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: AP
September 5, 2005
Once, long ago, Revolution Swimming Pool was the place for young residents of Charlotte, North Carolina to see each other and be seen. Later, it became a place of history and controversy as the first municipal pool in the state to admit black customers. Now the revolution has given way to the evolution of a city. The landmark pool will close Monday to make way for a $10 million dollar recreation center.
Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur
September 5, 2005
As the flood waters recede from New Orleans and the city takes up the sad task of counting the dead, historians are trying to account for musical treasures and contemplating whether New Orleans will regain its place as America's pre-eminent city for jazz.
Museum directors are still struggling to calculate the extent of losses. One of the biggest concerns is the state of the collection that was housed at the Old U.S. Mint in the French Quarter. The building's roof was torn off when H
Source: AP
September 5, 2005
German saboteurs designed an exploding chocolate bar for a campaign of sabotage against Britain in World War II, according to documents released Monday by the British National Archives. There was no evidence, however, that such lethal treats were ever deployed.The chocolate bomb was illustrated in documents which also explained that it was intended to blow up seven seconds after someone tried to break off a piece. The sketch of the device, labeled in English, was appar
Source: Boston Globe
September 5, 2005
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court raised the public consciousness on eminent domain when it permitted New London, Conn., officials to take a group of older homes along the city's waterfront for a private developer who plans to build offices, a hotel and convention center. But there is a long history of state governments assuming control of land for economic benefits. In 1867, New Hampshire's Supreme Court upheld the state's right to take private land for dams to power the mills that were the econo
Source: AP
September 5, 2005
Attention John Roberts: William H. Rehnquist's 19-year tenure as chief justice offers some useful lessons on how to be a successful leader of the Supreme Court.
When elevated to that job in 1986, some clerks wondered whether the 62-year-old conservative could lead the court effectively after dissenting in so many of its decisions since he became an associate justice in 1972. But Rehnquist showed little doubt that he could stage a conservative revival on an aging court known for libe
Source: NYT
September 5, 2005
President Bush nominated Judge John G. Roberts Jr. today to replace Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, whose death late Saturday opened a second vacancy on the Supreme Court and a new front in the ideological battle over the judiciary.Senate leaders agreed this morning to delay by at least two days the start of Mr. Roberts's confirmation hearing, which had been set to begin on Tuesday, when he was being considered to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Now that Mr. B
Source: NYT
September 4, 2005
The hurricane and the flood that followed took their toll on the cultural riches of New Orleans and the cities in its orbit. Museum directors were still struggling to gain a clear picture of the extent of losses, but some collections seem to have been spared, including the core holdings of the New Orleans Museum of Art, one of the most important in the Deep South.
Source: NYT
September 4, 2005
"THE first thing I say to them is, your role in this process is that of a bridegroom at a wedding: stay out of the way, be on time and keep your mouth shut."
So said Tom C. Korologos, a former Republican lobbyist and now ambassador to Belgium who has counseled hundreds of presidential nominees, including potential Supreme Court justices. Since July, when he was nominated for the court, Judge John G. Roberts Jr. has adhered literally to Mr. Korologos's prescription. Day after day, he h
Source: Washington Times
September 4, 2005
The United Nations this week characterized the cataclysmic storm as one of the world's worst natural disasters in terms of property damage, even outstripping the December tsunami in Asia that killed 180,000 people and caused $10 billion in destruction. "This is one of the most destructive natural disasters ever measured in the amount of homes destroyed, people affected, people displaced," said Jan Egeland, the United Nations' undersecretary-general for humani
Source: LAT
September 2, 2005
Attempts to have library books removed from shelves increased by more than 20% in 2004 over the previous year, according to a new survey by the American Library Assn.Three books with gay themes, including Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," were among the works most criticized.
