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
March 24, 2012
With barely a peep from preservationists, another piece of Texas history was razed in mid-January as bulldozers unceremoniously demolished the prison rodeo arena in Huntsville.The brick-and-concrete building, which had not held a prison rodeo since 1986, had structural problems, and prison officials determined that repairs to the unsafe stands would be too costly. Representatives from the city offered to help pay for the repairs, but as with all similar entreaties involving the arena over the years, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state prison system, turned down the offer.“They just weren’t interested,” said Jim Willett, director of the Texas Prison Museum and a former warden. The criminal justice department “just doesn’t want to be in the rodeo business.”...
Source: NYT
March 25, 2012
...In a certain sense, wealthy people could live with a justifiable guiltlessness in “Mad Men” New York. Not because they were blind to the city’s mounting racial crisis or to the perils of smoking or sexism, but rather because, fiscally speaking, they were paying their due. In 1966, which is where the new season finds us, the federal income tax topped out at 70 percent on income over $100,000 (approximately $700,000 in present-day dollars), a figure reduced from 90 percent in a tax cut enacted two years earlier.Absent were any obvious incentives for amassing perverse amounts of money (and thus there was more time for the languorous lunch). In April 1968, Fortune magazine published a list of those Americans whose net worth exceeded $100 million; the list ended at 153. Today, those in the highest federal income tax bracket will pay 35 percent.Long-term capital gains taxes were higher than they are today, and so were New York State income taxes: the richest paid 14 percent in 1966; today they pay 8.82 percent, and current law has that figure reverting to 6.85 percent in three years. Moreover, beginning his mayoral tenure in 1966, John Lindsay delivered the city’s first personal income tax....
Source: Salon
March 22, 2012
The Cuban intelligence service, under the leadership of Fidel Castro, connived in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, according to a new book by a retired CIA analyst. Coming from Brian Latell, the Agency’s former national intelligence officer for Latin America, the charge is both sensational and uncorroborated, yet still important.Latell says flatly that Castro played a role in Kennedy’s murder in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.“Castro and a small number of Cuban intelligence officers were complicit in Kennedy’s death but … their involvement fell short of an organized assassination plot,” he writes in “Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine,” a well-footnoted polemic about Cuba’s General Directorate of Intelligence to be published next month. Latell says accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald told Cuban diplomats in Mexico City in September 1963 that he might kill JFK. Latell also speculates, without any direct evidence, that Oswald kept the Cubans apprised of his plans as he made his way to Dallas.
Source: NYT
March 23, 2012
HAVANA — Just in the past few days, with a visit here by Pope Benedict XVI looming, the Rev. Roberto Betancourt has witnessed firsthand the difficult position Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church finds itself in as it wields its newfound influence but still struggles to fill its pews....Benedict faces an odd paradox in what is the first visit by a pope since John Paul II’s in 1998. The church’s profile as an institution has risen sharply in recent years amid a burst of religious tolerance not seen since the 1959 revolution, with church leaders advocating for political and economic freedoms, negotiating the release of dozens of political prisoners in 2010 and counseling the government on plans for re-engineering the economy.
Source: NYT
March 23, 2012
Modern campaigns are often scientifically plotted operations that leave little to chance. Nowhere is this more obvious than with advertising, which is carefully fashioned from polling, focus groups and demographic research.But sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry. Consider the story of Ben Stein, George W. Bush and the commercial that never aired.Late in the summer of 2000, Mr. Bush’s campaign strategists saw their position in the polls improving and got a little cocky. They arranged for Mr. Stein, a comedian and former speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon, to reprise his breakout role as the economics teacher in the film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” for a commercial mocking Al Gore....
Source: NYT
March 23, 2012
On an April night 100 years ago, a ship of the Cunard lines called the R.M.S. Carpathia moved up the Hudson River in a ferocious rain, sailing past the line’s home berth at Pier 54, instead going north to Pier 59, near 18th Street.Today, the pier is home to a golf driving range, a digital studio and a microbrewery. In 1912, it was the pier for ships of the White Star line.The Carpathia stopped at Pier 59 to drop off White Star property: lifeboats from the R.M.S. Titanic, which it had collected from the North Atlantic three days earlier, when the Carpathia rescued 705 passengers and crew members. The lifeboats were all that was left of the unsinkable Titanic.Then the Carpathia turned back to its own pier, 54, just south of 14th Street. Thousands of people had gathered to watch it come in and find relatives, or in the case of newspaper reporters, to find stories....
Source: Discovery News
March 20, 2012
Madagascar was first settled and founded by approximately 30 women, mostly of Indonesian descent, who may have sailed off course in a wayward vessel 1200 years ago.The discovery negates a prior theory that a large, planned settlement process took place on the island of Madagascar, located off the east coast of Africa. Traditionally it was thought to have been settled by Indonesian traders moving along the coasts of the Indian Ocean.Most native Madagascar people today, called Malagasy, can trace their ancestry back to the founding 30 mothers, according to an extensive new DNA study published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B,. Researchers focused on mitochondrial DNA, passed down from mothers to their offspring. Scientists assume some men were with the women....
