
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:27
Name of source: BBC News
SOURCE: BBC News (12-20-10)
Spain has spent much of the last decade re-examining the past, exhuming mass graves from its devastating civil war.
It is thought there are around 2,000 unmarked burial sites across the country, but only a fraction have been opened.
The government now provides some funds for the search, but the work is left to relatives and volunteers.
As Sarah Rainsford reports, for some people, time is running out....
It is thought there are around 2,000 unmarked burial sites across the country, but only a fraction have been opened.
The government now provides some funds for the search, but the work is left to relatives and volunteers.
As Sarah Rainsford reports, for some people, time is running out....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:25
SOURCE: BBC News (12-16-10)
Germany has agreed to contribute $80m (£51m; 60m euros) towards a fund aiming to preserve the Auschwitz Nazi death camp as a symbol of the Holocaust.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Fund, set up in 2009, says $120m is needed to preserve the site in southern Poland.
The barracks, gas chambers and other buildings that are part of the memorial are in need of urgent repair.
More than a million people were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz.
"Germany acknowledges its historic responsibility to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to pass it on to future generations," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Wednesday.
Germany is one of several countries contributing to the fund to maintain the main concentration camp, Auschwitz, and the nearby satellite camp of Birkenau....
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Fund, set up in 2009, says $120m is needed to preserve the site in southern Poland.
The barracks, gas chambers and other buildings that are part of the memorial are in need of urgent repair.
More than a million people were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz.
"Germany acknowledges its historic responsibility to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to pass it on to future generations," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Wednesday.
Germany is one of several countries contributing to the fund to maintain the main concentration camp, Auschwitz, and the nearby satellite camp of Birkenau....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 12:23
Name of source: Guardian (UK)
SOURCE: Guardian (UK) (12-19-10)
It was etched in the blood of a dictator in a ghoulish bid for piety. Over the course of two painstaking years in the late 1990s, Saddam Hussein had sat regularly with a nurse and an Islamic calligrapher; the former drawing 27 litres of his blood and the latter using it as a macabre ink to transcribe a Qur'an. But since the fall of Baghdad, almost eight years ago, it has stayed largely out of sight - locked away behind three vaulted doors. It is the one part of the ousted tyrant's legacy that Iraq has simply not known what to do with.
The vault in the vast mosque in Baghdad has remained locked for the past three years, keeping the 114 chapters of the Muslim holy book out of sight - and mind - while those who run Iraq have painstakingly processed the other cultural remnants of 30 years of Saddam and the Ba'ath party.
"What is in here is priceless, worth absolutely millions of dollars," said Sheikh Ahmed al-Samarrai, head of Iraq's Sunni Endowment fund, standing near the towering minarets of the west Baghdad mosque that Saddam named "the Mother of All Battles". Behind him is the infamous Blood Qur'an, written in Saddam's own blood.
Even to get to this point - the last step before entering the forbidden vault - has been a tortuous process.
On one flank had been the government, doing all it could to prevent access. The Shia-led regime is highly sensitive to the re-emergence of any symbols that might lionise the remnants of the Ba'athist rank and file, which still orchestrates bombings and assassinations every few days....
The vault in the vast mosque in Baghdad has remained locked for the past three years, keeping the 114 chapters of the Muslim holy book out of sight - and mind - while those who run Iraq have painstakingly processed the other cultural remnants of 30 years of Saddam and the Ba'ath party.
"What is in here is priceless, worth absolutely millions of dollars," said Sheikh Ahmed al-Samarrai, head of Iraq's Sunni Endowment fund, standing near the towering minarets of the west Baghdad mosque that Saddam named "the Mother of All Battles". Behind him is the infamous Blood Qur'an, written in Saddam's own blood.
Even to get to this point - the last step before entering the forbidden vault - has been a tortuous process.
On one flank had been the government, doing all it could to prevent access. The Shia-led regime is highly sensitive to the re-emergence of any symbols that might lionise the remnants of the Ba'athist rank and file, which still orchestrates bombings and assassinations every few days....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:25
Name of source: Fox News
SOURCE: Fox News (12-18-10)
Break out the flashlights. When a full lunar eclipse takes place on the shortest day of the year, the planet may just get awfully dark.
The upcoming Dec. 21 full moon -- besides distinguishing itself from the others in 2010 by undergoing a total eclipse -- will also take place on the same date as the solstice (the winter solstice if you live north of the equator, and the summer solstice if you live to the south).
Winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and marks the official beginning of winter. The sun is at its lowest in our sky because the North Pole of our tilted planet is pointing away from it.
So, how often does the December full moon coincide with the solstice? To answer this question, let's use Universal Time (UT), also sometimes referred to as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). We do this because in answering this question, it's important to define a specific time zone....
The upcoming Dec. 21 full moon -- besides distinguishing itself from the others in 2010 by undergoing a total eclipse -- will also take place on the same date as the solstice (the winter solstice if you live north of the equator, and the summer solstice if you live to the south).
Winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and marks the official beginning of winter. The sun is at its lowest in our sky because the North Pole of our tilted planet is pointing away from it.
So, how often does the December full moon coincide with the solstice? To answer this question, let's use Universal Time (UT), also sometimes referred to as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). We do this because in answering this question, it's important to define a specific time zone....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:23
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (12-17-10)
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia's southern coalfields, known to many outsiders for recent mining disasters, are also rich with American labor history and tales of bravery that Doug Estepp believes will rivet the tourists he plans to take there next summer.
