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: Reuters
January 23, 2012
KABUL (Reuters) - A cache of ancient Jewish scrolls from northern Afghanistan that has only recently come to light is creating a storm among scholars who say the landmark find could reveal an undiscovered side of medieval Jewry.The 150 or so documents, dated from the 11th century, were found in Afghanistan's Samangan province and most likely smuggled out -- a sorry but common fate for the impoverished and war-torn country's antiquities.Israeli emeritus professor Shaul Shaked, who has examined some of the poems, commercial records and judicial agreements that make up the treasure, said while the existence of ancient Afghan Jewry is known, their culture was still a mystery....
Source: NYT
January 22, 2012
PARIS — The French Senate is scheduled to vote on Monday on a law that would penalize those who deny genocide, taking another step along a path that has already damaged France’s relations with Turkey.The draft law, passed in December by the National Assembly, France’s lower house, does not specifically mention the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915. But those killings were formally labeled genocide by the French Parliament in 2001, leading to an angry reaction from the Turkish government, which insists that there was no deliberate campaign to massacre the Armenians. About 1.5 million Armenians are estimated to have died from shootings, exposure and starvation.The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Friday at a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, that the law, if passed, would “remain as a black stain in France’s intellectual history, and we will always remind them of this black stain.” He asked the senators to reject it....
Source: NYT
January 23, 2012
Here, along a seamless stretch of small-city blight, a deserted storefront had held its own. With 9 of its 10 front windows broken, it fit in among the two boarded-up bank buildings, last used as houses of worship, and the abandoned Jimmy’s Custom Cleaners, whose claim to being open remained true, since you could stroll right into the emptiness.Finally, a year or two ago, demolition workers knocked down this Highland Avenue building in a municipal act filed somewhere between reclamation and surrender. But in doing so, they uncovered a rare portal to the faraway past, when boys wore knickers and Highland Park was the vibrant home of the Ford Motor Company’s first moving assembly line.The demolition revealed two colorful, well-preserved advertisements that had adorned the brick side of the adjacent building for nearly a century. Their two-story assumptions of endless prosperity are particularly conspicuous in the Highland Park of today, a city so economically distressed that it recently removed most of its streetlights.
Source: NYT
January 21, 2012
A DEMOCRATIC president running in a bitterly disputed presidential race faces a fateful national security decision: whether to approve an airstrike to thwart an adversary bent on becoming a nuclear-weapons state.Conservative hawks deride the president as weak. In the West Wing, advisers debate the risks: a strike could lead to open conflict, but doing nothing would change the balance of power in a volatile, war-prone region.The president was Lyndon B. Johnson, and less than three weeks before Election Day in 1964, the Chinese rendered the White House discussion moot by setting off their first nuclear test. “China will commit neither the error of adventurism, nor the error of capitulation,” the government of Mao Zedong told the world that morning, heralding the first Asian nation to get the bomb.Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater in the election anyway, after a campaign in which — oddly enough, given the attack being contemplated — he tarred the Arizona conservative as a warmonger in the infamous black-and-white “daisy” television spot, featuring a young girl counting the petals of a flower, unaware of impending nuclear doom....
January 20, 2012
“Napoleonland”, the brainchild of former French minister and history buff Yves Jégo, is being touted as a rival to Disneyland – assuming, that is, it can gather the £180 million needed to leave the drawing board.The plan is to build the unlikely amusement park on the site of the brilliant but doomed French leader’s final victory against the Austrians in the Battle of Montereau in 1814 just south of Paris.The 1815 Battle of Waterloo, in which the Duke of Wellington ended Napoleon's rule in France, could be recreated on a daily basis with visitors perhaps even able be able to take part in the reenactments....
Source: BBC News
January 18, 2012
A dark chapter of Swiss history is getting increased attention, with the release of a feature film about "Verdingkinder" or "contract children" and an exhibition about them which is touring the country.A common feature of Swiss life until the mid-1950s, Verdingkinder were primarily children from poor families in the cities, forcibly removed from their parents by the authorities and sent to work on farms.There, many of them were regularly beaten and even sexually abused. They had little education and consequently, as adults, little chance of making careers for themselves.Many also found that the abuse experienced in their childhood made it difficult to establish relationships as adults - former Verdingkinder have high rates of divorce and many now live alone....
Source: AP
January 19, 2012
BALTIMORE -- Edgar Allan Poe fans waited long past a midnight dreary, but it appears annual visits to the writer's grave in Baltimore by a mysterious figure called the "Poe Toaster" shall occur nevermore.Poe House and Museum Curator Jeff Jerome said early Thursday that die-hard fans waited hours past when the tribute bearer normally arrives. But the "Poe Toaster" was a no-show for a third year in a row, leaving another unanswered question in a mystery worthy of the writer's legacy. Poe fans had said they would hold one last vigil this year before calling an end to the tradition."It's over with," Jerome said wearily. "It will probably hit me later, but I'm too tired now to feel anything else."It is thought that the tributes of an anonymous man wearing black clothes with a white scarf and a wide-brimmed hat, who leaves three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Poe's original grave on the writer's birthday, date to at least the 1940s. Late Wednesday, a crowd gathered outside the gates of the burial ground surrounding Westminster Hall to watch for the mysterious visitor, yet only three impersonators appeared, Jerome said....
