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: NYT
February 17, 2008
It’s far too soon to know what role Mr. Obama will play in history, let alone whether he can be compared to F.D.R., or, as he is most commonly, to John F. Kennedy. But it is perhaps time to look more closely at this label that attaches to him, and how it has been applied in the past.
The “cult of personality” is used in the pejorative. But recast as a different name — call it charisma — and, as Roosevelt and other examples show, it can be a critical element of politics and its pract
Source: NYT
February 17, 2008
AS Bill Clinton was the first baby boomer president, Barack Obama could be the first Generation X president.
Or, depending on how you figure it, Mr. Obama, born in 1961, could be the third boomer in chief, following Presidents Clinton and Bush. In theory, the candidate Obama belongs in the boom, defined by the Census Bureau as births during the years 1946 to 1964.
But the practice of defining generations is more complicated than the theory. Often their labels are about
Source: NYT
February 16, 2008
REVOLUTIONARIES know exactly what they want to tear down, but often lack the ability to predict what will come next. That was true of Ebrahim Yazdi and many of his allies in the Iranian revolution who now, three decades later, still savor the memory of the day the shah fled Iran, but struggle with the bitter reality that they have been spit out, marginalized and rejected by what it is they helped create.
Iran celebrated the 29th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution this month, but
Source: WaPo
February 17, 2008
The Lucasville School opened in 1885, just south of Manassas on a small plot owned by a former slave. It was an austere one-room building with a cast-iron stove and a blackboard and probably had portraits of Frederick Douglass, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln on the walls.
For the next 40 years, black students in grades one through six took classes there in subjects such as domestic science, nature study and agriculture. It wasn't fancy, but for children whose parents and gran
Source: http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org
February 16, 2008
Over the course of 100 days in the fall of 1896, William Jennings Bryan gave more than 500 speeches. He was the Democratic nominee, and his presidential campaign was so broke, he took his message directly to just about every Midwestern town with a train station and a soapbox. Several million people showed up.
He was a fantastic orator. Picture him with 10,000 screaming Nebraskans behind him, and you can imagine what his Republican rival was up against.
"You had Wil
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 15, 2008
A German socialist MP has been urged to resign after calling for the return of the secret police.
The MP, a member of The Left party, said bringing the Stasi back could be "useful".
Christel Wegner, one of The Left's six new MPs in the state legislature in Lower Saxony following last month’s elections, said it would be "useful to have the Stasi back to deal with (conservative) reactionary forces."
Source: Boston Globe
February 15, 2008
It may be a new image of Lizzie Borden: An angelic 8- or 9-year-old girl with a hint of baby fat still noticeable in her creamy white cheeks. In the black-and-white photograph, she seems proud of the feather in her straw hat and her wool coat with a satin lined collar.
That is far from the prevailing impression of Borden. Despite her acquittal at trial, she is commonly depicted as an ax-wielding spinster who got away with the murder of her father and stepmother in Fall River in 1892
Source: AP
February 16, 2008
President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday defended a plan to require 10-year-olds to honor child victims of the Holocaust, saying adults should not hide terrible truths from children.
The idea, floated by the president earlier this week, rankled psychologists worried about traumatizing youth and has teachers reviving debates about how France remembers World War II. But Sarkozy stood firmly by the plan in meetings with teachers over proposed reforms of France's school system.
Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp
February 15, 2008
The Kanagawa Prefectural Board of Education has announced plans to make Japanese history mandatory at its 152 prefecture-run high schools as early as the academic year beginning 2012.
Prefectures across the country reportedly have been considering making Japanese history compulsory at high schools, but Kanagawa Prefecture will be the first to do so. Japanese history is currently an elective subject, in line with the government's teaching guidelines.
The guidelines stipu
Source: http://canadianpress.com
February 15, 2008
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is delaying its reopening from this summer to the fall.
Museum Director Brent Glass said the museum has received inquiries from visitors making travel plans, and wanted to provide them with a more realistic time frame for the reopening. An exact date has not been set.
