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: Rasmussen Reports
February 26, 2009
In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Since then, the stock market has fallen roughly 3,000 points, millions of jobs have been lost, nearly a trillion dollars has been spent so far to bail out the financial industry, an add
Source: NYT
February 28, 2009
The memory of how a former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, died appears to have sobered those hoping to prosecute his assassins.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which begins proceedings on Sunday in a leafy suburb near The Hague, has planted an impressive arsenal of security devices, with an extra focus on forestalling car bombs.
Mr. Hariri and 22 others were killed when a white van exploded near his motorcade in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 14, 2005
Source: NYT
February 28, 2009
He’s already installed and inscribed his tombstone. He’s recruited a rabbi to preside over his funeral. He’s been saying some goodbyes. He insists he no longer carries any grudges; well, maybe just a few. He’s issued an apology or two and even confesses to a few regrets as mayor.
Ed Koch, at 84, isn’t dead yet.
But the former mayor — still looming though stooped from stenosis, a spinal degeneration — is philosophically confronting his own mortality. His is a life that h
Source: WaPo
March 1, 2009
Today, we presented in verse the story of an on-going controversy about the state song of Maryland."Maryland, My Maryland," sung to the tune of"Oh Christmas Tree," has been the state's official ditty since 1939. Legislators periodically propose changing the lyrics, which were written in 1861 as a call for Maryland to join the Confederacy. Later this week, the House and Senate will hear bills that propose changing the lyrics of the song to a poem written in 1894.
Related Lin
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 1, 2009
In a letter dated December 3, 1941, the Welsh Parliamentary Party wrote to the Prime Minister to demand a meeting to discuss a petition on the Welsh language.
Four days later – the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbour - Mr Churchill wrote in response: "Much as I should like to meet the deputation of the Welsh Parliamentary Party, I regret that, owing to the many tasks which fall to my lot at this time, it is impossible for me to arrange a date."
The petition's aim
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
February 28, 2009
For the old Kurdish shepherd, it was just another burning hot day in the rolling plains of eastern Turkey. Following his flock over the arid hillsides, he passed the single mulberry tree, which the locals regarded as 'sacred'. The bells on his sheep tinkled in the stillness. Then he spotted something. Crouching down, he brushed away the dust, and exposed a strange, large, oblong stone.
The man looked left and right: there were similar stone rectangles, peeping from the sands. Calli
Source: History Today
February 27, 2009
The auction of Gandhi’s glasses, pocket watch and sandals, as well as a bowl and plate, by Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York on March 4th and 5th was announced a couple of weeks ago. The sale of the personal belongings of a man renowned for his ascetic lifestyle and life philosophy sparked, however, considerable controversy. The announcement fuelled opposition in India, where some of Gandhi’s followers have requested that the buyer put the objects in the public domain and a group of MPs have de
Source: NYT
February 27, 2009
What does Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor who has dedicated his life to fighting hatred and intolerance, think about Bernard L. Madoff?
“ ‘Psychopath’ — it’s too nice a word for him,” Mr. Wiesel said in his first public comments on Mr. Madoff and the Ponzi scheme he is accused of perpetrating on thousands of individuals and charities, including the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.
“ ‘Sociopath,’ ‘psychopath,’ it means there is a si
Source: IHT
March 1, 2009
"We were victims, too," said Him Huy, the head of the guard detail at the Tuol Sleng torture house, who took part in the executions of thousands of people at a Khmer Rouge killing field.
As the prisoners knelt at the edges of mass graves, with their hands tied behind them, executioners swung iron bars at the backs of their heads - two times, if necessary - before they toppled forward into the pits.
"I had no choice," said Him Huy, 53. "If I hadn
Source: IHT
March 1, 2009
The truth, if ever it emerges, will come too late for Emilia Girón. For 65 years, the hard-bitten mother of seven ached to know what had become of her son, Jesús. Born during the vengeful early years of Franco's rule, he was taken from her to be baptized shortly after his birth. She never saw him again.
The story is part of a dark and overlooked chapter of the repressive Franco era that has drawn new attention since November, when Judge Baltasar Garzón ordered provincial judges to i
Source: BBC
March 1, 2009
The funeral has been held of the last British witness to the signing of the German surrender, signalling the end of World War II in Europe.
