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: NOLA.com
September 19, 2005
When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, a group of highly trained professionals knew exactly what to do: Find and preserve Louis Armstrong's trumpet, John James Audubon's bird prints, a drum from the Battle of New Orleans and city records dating back to 1769. To a large extent, they succeeded. These and other irreplaceable ingredients of the city's history, along with Napoleon Bonaparte's death mask, early Carnival costumes and the paintings of acclaimed primitive artist Clementine Hunt
Source: Boston Globe
September 18, 2005
The federal government's mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe is only the latest bungling in a national disaster-response system that for years has been fraught with waste and fraud.A South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation has found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency in five years poured at least $330 million into communities spared the devastating effects of fires, hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes.
In the country's poorest c
Source: The Daily Missippian
September 19, 2005
With the winding down of rescue missions, Mississippi government agencies are now turning their focus to the economic restructuring of the coast, including the restoration of some of Mississippi’s oldest buildings. The wake of destruction left by Katrina affects both the state’s economic future and its efforts to preserve historic landmarks. State and federal agencies, as well as countless volunteers, are meeting to assess damages to historical buildings and coastal businesses.
Source: Boston Globe
September 18, 2005
Hurricane Katrina has taken its place as the worst natural disaster in American history, an immensity underlined by the unprecedented scope of the recovery plan outlined by President Bush in his speech from New Orleans' Jackson Square on Thursday night. But in many ways, so far little discussed in the national media, it can also be understood as a distinctly Southern disaster, bringing to the fore many of the characteristics that historians say have long defined the Deep South.
Source: US Newswire
September 19, 2005
Joe Adams, Ray Charles' long-time friend and manager, will present the Smithsonian museum with a braille keyboard, sunglasses, chess set, costumes and other memorabilia reflecting the storied career of musician Ray Charles. These objects tell the story of Charles' music career and will enhance the museum's collection of objects illustrating how people contend with their disabilities.
Source: NYT
September 19, 2005
PATARA, Turkey - Alexander the Great was here, and so was Saint Paul, on his way to Ephesus. Centuries later, the drafters of the American Constitution took the ancient Lycian League, which was based here, as an early example - in fact, it was history's earliest example - of the form of republican government they envisaged as well.The Lycian League was mentioned twice in the Federalist Papers, once by Alexander Hamilton, once by James Madison, so it could safely
Source: NYT
September 18, 2005
He had the right to remain silent. He knew that everything he said could and would be used against (and for) him. And yet, when Judge John G. Roberts Jr. was asked last week by Senator Arlen Specter, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, whether he believed the "right to privacy" existed in the Constitution, Mr. Roberts replied, "Senator, I do." History suggests that if he had not, Judge Roberts would have sunk his chances to become the 17th chief justice of the United St
Source: CBS News
September 18, 2005
President Bush's declining poll numbers may not be so surprising. Throughout American history, reelected presidents have run into difficulties during their second terms.
Source: NYT
August 18, 2005
The African Union plans to review South Africa's mediation role in Ivory Coast, where the peace process has stalled repeatedly, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the AU head, said on Saturday.
The 53-member AU had asked South Africa to mediate in the crisis in the West African nation after a civil war split the world's largest cocoa producer in two and a string of peace initiatives failed.
Source: NYT
August 17, 2005
For a man so seemingly intent on turning back time, there could be no better symbol than the one that Maulavi Qalamuddin has chosen for his campaign for Parliament: a clock.
Once, as the chief of the Department for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, Mr. Qalamuddin, a Muslim cleric, was the notorious face of Taliban-era moral policing. It was his men who cruised through town ordering the floggings of women who did not cover themselves from head to toe, or of men who dare
Source: NYT
August 16, 2005
Chile's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of former dictator Augusto Pinochet on charges that he ordered political abductions and murders as part of a conspiracy among South American dicatorships.
