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: Foreign Policy
7-3-13
The world has been somewhat surprised by recent reports of the National Security Agency's massive electronic spying operations around the globe. But they're not the only ones with their ears to the proverbial ground. Just about every nation is engaged in some sort of electronic espionage. Russia, for example, still has an array of massive listening stations, ready to snoop on whoever's talking.It's a legacy of the Soviet Union, which ran one of the largest of those electronic eavesdropping networks as it tried to gain any intel it could on the U.S. and its allies. Those old Soviet eavesdropping stations still exist. Some are rusting away in former Soviet countries. Others are still operational.Intelligence historian Matthew Aid just got ahold of a recently declassified CIA document listing the locations of 11 KGB strategic radio interception stations throughout Russia and the rest of the old Soviet Union....
Source: Reuters
7-4-13
GETTYSBURG, Pennsylvania (REUTERS) - With 250,000 visitors expected to converge on the Gettysburg battlefields this week, historians and antiquarians say the 150th anniversary of the clash that defined the United States (US) Civil War has prompted an increased interest in Civil War relics - and an apparent uptick in the thefts and faking of conflict memorabilia.While there are no national statistics about thefts of war mementos, museums and law enforcement officers around the nation have reported a range of incidents involving the plundering of Civil War artifacts.The thievery even extended to the current Gettysburg re-enactment, where criminals made off with a trailer containing war items valued at US$10,000 (S$13,000) in Frederick County, Maryland, last month....
Source: NZ Herald
7-9-13
Te reo is an official language of New Zealand - but it's still treated as a poor cousin of English, the Waitangi Tribunal has been told.Kaumatua Erimana Taniora addressed the Tribunal yesterday about his hapu's loss of land and language as the third week of stage two hearings into Ngapuhi's Treaty claims got underway at the Turner Centre in Kerikeri. This week Whangaroa hapu are having their say....
Source: NYT
7-9-13
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Like thousands of other re-enactors, Eric Mueller honors the sacrifices of soldiers in the Civil War by going to great lengths to live as they did — sleeping beneath a canvas sheet suspended on wooden posts, eating hardtack and salt pork, carrying 60 rounds of ammunition in a cartridge box and a backpack, and marching long distances in heavy woolen tunics.But in the interests of safety and perhaps a little comfort, Mr. Mueller, 40, allows modest divergences from the 19th-century soldier’s life.Last week, for example, Mr. Mueller packed in his knapsack two sweet potatoes and two small onions, foods that he conceded may not have been in season in southern Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, and so would not have been available to Civil War troops even if they had tried to forage them from nearby farms.Still, he subjected himself to discomforts like not washing for a week and squeezing his six-foot frame into a 5-foot-8-inch-long tent that he shared with another re-enactor. Mr. Mueller, a civil servant from Hawaii, said he stayed “reasonably dry” during four nights of camping out on Cemetery Ridge in the heart of the Gettysburg battlefield....
Source: BBC News
7-8-13
A leading figure in a plot to return the Stone of Destiny to Scotland more than 60 years ago has died.Kay Matheson was one of a group of four students who took the relic from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950.The stone was taken back to Scotland from where it had been removed by Edward I in 1296 as a spoil of war.Ms Matheson, who drove a car carrying the stone through police road blocks, died in Wester Ross at the age of 84....
Source: NYT
7-4-13
JOHANNESBURG — The nasty family squabble over where three of former President Nelson Mandela’s children, and eventually the leader himself, will be buried drew to a close on Thursday morning in a small village on the Eastern Cape.But not before it had thrown into relief the perhaps inevitable disputes over the revered leader’s legacy — both the financial legacy, which his family is wrestling over, and more broadly, the political legacy of how Mr. Mandela will be remembered and how his story will guide the country he led.Mandla Mandela, the former president’s eldest grandson and heir as tribal leader in the region, held a news conference in his compound in Mvezo saying that he would cease his legal battles to have the bodies kept there. In 2011, he moved the bodies to Mvezo from another small village, Qunu, where the rest of the Mandela family wanted them and where the anti-apartheid leader is said to wish to be buried himself. By late afternoon, the bodies were reburied in Qunu....