Estepp, a Mingo County native, has launched a company that could be the first to share the rugged region's history with tourists. Coal Country Tours LLC is planning at least two tours for the summer of 2011, including a three-day West Virginia Mine War Tour in June.
"I'm basically trying to finance my obsession," Estepp, 51, joked Friday.
"Really, my goal is to expose people to the history. I'm from that area. It's a tough area. The economics are rough," said Estepp, who now lives in Toms Brook, Va. "But I really think there's a real potential for tourism, and I wanted to jump on it because no one's doing anything with it."...
Estepp, a Mingo County native, has launched a company that could be the first to share the rugged region's history with tourists. Coal Country Tours LLC is planning at least two tours for the summer of 2011, including a three-day West Virginia Mine War Tour in June.
"I'm basically trying to finance my obsession," Estepp, 51, joked Friday.
"Really, my goal is to expose people to the history. I'm from that area. It's a tough area. The economics are rough," said Estepp, who now lives in Toms Brook, Va. "But I really think there's a real potential for tourism, and I wanted to jump on it because no one's doing anything with it."...
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:23
SOURCE: AP (12-16-10)
Archaeologists found what may be a trove of 3,400 year old statues on the west bank of the ancient temple city Luxor, said the head of Egypt's antiquities department on Thursday.
Teams unearthed two rose granite statue fragments from an area west of the burial temple of Pharaoh Amenhotep III earlier this week, said Zahi Hawass.
One fragment, the first of its kind, he said, depicts the baboon head of the god Hapi with a human body. The other is a fragment of a statue of the body of Amenhotep III, whose funerary complex is one of the largest archaeological findings in Egypt....
Teams unearthed two rose granite statue fragments from an area west of the burial temple of Pharaoh Amenhotep III earlier this week, said Zahi Hawass.
One fragment, the first of its kind, he said, depicts the baboon head of the god Hapi with a human body. The other is a fragment of a statue of the body of Amenhotep III, whose funerary complex is one of the largest archaeological findings in Egypt....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 22:12
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (12-17-10)
The 11am Eucharist at St Philip's, Cosham, tomorrow will be celebrated under a starry sky. That is because the altar stands beneath a canopy spangled with stars on a dark blue background, against which four angels shine in gold....
Cosham is a very English suburb of Portsmouth and its architect was Sir Ninian Comper, who died 50 years ago next Wednesday. He is counted one of the greatest architects of the 20th century by some, though others see him mainly as a church furnisher, perhaps because they do not appreciate his central principle: that a church is a building to contain an altar....
This mixture of styles might sound like a jumble, but it forms an organic whole. Comper followed an idea of unity (and thus beauty) by inclusion. He had turned against the mock medievalism of his early career as a student of G F Bodley, (1827-1907), the most influential architect of the Anglican Church in the last third of the 19th century (for Comper was a long-lived man, born in 1864). He saw the success with which the Baroque was incorporated into ancient basilicas, Romanesque churches and Gothic chancels abroad....
Cosham is a very English suburb of Portsmouth and its architect was Sir Ninian Comper, who died 50 years ago next Wednesday. He is counted one of the greatest architects of the 20th century by some, though others see him mainly as a church furnisher, perhaps because they do not appreciate his central principle: that a church is a building to contain an altar....
This mixture of styles might sound like a jumble, but it forms an organic whole. Comper followed an idea of unity (and thus beauty) by inclusion. He had turned against the mock medievalism of his early career as a student of G F Bodley, (1827-1907), the most influential architect of the Anglican Church in the last third of the 19th century (for Comper was a long-lived man, born in 1864). He saw the success with which the Baroque was incorporated into ancient basilicas, Romanesque churches and Gothic chancels abroad....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:21
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (12-15-10)
Senior Kenyan politicians have been accused of leading violence that left 1,200 people dead and more than half a million displaced following elections almost three years ago.
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday accused six men including the deputy prime minister and the head of the civil service of crimes against humanity.
The Hague-based court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, disclosed the names after presenting 158 pages of evidence to judges and asking them to summon the six to appear at the world’s only standing war crimes tribunal.
Fighting between supporters of Kenya’s opposing political parties raged for six weeks in early 2008 after accusations that the vote count of the December 2007 presidential poll had been rigged.
Uhuru Kenyatta, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, Francis Muthaura, head of the civil service and a close ally of President Mwai Kibaki, and Maj Gen Hussein Ali, the former chief of police, are together accused in one case....
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday accused six men including the deputy prime minister and the head of the civil service of crimes against humanity.
The Hague-based court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, disclosed the names after presenting 158 pages of evidence to judges and asking them to summon the six to appear at the world’s only standing war crimes tribunal.
Fighting between supporters of Kenya’s opposing political parties raged for six weeks in early 2008 after accusations that the vote count of the December 2007 presidential poll had been rigged.
Uhuru Kenyatta, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, Francis Muthaura, head of the civil service and a close ally of President Mwai Kibaki, and Maj Gen Hussein Ali, the former chief of police, are together accused in one case....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 22:19
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (12-16-10)
The bodies of Poland's late president, his wife and those who died along with them in a plane crash may be exhumed because of fears the remains may have been mixed up.
A lawyer representing families of some of the victims of the April 10 disaster, which claimed 96 lives when President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashed in Russia, said he has information showing that the Russian autopsy reports were so muddled that it is probable that parts of different people may have been buried in different graves.
