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: WaPo
1-9-13
Martin Luther King Jr. carried a black leather King James Bible on his journeys as a young pastor starting out in Montgomery, Ala. He turned to this “traveling Bible” for inspiration, his family says, as he fought for freedom and equality.President Obama will put his hand over King’s well-worn Bible at his public swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, the holiday celebrating the birthday of the slain civil rights leader. King’s Bible will be stacked with the burgundy velvet and gilded Bible used by President Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration.Obama chose the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration in 2009, making him the first president to do so since it was initially used in 1861. President Harry S. Truman also used two Bibles, as did Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon.....
Source: WaPo
1-9-13
MERRILLVILLE, Ind. — A World War II veteran who served in France during the war has been reunited with his Army-issued duffel bag nearly seven decades after it went missing.Ninety-two-year-old William Kadar of Merrillville opened a carefully wrapped package Tuesday to find his drab green duffel bag inside. The folded up bag is still stenciled with his name and serial number....
Source: WaPo
1-9-13
OAKLAND, Calif. — The Oakland Museum of California offered a $12,000 reward Wednesday for the safe recovery of a stolen gold-encrusted jewel box — the latest in a series of thefts involving Gold Rush-era artifacts across the region.The box stolen Monday depicts images of early California history and was originally a wedding anniversary gift from a San Francisco pioneer to his wife in the 1800s, museum director Lori Fogarty said.It’s the size of a small shoebox and weighs about three pounds.Oakland city officials have said the box was valued at more than $800,000, but Fogarty said it was difficult to put a price on the artifact....
Source: WaPo
1-9-13
WASHINGTON — A Jewish group and the Justice Department argued in court Wednesday about the best way to get Russia to return the group’s historic books and documents.The group, Chabad-Lubavitch, wants the judge to impose civil fines on Russia. The department says fines won’t help resolve the dispute and in fact would be counterproductive....Chabad-Lubavitch, based in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, has already convinced Lamberth that it has a valid claim to the tens of thousands of religious books and manuscripts, some up to 500 years old, which record the group’s core teachings and traditions. The judge ruled the records are unlawfully possessed by the Russian State Library and the Russian military archive. And in 2010, he ordered the Russian government to turn them over to the U.S. embassy in Moscow or to Chabad’s representative. The lawsuit is more than eight years old....
Source: MinnPost
1-10-13
This week in 1933, Minnesota’s charismatic young governor took the oath of office for the second time. In his inaugural speech Floyd Olson embraced a progressive agenda as Minnesotans struggled with high unemployment and foreclosed farm mortgages.Two years earlier, in November 1930, Olson had been elected governor just days after his 39th birthday. That year, Olson and his Farmer Labor Party had prevailed in three-way race with the long-dominant Republicans and the anemic Democrats, just as the Great Depression was tightening its grip. Now, he was beginning his second term while his state was reeling under the Depression’s full force.Olson had run unsuccessfully for governor in 1924, before his newly created party had established a firm political footing in Minnesota. Over the next six years, the Farmer-Labor leader would make a name for himself as a crusading Hennepin county attorney, who battled municipal corruption in City Hall....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
1-5-13
Crude and vicious anti-Semitism; narrow, bigoted nationalism; and total indifference to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people – these are not attitudes we expect from philosophers. On the contrary, these academic thinkers are supposed to have sophisticated ethical outlooks. They aim to be supremely rational, and to believe only what they can show to be true.
Source: Discovery News
1-3-13
Swedish scientists have solved the mystery over a a zinc coffin found 21 years ago at the German estate of Hitler's right-hand man, Hermann Göring, by identifying the skeletal remains as those of Göring's first wife Carin.Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Carin Fock married the decorated pilot Hermann Göring in 1923. The couple settled in Germany, where Carin enjoyed a high social status as the wife of a central leader in the growing National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)."Adolf Hitler liked her. She has been called the mascot of the Nazi party," Marie Allen, professor of forensic genetics at Uppsala University, Sweden, and colleagues wrote in the journal PLoS ONE....
Source: Discovery News
1-7-13
An ancient doctor likely knew the composition of the medicines loaded aboard a doomed ship preparing to sail into the Mediterranean. But it would be another approximately 2,200 years until anyone else learned the ingredients of the six grey pills, which were lost beneath the waves along with the rest of the ship, known as the "Relitto del Pozzino."A team of Italian archeologists, chemists and biologists deciphered the chemical clues to the composition of an ancient medicine packed in the cargo of a ship sunk in 18 meters (59 feet) of water off the coast of Tuscany.The six flat disks were held in a tin container which was probably once held in a larger wooden box that rotted away. Other medical implements of the time were found nearby.Discovery News reported on an earlier study that discovered the medicine contained a mixture of mineral and plant materials, but not exactly which chemicals....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
1-7-13
A high-street clothing retailer is selling a T-shirt which features some of the world's most notorious dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.Urban Outfitters - which is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has 24 stores across the UK - is selling the white T-shirt for £32 and it features the black heading of 'D.W.A. - Dictators with Attitude'.The T-shirt, which is listed as an ‘online exclusive’ on the company’s website, jokes that Gaddafi, Hitler and Hussein are in the ‘world's most notorious rap group’ along with Idi Amin and Kim Jong-Il....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
1-9-13
It was not immediately clear how much damage the water may have caused, and searchers could not definitively say what was inside the crate.But British aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall, who is driving the hunt for the rare Spitfires, called the results "very encouraging.""It will take some time to pump the water out ... but I do expect all aircraft to be in very good condition," Mr Cundall said from Rangoon, Burma's main city.The single-seater Spitfire, which helped Britain beat back waves of German bombers during the war more than six decades ago, remains the most famous British combat aircraft....
