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
September 14, 2005
A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday, a decision that could put the divisive issue on track for another round of Supreme Court arguments.
The case was brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words ''under God'' was rejected last year by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds.
Source: Rocky Mountain News
September 10, 2005
Seven charges of possible research misconduct leveled against University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill are being forwarded for full investigation, a CU official announced Friday.
The allegations, including charges of plagiarism, misuse of others' work, misrepresenting his sources and fabrication of material he presented as fact, could lead to the tenured ethnic studies professor's firing.
Source: NYT
September 12, 2005
In 1966, the Supreme Court held that the poll tax was unconstitutional. Nearly 40 years later, Georgia is still charging people to vote, this time with a new voter ID law that requires many people without driver's licenses - a group that is disproportionately poor, black and elderly - to pay $20 or more for a state ID card. Georgia went ahead with this even though there is not a single place in the entire city of Atlanta where the cards are sold.
Source: Korea.net
September 14, 2005
A document retrieved nearly 40 years ago from Bulguk-sa Temple in Gyeongju, South Korea has been identified as an 11th or 12th century Goryeo Kingdom record of the restoration work done on the temple's Seokgatap Pagoda, one of the nation's most famous structures, said the National Museum of Korea on Wednesday.
Experts expect the handwritten document, made up of some 100 palm-sized sheets of mulberry paper, will provide a more accurate account of the stone pagoda's history.
Source: Scoop
September 14, 2005
Thirty-two Tibetan cultural relics returned to the mainland will be auctioned by Chengming International Auction Company on September 17 in Beijing. The relics are now on display at the Asia Hotel until September 15.
Huang Jing, president of Chengming International Auction Company, said these relics, held previously by a Taiwan collector, are all from Tibet and most of them are connected with Tibetan Buddhism. Experts say these relics are of high historical and
Source: Parkersburg News and Sentinel
September 14, 2005
During the next two weeks students in public schools and colleges will learn about the United States Constitution while abiding by a new federal law. A provision tacked onto an appropriations bill late last year by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., requires federally funded educational institutions - elementary schools and universities alike - to observe the first Constitution Day.Byrd, a history buff known for keeping a copy of the Constitution in his pocket at all times, sough
Source: Boston Globe
September 14, 2005
It has taken 60 years for Germany's soccer federation to face up to a dark period in its history when it collaborated with the Nazis. A new book, "Fussball underm Hakenkreuz" ("Soccer under the Swastika") is a first, if belated, attempt by the federation (DFB) to look at the dirt swept under the carpet immediately after the collapse of the Nazi regime it once wholeheartedly backed.The book illuminates how closely the DFB cooperated with the Na
Source: Guardian (UK)
September 13, 2005
For more than half a century, historians have wondered what the Nazis would have done had they won the second world war. Now the matter can be settled. A report, unread for 65 years, reveals the Nazis' top priority once they had destroyed the allies, exterminated the Jews and occupied Europe. They were going to build a big, flash nightspot in Berlin.
"It'll be the most beautiful, the most modern, the most elegant in Europe", enthused the report's author, Giuseppe Renzetti.
Source: Guardian (UK)
September 10, 2005
Long before the bra-burning 60s, equal rights were topical for Enlightenment women in the 18th century, who challenged male preserves of politics and science. In 1732, Laura Bassi was awarded a doctorate in natural philosophy from the University of Bologna; a few months later she was appointed to a professorship there. For 45 years she taught philosophy, mathematics and Newtonian physics. She received two further professorships and corresponded with leading scientists across
Source: AP
September 14, 2005
More than 116 years before Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, a flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania exposed the rift between rich and poor, the kindness of strangers and, in the end, the power of the human spirit to rebuild. "It's more than just a disaster. It was the biggest story of the late 19th century," said Richard Burkert, executive director of the Johnstown Flood Museum.
