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: AHA Perspectives (Dec. 2005)
December 17, 2005
Historian Jesse Lemisch is questioning the American Historical Association's decision not to take a stand on Armenian genocide. Lemisch, Professor Emeritus of History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says that the AHA should forthrightly state that Armenians were massacred in World War I just as the organization has stated in the past that millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust. In short, the AHA should either condemn both genocides or neither. In response AHA President James Shee
Source: NYT
December 16, 2005
According to a long-secret Israeli government document, the Kopel Report, which was made public this year, members of the Israeli Olympic delegation sent to Munich in 1972 talked among themselves about the obvious lack of security at the athletes' living quarters.
In "Striking Back," a blunt, angry book incorporating some of the Kopel Report's findings, Aaron J. Klein analyzes this massacre and the acts of retaliation it prompted. Mr. Klein, a former Israeli intelligence
Source: NYT
December 16, 2005
With a toast of Champagne and a lunch of roast pheasant (shot by the host himself), George Ramsden, a British bookseller in a pinstripe suit, signed a $2.6 million agreement to sell the 2,600-volume Edith Wharton library to the custodians of the Mount, the writer's estate in Lenox, Mass., which she designed, built and finally left forever in 1911 as her marriage unraveled.
"It is the most important acquisition we could possibly make," Stephanie Copeland, head of the Mount'
Source: NYT
December 16, 2005
A gene that is responsible for the pale skin of Europeans and the dark skin of Africans has been discovered by scientists at Pennsylvania State University.
The gene comes in two versions, one of which is found in 99 percent of Europeans and the other in 93 to 100 percent of Africans, the researchers report in today's issue of Science. The new gene falls into the same category as the Duffy gene, and it may shed light on the evolutionary pressures to w
Source: Herald (Glasgow)
December 16, 2005
HE left clues as well as bodies but now it is hoped a breakthrough in DNA technology will lead to the true identity of Jack the Ripper being revealed, more than 100 years after he committed his crimes.
Professor Ian Findlay, a Scottish-born scientist, is attempting to build up a genetic "fingerprint" of the serial killer by taking samples of saliva on the back of envelopes sent to police at the time of the killings.Once his DNA is known, it can
Source: Boston Globe
December 16, 2005
The European Union official overseeing Turkey's admission to the 25-nation bloc warned yesterday that Turkey's prosecution of a bestselling author for insulting "Turkishness" could damage the country's chances of joining the EU."It is not Orhan Pamuk who will stand trial, but Turkey," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said in an unusually blunt statement released in Brussels. "This is a litmus test of whether Turkey is seriously commi
Source: Guardian
December 17, 2005
The trial of one of the world's leading novelists, Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's most important free-speech test case for years, was adjourned for seven weeks yesterday.
Amid scenes of mayhem and abuse at an Istanbul courthouse, the case was put back to February 7, while the Turkish government was handed the hot political potato of deciding whether to prosecute the author or drop the case.Armed riot police in body armour and white helmets thronged the narrow corri
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
December 16, 2005
In an effort to create a forum for discussion of a recurrent problem among their country's foreign students, two Australian scholars have started a journal devoted largely to the issue of plagiarism. The International Journal for Educational Integrity, a freely accessible online publication that made its debut last week, will cover matters of academic rectitude, including soft marking, fraud, and other forms of academic dishonesty, as well as plagiarism.
Source: Chicago Tribune
December 16, 2005
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" summons visions of racial brutality in another place and time. But Uncle Tom's Cabin stands today in Rockville, Md., and the property is for sale.
Its owner, Hildegarde Mallet-Prevost, died in September at 100, and her family is selling the three-bedroom colonial with the attached log cabin that was once home to Josiah Henson, the slave whose 1849 autobiography was the model for Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
Source: EduGeek
December 16, 2005
One of the extraordinary stories of the Internet age is that of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. This radical and rapidly growing publication, which includes close to 4 million entries, is now a much-used resource. But it is also controversial: if anyone can edit entries, how do users know if Wikipedia is as accurate as established sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica?