Source: Southern California Public Radio
March 22, 2012
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The Woody Guthrie Centennial celebrates the life and music of the iconic folk singer, who was probably best known for his simple, vocal-heavy songs -- most notably, "This land is your land."Guthrie was born in 1912 and died in 1967, and next month, the Grammy Museum and the Guthrie archives are hosting a series of events to celebrate his widespread cultural impact on the 100th anniversary of his birthday.From April 9th to the 14th, the Centennial will include an educational conference at USC titled, "This Great And Crowded City: Woody Guthrie’s Los Angeles," a plaque dedication and a finale tribute performance by a variety of musical heavyweights....
Source: Irish Times
March 17, 2012
Hill of Tara What is it? The Hill of Tara, near Navan, Co Meath, is a limestone ridge that holds a wealth of historic detail in its mounds and earthworks.It was the seat of the high kings of Ireland, making it the most important centre of political and religious power in pre-Christian Ireland. Here the five roads of ancient Ireland converged; from the top you can understand its strategic position better, as you can see up to 12 counties.Why visit? If you don’t like the parades on St Patrick’s Day, it’s the perfect place to go for a sense of history, fresh air and open space. The most important thing to take with you (apart from warm and waterproof clothing) is an interest in how people lived thousands of years ago. Thirty monuments are visible on the hill itself, with more than 100 others underground. The most significant ones include the 5,000-year-old passage tomb called the Mound of the Hostages, which was a burial ground and pagan sanctuary for 1,500 years. The Fort of the Kings, or Royal Enclosure, is an Iron Age hill fort where enthronements and other ceremonies took place. The Hill of Tara was also the location for Daniel O’Connell’s last Monster Meeting, in 1843, at which he campaigned for home rule and repeal of the Act of Union....
Source: Irish Times
March 17, 2012
This incongruously elegant jewelled pendant was recovered from the wreck site of the Spanish galleass ‘Girona’, which sank off Lacada Point, on the north Antrim coast, in the autumn of 1588.‘Girona’ was part of the largest invasion fleet yet assembled, the great armada of 130 ships that set sail from Lisbon on May 30th, 1588. Its aim, as part of Philip II’s crusade against Protestant “heretics”, was to take control of England, depose Elizabeth I and re-establish a Catholic monarchy. (Philip had been married to Elizabeth’s sister and predecessor, Mary.) Spain and England were already fighting a proxy war in the Low Countries; Philip was now intent on a comprehensive victory.On board the ships was a vast store of ordnance, including the massive siege guns intended to batter down the walls of London....
Source: CS Monitor
March 21, 2012
Belfast was a byword for gloom during the Troubles that spanned from the late 1960s to late 1990s, but it is experiencing a new vitality.Ironically this coincides with the anniversary of the tragedy of the RMS Titanic, which sank 100 years ago on April 15 with a loss of more than 1,500 lives. Belfast is set to commemorate this sad milestone with church services and other events....
Source: WaPo
March 21, 2012
They are joining the Trayvon Martin crusade by the hour now.It feels like an echo from another era — when there was racial injustice in the headlines, when federal troops were dispatched to comb Southern swamps to look for blacks who had vanished....“It reminds you of Emmett Till,” said Bernadette Pruitt, an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Tex., who has written about Southern racial history and can’t stop thinking of Trayvon Martin and his family. “This so-called post-racialism is a figment of our imagination. Race, unfortunately, is still the barometer by which everyone is measured.”Investigating the killing of the 17-year-old Martin, who was black, by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, is now a top priority for the FBI, senior law enforcement officials said Wednesday....
Source: NYT
March 21, 2012
In Gettysburg, Pa., on Tuesday night, Rick Santorum stood on the grounds where more lives were lost than in any other Civil War battle, and where Abraham Lincoln issued his stirring call for unity and democracy. Mr. Santorum, who had just lost the Republican primary in Illinois, called the presidential race the “most important election since the election of 1860.”Numbers like 1776 and 1860 increasingly pepper his speeches as he stresses the historical urgency of his candidacy. He speaks of his campaign as bearing a torch of freedom and honor first lighted by the signers of the Declaration of Independence. While his supporters need not risk life and fortune as John Hancock and his compatriots did, Mr. Santorum tells his audiences, they can fulfill their own duty by posting pictures with the candidate on Facebook.As he traveled around Illinois, Mr. Santorum cast himself as the defender of America’s history....