Rafal Rogalski said Polish prosecutors did not have comprehensive autopsy photographs, and that some of the numbering of human remains and documents was inaccurate, and in one case the eye colour of a victim is recorded incorrectly.
Doubts over just who is buried where have raised the prospect of exhuming the bodies, and Mr Rogalski said he has already received one exhumation request.
The apparently inadequate autopsy documents, the lawyer explained, cast doubt as to whether the graves of President Kaczynski and his wife Maria contain their actual bodies....
A lawyer representing families of some of the victims of the April 10 disaster, which claimed 96 lives when President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashed in Russia, said he has information showing that the Russian autopsy reports were so muddled that it is probable that parts of different people may have been buried in different graves.
Rafal Rogalski said Polish prosecutors did not have comprehensive autopsy photographs, and that some of the numbering of human remains and documents was inaccurate, and in one case the eye colour of a victim is recorded incorrectly.
Doubts over just who is buried where have raised the prospect of exhuming the bodies, and Mr Rogalski said he has already received one exhumation request.
The apparently inadequate autopsy documents, the lawyer explained, cast doubt as to whether the graves of President Kaczynski and his wife Maria contain their actual bodies....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 22:15
Name of source: Culture24
SOURCE: Culture24 (12-12-10)
When archaeologists working through the Victorian spoil heaps at Creswell Crags in 2006 uncovered a stone with a familiar carved geometric pattern, it opened yet another aspect of the ever-developing story of the important prehistoric caves.
What the experts from Sheffield University had unearthed was in fact a medieval incarnation of the strategy board game Nine Men’s Morris, which had been popular since Roman times.
Its discovery provided a glimpse into medieval activity at the Crags, which is the most important cluster of caves inhabited during the last Ice Age and the scene of paleolithic finds ranging from stone tools to cave paintings. But it also opened up a medieval mystery; how did the game get there and who had made it?...
What the experts from Sheffield University had unearthed was in fact a medieval incarnation of the strategy board game Nine Men’s Morris, which had been popular since Roman times.
Its discovery provided a glimpse into medieval activity at the Crags, which is the most important cluster of caves inhabited during the last Ice Age and the scene of paleolithic finds ranging from stone tools to cave paintings. But it also opened up a medieval mystery; how did the game get there and who had made it?...
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:20
Name of source: Daily Mail (UK)
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (12-17-10)
Worshippers at a 12th century village church have launched a bitter battle to oust their vicar.
Some members of the congregation at St Nicholas Church in Tillingham, Essex, are 'at war' with vicar Lorna Smith, claiming that her modernisation plans will be the 'ruination' of the historic church.
A petition has been started calling for the Reverend Lorna Smith to quit her post as vicar after she pushed ahead with proposals to rip the pews and replace them with informal plastic chairs, dig up the floor and install underground heating....
Some members of the congregation at St Nicholas Church in Tillingham, Essex, are 'at war' with vicar Lorna Smith, claiming that her modernisation plans will be the 'ruination' of the historic church.
A petition has been started calling for the Reverend Lorna Smith to quit her post as vicar after she pushed ahead with proposals to rip the pews and replace them with informal plastic chairs, dig up the floor and install underground heating....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:19
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (12-18-10)
A multi-millionaire who was accused of spiriting away three Nazi-era gold bars as part of an attempt to conceal assets from his ex-wife was ordered to hand her a £2.4million divorce settlement yesterday.
Businessman Peter Brandon, 67, had claimed the ruling would leave him ‘impoverished’ because his total wealth stood at £2million, while his ex-wife Christina continues to live in the £2million marital mansion.
But the Court of Appeal yesterday backed the award made by Mr Justice Ryder in July, who found that Mr Brandon had tried to conceal additional assets worth £2million – including the gold bars – from the court, in order to keep his wife from sharing them....
Businessman Peter Brandon, 67, had claimed the ruling would leave him ‘impoverished’ because his total wealth stood at £2million, while his ex-wife Christina continues to live in the £2million marital mansion.
But the Court of Appeal yesterday backed the award made by Mr Justice Ryder in July, who found that Mr Brandon had tried to conceal additional assets worth £2million – including the gold bars – from the court, in order to keep his wife from sharing them....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:17
Name of source: PhysOrg
SOURCE: PhysOrg (12-16-10)
The largest surviving family-owned library of medieval manuscripts in Britain can now be enjoyed by everyone thanks to the publication of a new book telling its fascinating story.
The Wollaton Medieval Manuscripts… Texts, Owners and Readers is the culmination of a major research project at The University of Nottingham into this nationally important regional collection.
The large, beautifully illustrated hardback volume tells the story of Nottinghamshire’s landowning Willoughby family, and the extensive library of rare medieval manuscripts they collected during the 15th and 16th centuries. The collection includes important examples of Latin, French, Anglo-Norman and Middle English literature from the 13th to 15th centuries.
The manuscripts, along with a huge collection of family archives, were originally housed in the family library at Wollaton in Nottingham, and transferred to the present hall, built by Sir Francis Willoughby in the 1580s, which the family owned until the 1920s when it was bought by the city council....
The Wollaton Medieval Manuscripts… Texts, Owners and Readers is the culmination of a major research project at The University of Nottingham into this nationally important regional collection.
The large, beautifully illustrated hardback volume tells the story of Nottinghamshire’s landowning Willoughby family, and the extensive library of rare medieval manuscripts they collected during the 15th and 16th centuries. The collection includes important examples of Latin, French, Anglo-Norman and Middle English literature from the 13th to 15th centuries.