In 1889, flooding wasn't anything new to the approximately 25,000 residents in this valley t
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
September 13, 2005
Iraq's children have returned to school for the start of a fresh academic year with a new syllabus that has all but erased Saddam Hussein from its history. After two years of debate, the education department has completed textbooks to replace those that portrayed the past purely from a Baathist view.However, in a tribute to the sensitivities of post-Saddam Iraq, the revised version of history is, on some subjects, as partial and shot through with gaps as the old.
Source: NYT
September 13, 2005
An early reference to Alexander of Macedon is the first hint of where the British Museum is heading in its new exhibition, "Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia." After all, to Persians then and Iranians now, there was nothing great about the Alexander who crushed the largest empire the world had yet known. Indeed, his burning of Persepolis in 331 B.C. was considered an act of vandalism.But the show, which runs through Jan. 8, goes further, challenging the
Source: History Today
September 6, 2005
MI5 files declassified at the National Archives detail the propaganda techniques intended for use against Britain by Nazi agents. In the Second World War the security services uncovered plots including an exploding chocolate bar, shaving brush detonators and bombs disguised as coal. False copies of the London Evening Standard were produced by the British, intended to cover-up reports of RAF fatalities. One Nazi propaganda leaflet stated: "Germany wants to live in peace
Source: NYT
September 13, 2005
In the years since the first book was published in the United States in 1941, "George" has become an industry. The books have sold more than 27 million copies. There have been several "Curious George" films, including an animated one featuring the voice of Will Ferrell that is scheduled for release this February, and theater productions, not to mention the ubiquitous toy figure. Next year, PBS will begin a Curious George series for pre-schoolers. But in truth, "Curious G
Source: NYT
September 10, 2005
A judge sent Edgar Ray Killen, the former Klansman convicted of the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, back to prison yesterday, saying Mr. Killen had deceived the court about his health when he asked to be released on bond.The hearing was called after Mr. Killen, who was granted bail after testifying that he was confined to a wheelchair, was seen up and walking by sheriff's deputies.
Edgar Ray Killen waved Friday while being
Source: Washington Post
September 12, 2005
Last month, Henry "Hank" Crumpton, a revered master of CIA covert operations, formally came in from the cold.Crumpton gained almost mythical fame after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- always anonymously. He is the mysterious "Henry" in the Sept. 11 commission report, which notes he persistently pressed the CIA to do more in Afghanistan before Osama bin Laden's terrorist spectaculars. Two key proposals to track al Qaeda were turned down.
Source: NYT
September 13, 2005
China said on Monday that it would no longer treat the death toll in natural disasters as a state secret, a step that could lead to greater transparency in a country that has a long history of providing partial or misleading data about diseases, accidents, and state-directed atrocities.Information about casualties in storms and floods is no longer routinely suppressed in China, as it was before the country opened its doors to the outside world a quarter century a
Source: Ottawa Citizen
September 13, 2005
Brian Mulroney's memiors, written with Peter C. Newman, create a stir Canadian press.For a dozen years, since Brian Mulroney left politics and returned to Montreal, he has tried to recast his record and rehabilitate his reputation. He has had the time and space that former leaders need to put between themselves and their people and their prejudices.
...
Leaders who may have been unpopular when they left office, such as Pierre Elliott Trudeau, often grow in stat
Source: The New Zealand Herald
September 13, 2005
Labour elder stateswoman Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan is urging voters to protect the Maori seats by voting for the Maori Party. Warning of "an uprising" if National abolishes the seats, Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan, the Labour MP for Southern Maori for 29 years, said Parliament "is the lion's den in Maori, te ana raiona, and we need our gladiators in there".Labour elder stateswoman Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan is urging voters to protect the Maori seats by voting
Source: The Australian
September 13, 2005
Sydney academic Andrew Fraser is to publish his contentious views on race and culture in a Victorian university law journal only weeks after his own university banned him from teaching. Professor Fraser, of Macquarie University, said the acceptance of his 6800-word article by the peer-reviewed journal of Deakin University law school vindicated his stand. The article, Rethinking the White Australia Policy, will appear later this month, and argues that the latest science supports the decision by t
