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: Federal Register
July 25, 2006
The NARA plans to eliminate Saturday hours and change the research room hours to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays in the National Archives Building and National Archives at College Park facility. The NARA plan seeks to lower operating costs during low-use periods, "more closely reflecting NARA official business hours in those facilities."This interim final rule also modifies the hours the exhibit areas in the National Archives Building, Washington, DC, are open
Source: Asahi Herald Tribune (Japan)
July 26, 2006
Records of an interview given by Emperor Hirohito immediately after Japan's surrender in World War II show him naming wartime military leader Hideki Tojo as responsible for the sneak 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Historians had long speculated about who actually gave the order for the attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii that brought U.S. forces into World War II. Until now, no documents had been found in Japan that named Tojo, the wartime prime minister, as responsible.
Source: Guardian Unlimited (UK)
July 22, 2006
The secret police of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu recruited thousands of children to spy on schoolfriends, parents and teachers, according to communist-era archives. They show that the Securitate blackmailed children across Romania into becoming informers in the late 1980s, as the whiff of liberalisation in the Soviet bloc prompted Ceausescu to tighten his grip on the country.The files have shocked Romanians and prompted calls for an inquiry into why many of the agent
Source: Ralph Luker at HNN blog Cliopatria
July 26, 2006
A group, calling itself Academics against Israeli Aggression on Lebanon and Gaza, has put up an on-line petition. You can read the text of and/or sign it at the link. Among the more than 750 signatures so far: Joel Beinin of Stanford, Judith Butler of UC-Berkeley, Noam Chomsky of MIT, Norman Finkelstein of DePaul, and Andrew Ross of NYU.
Source: NYT
July 23, 2006
OF all the powers of the presidency, the veto is among the most potent.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt rejected or failed to sign 635 bills during his 12 years in office, using his veto power to keep Congress — run by his fellow Democrats — subservient. Harry S. Truman vetoed 250 bills; Dwight D. Eisenhower, 181. Bill Clinton used one of 37 vetoes to reject a law banning a particular type of abortion.
But until last week, when President Bush vetoed a bill to expand federally
Source: NYT
July 23, 2006
It was just four minutes, after all, out of six years. Yes, the tape could conceivably fall into the bin of political history that includes the hours of recordings of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, which give deep looks into each man’s character and way of doing business. But it’s far more likely that it will fall into what can best be described as the blooper bin, which includes moments that draw a lot of attention in their day but give historians less to wo
Source: CBS News
July 25, 2006
After the Titanic, the sinking of the Andrea Doria was the most dramatic peacetime sea disaster of the 20th century. Fifty years ago, on July 25, 1956, a collision with another ship doomed the Italian passenger liner — and triggered a frantic rescue effort for the more than 1,700 people on board.
For her time, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Schlesinger, the Andrea Doria was top of the line. She was the pride of the Italian fleet — and the way to America for Antonio De Girol
Source: NYT
July 25, 2006
Three vertebrae, removed from the body of President James A. Garfield, sit on a stretch of blue satin. A red plastic probe running through them marks the path of his assassin’s bullet, fired on July 2, 1881.
The vertebrae form the centerpiece of a new exhibit, commemorating the 125th anniversary of Garfield’s assassination. The exhibit also features photographs and other images that tell the story of the shooting and its aftermath, in which Garfield lingered on his deathbed for 80 d
Source: CBS
July 22, 2006
President Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative." And he continues to nurture his conservative base — even issuing his first veto this week against embryonic stem cell research.
But lately his foreign policy has come under fire from some conservatives — including the father of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley.
CBS Evening News Saturday anchor Thalia Assuras sat down for an exclusive interview with Buckley about his disagreements with Pr
Source: AP
July 25, 2006
Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who spotted something while driving the shovel of his backhoe into a bog.
The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries. "This is really a miracle find," said Pat Wallace, director of the Nat
Source: NYT
July 25, 2006
A major survey of American museums has found that many have not yet done significant research to determine whether works in their collections were looted during the Nazi era, despite a collective agreement seven years ago to make such work a priority.
The survey of 332 museums, to be released today, was conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, known as the Claims Conference, a New York-based organization created after World War II to help restore Jewish
Source: Blogenspiel (blog)
July 25, 2006
Carnivalesque, the monthly carnival of pre-modern history (alternating between Early Modern and Ancient/Medieval editions) is up at xoom.
Source: WSJ
July 19, 2006
Paging Sacagawea: Lewis and Clark have lost their way again.
When President Bush issued a proclamation in 2002 creating a Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration, tourism officials from Virginia to Oregon pounced on it as a potential blockbuster. But as the three-year celebration enters its homestretch, participating communities are still waiting for the Lewis and Clark gravy train to leave the station.
"It's the great Lewis and Clark letdown," says Dave Hunt
Source: Inside Higher Ed
July 24, 2006
A group of professors — many of them brought together somewhat ironically by David Horowitz — have joined forces to say that the officer’s motives do matter, and may matter more than the speeding. And they are organizing a petition drive, drawing support from some big-name academics, against Churchill’s dismissal. The group is called Teachers for a Democratic Society and its original members were all among those included in Horowitz’s The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
July 24, 2006
While most scholarly books are reviewed by a few carefully chosen experts before publication, McKenzie Wark's latest monograph is getting line-by-line critiques from hundreds of strangers in cyberspace, many of whom know absolutely nothing about his academic field.
Mr. Wark, a professor of media and cultural studies at New School University, has put the draft of his latest book online in an experimental format inspired by academic blogs and the free-for-all spirit of Wikipedia, the
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
July 24, 2006
Dale Pontius made headlines for years saying things he felt needed to be said.
In 1952, when he was a Roosevelt University political science professor, Pontius was arrested for heckling U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy while the communist-hunter was giving a televised speech at the Palmer House.
Ten years later, Pontius made news worldwide -- including the front page of the New York Times -- for criticizing Soviet policy while giving a speech at a conference in Moscow.
Source: NYT
July 24, 2006
The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.
In a comprehensive report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Mr. Bush had used such “signing statements” far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on hi
Source: NYT
July 24, 2006
Reathel Odum, a bank clerk who was chosen by Senator Harry S. Truman during the Depression to be one of his secretaries and later served in the White House as personal secretary to Bess Truman, died in her hometown, Benton, Ill., on June 6. She was 97.
Miss Odum’s nephew, Richard Odum Hart, said news of her death was not released for several weeks.
In 17 years with the Trumans — including two years chaperoning their daughter, Margaret, when she was making national tours
Source: Tulsa World
July 22, 2006
The Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee concedes that those on the other side of the global warming debate have dominated the air waves lately, but he remains confident that his side will be proved right in the end.
Indeed, Inhofe insists that he feels even stronger about taking on what he sees as the current hysteria about global warming than he did several years ago when he first uttered that now-famous hoax statement.
Source: NYT
July 21, 2006
Researchers in Germany said Thursday that they planned to collaborate with an American company in an effort to reconstruct the genome of Neanderthals, the archaic human species that occupied Europe from 300,000 years ago to 30,000 years ago until being displaced by modern humans.
Long a forlorn hope, the sequencing, or decoding, of Neanderthal DNA suddenly seems possible because of a combination of analytic work on ancient DNA by Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evoluti