The manuscripts, along with a huge collection of family archives, were originally housed in the family library at Wollaton in Nottingham, and transferred to the present hall, built by Sir Francis Willoughby in the 1580s, which the family owned until the 1920s when it was bought by the city council....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 16:18
Name of source: LA Times
SOURCE: LA Times (12-5-10)
Reporting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. —
Saul Dreier and Lucy Weinberg lost their families in the Holocaust, and for more than half a century they'd lost each other too.
The cousins emigrated to separate countries, where they learned English, fell in love, married, had children and led happy lives.
Each thought the other had died at the Nazis' hands. But on Thursday, they hugged for the first time since the 1940s.
"Is this Lucy? Is this Lucy?" Dreier asked as Weinberg walked toward him at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport....
Saul Dreier and Lucy Weinberg lost their families in the Holocaust, and for more than half a century they'd lost each other too.
The cousins emigrated to separate countries, where they learned English, fell in love, married, had children and led happy lives.
Each thought the other had died at the Nazis' hands. But on Thursday, they hugged for the first time since the 1940s.
"Is this Lucy? Is this Lucy?" Dreier asked as Weinberg walked toward him at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport....
Monday, December 20, 2010 - 12:46
Name of source: AFP
SOURCE: AFP (12-16-10)
Nine people are under investigation for two collapses in the famous ancient Roman city of Pompeii that shocked the culture world last month, judicial sources said on Thursday.
An ancient training centre for gladiators collapsed into rubble in Pompeii on November 6 and a wall protecting a home known as the House of the Moralist fell down on November 30, causing widespread international outrage.
Among the people under investigation by prosecutors in nearby Torre Annunziata are the former director of the site and the current head of excavations, ANSA news agency reported. The two declined to comment....
An ancient training centre for gladiators collapsed into rubble in Pompeii on November 6 and a wall protecting a home known as the House of the Moralist fell down on November 30, causing widespread international outrage.
Among the people under investigation by prosecutors in nearby Torre Annunziata are the former director of the site and the current head of excavations, ANSA news agency reported. The two declined to comment....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 22:35
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (12-16-10)
A Scots writer has suggested a new link between the famous Felix Mendelssohn composition "Hebrides Overture" and the Scottish landmark which inspired it.
Iain Thornber claims the work, also known as "Fingals Cave", was purposely launched on the only day of the year the cave is illuminated by sunlight.
The German composer completed the initial draft on 16 December 1830.
Mr Thornber said the cave is only fully illuminated around this date when the sun lies 5.6 degrees above the horizon.
Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa off the west coast of Scotland in Argyll and Bute....
Iain Thornber claims the work, also known as "Fingals Cave", was purposely launched on the only day of the year the cave is illuminated by sunlight.
The German composer completed the initial draft on 16 December 1830.
Mr Thornber said the cave is only fully illuminated around this date when the sun lies 5.6 degrees above the horizon.
Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa off the west coast of Scotland in Argyll and Bute....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 22:25
Name of source: CHE
SOURCE: CHE (12-16-10)
The English language is going through a time of huge growth. Humanity is forgetting its history more rapidly each year. And celebrities are losing their fame faster than in the past.
Those are some of the findings in a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science by a Harvard-led team of researchers. The scholars quantified cultural trends by investigating the frequency with which words appeared over time in a database of about 5.2 million books, roughly 4 percent of all volumes ever published, according to Harvard's announcement.
The research team, headed by Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden, culled that digital "fossil record" from more than 15 million books digitized by Google and its university partners. Google is giving the public a glimpse of the researchers' data through an online interface that lets users key in words or phrases and plot how their usage has evolved. The paper's authors bill this as "the largest data release in the history of the humanities."...
Those are some of the findings in a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science by a Harvard-led team of researchers. The scholars quantified cultural trends by investigating the frequency with which words appeared over time in a database of about 5.2 million books, roughly 4 percent of all volumes ever published, according to Harvard's announcement.
The research team, headed by Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden, culled that digital "fossil record" from more than 15 million books digitized by Google and its university partners. Google is giving the public a glimpse of the researchers' data through an online interface that lets users key in words or phrases and plot how their usage has evolved. The paper's authors bill this as "the largest data release in the history of the humanities."...
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 17:31
Name of source: Moscow Times
SOURCE: Moscow Times (12-16-10)
Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, grandson of late Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, has filed a defamation lawsuit against the State Duma, seeking 100 million rubles ($3.2 million) over legislature blaming his grandfather for the 1940 Katyn massacre....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 16:39
Name of source: Independent (UK)
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (12-16-10)
...Human rights campaigners often suggest that child-soldiering is the product of modern, post-colonial conflict, but that's obviously untrue. Goliath may have fatally underestimated David "for he was but a youth, ruddy and of fair countenance", but children were a constant presence on the pre-industrial battlefield, serving as spear-carriers, mechanics and messengers for the Greeks and Romans, and using conflict to mark their transition into adulthood in tribal societies from the Native American Cheyenne to the terrifying "fighting girls" of Dahomey (now Benin) in West Africa. One of the few French "bright spots" at the Battle of Agincourt was their counter-attack on the English supply train, where they massacred the massed ranks of youths who'd been posted on guard.