Source: WaPo
1-7-13
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Artists often put oil to canvas at this time of year to render the official portrait of a governor or legislative leader who’s coming or going from office.Oil paintings of American politicians go back to George Washington. It’s a tradition that’s been made largely immune to budget pressures thanks to private funding.But the practice isn’t without its challenges. The commissioning and placement of the portraits — most consistently governors, but also legislators, justices and other statewide officials — can raise quirky questions.What of the Ohio governor whose portrait probably took longer to paint than her 11-day tenure in office? Or the image of an Oregon governor whose past misdeeds were later revealed?...
Source: WaPo
1-8-13
The death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who was savagely beaten and gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi last month has spurred widespread protests and debate about violence against women. Here are some other past high-profile rape cases in India, as reported in Indian news media:Hetal Parekh, 14, was raped and killed by Dhananjay Chatterjee, a guard in her apartment building, in Kolkata. Chatterjee was hanged in 2004.1992Bhanwari Devi was gang-raped in Rajasthan as a punishment for protesting the traditional practice of child marriage. The case is still dragging on in court. Two of the accused have died....
Source: AP
1-8-13
HANOI, Vietnam — School authorities in Vietnam have suspended an eighth-grade student for one year after she posted a parody of a speech by revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh on Facebook.State-controlled media said Tuesday that the girl’s post used language from a famous speech by Ho Chi Minh in 1946 appealing for resistance against French colonialists.The post joked about never having to take exams again....
Source: WaPo
1-7-13
President Obama has picked Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights icon Medgar Evers, to deliver the invocation at his public swearing-in later this month. It is believed to be the first time a woman, and a layperson rather than a clergy member, has been chosen to deliver what may be America’s most prominent public prayer.The inaugural committee Tuesday plans to announce that the benediction will be given by conservative evangelical pastor Louie Giglio, founder of the student-focused Passion Conferences, which draw tens of thousands of people to events around the world.The contrasting choice of speakers are typical of a president who has walked a sometimes complicated path when it comes to religion — working to be inclusive to the point that critics at times have questioned his faith....
Source: WaPo
1-7-13
The two sites have little in common, save perhaps the fact that each was started by a small group of women who have developed deep expertise in their particular field of interest: American Food Roots on the history and evolution of U.S. gastronomy and Food Tank on the contradictory and problematic Western food system.In early December, four D.C.-area food writers launched American Food Roots, led by NPR contributor Bonny Wolf , who conceived of the project years ago. Wolf recruited three other culinary scribes — Domenica Marchetti, Michele Kaya l and Carol Guensburg — to start building out the site in September 2011.
Source: AP
1-8-13
WARSAW, Poland — Vladimir Lenin is not considered funny in Poland.A Polish mobile phone operator that used a cartoon image of the Russian communist revolutionary found itself barraged by angry feedback and responded this week by stopping its advertising campaign.Older Poles remember the late Soviet leader for shaping a communist regime that killed millions and imposed mass terror in the Soviet Union. A communist regime was later imposed on Poles against their will by the Soviets after World War II.... [HNN editor's note: The AP neglected to mention the Soviet-Polish War of 1919-1921, which Lenin was more directly involved in, as he had the distinct advantage of being alive when it broke out.]
Source: AP
1-8-13
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Elvis Presley fans from as far as Japan and Brazil gathered Tuesday in Memphis to sing “Happy Birthday” to the late rock ‘n’ roll icon on the day he would have turned 78.Hundreds of Elvis devotees watched as 13-year-old Isabella Scott cut a birthday cake on the lawn at Graceland, the singer’s longtime Memphis home. Scott, of Bonifay, Fla., heads an Internet-based Elvis fan club with more than 2,000 members....
Source: AP
1-8-13
Slavery-era action figures tied to Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” are raising questions about whether they’re appropriate.A line of figures of the movie’s main characters are on sale online, manufactured by toy maker NECA in partnership with the Weinstein Co.Najee Ali, director of the advocacy group Project Islamic Hope, plans a news conference Tuesday with other Los Angeles black community leaders calling for the removal of the toys from the market....
Source: WaPo
1-8-13
Wherever he goes, 11-year-old Adam Webb looks for Civil War artifacts to collect. In his bedroom, he displays 150-year-old Civil War items, including buttons and bullets. He also has a collection of books about the war. He sketches pictures of Civil War heroes and uses Lincoln Logs to build replicas of homes from the 1800s.“I love learning about the history of the Civil War,” says the Ashland Elementary School fifth-grader. Growing up in Manassas, he says, he has been surrounded by Civil War history his entire life....
Source: WaPo
1-8-13
It’s hard to find a city with a more complicated history than Cape Town, South Africa’s second-largest and one of the continent’s spots most affected by colonialism. Several moments in that long history come crashing together in the city’s annual new year’s celebrations, some of which are still going strong.Technically, the Cape Town holiday of Tweede Nuwe Jaar, which is Afrikaans (the language used by mostly Dutch descendants of European settlers in South Africa) for “second new year,” takes place on Jan. 2. But it can continue for days or even weeks in some parts of the city. It’s about partying, yes, but also street performances and marches from groups called “Klopses,” face-painted troupes that might look familiar to anyone who has seen Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans.The story of Tweede Nuwe Jaar goes back to the early Dutch settlers. Specifically, it has to do with the city’s history as a slave trading port. That’s right: This fun, free-wheeling holiday has its roots in the slave trade and in Cape Town’s history as an economic center of colonialism’s worst practices. Dave Mayers, with the CBS-affiliated news site SmartPlanet, runs down the origin of the story as it’s commonly told....
