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: Lee White in Perspectives (October)
October 1, 2007
In 2016, it is conceivable that the president we elect in 2008 will be completing his or her second term in office. While that may seem a long way in the future, the National Park Service is already hard at work in preparation for its centennial in 2016. The Park Service has created a web site (www.nps.gov/2016) detailing the extensive planning that is already underway.
The Bush administration's Centennial Initiative proposes $3 billion in new
Source: MSNBC
October 16, 2007
In an interview with MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell this afternoon, Lynne Cheney revealed that while researching the Cheney family tree for her new book "Blue Skies, No Fences," she discovered that the Vice President Cheney and Barack Obama are related -- albeit distantly. According to Mrs. Cheney, the two politicians are eighth cousins.
*** Update *** The Obama campaign emails NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan that the Chicago Sun-Times actually wrote about this relation back in Septemb
Source: Newsday
October 18, 2007
London's Science Museum canceled a talk by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson after the Long Island-based scientist told a newspaper that Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence.
Watson, a world-renowned scientist who co-discovered the structure of the DNA molecule - one of the 20th century's greatest scientific finds - has been quoted in a London newspaper saying Africans are less intelligent than Europeans, prompting a backlash from researchers, even t
Source: http://home.hamptonroads.com
October 16, 2007
Four Revolutionary War battle flags that were spirited away to Britain more than 200 years ago as battle trophies will find their way to Virginia soon.
Colonial Williamsburg officials announced today that the flags –- three that flew over the 3rd Virginia Detachment, and a Connecticut cavalry flag -- will go on view Dec. 22 through Jan. 9, 2009, in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. The display is a coup. The flags were owned by the descendants of a British officer for more
Source: AP
October 17, 2007
A poll published Wednesday showed a quarter of Germans believe there were at least some positive aspects to Nazi rule — a finding that comes after a popular talk show host was fired for praising Nazi Germany's attitude toward motherhood.
Pollsters for the Forsa agency, commissioned by the weekly Stern magazine, asked whether National Socialism also had some "good sides (such as) the construction of the highway system, the elimination of unemployment, the low criminality rate (a
Source: International Herald Tribune
October 17, 2007
Almost from the start, it seems, humans headed for the shore to get away from the cares at home. But this was no holiday for them. More than likely, it was a matter of survival at a perilous time of climate change throughout Africa 164,000 years ago.
By then, Homo sapiens had developed a taste for shellfish, out of necessity and much earlier than previously thought, while adapting to life in caves on the craggy coast of southern Africa, scientists report in Thursday's issue of the j
Source: http://www.local6.com
October 16, 2007
A sheriff's dive team discovered what is believed to be a late-1800s era steamboat at the bottom of a Central Florida lake during a training exercise last month.
The Lake County sheriff's dive team found the boat at the bottom of Lake Minneola in the lake's southwest corner in Clermont while training with side-scan sonar, which they recently acquired.
The sonar is a piece of equipment that is dragged by a boat and projects images of the underwater environment.
Source: Reuters
October 16, 2007
It was sensational stuff that riveted a nation: A mild-mannered American doctor poisons then dismembers his unfaithful wife, flees England in disguise with his mistress -- and is caught, tried and hanged.
The problem is that the poisoned corpse that sent Dr Hawley Crippen to the gallows in London in 1910 was not that of his wife, according to new evidence found by U.S. researchers.
A team led by John Trestrail, head of the regional poison centre in Grand Rapids, Michiga
Source: WaPo
October 16, 2007
It was just a broken plate found buried in a trash heap. But to researchers at James Madison's estate, Montpelier, fragments of porcelain unearthed last month from the Virginia piedmont tell a story of a first lady, two U.S. presidents, a king and queen and the revolutions that bind their legacies more than 200 years later.
Discovered amid oyster shells, a chamber pot and shards of glass that filled a midden, or trash pile, near Dolley Madison's kitchen, a fractured dessert plate fo
Source: Boston Globe
October 17, 2007
The gathering of prominent black leaders and activists at Faneuil Hall a century ago was a pivotal moment in the history of the African-American civil rights movement and for Boston, but it has been largely forgotten.
W.E.B. DuBois, Boston's William Monroe Trotter, and scores of other organizers of the Niagara Movement, a civil rights organization that spawned the NAACP, met in 1907 to discuss how best to oppose segregationist laws in the United States.