And children weren't limited to the rank and file; beneath the many grand national myths of military precocity – such as Joan of Arc, the 10th-century Irish king Brian Boru (an axe-wielding prodigy who reputedly hammered the Danish hordes shortly after his 12th birthday), and Olaf II of Viking Norway (whose legend counts nine naval victories before his 17th year) – real youthful commanders litter history. Sweden's greatest military triumph, the unexpected rout of the Russians at the Battle of Narva in 1700, was under the guidance of an 18-year old, Charles XII, and Horatio Nelson was in the Navy by 12, surveying the Arctic by 15, a commissioned officer by 18 and in command of a ship by 19. (That would make quite a Ucas form...)
The turning point in our attitudes to child warriors came later in the 19th century, particularly as a result of the American Civil War, often referred to as the "boys' war". Between a tenth and a third of all the troops in that conflict were under age, often absurdly so. John Joseph Clem, the famous "drummer boy of Shiloh", was recruited at 10, and was soon promoted after killing two Confederate officers. But the unprecedented carnage of the first industrial war altered worldwide perceptions of battle for ever – this was now no place for a child, and by the First World War, recruiters were under orders to keep under-18s from the front. They didn't try too hard, though, and failed to stop perhaps a quarter of a million under-age volunteers – a 14-year-old died at Gallipoli, a 15-year-old was executed for fleeing the enemy on the Western Front (by a firing squad with a 15-year-old in it), and a 16-year-old officer led his men over the top on the first day of the Somme. By the end of the Second World War, after the grotesque militarism of the Hitler Youth decayed into the slaughter of the German schoolboys sent out to defend Berlin to the last, the international consensus had hardened – war was now to be a professional business, not a glorious game in which to involve the young. (Although in that war, the most heroic child soldiers in history stood their ground – the Jewish boys and girls who organised themselves into brigades in the Warsaw Uprising, and the rarely mentioned German teenagers who fought the Hitler Youth in the streets, and went to the camps for their troubles.) In 1977, the Geneva Convention was amended to include a new rule of war, that "children who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities", and in 1998, the International Criminal Court was established under a statute that "enlisting children under the age of 15 is a war crime"....
And children weren't limited to the rank and file; beneath the many grand national myths of military precocity – such as Joan of Arc, the 10th-century Irish king Brian Boru (an axe-wielding prodigy who reputedly hammered the Danish hordes shortly after his 12th birthday), and Olaf II of Viking Norway (whose legend counts nine naval victories before his 17th year) – real youthful commanders litter history. Sweden's greatest military triumph, the unexpected rout of the Russians at the Battle of Narva in 1700, was under the guidance of an 18-year old, Charles XII, and Horatio Nelson was in the Navy by 12, surveying the Arctic by 15, a commissioned officer by 18 and in command of a ship by 19. (That would make quite a Ucas form...)
The turning point in our attitudes to child warriors came later in the 19th century, particularly as a result of the American Civil War, often referred to as the "boys' war". Between a tenth and a third of all the troops in that conflict were under age, often absurdly so. John Joseph Clem, the famous "drummer boy of Shiloh", was recruited at 10, and was soon promoted after killing two Confederate officers. But the unprecedented carnage of the first industrial war altered worldwide perceptions of battle for ever – this was now no place for a child, and by the First World War, recruiters were under orders to keep under-18s from the front. They didn't try too hard, though, and failed to stop perhaps a quarter of a million under-age volunteers – a 14-year-old died at Gallipoli, a 15-year-old was executed for fleeing the enemy on the Western Front (by a firing squad with a 15-year-old in it), and a 16-year-old officer led his men over the top on the first day of the Somme. By the end of the Second World War, after the grotesque militarism of the Hitler Youth decayed into the slaughter of the German schoolboys sent out to defend Berlin to the last, the international consensus had hardened – war was now to be a professional business, not a glorious game in which to involve the young. (Although in that war, the most heroic child soldiers in history stood their ground – the Jewish boys and girls who organised themselves into brigades in the Warsaw Uprising, and the rarely mentioned German teenagers who fought the Hitler Youth in the streets, and went to the camps for their troubles.) In 1977, the Geneva Convention was amended to include a new rule of war, that "children who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities", and in 1998, the International Criminal Court was established under a statute that "enlisting children under the age of 15 is a war crime"....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 16:38
Name of source: The Local (Germany)
SOURCE: The Local (Germany) (12-16-10)
The North Rhine-Westphalian city of Dülmen struck Adolf Hitler from its list of honorary citizens on Thursday. But the Nazi dictator still retains similar recognition in towns across Germany, experts say.
After two previous attempts failed, the Dülmen city council plans to remove Hitler, the town’s fifth honorary citizen, from the list posthumously – a move historians say is long overdue.
On April 6, 1933 city officials voted unanimously to honour the Nazi leader.
Centre-left Social Democratic council group leader Waltraud Bednarz wrote in her September proposal to remove Hitler from the list that the action was not necessary, but “more that appropriate.”...
After two previous attempts failed, the Dülmen city council plans to remove Hitler, the town’s fifth honorary citizen, from the list posthumously – a move historians say is long overdue.
On April 6, 1933 city officials voted unanimously to honour the Nazi leader.
Centre-left Social Democratic council group leader Waltraud Bednarz wrote in her September proposal to remove Hitler from the list that the action was not necessary, but “more that appropriate.”...
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 16:37
Name of source: Jackson Sun
SOURCE: Jackson Sun (12-16-10)
HOLLOW ROCK — Several people remarked Wednesday morning on the unusually frigid weather that coincidentally mirrored the day of a historic visit to a tiny West Tennessee city nearly two centuries ago.