Susan Hibbert, from Andover, Hampshire, was a young sergeant in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, based at General Eisenhower's HQ in France at the time.
As a secretary in May 1945, she typed and retyped the surrender for 20 hours.
The 84-year-old's funeral was held at St Mary's Church in Abbots Ann, where she had l
Source: BBC
February 26, 2009
Narayanhiti, the former royal palace in the centre of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, has been reopened as a museum, nine months after the centuries-old monarchy was abolished.
It is a sign of Nepal's huge changes that the red ribbon opening the museum was cut by a Maoist former rebel - the Prime Minister, Prachanda.
The museum has been sensitively assembled in the rooms where the monarchs, including Birendra's brother and successor, Gyanendra, lived and worked.
Source: BBC
February 28, 2009
The Peruvian government has come under under fire for rejecting a $2m (£1.4m) donation from Germany to build a museum for victims of Peru's civil conflict.
The government in Lima initially failed to respond to the offer, saying the money would be better spent tackling poverty and hunger.
But the decision has been criticised by human rights groups and intellectuals.
Some 70,000 people died in the conflict between the military and Maoist rebels in the 1980
Source: BBC
February 25, 2009
An international tribunal has found three Sierra Leone rebels guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
RUF leaders Issa Sesay, 38, and Morris Kallon, 45, were convicted of 16 of the 18 charges, while Augustine Gbao, 60, was found guilty on 14 of the counts.
The Freetown trial of the RUF rebel leaders, related to Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war, began in mid-2004.
Many RUF victims in the court sighed with relief at the verdicts. Sentences will b
Source: Wall Street Journal
February 28, 2009
STOCKHOLM -- In neat script, blue ink on white letterhead, Fredrik von Dardel began writing to the stepson he had long been told to leave for dead: "Dear beloved Raoul."
It was March 24, 1956. He always wrote at his living-room table, his wife, Maria, looking on from a corner of the couch by the phone. On a chest, a spray of flowers she kept fresh stood beside a picture of her son, Raoul Wallenberg.
Mr. Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who safeguarded 20,000 J
Source: CBS News (video)
February 28, 2009
CBS News' Randall Pinkston chronicles the history of the Pullman car porters, African American train car employees who worked virtually nonstop in the hopes of fulfilling the American Dream.
Source: NYT
February 27, 2009
The rise of Colorado’s capital city and the rise of The Rocky, as it affectionately or scornfully became known, were intertwined from the beginning. The city was founded in late 1858, The Rocky the following April, as gold strikes were making the place a destination.
“Without The Rocky, Denver would not be the city it is today,” said Tom Noel, a professor of history at the University of Colorado in Denver.
On Friday, ashes were mostly all that was left of that legacy as
Source: ansa.it
February 25, 2009
Italy is planning to help Iraq create a new police unit to fight the
trafficking of stolen works, Culture Minister Sandro Bondi said Wednesday.
The new Iraqi unit will be based on Italy's crack team of art cops, who have gained a worldwide
reputation for their work in recovering stolen works and stopping illegal trading.
Flanked by Iraq's Tourism and Antiquities Minister Qahtan Abbas al-Jibouri, Bondi said the unit was
just one of a series of initiatives in a plan for ongoing cu
Source: CNN
February 25, 2009
The honors were late but still well-received Wednesday for members of the first all-African-American, all-female unit to serve overseas in World War II.
During the war, nearly 1,000 women from the "Six-Triple Eight" Central Postal Battalion moved mountains of mail for millions of American service members and civilians that clogged warehouses in England and France.
Their service to their country had been overlooked for years, starting with when they returned to
Source: Reuters
February 27, 2009
Poland has appealed for international donations to preserve facilities and exhibits at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz where more than one million Jews perished during World War Two.
The Auschwitz site, near the city of Krakow in southern Poland, comprises 155 camp buildings, 300 ruined facilities and hundreds of thousands of personal belongings and documents scattered over more than 200 hectares.
In a letter obtained by Reuters on Friday, Polish Prime Minister