The high court upheld a decision by the Santiago Appeals Court in favour of the ailing ex-dictator, 89, who ruled with an iron fist from 1973-1990. But it is only one of dozens of investigations he faces.
Source: NYT
August 17, 2005
A judicial inquiry here is turning up evidence that Canadian police and intelligence agencies solicited and used information that was obtained from at least four Canadian citizens under torture by foreign intelligence agencies.
The main purpose of the inquiry is to explore the Canadian role in the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who has emerged as perhaps the most infamous example of the United States policy of rendition, the transfer of terrorism suspects to other nation
Source: Washington Post
August 17, 2005
Declaring "I am here as your warrior," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Friday that he will seek reelection in 2006, hoping to reverse a months-long slide in the polls and rejuvenate his campaign to pass three controversial ballot initiatives in November.
Girding for the toughest battle of his fledgling political career, the action-hero-turned-Republican politician came here -- the one major California city where his poll numbers have not plummeted -- and told a hand-p
Source: Washington Post
August 17, 2005
The rise of China as a regional force has shaken assumptions that had governed this vast region since the end of World War II, including that of uncontested U.S. naval and air power from California to the Chinese coast. With those days soon to end, senior officers said, the U.S. military in Asia is retooling to reflect new war-making technology, better prepare for military crises and counter any future threat from the emergent Chinese navy and air force.
Some U.S. specialists have p
Source: San Jose Mercury News
September 16, 2005
San Jose's darkest hour -- the 1933 lynching of two kidnapping suspects in St. James Park -- has sparked sudden interest in Hollywood. Three films about the city's macabre episode are in various stages of development, including one by former San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery and another that has just finished filming primarily in Oakland. But this may be two too many for the people involved, who are jostling over which treatment of the event is best suited for the screen.
Source: NYT
September 11, 2005
The National Constitution Center has something for everyone: life-size statues of the document's framers, slave shackles beside the Dred Scott display and a copy of the 1962 petition from Clarence Earl Gideon, the Florida drifter whose legal battle won every accused criminal the right to a lawyer. Late last month, one of the museum's chief boosters walked through, looking weak from Hodgkin's disease but showing no signs at age 75 of waning tenacity. His blue suit crisp, his few hairs white, he p
Source: WSJ
September 12, 2005
A new survey sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Wall Street Journal of 130 prominent professors of economics, history, law, and political science, places George W. Bush in the middle of the pack. The survey was conducted in Feb.-March 2005. George W. Bush comes in average (at 19), but ahead of Bill Clinton (22) and Calvin Coolidge (23). GW, Lincoln and FDR are 1, 2, 3. Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Pierce, Harding and Buchanan are considered failures. Of the postwar presidents three make i
Source: Reuters
September 16, 2005
The personal notebooks of Vasily Grossman, the Soviet author best known for his World War Two masterpiece "Life and Fate," offer a harrowing and sometimes surprising insight into life along the Nazis' eastern front. Published in English in a new book by British historian Antony Beevor, the accounts include details which the Soviet censors would never have allowed the public to see.
They include Grossman's implicit criticism of the Soviets' lack of readiness for the Nazi on
Source: Boston Globe
September 16, 2005
The boards of the Provincetown Theatre Company, a 40-year-old community troupe, and the Provincetown Repertory Theatre, a 10-year-old Equity theater, voted in late August to merge this fall and start putting on shows beginning early next year using the name of the famous Provincetown Players--that's causing concern. The proposed name spurred immediate controversy in theater circles. The legendary playwright Eugene O'Neill, who is considered the father of American drama, wrot
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
September 16, 2005
On September 8, President Bush issued a proclamation suspending the minimum wage requirements for relief workers engaged in Katrina recovery operations. But in order to do so, he relied upon a statutory authority that has been dormant for thirty years and that appears to be legally inoperative."I find that the conditions caused by Hurricane Katrina constitute a 'national emergency' within the meaning of section 3147 of title 40, United States Code," President