About 25 people, bundled in coats as freezing rain briefly descended, gathered on U.S. 70 in Hollow Rock, where French aristocrats Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont spent four days at a former log cabin inn. The ceremony included the unveiling of a state marker detailing their historic 1831 visit to the rural town, then known as Sandy Bridge.
The duo's visit took place in subzero temperatures. Their trip to the United States was chronicled in Tocqueville's classic book "Democracy in America."
Suenette Meeks, a descendant of the Sandy Bridge inn's owners Zephaniah and Martha Harris, said she doesn't see how they survived the wind chills below zero....
About 25 people, bundled in coats as freezing rain briefly descended, gathered on U.S. 70 in Hollow Rock, where French aristocrats Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont spent four days at a former log cabin inn. The ceremony included the unveiling of a state marker detailing their historic 1831 visit to the rural town, then known as Sandy Bridge.
The duo's visit took place in subzero temperatures. Their trip to the United States was chronicled in Tocqueville's classic book "Democracy in America."
Suenette Meeks, a descendant of the Sandy Bridge inn's owners Zephaniah and Martha Harris, said she doesn't see how they survived the wind chills below zero....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 16:36
Name of source: The State (SC)
SOURCE: The State (SC) (12-16-10)
CHARLESTON — - Organizers of Civil War anniversary events sought Wednesday to distance themselves from a ball being held Monday to celebrate secession.
“I won’t be going,” Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said after a news conference held at the Historic Charleston Foundation’s headquarters on East Bay Street, where the mayor and those organizing events to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War underscored their desire to bring attention to historic events without celebrating the war.
The Secession Ball, organized by the Confederate Heritage Trust and sponsored in part by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is scheduled to be held on Monday in Charleston’s Gaillard Auditorium. The ball will feature a 45-minute play re-enacting the signing of the Ordinance of Secession before a gathering of party-goers wearing period clothes....
“I won’t be going,” Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said after a news conference held at the Historic Charleston Foundation’s headquarters on East Bay Street, where the mayor and those organizing events to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War underscored their desire to bring attention to historic events without celebrating the war.
The Secession Ball, organized by the Confederate Heritage Trust and sponsored in part by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is scheduled to be held on Monday in Charleston’s Gaillard Auditorium. The ball will feature a 45-minute play re-enacting the signing of the Ordinance of Secession before a gathering of party-goers wearing period clothes....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 16:36
Name of source: WaPo
SOURCE: WaPo (12-16-10)
MEXICO CITY -- Mexican researchers said Wednesday they have identified jaw bones found in the pre-Hispanic ruins of Teotihuacan as those of wolf-dogs that were apparently crossbred as a symbol of the city's warriors.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the jaw bones were found during excavations in 2004 and are the first physical evidence of what appears to be intentional crossbreeding in ancient Mexican cultures.
The jaw bones were found in a warrior's burial at a Teotihuacan pyramid. Anthropological studies performed at Mexico's National Autonomous University indicate the animal was a wolf-dog....
The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the jaw bones were found during excavations in 2004 and are the first physical evidence of what appears to be intentional crossbreeding in ancient Mexican cultures.
The jaw bones were found in a warrior's burial at a Teotihuacan pyramid. Anthropological studies performed at Mexico's National Autonomous University indicate the animal was a wolf-dog....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 13:29
SOURCE: WaPo (12-16-10)
In protest of the removal of a controversial video, Canadian artist AA Bronson, one of the pioneers of gay-themed contemporary art, on Wednesday asked for a major work of his to be withdrawn from the Smithsonian exhibition, "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," which explores imagery by and about homosexuals.
The exhibition, at the National Portrait Gallery through Feb. 13, has been the source of controversy since Nov. 30, when Christian activists and members of Congress pressured the museum into removing one of its pieces, a 1987 video by the late artist David Wojnarowicz that included 11 seconds of footage of a Crucifix crawling with ants.
The piece that Bronson has asked to be removed is a mural-size color photograph titled "Felix, June 5, 1994", showing the corpse of the artist's partner Felix Partz, lying in bed only minutes or hours after his death caused by AIDS. The photo is one of the exhibition's linchpin works, and praised as a "harrowing, almost unbearable image" in my rave review of "Hide/Seek."...
The exhibition, at the National Portrait Gallery through Feb. 13, has been the source of controversy since Nov. 30, when Christian activists and members of Congress pressured the museum into removing one of its pieces, a 1987 video by the late artist David Wojnarowicz that included 11 seconds of footage of a Crucifix crawling with ants.
The piece that Bronson has asked to be removed is a mural-size color photograph titled "Felix, June 5, 1994", showing the corpse of the artist's partner Felix Partz, lying in bed only minutes or hours after his death caused by AIDS. The photo is one of the exhibition's linchpin works, and praised as a "harrowing, almost unbearable image" in my rave review of "Hide/Seek."...
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 13:25
SOURCE: WaPo (12-15-10)
NEW YORK - The Catholic League's William Donohue, the man who scared the Smithsonian into pulling a David Wojnarowicz video from a highly acclaimed exhibition of gay and lesbian portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery, takes a pragmatic view of the culture wars.
"You have to know when to step on the gas and when to step on the brakes," Donohue said Wednesday afternoon from his 34th-floor office in midtown Manhattan. Which is one reason that he was going a for a beer that night, and not planning on attending a conversation at the New York Public Library featuring the exhibition's curators, Jonathan Katz and David C. Ward....
