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 3, 2005
"Every time a new justice comes to the Supreme Court, it's a different court," Justice Byron R. White liked to say, and he had reason to know. During a tenure of 31 years, he saw the arrival of 13 new colleagues. Each one, he said, made the court "a new instrument."Supreme Court history is filled with testaments to the impact of personality and the significance of personal interaction. Prof. Sanford V. Levinson of the University of Texas School of L
Source: NYT
September 4, 2005
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday night of the thyroid cancer he had battled for nearly a year, opening a second Supreme Court vacancy just days before Senate confirmation hearings were to begin to fill the seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.Kathleen Arburg, the court's public information officer, said Chief Justice Rehnquist, 80, had died at his home in Arlington, Va., surrounded by his three children. She said he had been working at the
Source: NYT
September 3, 2005
It was with the appointment in 1993 of James Lee Witt, from Arkansas, that FEMA began to earn respect. Bill Clinton made FEMA a cabinet-level agency. "Witt shaped it into an organization that was not only to respond to disaster but attempt to mitigate disaster by taking actions before they occurred," said Michael Greenberger, a domestic security expert at the University of Maryland and a former Justice Department official
After severe flooding in the Midwest in 19
Source: HNN
September 2, 2005
This past week hurricane Katrina ripped through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with New Orleans suffering some of the worst devastation as water levels rose throughout the city, leading to an unprecedented peace-time order to evacuate the entire area.. Students at Tulane University were set to start classes this week. At first the university was hopeful that it would be possible to resume classes on September 1. Soon that date was pushed back to September 7, but with 80 percent of the city f
Source: HNN
September 3, 2005
Welcoming in the age of chips, bits and the World Wide Web, American Heritage magazine plans to debut a new website on September 6 which features articles, photographs and blogs. A beta version of the website, features a comprehensive timeline of World War II, an article examining the influences and impact of the Baby Boomer generation, among others.
Source: Network of Concerned Historians
September 3, 2005
The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN reported yesterday that author Orhan Pamuk will be brought before an Istanbul court on 16 December 2005 and that he faces up to three years' imprisonment for expressing an opinion about the Armenian genocide of 1915 and the Kurdish insurrection of 1984-2000. International PEN greets with shock the news that the world-famous Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, will be brought before an Istanbul court on 16 December and that he fac
Source: NYT
September 2, 2005
The slogan at the entrance to the new museum of emigration says it all: "Over seven million people departed from here to an unknown world." Emigration House, which opened a few weeks ago, is intended to explain why immigrants left Europe. The spacious, modern building, framed in latticed wood, overlooks Bremerhaven's Old Port, created in 1837 in large part to take advantage of the wave of emigration to America that began around then from Germany.
Source: American Association of Museums
September 2, 2005
Preliminary reports have now been assembled on the condition of many of the museums in the path of Katrina. Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis's home, located in Biloxi, was virtually demolished. The Louisiana State Museum has sustained moderate to severe damage. The Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History lost a third of its copper roof.
Source: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
September 1, 2005
"Over the past five years, a distorted and hostile attitude toward Israel has prevailed at the University of California-Santa Cruz, creating an intimidating environment for members of the campus community, particularly Jewish students. Much of the anti-Israeli bias has been generated by the university's predominantly leftist faculty members, who have injected their personal ideology into course curricula, classroom lectures and discussions, and events and speakers sponsored by departments,
Source: Advertiser (Australia)
September 3, 2005
The Australian War Memorial's principal historian Dr Peter Stanley has released a paper that claims Japan never planned to invade Australia and the "myth" was promoted by Prime Minister John Curtin as a "motivational device"."The invasion myth had remained alive for 60 years, abetted by the seeming need of Australians to dramatise their situation in 1942," he said.