Source: NYT
7-4-13
LONDON — In the welter of passion and memory surrounding the decline of Nelson Mandela, a more modest commemoration slipped by a week ago that said much about the role he played as an inspiration in his long years of imprisonment, when the daily grind of struggle against apartheid fell to others who fought in his name.It was a reminder, too, that the battle to end white rule was fought on many levels, ranging from the activism of anti-apartheid exiles here in London to a brutal shadow war in South Africa itself that offered no quarter to those seeking a new order.The events of June 27, 1985, offered a particular insight.
Source: NYT
7-5-13
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — As Ahmed Kathrada led President Obama and his family recently through the prison on Robben Island where Mr. Kathrada had spent much of his life, he explained how the rules of apartheid had granted him, because of his Indian ancestry, long pants and socks. One of his fellow inmates, Nelson Mandela, as a black man, received short pants and no socks.Mr. Kathrada, 83, also showed the Obamas the sign listing the different amounts of sugar, coffee, soup and other foods that South Africa’s prison system had apportioned to blacks; mixed-race inmates, who were known as coloreds; Indians; and whites.“In everything there was apartheid,” he said in an interview on Thursday in his small apartment here in the shadow of Table Mountain....
Source: NYT
7-5-13
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis sped two of his predecessors toward sainthood on Friday: John Paul II, who guided the Roman Catholic Church during the end of the cold war, and John XXIII, who assembled the liberalizing Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.In approving the sainthood of John XXIII even without a second miracle attributable to the pontiff, Francis took the rare step of bypassing the Vatican bureaucracy. Francis also said a Vatican committee had accepted the validity of a second miracle attributed to the intercession of John Paul.The canonization cause for John Paul began almost immediately after his death in 2005. At his funeral, crowds in St. Peter’s Square began shouting “Santo subito,” or “Sainthood now,” for the beloved pontiff....
Source: NYT
7-9-13
To some people, the name of Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, brings to mind the country’s oldest prison rodeo, which draws thousands of tourists while raising money for charity. Others think of it as a repository for fearsome criminals — murderers, rapists and kidnappers — who have earned their average sentence of 93 years. Many remember it as having once been one of the most brutal and corrupt institutions in the post-Civil War South, the nearest kin to slavery that could legally exist.All of these associations and more will compete when an old guard tower and a cell from the prison are installed in the forthcoming National African American Museum for History and Culture in Washington, a place with the complex mission of presenting an official narrative of black life in America....
Source: WaPo
7-8-13
“THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.”That first paragraph out of Roswell was worthy of Orson Welles — as if an extraterrestrial tale told in stentorian tones. It was the paragraph that launched not only a news article, but also a cultural curiosity that continues to spark conversation and controversy to this day — as if attracting UFO buffs and conspiracy theorists by magnetic pull from the world over.“RAAF Captures Flying Saucer / On Ranch in Roswell Region,” blared the bold headline on that front page of the Roswell (N.M.) Daily Record. The date atop the page: July 8....
Source: AP
7-5-13
PHILADELPHIA — Caretakers of a deteriorating piece of maritime military history hope to have its future secured by next summer and continue working to ensure it stays afloat in the meantime.The USS Olympia, a one-of-a-kind steel cruiser from the Spanish-American War, ideally would have been dry-docked every 20 years for maintenance but has not been out of the water since 1945. Since taking stewardship of the National Historic Landmark from a cash-strapped nonprofit in 1996, the Independence Seaport Museum has spent about $5 million on short-term repairs, inspections and maintenance but cannot afford to keep the ship.A field of six organizations initially vying for the Olympia has been narrowed to two preservation groups — one in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the 5,500-ton warship was launched in 1892, and one in Port Royal, S.C., a strategic support post for the Atlantic fleet during the Spanish-American War....
Source: AP
7-5-13
RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is planning to turn a pre-Civil War house on its Richmond property into a regional visitor center.Officials plan to complete the work to rehabilitate the historic three-story, 9,000-square-foot Robinson House by the summer of 2015. The building currently serves as a storage facility.Once complete, the circa-1850 building will include a visitor center on the first floor as well as a gallery interpreting the site’s history going back to the days of American Indians....
