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
9-4-12
Some years, they speak of “the final eradication in America of the age-old evil of poverty,” and then other years, the Democratic Party shifts its focus to “those who work hard, pay their bills, play by the rules . . .”In 1972, the party promises “a guaranteed job for all,” offering to “make the government the employer of last resort.” But 20 years later, the Democrats pivot and nearly apologize for themselves, appealing to “Americans who may have thought the Democratic Party had forgotten its way” by saying that it now “rejects the big government theory that says we can . . . tax and spend our way to prosperity.”
Source: AP
9-4-12
PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia archaeology museum will indefinitely loan ancient jewelry known as “Troy gold” to Turkey in an arrangement that will allow the museum to host a future exhibit of artifacts related to King Midas, officials announced Tuesday.The deal is part of what Penn Museum officials called a landmark agreement with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism to work more collaboratively on field work and exhibitions over the next several years.“It will lead to great opportunities — for Penn, for Philadelphia and for the wider archaeological community — to experience more of Turkey’s rich cultural history and heritage in the future,” museum director Julian Siggers said....
Source: WaPo
9-4-12
There’s Hillary Clinton, gracing the cover of this month’s Conde Nast Traveler, looking ever the glamorous jet-setter in a tweed pantsuit, arms crossed, standing in front of the exotic-looking Humayan’s Tomb in New Delhi.The glossy cover bears the headline “19,000 MILES WITH THE MOST TRAVELED SECRETARY OF STATE IN HISTORY.”But wait just a New York minute. ... [T]he title “most traveled” could very well go to former secretary of state Condoleeza Rice. As our truth-squadding colleague Glenn Kessler at the Fact Checker blog noted after a recent Loop mention of Clinton’s milestones, the State Department’s claims of Clinton’s travel supremacy might be a little premature (Kessler even gave the Loop a dreaded Pinocchio for buying the agency’s lines)....
Source: NYT
9-4-12
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Ronald Reagan asked voters a week before the 1980 election whether they were better off than four years earlier, he turned a race that had been nip-and-tuck for months into a landslide victory — and showed how a pointed question can be a lethal political weapon.Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, speaks often of that election in meetings with donors and other supporters, citing it to reassure those who are alarmed that he has not been able to build a lead against a president burdened with a listless economy, ballooning federal debt and a jobless rate deep in the red zone for an incumbent.
Source: NYT
9-4-12
KIBBUTZ LOHAMEI HAGETAOT, Israel — It isn’t only the history of the Holocaust that you see on display in Israel’s Holocaust museums. It’s also the history of the history of the Holocaust. There is an archaeology of trauma to be found if you look closely, and in its layers and transmutations you see how a nation has wrestled with the burden of one of history’s immense horrors.Through examining how Israeli museums treat the Holocaust — including the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum here, in a kibbutz in the far north of the country, whose founders included survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising — we can see how visions of that past are changing, sometimes in unsettling ways.
Source: NYT
9-4-12
Vandals burned the door of a Trappist monastery at Latrun, near Jerusalem, early Tuesday and scrawled anti-Christian slogans on the walls. The Israeli authorities said they suspected it was the work of Jewish extremists....
Source: NYT
9-4-12
PHILADELPHIA — The three-story brick building stands like a ghost of what it once was, the letters “Joe Frazier’s Gym” stenciled across the facade in washed-out letters. A former destination for aspiring fighters and children seeking refuge from the gang violence of North Philadelphia, the gym is now a discount furniture store.A sign on the window reads “Knockout Prices.”Now, nearly a year after Mr. Frazier’s death, momentum is building to designate his former gym a historic site. The city is also working with his estate to erect a statue honoring him.The efforts are a rethinking of Mr. Frazier’s legacy in his adopted city, which never so much as named a street after him during his lifetime. The question for many who knew and admired Mr. Frazier: What took so long?...
Source: WaPo
9-4-12
Again?Pat Lehman of the Kansas Delegation said to the Wichita Eagle about Republicans’ voter fraud claims: “It’s like Hitler said, if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you.”Her comment echoes that of California Democratic Chairman John Burton, who told a group of delegates Monday, “They lie and they don’t care if people think they lie… Joseph Goebbels – it’s the big lie, you keep repeating it.” He left Charlotte Monday for a “previously scheduled” root canal....
Source: WaPo
9-4-12
Some years, they speak of “the final eradication in America of the age-old evil of poverty,” and then other years, the Democratic Party shifts its focus to “those who work hard, pay their bills, play by the rules . . .”In 1972, the party promises “a guaranteed job for all,” offering to “make the government the employer of last resort.” But 20 years later, the Democrats pivot and nearly apologize for themselves, appealing to “Americans who may have thought the Democratic Party had forgotten its way” by saying that it now “rejects the big government theory that says we can . . . tax and spend our way to prosperity.”
Source: Kansas City Star
9-4-12
WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama might want to think twice before accepting his party's nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Should he win re-election, the thrill of victory could give way the "Second-Term Jinx."For more than a century, presidents have run into unforeseen woes in their second terms.Some have been tragic. Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley were assassinated; Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke. More have been political, scandals and controversies that set back their agendas or worse, tarnished their very place in history....Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/04/3795900/second-terms-often-problematic.html#storylink=cpy......
