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: WSJ
August 18, 2005
For 14 years, a giant statue of Lenin lay in a shallow grave in the Köpenicker forest. Occasionally, grave robbers would dig around the site, looking to chip pieces off the dissected remains and forcing the foresters to rebury him. Now, a move by locals to have the father of Soviet communism recycled has led to the likelihood of him being resurrected.The Lenin in question is a 60-foot statue, made of Ukrainian red granite, that once lifted an admonishing hand over East
Source: WSJ
August 18, 2005
Peggy Noonan says there's something unserious about Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush's newfound affection. In a conversation with friends this summer, says Noonan, "someone called the growing chumminess 'creepy' and asked what I thought of it. I said I found it creepy too. What, I was asked, did I think was behind it? Why are Mr. Bush senior and Mr. Clinton so publicly embracing each other, yukking it up for the cameras and complimenting each other?Because it serves their individual needs
Source: University Newswire Ascribe
August 16, 2005
The site of the first U.S. town founded by an African American, New Philadelphia, Ill., has been added to the National Register of Historic Places - the nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. A former slave founded New Philadelphia in 1836 as a bi-racial community 25 miles from the slave trade along the Mississippi River. The community survived into the twentieth century, and an archaeological team is excavating in the 42-acre field where the town once stood.
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
August 18, 2005
Francis Gary Powers, who became a Cold War icon when his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, was honored yesterday when the state unveiled a highway marker outside his hometown. "It is about time!" exclaimed his sister Joyce Stallard of Pound. "It's long overdue. Even if he was my brother, he was a hero."Stallard was among a crowd of dozens, including Powers' son, Francis Gary Powers Jr. of Midlothian, who attended a brief cere
Source: Washington Times
August 18, 2005
To hear some newcomers to Hanover County, Virginia, tell it, "Dixie" is a five-letter four-letter word. They want to change the county's annual Civil War commemoration from "Dixie Days" to something else, to avoid, among other things, offending Yankees who have moved into the county. Dixie cups are probably OK, concedes one county official, but not "Dixie" ? that reminds everyone of, well, the South.
Jamelle Wilson, a member
Source: NYT
August 17, 2005
It was July 1985 and the newly confirmed attorney general, Edwin Meese III, was preparing to address the American Bar Association. Trouble was, he was conflicted about what to say. A 17-day hostage crisis involving a hijacked American airliner had just ended, and Mr. Meese felt obliged to discuss terrorism. But the Supreme Court had just delivered a series of decisions that infuriated conservatives and reinforced President Ronald Reagan's resolve to steer the judiciary rightward. In the end, Mr.
Source: Chicago Tribune
August 18, 2005
Within days of a very risky--and perhaps unprecedented--heart operation, the Chicago icon is once again ready to take on the world.Bowed a bit but not at all broken, and almost giddy at the prospect of returning to work, Studs Terkel walked gingerly out of Rush University Medical Center Wednesday afternoon after adding another item to his lengthy list of accomplishments.
The 93-year-old Terkel--lawyer, actor, radio host, best-selling author, activist, Puli
Source: NYT
August 18, 2005
It has been 292 years since Britain's Navy finished muscling away Gibraltar, a speck at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula, from Spain. But for residents here, the fine print of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which officially ceded Gibraltar to Britain, is as effortlessly quoted as this year's soccer standings. No historical slights are ever entirely forgotten in Europe, but few flourish quite as robustly as the one between Gibraltar and its formidable neighbor, Spain.