Source: AP
7-6-13
PHILADELPHIA — It is the comic book cover that captured the grim visage of an older, wiser — and meaner — Batman.Now, the 1986 pen and ink creation — drawn by writer/artist Frank Miller — that is the cover to “The Dark Knight Returns” No. 2 will be sold next month in Dallas by Heritage Auctions.It’s the first cover from DC Comics’ 1986 four-issue “Dark Knight” miniseries to be sold and is expected to go for more than $500,000.Miller’s story “radically altered the direction of comics,” said Todd Hignite, Heritage’s vice president....
Source: AP
7-4-13
BALTIMORE — The Maryland Historical Society is embarking on a special Independence Day project this year.The society on Thursday began recreating the original Star-Spangled Banner Flag, which flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812 and inspired the writing of the national anthem.Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake sewed the first stitch at a July 4 ceremony kicking off the project.The historical society says it expects its authentic reproduction to take six weeks to complete and will involve more than 100 volunteers to help stitch....
Source: AP
7-7-13
WASHINGTON — The National Trust for Historic Preservation was looking for a building with a story to it, and it found one — the Watergate.In February, the trust — a nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect historical buildings — announced that it was selling its Dupont Circle headquarters, which was built in 1917 and once served as a luxury apartment building for the likes of then-Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon.The search began for another historical building in town, and the group announced last month that it had settled on the Watergate office building, home to Washington’s most famous burglary....
Source: WaPo
7-8-13
WASHINGTON — In five years since moving to its new home overlooking the U.S. Capitol, the Newseum has become a major attraction with 4 million people visiting its exhibits about journalism and the First Amendment. Yet it’s been struggling mightily to cover its costs.Public financial documents reviewed by The Associated Press show revenue fell short of expenses by millions of dollars in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Its parent organization, the Freedom Forum, has used its endowment to provide the bulk of the Newseum’s operating revenue since its creation, and the endowment’s principal value has steadily declined from $600 million to about $373 million at the end of 2011.Nonprofit management consultants say it’s worrisome for a museum to be relying so heavily on a shrinking endowment, but the Newseum’s top executive says it’s not in financial trouble....
Source: Bloomberg News
7-5-13
Abraham Lincoln, remembered 150 years after a “decisive” battle of the U.S. Civil War, could have excelled in modern-day Washington politics, one of the pre-eminent scholars on the American president says.“He would be tech savvy, he would lose the beard, he would have some cosmetic surgery, he would make an asset of his height,” historian Harold Holzer said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “He was so smart about working with the press, getting the press to work in his behalf, giving out exclusives, and he would have mastered any medium.”As one measure of Lincoln’s political prowess, Holzer recited an often-told tale of Lincoln thinking twice before dispatching a letter upbraiding his general who defeated the enemy at the Battle of Gettysburg, a turning point for the Northern victory in the Civil War. It was a precursor to the dilemma of hitting the send button on a regrettable e-mail....
Source: HNN staff
7-8-13
The good folks at Mental Floss have compiled the last words of the 38 dead presidents.How well do you know your dying presidents? (Answers at bottom.)1. "Water."2. "Thomas Jefferson survives."3. "Send Mike immediately."4. "I have a terrific headache."5. "I understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more."6. "Are the doctors here? Doctor, my lungs..." 7. "She won't think anything about it."8. "'Tis well."9. "No, you certainly can't."10. "The nourishment is palatable."Of course, presidential last words tend to lack the spunk of Tom Paine's, who spent his final moments berating two clergyman trying to convert him on his deathbed: "Let me have none of your popish stuff. Get away with you. Good morning."1: Ulysses S. Grant; 2: John Adams; 3: LBJ; 4: FDR; 5: William Henry Harrison; 6: Benjamin Harrison; 7: Abraham Lincoln; 8: George Washington; 9: JFK; 10: Millard Fillmore.
Source: BBC News
5-3-13
A rare Buddhist manuscript, discovered by cattle grazers in 1931, has been released in book form in India.The Lotus Sutra was found in Gilgit region, now in Pakistan.The document, which dates back to 5th century, is perhaps the only Buddhist manuscript discovered in India.Believed to be one of the most revered Buddhist scriptures, it represents the discourse delivered by Buddha towards the end of his life.The Gilgit Lotus Sutra is kept at the National Archives of India in the capital, Delhi....