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake has sentenced Barry H. Landau to seven years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy and theft of historical documents from cultural institutions in four states, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York.Landau had pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year.The items stolen from the Roosevelt Library, which is part of the National Archives and Records Administration, were seven “reading copies” of speeches that Roosevelt delivered. They contained his edits and handwritten additions, along with his signature. They have all been recovered.Landau’s co-conspirator, Jason Savedoff, will be sentenced at a later date.Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero said he was pleased that Judge Blake “recognized the seriousness of this crime and meted out an appropriate punishment that will serve as a warning to others who may contemplate stealing our nation’s history.”
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
On August 24, a major overhaul in the way federal departments and agencies manage and preserve their records was ordered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
In a directive to reform records management for the 21st century, NARA and OMB said that all agencies must begin to manage their records, including emails, in electronic format by the end of the decade.
The directive also requires each agency to designate a high-ranking agency official to oversee its records management programs and to ensure that all appropriate staff receive records management training.
Deadlines for complying with various parts of the directive are spread over the coming years.
Among the highlights of the directive issued are:
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-31-12
On August 30, the National Archives Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) released the first Executive branch-wide Fundamental Classification Guidance Review covering 25 Federal agencies with significant classification programs. Agency summaries are available online [www.archives.gov/isoo/fcgr].
The review serves as a guide and benchmark for Federal agencies to ensure proper classification of information vital to national security, while expediting declassification by avoiding over-classification and unnecessary withholding of records. Accurate and current classification guides also ensure standardized classification within and across Federal agencies. Of the 3,103 classification guides reviewed, 869 were either cancelled or consolidated; numerous projects, programs, or categories were eliminated, revised, consolidated, or condensed.
Overall, the review shows that Federal agencies are streamlining classification guidance and more clearly identifying categories of what can be released and what needs to remain classified.
Review highlights include:
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
The National Archives National Declassification Center (NDC) has issued its fifth biannual Report on Operations of the National Declassification Center, covering the period of January 1 through June 30, 2012. The report is available is online at www.archives.gov/declassification.
Report highlights include:
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently announced $39 million in grants for 244 humanities projects.This funding will support a wide variety of projects, including collaborative research, archival conservation programs, the creation of new digital research tools, professional development opportunities for teachers and college faculty, traveling exhibitions, efforts to build long-term support for humanities initiatives at community colleges, and the production and development of films, television, and radio programs.This award cycle, institutions and independent scholars in 46 states and the District of Columbia will receive NEH support. Complete state-by-state listings of grants are available here (46-page PDF).In this cycle, grants were awarded in the following categories:
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
More than $1.3 million in National Park Service grants have recently been awarded to help preserve, protect, document, and interpret America’s significant battlefield lands. The funding from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) will support 27 projects at more than 75 battlefields nationwide.For a list of the grantees, click here. This year’s grants provide funding for projects at endangered battlefields from the Pequot War, King William’s War, the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, World War II and various Indian Wars. Awards were given to projects in 17 states or territories entailing archeology, mapping, cultural resource survey work, documentation, planning, education and interpretation.
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
The Department of State’s Office of the Historian recently released its latest volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), “Foundations of Foreign Policy, 1973-1976.”This volume documents the intellectual foundations of the foreign policy of the second Richard Nixon administration and the Gerald Ford administration. Unlike other volumes in the Nixon/Ford subseries, the documentation seeks to illustrate the collective mindset of Nixon and Ford administration officials on foreign policy issues in the broadest sense. Rather than the formulation of individual foreign policy decisions or diplomatic exchanges, the compilation takes as its canvas the entire record of the second Nixon administration and the Ford administration’s efforts to develop a grand strategy in foreign policymaking.The 151 year-old FRUS series presents the official documentary historical record of major foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity of the U.S. Government.This volume was compiled and edited by Kristin L. Ahlberg and Alexander R. Wieland.
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
In recognition of the historic and architectural/engineering significance of Boston’s Fenway Park, the National Park Service has listed the venerable, beloved ballpark in its National Register of Historic Places. 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the Boston Red Sox initial season at Fenway Park.“Recognizing the incredible history of this ballpark through the National Register designation is a great way to bring the national parks and the national pastime together,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “Fenway is a treasured American icon for baseball fans across the country. It, along with the Boston area’s 11 national parks, helps attract visitors from around the world to one of our nation’s most vibrant cities, expanding opportunities for business and tourism that generate economic returns for Boston and the nearby communities.”
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) recently announced 152 awards totaling $18,113,376 matched with $34,666,759 of non-federal funds for Museums for America Program Grants. The IMLS also announced 14 awards totaling $1,442,312, matched with $1,903,034 of non-federal funds for Museum Grants for African American History and Culture.Click here to view the list of projects funded by the Museum for America Program Grants.Click here to view the list of projects funded under the Museum Grants for African American History and Culture.Use the IMLS grants search tool to view our archive of grants awarded by the Institute. Search grants by grant name, institution, or project type.
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
8-30-12
The National Archives’ George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum has launched its newly designed website: www.georgewbushlibrary.smu.edu. The website is hosted by Southern Methodist University (SMU), the site of the Library’s future facility.While the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is still under construction on the campus of SMU, visitors will be able to visit virtually through the new interactive website, which features highlighted documents and artifacts from the Library and Museum’s vast collections. Through a variety of online media and exhibit galleries, researchers and visitors will be able to explore the lives and careers of President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush, and the American Presidency in general. Educators and students will also be able to find resources and tools to use regarding the events of the Bush Administration.