At the standing-room-only Public Library event - which was scheduled long before the Smithsonian controversy erupted into what many fear is a new and volatile chapter in the museum culture wars after a decade-long hiatus - it was clear that Ward and Katz's work is just beginning. The challenge was to talk about art when everybody else wanted to talk about controversy, and yet not duck the controversy, when the Smithsonian is being accused of caving quickly, cravenly and foolishly to political pressure....
Which is why Katz and Ward tried to give an art history lecture, working their way through the show, slide by slide, starting with 19th-century icon Walt Whitman and a racy painting of boxers by Thomas Eakins. They barely made it to the Abstract Expressionists, many of whom were homosexual and coded their work with complex references to desire for each other, before the clock ticked toward question-and-answer time. And then the controversy was unavoidable....
"You have to know when to step on the gas and when to step on the brakes," Donohue said Wednesday afternoon from his 34th-floor office in midtown Manhattan. Which is one reason that he was going a for a beer that night, and not planning on attending a conversation at the New York Public Library featuring the exhibition's curators, Jonathan Katz and David C. Ward....
At the standing-room-only Public Library event - which was scheduled long before the Smithsonian controversy erupted into what many fear is a new and volatile chapter in the museum culture wars after a decade-long hiatus - it was clear that Ward and Katz's work is just beginning. The challenge was to talk about art when everybody else wanted to talk about controversy, and yet not duck the controversy, when the Smithsonian is being accused of caving quickly, cravenly and foolishly to political pressure....
Which is why Katz and Ward tried to give an art history lecture, working their way through the show, slide by slide, starting with 19th-century icon Walt Whitman and a racy painting of boxers by Thomas Eakins. They barely made it to the Abstract Expressionists, many of whom were homosexual and coded their work with complex references to desire for each other, before the clock ticked toward question-and-answer time. And then the controversy was unavoidable....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 13:22
SOURCE: WaPo (12-16-10)
An official push to rehabilitate the reputation of a long-deceased Air Force general has hit a wall in the Senate, where some of the most influential names in U.S. foreign policy are tangling, once again, over fateful decisions from the Vietnam War.
After years of trying, the family of Gen. John D. Lavelle thought it had achieved a breakthrough in August, when the White House formally asked the Senate to restore his honor, 38 years after the four-star commander was fired and demoted in rank to major general for allegedly ordering rogue bombings of North Vietnam.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said they were sympathetic to the family's argument - that the bombings were carried out on secret orders from the chain of command, all the way up to President Richard M. Nixon - and pledged prompt action.
But the Lavelle case has now bogged down on Capitol Hill. And unless the Senate acts in the waning moments of its lame-duck session, the general's ailing 92-year-old widow and children fear that their efforts to clear his name will fail....
After years of trying, the family of Gen. John D. Lavelle thought it had achieved a breakthrough in August, when the White House formally asked the Senate to restore his honor, 38 years after the four-star commander was fired and demoted in rank to major general for allegedly ordering rogue bombings of North Vietnam.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said they were sympathetic to the family's argument - that the bombings were carried out on secret orders from the chain of command, all the way up to President Richard M. Nixon - and pledged prompt action.
But the Lavelle case has now bogged down on Capitol Hill. And unless the Senate acts in the waning moments of its lame-duck session, the general's ailing 92-year-old widow and children fear that their efforts to clear his name will fail....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 13:19
Name of source: Sofia echo (Bulgaria)
SOURCE: Sofia echo (Bulgaria) (12-15-10)
The oldest temple of the Sun has been discovered in northwest Bulgaria, near the town of Vratsa, aged at more then 8000 years, the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on December 15 2010.
The Bulgarian 'Stonehenge' is hence about 3000 years older than its illustrious English counterpart. But unlike its more renowned English cousin, the Bulgarian sun temple was not on the surface, rather it was dug out from under tons of earth and is shaped in the form of a horse shoe, the report said.
The temple was found near the village of Ohoden. According to archaeologists, the prehistoric people used the celestial facility to calculate the seasons and to determine the best times for sowing and harvest. The site was also used for rituals, offering gifts to the Sun for fertility as BNT reported.
This area of Bulgaria was previously made famous because remnants of the oldest people who lived in this part of Europe were found.
Archaeologists also found dozens of clay and stone disks in the area of the temple....
The Bulgarian 'Stonehenge' is hence about 3000 years older than its illustrious English counterpart. But unlike its more renowned English cousin, the Bulgarian sun temple was not on the surface, rather it was dug out from under tons of earth and is shaped in the form of a horse shoe, the report said.
The temple was found near the village of Ohoden. According to archaeologists, the prehistoric people used the celestial facility to calculate the seasons and to determine the best times for sowing and harvest. The site was also used for rituals, offering gifts to the Sun for fertility as BNT reported.
This area of Bulgaria was previously made famous because remnants of the oldest people who lived in this part of Europe were found.
Archaeologists also found dozens of clay and stone disks in the area of the temple....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 12:37
Name of source: Jerusalem Post
SOURCE: Jerusalem Post (12-15-10)
A newly released report by the US National Archives details the close collaborative relationship between Nazi leaders and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, indicating that Nazi authorities planned to use Husseini as their leader after their conquest of Palestine.
Husseini was paid handsomely by the Nazis for his efforts, recruited Muslims for the SS and was promised that he would be made Palestine’s leader after its Jewish population of 350,000 had been murdered.