"It all stems from a fearfulness of well-meaning people," says Michael Gorman, president of the library association. "We believe in parental r
Source: CNN
September 3, 2005
Aerial shots indicate the city jewel -- the French Quarter -- remains intact and relatively dry, he said. Café du Monde, the home of sugar-dusted beignets -- puffy, rectangular doughnuts -- is still there. Just across the street behind Jackson Square, the Cabildo and Presbytre museums still squat beside St. Louis Cathedral. "By and large, the French Quarter seems to be dry," Foreman noted. "That's important. That's home to Preservation Hall.
Source: The State (SC)
September 4, 2005
His high court rulings affected The Citadel, state death penalty.U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist grew up in Wisconsin, was educated in Massachusetts and California, and raised a family in Arizona.
But his life’s work has had a particular impact on South Carolina people and institutions.
In 1983 Rehnquist cast the single dissenting vote in a case that determined whether Bob Jones University in Greenville, because it segregated stud
Source: China View
September 4, 2005
Lien Chan says that only by looking at history correctly can one correctly look into the future. "We can tolerate our past enemies but can never forget them, therefore we must have a correct understanding of history," Lien said in a recent interview with the "Oriental Horizon" of China Central Television. The interview was carried out when China marked the 60th anniversary of the Chinese people's war of resistance against Japanese aggressi
Source: Financial Times (London)
September 3, 2005
In 1939 Polish intelligence offered to the British the German encoding machine, Enigma, plus the keys to keep decoding Wehrmacht secret messages, 80 per cent of which the Poles could read. The British, obsessed with the Empire not Europe, had focused on trying to read Japanese naval codes and showed little interest in the fact the Poles were cracking German codes before the war started.Throughout history, intelligence agencies and secret agents are the most easily mocked of
Source: NYT
September 4, 2005
China commemorated the 60th anniversary of Japan's World War II defeat on Saturday, saying "the just had prevailed against the evil" back then but denying any military ambitions today. President Hu Jintao used the occasion to emphasize that China's economic and military power is not directed against Japan or the United States, despite a budding rivalry with both countries."China did not seek hegemony in the past, and it will never seek hegemony in the fu
Source: NYT
September 4, 2005
HERB PREMINGER, a courteous, soft-eyed man who lives on East 17th Street in Midwood, Brooklyn, has managed well during his professional life as a marketing writer. But for nearly three decades, his overwhelming passion has been for his work as an amateur historian of the vanished New York candy store. Mr. Preminger, a 59-year-old former soda jerk who is married to a television executive, has shared his knowledge and presented his collection of candy store memorabilia at chur
Source: NYT
September 4, 2005
Back in the 20th century, when publishers had three-martini lunches and young women fresh out of Bryn Mawr became secretaries, not editors, it was often lamented that the telephone might put an end to literary biography. In lieu of letters, writers could just as easily gab on the phone, leaving no trace. Today, a new challenge awaits literary biographers and cultural historians: e-mail.The problem isn't that writers and their editors are corresponding less, it's that they're
Source: LAT
September 4, 2005
Wrapped in canyon lore, the remnants of burned out structures in LA are believed by one local historian to be those of a small, short-lived colony of Nazis. Although no one can say with certainty who lived there or what they did, Randy Young, a former commercial photographer turned book publisher, said his research indicates that it could have been home to up to 40 local Nazis from about 1933 to 1945.
Source: LAT
September 4, 2005
As Americans followed in horror the anarchy, looting and mounting death toll in the wake of the New Orleans flooding, California historians compared that city's devastation with another disaster of nearly a century ago: the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.In both cases, they say, cities crucial to the U.S. economy of the era -- San Francisco's financial might and New Orleans' offshore oil reserves -- were hit by a natural disaster: one by an 8.3 magnitude tem
Source: NYT
September 4, 2005
When he was a young lawyer in the Justice Department in 1982, John G. Roberts Jr. wrote a memorandum that contained an unusually caustic assessment of a prominent black lobbying group called TransAfrica, according to documents released Saturday by NARA. The memorandum was written in response to a letter to the Justice Department in which TransAfrica's president at the time, Randall Robinson, said he would be providing a free subscription of the organization's policy jo
