This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 15, 2009
When Nickie Dobo wrote a column in 2003 for her college newspaper — The Daily Collegian at Pennsylvania State University — decrying the "hook-up culture" on the campus, she never expected it to resurface years later in an attack on her professional credibility.
But that's what happened when Ms. Dobo, now a reporter for the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania, came under criticism by a white-supremacist group. A member of the group posted a link to her hook-up essay in an onl
Source: NYT
May 11, 2009
Justice David H. Souter’s retirement may deprive the Supreme Court of a careful judge, but he was never good material for newspaper columnists looking for scraps of color. For that, you want to keep up with Justice Antonin Scalia.
In the last couple of weeks, Justice Scalia has explained to a law student why she will probably never serve as a law clerk on the Supreme Court, had an interesting tussle with Justice John Paul Stevens and cited foreign law to boot. May he never retire.
Source: MSNBC
May 11, 2009
Two decades after they triumphantly tore down the infamous wall that divided their city, Berliners are having some regrets.
The Germans did such a thorough job of demolishing the hated barrier that visitors to the capital have a hard time finding any trace of it. For years, residents were eager to move beyond a painful chapter in Berlin's history and focused on building a new metropolis for a new century.
But as Germany prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the
Source: AP
May 10, 2009
The last captured member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the radical 1970s-era group notorious for bank robberies, killings and the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, was released from prison Sunday, a corrections official said.
James William Kilgore, 61, was paroled from High Desert State Prison after serving a six-year sentence for his role in the murder of housewife Myrna Opsahl during an April 1975 bank robbery.
The victim's son, Jon Opsahl, said Su
Source: Politico.com
May 12, 2009
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be publishing a memoir in spring 2010 that chronicles both her political and personal life, publishing sources said.
Palin has continued to fascinate the public even after her rocky run as last year’s Republican vice presidential candidate, on a ticket with Sen. John McCain.
The book will include her reflections on balancing her time as a working mother, recognizing the war’s impact with her son serving combat in Iraq, having a child with
Source: Los Angeles Times
May 12, 2009
JERUSALEM -- Pope Benedict XVI's pilgrimage to the Holy Land veered into controversy today when the Vatican's spokesman issued varying statements about the pontiff's activities during World War II.
The differing accounts came after some Israeli officials voiced disappointment that Benedict's speech at their Holocaust memorial had failed to acknowledge his witness of Nazi terror as a teenage German conscript.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi first declared th
Source: Herald Sun (Australia)
May 12, 2009
A SET of ancient Aboriginal remains found during a clearout of a house in northern England are soon to be returned to Australia.
Workers stumbled across the two femurs, three skulls and an assortment of other bones while sorting through the Cheshire home of university professor John Kempster, a former Aboriginal Rights Association president, after he moved to New Zealand in 2008.
Source: http://www.hurriyet.com
May 12, 2009
A king’s grave was uncovered during construction in İzmir’s Kemalpaşa district. The area has been taken under protection and İzmir Museum Directorship officers have started an inspection of the grave and its contents.
The king’s grave was found in a 211-square-meter area owned by Behçet Aktaş in Kemalpaşa’s Atatürk neighborhood. It was discovered when a construction digger struck a rock that was part of the grave during excavation work f
Source: National Geographic
May 11, 2009
Stone Age humans were adept chemists who whipped up a sophisticated kind of natural glue, a new study says.
They knowingly tweaked the chemical and physical properties of an iron-containing pigment known as red ochre with the gum of acacia trees to create adhesives for their shafted tools.
Archaeologists had believed the blood-red pigment—used by people in what is now South Africa about 70,000 years ago—served a decorative or symbolic purpose.
Source: Science Daily
May 12, 2009
The oldest submerged town in the world is about to give up its secrets — with the help of equipment that could revolutionise underwater archaeology.
The ancient town of Pavlopetri lies in three to four metres of water just off the coast of southern Laconia in Greece. The ruins date from at least 2800 BC through to intact buildings, courtyards, streets, chamber tombs and some thirty-seven cist graves which are thought to belong to the Mycenaean period (c.1680-1180 BC). This Bronze Ag
Source: BBC
May 12, 2009
A row has flared over Pope Benedict XVI's membership as a teenager of the Hitler Youth, as he paid a historic visit to Jerusalem's holy sites.