The museum closed in the fall of 2006 for a $85-million renovation. Some of its most popular artifacts, such as Dorothy's ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz
Source: http://www.standardnewswire.com
February 14, 2008
On Tuesday, President George W. Bush used an annual White House ceremony recognizing Black History Month to denounce displays of nooses and jokes about lynching. The president's remarks grew out of concern over increased reports of racial tensions. President Bush recognized several prominent black Americans and introduced Rev. Al Sharpton. The following is Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson's statement about what transpired at the White House ceremony:
"President Bush is a decent man and
Source: International Herald Tribune
February 14, 2008
BORDEAUX: The plan's scope was enormous. The surviving examples are as common across Europe as Roman ruins. More than 330,000 men struggled against the clock to meet construction schedules. Yet all the effort proved fruitless.
Today, 63 years after the end of World War II, the remains of the Nazis' Atlantic Wall are there for all to see, although few observers realize the extent of what they are seeing. No complete inventory has ever been done, but specialists estimate that some 6,0
Source: BBC
February 15, 2008
It looks incongruous across the dank, misty farmland north of Ypres. A large party marquee erected amongst the winter stubble; but it marks one of the most ambitious battlefield archaeology projects ever attempted.
I last visited this farm a year ago, on that occasion soggy from recent rain and swept by chilly easterly winds. Across that landscape a small survey team were mapping what lay below, using ground-penetrating radar.
Ninety years after Flanders was torn apart
Source: Economist
February 14, 2008
WHEN Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia's federal security service (FSB), spoke to his staff to mark the 90th anniversary of the Soviet secret service last year, he made an odd historic diversion. “Those who study history know that security existed before. Sophia Paleologue married Ivan III, and being a niece of the last Byzantine emperor, paid close attention to questions of security.” Few understood what he was talking about.
The mystery was cleared up a few weeks later, when Russi
Source: Adam Holland's blog
February 14, 2008
Will Williams, who was a leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance Party for two decades, someone with connections with racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Church of the Creator, appeared on the Tennessee Republican primary ballot on Ron Paul's slate of delegates.
Source: Belfast Herald (Ireland)
February 15, 2008
Two hundred years ago, Napoleon launched an invasion that would change Europe – and warfare – for ever. Now the Spanish are celebrating what some see as their finest hour.Brutality was nonetheless laced with heroism, which is why the Spanish War (as the French call it) became – despite the loss of an estimated million lives – a romanticised episode in Spain's collective memory, a brief precious moment of glory that today everyone seeks to reclaim. This is hardly surprising,
Source: AFP
February 15, 2008
A proposal from President Nicolas Sarkozy that French 10-year-olds should sponsor the memory of Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis set off an outcry on Friday among psychologists, parents and the political left.In an address to Jewish leaders, Sarkozy said that from the start of the next academic year pupils in their last year of primary school should be "entrusted with the memory of one of the 11,000 French children who fell victim to the Holocaust."
Source: AP
February 15, 2008
Amid a discussion of trade in 1973, Chinese leader Mao Zedong made what U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a novel proposition: sending tens of thousands, even 10 million, Chinese women to the United States.
"You know, China is a very poor country," Mao said, according to a document released by the State Department's historian office.
"We don't have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, s
Source: Japan Today
February 14, 2008
A site of a Japanese village dating back to the 17th century has been found in the outskirts of Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, a Japanese archaeologist said Wednesday. Hiroshi Sugiyama, chief research fellow at Japan's National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, said that based on research since 2004 and analyses of excavations and documents, the site in Ponhea Lueu Commune, about 25 kilometers north of Phnom Penh, is a Japanese village dating back to the 17th century.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 14, 2008
For decades generations of Cambridge undergraduates have fantasised about a secret stash of Victorian pornography in the university's library tower.
Many have tried to gain access to the chamber to uncover its illicit secrets. So intrigued was Stephen Fry by the collection that he wrote about it in his first novel, The Liar.
Despite the brilliant scientists, spies and politicians that the university has produced, no student is believed to have gained access to the close