Source: NYT
August 18, 2005
The National Archives started a formal investigation Wednesday into the loss of a file of Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s papers on affirmative action from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Senate Democrats, preparing for hearings on Judge Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court, had asked Tuesday for the investigation. They noted that Bush administration officials had reviewed the files in July before they went missing. Members of the archives staff have sai
Source: Bulgarian News Network
August 17, 2005
Bulgarian archeologists have discovered more than 15,000 gold jewellery items, which likely belonged to Thracian rulers, who reigned on the Balkans in the third millennium B.C., an official said Wednesday."The golden objects unearthed near the village of Dabene in central Bulgaria are not just pieces of Thracian jewellery. They are objects of exquisite regal ornamentation," National Museum of History Director Bozhidar Dimitrov told the AFP.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
August 17, 2005
A Duke University doctoral student was freed Tuesday, after an Armenian court found him guilty of illegally trying to take books out of the country but suspended his two-year prison sentence.Yektan Turkyilmaz had been held since June 17, when authorities at Yerevan Airport in Armenia yanked him off an airplane as he prepared to leave the country. They seized about 100 books that he had bought at secondhand stores and compact disks that contained notes from resear
Source: CNN
August 17, 2005
Coretta Scott King was hospitalized in fair condition Wednesday and a family friend said the 78-year-old widow of Martin Luther King Jr. had suffered a stroke.King was admitted to Piedmont Hospital on Tuesday, and the family released a statement Wednesday saying she was resting comfortably. It expressed thanks for the "outpouring of care and support that's being sent from around the world."
Hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis and the family wouldn't discu
Source: MSNBC
August 15, 2005
HATRA, Iraq - Over 2,000 years ago this thriving Mesopotamian oasis city welcomed caravans of camels carrying travelers between East and West, twice held back Roman invaders, and was famous for its tolerance of different religions. Now Hatra sits in ruins in a vast desert. Parts of its giant temples, columns and arches are still standing under the incessant sun but its city center is probably visited by more rabbits than people. Around it stands a nation still st
Source: BBC
August 17, 2005
A major Hollywood studio is to make a film about the fourth plane which was hijacked on 11 September 2001. Universal will begin filming its account of Flight 93 in October, which crashed after passengers attempted to overcome the hijackers. The movie, to be directed by British film-maker Paul Greengrass, will be a real-time account of the plane's hijack until its crash 90 minutes later. A documentary about Flight 93 is due to be shown on US television next month.According to
Source: CBS News
August 15, 2005
It's known as the famous photograph that captured a smooch between two strangers celebrating the end of WWII.
The photo was taken by Life Magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstadt.
Carl Muscarello, an ex-NYC cop, has long claimed he was the sailor in the picture. Now, according to CBS News, technology tests seem to support his claim.
A team of volunteers from the Naval War College, in Newport, contacted the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laborat
Source: NYT
August 17, 2005
It is the ultimate Washington story, told by the ultimate Washington chronicler. But in Washington and just about everywhere else, sales of "The Secret Man," Bob Woodward's story of the source known as Deep Throat, have been underwhelming.At Politics and Prose, a well-known independent bookstore in Washington, sales were "not very good, compared to expectations," said Mark LaFramboise, who ordered 400 copies of the book for the store. As of last week, Pol
Source: NYT
August 17, 2005
Under the Japanese occupation in World War II, Hong Kong's domed Legislative Council building was a torture center. But today hardly anyone seems to remember.From the graceful dome of the Legislative Council building to the gaudy entertainment district of Wan Chai to the touristy warren of small shops in Stanley, Hong Kong seems as peaceful and prosperous a city as any in Asia.
Muknam Chan/Getty Images, for The New York Times
Cai Song-ying, now 80, was a
Source: NYT
August 16, 2005
Quipus are the mysterious bundles of colored and knotted threads that served as the Inca empire's means of recording information. The code of the quipus has long since been forgotten, and the only major advance in understanding them was the insight, made in 1923, that the knots were used to represent numbers.The quantity and positioning of the knots, at least in certain quipus, is agreed to represent a decimal system.
A new and possibly significant a
Source: NYT
August 16, 2005
Only an indistinct portrait of the young John G. Roberts Jr. emerged in thousands of pages released on Monday by the National Archives from the Supreme Court nominee's years in the Reagan White House. But the documents do provide a vivid reminder of the debates that consumed official Washington in those days.Some of the issues remain pertinent, while others are long forgotten. Anyone expecting the nearly 5,400 pages of documents, dating from late 1982 to mid-1986, to c
Source: NYT
August 15, 2005
Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, was one of six Republican congressmen who participated in a telecast of Justice Sunday, broadcast to churches and Christian radio and television stations, to rally evangelicals against "activist judges." Mr. DeLay, the highest ranking of six Republican congressmen who participated, questioned the Supreme Court's power to strike down federal laws it deemed unconstitutional.
The Constitution