The report, Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, US Intelligence and the Cold War, was prepared on the basis of thousands of documents declassified under the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
“Hitler’s Shadow” is an addendum to a 2004 US government report, US Intelligence and the Nazis.
The new report’s authors, Norman J.W. Goda of the University of Florida and Richard Breitman of American University, said the addendum was particularly important.
“We thought the information was significant and detailed,” Breitman told The Jerusalem Post regarding the newly uncovered facts on the Jerusalem mufti in particular.
“We thought the April 1945 contract between the [German] Foreign Office and Husseini was striking evidence of an ideological collaboration both sides hoped would continue after the war.”...
Husseini was paid handsomely by the Nazis for his efforts, recruited Muslims for the SS and was promised that he would be made Palestine’s leader after its Jewish population of 350,000 had been murdered.
The report, Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, US Intelligence and the Cold War, was prepared on the basis of thousands of documents declassified under the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
“Hitler’s Shadow” is an addendum to a 2004 US government report, US Intelligence and the Nazis.
The new report’s authors, Norman J.W. Goda of the University of Florida and Richard Breitman of American University, said the addendum was particularly important.
“We thought the information was significant and detailed,” Breitman told The Jerusalem Post regarding the newly uncovered facts on the Jerusalem mufti in particular.
“We thought the April 1945 contract between the [German] Foreign Office and Husseini was striking evidence of an ideological collaboration both sides hoped would continue after the war.”...
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 12:34
Name of source: Telegraph
SOURCE: Telegraph (12-16-10)
A five-year battle to save the former home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has gone to the High Court after campaigners applied for a judicial review of a decision to allow development of the Grade II listed house.
Undershaw, in Hindhead, Surrey, is where the creator of Sherlock Holmes wrote many of his most famous books, including the Hound of the Baskervilles, after he built it in 1897.
Since then it has remained largely unchanged, and retains original features including stained glass windows bearing the Conan Doyle family’s coat of arms.
But after hopes of turning the house into a museum came to nothing, and with the building increasingly suffering from vandalism, Waverley Borough Council granted the current owner permission to turn it into flats.
With the backing of high-profile supporters including Stephen Fry, the author Julian Barnes and the local MP and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the Undershaw Preservation Trust has now lodged papers at the High Court requesting a judicial review of the planners’ decision....
Undershaw, in Hindhead, Surrey, is where the creator of Sherlock Holmes wrote many of his most famous books, including the Hound of the Baskervilles, after he built it in 1897.
Since then it has remained largely unchanged, and retains original features including stained glass windows bearing the Conan Doyle family’s coat of arms.
But after hopes of turning the house into a museum came to nothing, and with the building increasingly suffering from vandalism, Waverley Borough Council granted the current owner permission to turn it into flats.
With the backing of high-profile supporters including Stephen Fry, the author Julian Barnes and the local MP and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the Undershaw Preservation Trust has now lodged papers at the High Court requesting a judicial review of the planners’ decision....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 12:30
SOURCE: Telegraph (12-16-10)
The image on the search engine home page is of a man in top hat and breeches accompanied by a demure-looking woman in a bonnet as they take a country stroll.
They could be from any number of Austen's much-loved books - perhaps Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice or Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley from Emma.
The English novelist was born on December 16, 1775 and died on July 18, 1817.
Over her lifetime she published four novels, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma, along with other short stories....
They could be from any number of Austen's much-loved books - perhaps Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice or Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley from Emma.
The English novelist was born on December 16, 1775 and died on July 18, 1817.
Over her lifetime she published four novels, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma, along with other short stories....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 12:29
Name of source: MSN
SOURCE: MSN (12-15-10)
Archaeologists in Oman have unearthed evidence of a human settlement dating back to the Iron Age during excavation there, a news report has said.
The settlement was unearthed during excavation in the Sohar Port area of the country at as many as 57 burial sites, Biubwa Ali Al Sabri, Director of Excavation and Archaeological Studies at the Ministry of Heritage and Culture said.
The excavation work was conducted by five specialists from the national team of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture with the help from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) technicians, specialised in lifting and drawing archaeological evidence.
Al Sabri said the findings would help archaeologist in understanding more about the cultural history....
The settlement was unearthed during excavation in the Sohar Port area of the country at as many as 57 burial sites, Biubwa Ali Al Sabri, Director of Excavation and Archaeological Studies at the Ministry of Heritage and Culture said.
The excavation work was conducted by five specialists from the national team of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture with the help from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) technicians, specialised in lifting and drawing archaeological evidence.
Al Sabri said the findings would help archaeologist in understanding more about the cultural history....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 01:04
Name of source: Reuters
SOURCE: Reuters (12-13-10)
Pompeii mayor Claudio D'Alessio does not want to go down in history linked with Pliny the Younger, the Roman who chronicled the destruction of the ancient city nearly 2,000 ago in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
D'Alessio is worried not only because he loves culture. He knows that the economy of his modern city of 25,000 people relies heavily on tourists who come from all over the world to see the famed archaeological site.
The collapses sparked charges of official neglect by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right government and calls for the resignation of Culture Minister Sandro Bondi, who has imposed cuts to arts spending as part of austerity measures....
D'Alessio is worried not only because he loves culture. He knows that the economy of his modern city of 25,000 people relies heavily on tourists who come from all over the world to see the famed archaeological site.
The collapses sparked charges of official neglect by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right government and calls for the resignation of Culture Minister Sandro Bondi, who has imposed cuts to arts spending as part of austerity measures....
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 00:59