Several recent cases have highlighted the potential problems. One article was revea
Source: Log Cabin Democrat
December 16, 2005
Construction crews remodeling an old five-and-dime store uncovered a relic found most often in museums and history books: the words "WHITE" and "COLORED" painted over the spots where water fountains once hung."Well, I was pretty amazed," said Charles Moenning, the head of construction on a project to turn the old S.H. Kress store into loft apartments and retail space. "I have never seen anything like that in my life, in person,
Source: Defense Department
December 16, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Navy seaman missing in action from the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Seaman 2nd Class Warren P. Hickok of Kalamazoo, Mich. The family has not set a date for his burial.Hickok was assigned to the Light Mine Layer the USS Sicard when the Japanese atta
Source: Romanesko
December 16, 2005
Robert Novak is finished with the network on Dec. 31. CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein says: "Through the years, Bob has offered incisive analysis for much of CNN's programming, including Crossfire, The Capital Gang, Inside Politics, Evans and Novak, The Novak Zone, and Novak, Hunt and Shields. Bob has also been a valued contributor to CNN's political coverage. We appreciate his many contributions and wish him well in future endeavors."
Source: AP
December 15, 2005
Morgan Freeman says the concept of a month dedicated to black history is "ridiculous."
"You're going to relegate my history to a month?" the 68-year-old actor says in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" to air Sunday (7 p.m. EST). "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."Black History Month has roots in historian Carter G. Woodson's Negro History Week, which he designated in 1926 as
Source: Palm Beach Post
December 16, 2005
Next month will be the first annual American Jewish History Month if President Bush accepts a resolution the U.S. House passed late Thursday. The measure passed unanimously with a 423-0 vote. The non-binding resolution sponsored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Pembroke Pines, urges Bush to designate by executive order the month of January each year as American Jewish History month, similar to the way February has been designated Black History Month.
Source: Scotsman
December 16, 2005
A massive archive detailing the history of medieval medicine is set to be made homeless. The archive, weighing around four tonnes, is the work of archaeo-botanist Dr Brian Moffat, who has spent the past 20 years investigating the work of medieval monks at the former Soutra Hospital site at Soutra Aisle, Midlothian. Dr Moffat has housed his archive at the nearby former Fala Primary School, Fala, for the past three years, since he was forced to move it from its original home a
Source: The Australian
December 16, 2005
MOROCCO'S King Mohammed VI has ordered the release of a report probing three decades of rights abuses, including killings and torture, while his human rights panel called on the state to apologise and end impunity.
The king has "taken note of the nature of the final report of the Equity and Reconciliation Panel (IER) and commanded that it be published and brought to the knowledge of the people," a palace statement in the north African kingdom said.The
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
December 16, 2005
For thousands of years, the brutal battle had been lost to history. Around 3500 B.C., just across the Iraqi border in present-day Syria, an invading army from the south laid waste to a strategic city.
The invaders showered the city with hundreds of small clay missiles, knocked down fortification walls, burned buildings and perhaps took inhabitants captive.
This clearly was no minor skirmish," said Clemens Reichel of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute. &
Source: Network of Concerned Historians
December 16, 2005
The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN reports about the trial of author Orhan Pamuk today, which was suspended. Pamuk faces up to three years' imprisonment for expressing an opinion about the Armenian genocide of 1915 and the Kurdish insurrection of 1984- 2000. PEN also highlights a dozen similar cases. INTERNATIONAL PEN
PEN OBSERVERS DESCRIBE "UGLY AND VIOLENT" SCENES TRIAL OF ORHAN PAMUK
16 December 2005
Source: Wa Po
December 15, 2005
While investigating a proposed site to erect the 1,700 year old obelisk returned recently by Italy, archaeologists using high-tech imaging equipment discovered a major network of underground royal tombs. The discovery of more ancient artifacts has launched renewed interest in Aksum, a powerful kingdom that ruled the Horn of Africa from the 1st to the 6th century A.D. and was one of the four great civilizations at that time, alongside Rome, China and Persia.
But the historical finds