Disagreements am
Source: NYT
October 16, 2007
Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution supported by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago.
Almost a dozen lawmakers had shifted against the measure over the last 24 hours, accelerating a sudden exodus that has cast deep doubt over the measure’s prospects. Some representatives made clear that they were heeding warnings fro
Source: NYT
October 18, 2007
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that she was reconsidering her pledge to force a vote on a resolution condemning as genocide the mass killing of Armenians starting in 1915, as President Bush intensified his push to derail the legislation.
“Whether it will come up or not and what the action will be remains to be seen,” Ms. Pelosi said in light of the decline in support for the proposal, which, though nonbinding, has angered Turkey and raised fears that the Turkish governmen
Source: Salon
October 18, 2007
The 2008 crop of presidential candidates is certainly a literate bunch. They've all written books, except Rep. Duncan Hunter,R-Calif., unless he's the Duncan Hunter who wrote, "A Martian Poet in Siberia," a self-published sci-fi novel about global warming. Published between 1972 and two weeks from now, the candidates' books vary as much as their authors, ranging from gripping personal revelation to high-minded speechifying to run-of-the-mill wonkery.
And we have read many
Source: NYT
October 17, 2007
Since leaving Capitol Hill in 1999, former Representative Robert L. Livingston has been the main lobbyist for Turkey in blocking Congressional efforts to pass an Armenian genocide resolution.
After succeeding twice before — and collecting more than $12 million in fees for his firm, the Livingston Group — he is pushing once again for his client.
In recent months, Mr. Livingston, a Louisiana Republican who was once speaker-designate of the House, has consulted with Vice P
Source: Newsweek
October 22, 2007
Never mind the man she's married to, Hillary Clinton isn't big on feelings. "Unthinking emotion," she wrote a friend in college, "has always been pitiful to me." In "For Love of Politics," Sally Bedell Smith's new book on Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage during their White House years, the First Lady is a woman determined not to surrender to emotion, even when her husband and the nation have. While President Clinton idles away an hour hugging his way through a ro
Source: NYT
October 16, 2007
Nine hundred years before Ho Chi Minh declared Hanoi the capital of a newly independent Vietnam in 1945, the first king of the Ly Dynasty issued a similar decree.
In 1010 King Ly Thai To picked Thang Long (“Ascending Dragon”), situated within present-day Hanoi, as the capital for a country that had defeated the Tang Dynasty less than a century before, ending a millennium of Chinese rule.
“It is situated at the very heart of our country,” the king declared in Edict on th
Source: NYT
October 16, 2007
In an area the size of Wales centered on the Greek ruin here, the younger Qaddafi, a group of wealthy Libyans and a bevy of consultants are planning a carbon neutral green-development zone, catering to tourism and serving as a model for environmentally friendly design, they say.
The plan will protect Libya’s fantastic Greek and Roman ruins from haphazard developments as it protects the coastal ecosystem, one of the last remaining natural areas of the Mediterranean. Waters off Libya
Source: Christian Science Monitor
October 17, 2007
A dramatic rise in tourism ignites a debate in Mexico: Should a private family own an archaeological treasure?
***
Chichen Itza, Mexico - This ancient city, once the most important center of the Maya world, has stood in the jungle here for more than 1,000 years. Scattered across 100 acres, the remains of stone temples and a crumbling observatory offer an imposing glimpse into the innovative Maya civilization, which recorded the annual solar cycle with Swiss-watch precis
Source: The Age
October 16, 2007
[Prime Minister Howard's plan to require students in grades 9 and 10 to take 150 hours of Australian history classes has raised practical questions, say some.]
The History Teachers Association of Australia obviously wants the subject accorded a higher status, but warns of the time and resources this plan requires. It estimates 10,000 extra specialist teachers would have to be trained as history goes from a fringe subject to one taught over a mandated 150 hours to every student. To
Source: AP
October 16, 2007
A second boat belonging to a Florida company embroiled in a court battle with Spain over a US$500 million (euro350 million) sunken treasure was seized Tuesday, police said.
Spain's Civil Guard said officers approached the vessel, the Odyssey Explorer, as it left the British colony of Gibraltar off Spain's southern tip. Upon entering Spanish waters, the boat was ordered to the nearby Spanish port of Algeciras for inspection, police said.
The Civil Guard said it was actin