A Vatican spokesman said the pontiff had "never, never, never" belonged - contradicting the Pope's own admission.
The comments came as he visited the Dome of the Rock - the first pontiff to do so - and then the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest places.
Pope Benedict then said Mass for thousands in the
Source: USA Today
May 10, 2009
Amid swine flu, sinking economies and other sorrows of the modern world, losing track of when life was really tough can be easy. Lucky for us, we have archaeologists to put things in a little perspective.
Consider life on the high steppes of Central Asia, the Altai Mountains, around 500 B.C., in modern-day Mongolia. Back then, it was the home of the Pazyryk peoples, horse-riding nomads who lived next door to the not-so-friendly Scythians. In fact, the ancient Greek historian Herodot
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
May 12, 2009
Pope Benedict visited holy sites in Jerusalem as part of a pilgrimage marred by Jewish disappointment over his remarks on the Holocaust.
The German-born pope visited the Western Wall, a remnant of the Roman-era Temple complex that is Judaism's holiest place, after meeting the Grand Mufti, Palestinians' senior Muslim cleric, at the Dome of the Rock which dominates the Old City.
With the mufti, he recalled the common roots of all three monotheistic religions in the story
Source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
May 10, 2009
Prehistoric flint tools were a surprise discovery at an archaeological dig run by TV presenter Julian Richards at a school in Shaftesbury (Dorset, England). Three trenches were dug in fields next to St James's Church, adjacent to Abbey Primary School and every pupil was allowed to visit them during the course of last week. Mr Richards, a Shaftesbury resident and mainstay of the hit TV programme Meet The Ancestors, was surprised and delighted when the children's diligent digging unearthed a mesol
Source: Spiegel Online
May 12, 2009
It is the end of long and bitter legal battle: The alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk has finally landed in Germany after months of fighting his deportation from the US. The 89-year-old landed at Munich airport on Tuesday morning. He could now face the last big Nazi trial in Germany.
The aircraft taxied directly into the Lufthansa hangar at 9.15 a.m. local time accompanied by police cars and ambulances. Demjanjuk was brought to the remand prison at Stadelheim in Munich, where
Source: AP
May 10, 2009
Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest plantation retreat has unveiled its $6 million, 20-year architectural restoration to the third president's original vision as a private place to read, think and spend time with his grandchildren after he retired.
The octagon-shaped neoclasssical home painstakingly designed by Jefferson had been converted to a typical farmhouse some years after Jefferson's grandson sold it in 1828. Now visitors can view it as Jefferson did when he began his sojourns t
Source: Live Science
May 9, 2009
Modern Australia lacks big land predators, but until about 30,000 years ago, the continent was ruled by Thylacoleo carnifex, the marsupial "lion."
Several well-preserved skeletons of the leopard-size beast have been found. Now, a newly discovered cave painting offers a glimpse of the animal's external appearance.
In June 2008, Tim Willing, a naturalist and tour guide, photographed an ancient painting on a rockshelter wall near the shore of northwestern Austra
Source: The Local (Sweden)
May 8, 2009
Marine archaeologists in Sweden have discovered what they believe to be the wreck of a Viking ship at the bottom the country's largest lake.
A team of 50 divers from the Swedish coastguard happened upon the 20-metre long wreck by chance on Wednesday afternoon.
A few Viking boats have previously been discovered in Sweden, but earlier finds were made on dry land, Peterson explained. One of the ship's ribs was discovered protruding from t
Source: Andina (Peru)
May 8, 2009
Authorities in the Peruvian department of Ancash announced Friday the discovery of a number of tenon heads believed to be some 4,000 years old.
According to the Mayor of Huaylas district, Jose Espinoza Caballero, these ancient stone carvings were found in the Chupacoto town and would be older than the famous tenon heads of Chavin de Huantar Archaeological Complex.
He noted that the discovery shows the district’s great tourist and scientific potential, as it is consider
Source: LA Times
May 12, 2009
Wildfires destroy, but they can also reveal. For years, a monument marking the site of one of Orange County's most infamous killings sat largely obscured amid a thicket of mustard plants a hundred yards or so from the Foothill toll road.
But when the 2007 Santiago fire ripped through the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, firefighters discovered something that longtime residents of the rural area and local historians already knew.People were lynched there.
A few mont