Source: Spiegel Online
March 21, 2012
What did a medieval stonemason do when heavy rainfall interrupted his work? Umbrellas are impractical at construction sites. Gore-Tex jackets weren't yet invented, nor were plastic rain jackets. "He donned a jacket made of felted loden cloth," says Bert Geurten, the man who plans to build an authentic monastery town the old-fashioned way.Felted loden jackets will also be present on rainy days at Geurten's building site, which is located near Messkirch, in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, between the Danube River and Lake Constance. Beginning in 2013, a Carolingian monastery town will be built here using only the materials and techniques of the 9th century. From the mortar to the walls, the rain jackets to the menu, every aspect of the operation will be carried out as just as it was in the days of Charlemagne. "We want to work as authentically as possible," says Geurten.The building contractor from the Rhineland region has long dreamt of carrying out his plan. When he was a teenager, the now 62-year-old was inspired by a model of the St. Gallen monastery plan in an exhibition in his home city of Aachen. The plan, dating from the beginning of the 9th century, shows the ideal monastery, as envisioned by Abbot Haito of Reichenau....
Source: CNN.com
March 22, 2012
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- It's unlikely that a Revolutionary War rifle will save Harrisburg, Pa., but it could help.The financially troubled capital of Pennsylvania is hosting an auction of artifacts this summer in hopes of raising enough money to close the gap between the city's revenue and operating costs.The loot is the end result of a failed plan to open several new museums in the city after it made substantial acquisitions of art and artifacts.Former Mayor Stephen Reed, who served from 1981 to 2009, hoped new museums would spur tourism and economic growth in this town of just under 50,000 residents. But while one Civil War museum was built, institutes devoted to sports history, African-American history and the Wild West that were planned never got off the ground....
Source: Weymouth People (UK)
March 13, 2012
The Princess Royal came face to face with another royal with a remarkably good seat on a horse when she inspected a newly restored Dorset landmark.The gigantic figure of King George III on horseback was carved out of a steep chalk hillside at Osmington, near Weymouth in 1808, as a 'thank you' to the king who put Weymouth on the holiday map.Over the years the 260ft figure's outline had become distorted and it has taken three years for local volunteers and organisations, including Dorset County Council, the Osmington Society and English Heritage to return it to its original glory.The Royal Engineers and Dorset Army Cadets also helped remove the Portland stone chippings which had been used in recent years to cover the King and his white horse, Adonis, revealing the original chalky bedrock. Engineers from 702 Naval Air Squadron, based at Yeovilton, helped out....
Source: The Register
March 19, 2012
As a commemoration of the 133rd birthday of Albert Einstein, the online archives of his work are being expanded to contain more than 80,000 documents.According to Caltech, which conducts the Einstein Papers Project, the site will ultimately hold all the documents held jointly by Caltech and the Einstein Archives at Hebrew University. There are more than 40,000 of Einstein’s personal papers, and more than 30,000 additional Einstein-related documents discovered since the 1980s.The long work of digitizing the hoard is funded by the UK’s Polonsky Foundation, whose patron, Dr Leonard Polonsky, also drove the digitization of Isaac Newton’s papers at the University of Cambridge....
Source: National Geographic
March 19, 2012
A forgotten section of the Great Wall of China has been discovered deep in the Gobi Desert—and outside of China—researchers say. With the help of Google Earth, an international expedition documented the ancient wall for roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) in a restricted border zone in southern Mongolia in August 2011.The defensive barrier formed part of the Great Wall system built by successive Chinese dynasties to repel Mongol invaders from the north, according to findings published in the March issue of the Chinese edition of National Geographic magazine. (The National Geographic Society is responsible for both the magazine and National Geographic News.)...
Source: Science Now
March 19, 2012
In museums around the world, reproductions of Neandertals sport striking blue or green eyes, pale skin, and gingery hair. Now new DNA analysis suggests that two of the most closely studied Neandertals—a pair of females from Croatia—were actually brown-eyed girls, with brunette tresses and tawny skin to match. The results could help shed new light on the evolution of the family that includes both modern humans and Neandertals, who died out some 30,000 years ago.The study has provoked deep skepticism among several outside researchers, however, who criticize numerous aspects of its methodology. The results also run contrary to other genetic evidence and to a long-held hypothesis that Neandertals, who lived mostly in northern latitudes, must've had light skin to get enough vitamin D....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
March 20, 2012
A letter Charlie Chaplin kept hidden in a locked draw for decades could finally solve the mystery of where the iconic film pioneer was born.The letter, written to Chaplin in the Seventies, claims he was born on the 'Black Patch' near Birmingham rather than in London as he had publicly claimed.Up until now, the true birth place of Chaplin has remained a mystery even the CIA and MI5 have been unable to crack.The faded document was sent by Jack Hill, who lived in Tamworth, Staffordshire, and was only discovered in 1991 after the star's daughter inherited the desk it was concealed in....