"Why can't we as a nation accept that the war the
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
September 2, 2005
Journalists have discovered one document of particular interest to historians and archivists as it relates to John Roberts's views on government openness with respect to presidential records and the Presidential Records Act (PRA). On 29 August 1985, in his capacity as a lawyer for President Reagan, Roberts vigorously argued that White House internal files should be kept secret and should not be released even to the U.S. Senate if requested by that body to win confirmat
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
September 2, 2005
On 2 August 2005, on the eve of the 85th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, President Bush signed P.L.109-49, legislation expressing the "sense of Congress" regarding the role that was played by women suffragists who fought for and won the right of women to vote in the United States. Introduced in the House of Representatives as H. J. Res. 59, by Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV), this resolution highlights some of the most important figures in the wo
Source: Willie Drye at website of National Geographic News
September 2, 2005
Hurricane Katrina's rampage across the U.S. Gulf Coast is causing uneasiness among officials in South Florida, where an even stronger hurricane blasted the Florida Keys 70 years ago today. Like the devastating hurricane that tore into Louisiana and Mississippi last Monday, the unnamed storm that struck the Keys on Labor Day 1935 rapidly intensified as it neared landfall. It became the most powerful hurricane ever to strike the United States. Katrina's rapid inten
Source: Hurricane Katrina: Civil War Damage Assessment
September 2, 2005
Virtually everything in the Latin Quarter and the Garden District suffered some damage. Much of the turquoise-and-white facade of Commander's Palace in the Garden District is gone. So is one wall of Antoine's, famous for Oysters Rockefeller.The Cafe du Monde, home of smoky chicory coffee, did not appear to suffer extensive damage. Many of the city's oldest neighborhoods, including the Bywater and the 9th Ward on the east side, were lost under the floods. On Burgundy Street,
Source: AP
September 1, 2005
Sirens wailed and religious leaders led prayers for the dead as the presidents of Poland and Germany stood together solemnly Thursday on the Baltic peninsula where World War II began 66 years ago. Horst Koehler is only the second German president to attend the annual ceremonies on the Westerplatte peninsula, following the example of his predecessor, Johannes Rau. His presence comes amid signs of deepening friendship between the former foes, despite some lingering bitterness.
Source: NYT
September 1, 2005
After years of inertia, governments throughout Latin America have recently shown surprising vigor in prosecuting human rights violations that occurred, in some cases, 30 years ago or more. Chile, for instance, has offered reparations to torture victims and forced the army to apologize for its abuses, while the Supreme Court in Argentina in June declared unconstitutional a pair of amnesty laws from the 1980's.Why this sudden activity? After all, reopening issues like fo
Source: News Release from the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
September 1, 2005
A leading Holocaust research institute has criticized actress Jodie Foster for her comments defending Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, whom Foster intends to play in an upcoming film. Foster said in a just-released interview that Riefenstahl has been "libeled so many times" by people accusing her of membership in the Nazi Party or of having a romance with Adolf Hitler.But according to Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for
Source: Romanesko
September 1, 2005
"If New Orleans is to be pumped out, its soffits re-replastered, its live oaks replanted before I'm gone, I'll be happily surprised," writes 62-year-old former NYT executive editor Howell Raines. "For now, we wait and ponder this question: If it's gone or permanently altered, what memorial would be fitting? Surely it would not be some monument of stone, but perhaps a political memorial to the city of Huey P. Long and his fictional iteration Willie Stark, or a spiritual remembrance
Source: Wa Po
September 1, 2005
Their bags are packed with safety glasses, gloves, masks, boots and suits. As soon as they hit the ground in New Orleans, they plan to set up triage tents and long tables. Then the emergency team from the National Park Service will begin its work: blotting, washing, drying, straightening and preserving centuries of historical artifacts that tell the story of one of the oldest U.S. cities.Their biggest enemy is mildew.
"When we do retrieved artif
Source: NYT
September 1, 2005
Asphalt is being laid over many cobblestone streets in Rome, a jarring sight, no doubt, for anyone convinced that Rome never changes."The massacre of the cobblestones," as one Roman official put it, is well under way, part of a city program to lay asphalt on streets that are used mostly by cars, buses and scooters. On pedestrian walkways and piazzas treasured by tourists, like Piazza Venezia, the city has pledged to keep the cobblestones, called sampietrini.