Source: Spiegel Online (DE)
January 20, 2012
Germany somberly marked the 70th anniversary of the infamous Wannsee Conference on Friday, with the country's president saying the meeting that laid out plans for the Holocaust still caused "anger and shame."At the same villa on the shore of Berlin's Wannsee lake where the original meeting took place, now a museum, President Christian Wulff told an audience that even though many years have passed, Germany should never be allowed to forget its responsibility for the genocide of some 6 million European Jews. "Therefore it is important and a national task to keep the memory alive," he said....
Source: Salon
January 18, 2012
WASHINGTON — North Korea faces the danger of an unguided missile strike, aimed right at the center of power from a direction both near and far.That would be the newly installed supreme leader’s elder half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, who has made some skeptical comments about the weakness of the bloodline that show an unusual insight into what’s going on in Pyongyang even though he’s a few thousand miles away.The wires are abuzz with news of a soon-to-be-released book based on emails and interviews between Kim Jong Nam and a Japanese journalist Yoji Gomi over a seven year period. In the book, which is called “My father Kim Jong Il and Me,” Jong Nam reportedly said that North Korea is bound for collapse and called his half-brother, Kim Jong Un, a figurehead.What “a joke to the outside world,” Jong Nam is purported to have said of the ascent of Jong Un, whom he admitted he has never actually met. More seriously, Jong Nam predicted, “The Kim Jong Un regime will not last long” and “without reform … the regime will collapse.”
Source: Boston Herald
January 19, 2012
LOS ANGELES - At three o’clock on a cold December morning, a team of researchers huddled together on scaffolding 25 feet high in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, holding a tablet computer up to a huge 16th century fresco.But the researchers weren’t interested in the dramatic battle scene, the work of Renaissance artist Georgio Vasari.Their goal was to solve one of art history’s greatest mysteries - whether Vasari preserved a long-lost work of Leonardo Da Vinci, "The Battle of Anghiari," behind his own....
Source: National Geographic
January 19, 2012
Just in time for National Popcorn Day, a new study says that people in what's now Peru were eating the snack 2,000 years earlier than thought.Coastal peoples were preparing corn-based foods up to 6,700 years ago, according to analysis of ancient corncobs, husks, tassels, and stalks recently unearthed at the Paredones and Huaca Prieta archaeological sites on Peru's northern coast.Previously, evidence of corn as a food before about 5,000 years ago had mostly come from what are called microfossils—microscopic remains too tiny to offer much information.But the newfound corn remains revealed a lot, via radiocarbon dating and other tests. For instance, the oldest cobs can be identified as popcorn, said study co-author Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and emerita staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama....
Source: BBC News
January 19, 2012
An Oxford academic has uncovered letters by Voltaire which reveal how much this icon of French writing profited financially and intellectually from a stay in England.They include a signed acceptance from the 18th Century writer for a £200 grant from the Royal Family.The writer abandoned the French spelling of his first name, Francois, styling himself "Francis".Professor Nicholas Cronk says Voltaire was "hugely opportunistic".
Source: New Scientist
January 18, 2012
What would have made them laugh? Or cry? Did they love home more than we do? Meet the real NeanderthalsA NEANDERTHAL walks into a bar and says... well, not a lot, probably. Certainly he or she could never have delivered a full-blown joke of the type modern humans would recognise because a joke hinges on surprise juxtapositions of unexpected or impossible events. Cognitively, it requires quite an advanced theory of mind to put oneself in the position of one or more of the actors in that joke - and enough working memory (the ability to actively hold information in your mind and use it in various ways).So does that mean our Neanderthal had no sense of humour? No: humans also recognise the physical humour used to mitigate painful episodes - tripping, hitting our heads and so on - which does not depend on language or symbols. So while we could have sat down with Neanderthals and enjoyed the slapstick of The Three Stooges or Lee Evans, the verbal complexities of Twelfth Night would have been lost on them....
Source: ANSA med
January 19, 2012
(ANSAmed) - ATHENS, JANUARY 19 - There are enough significant archaeological discoveries made every year in Greece to fill entire museums. This was also the case in 2011, despite a drop in financing for research as a result of the economic crisis. The authoritative weekly To Vima (The Tribune) has drawn up a list of the ten most important archaeological discoveries of 2011.The works, the publication says, were not listed according to their importance as this will only be established after further studies.The discoveries listed are as follows: 1) A small 2,500-year old wooden statue in perfect conditions. The impressive find was made in the Sanctuary of Artemis in Vravrona during building works on the archaeological site's drainage well. Other objects were found alongside the statuette, all of them dating from the 5th century BC.
Source: WaPo
January 19, 2012
The Washington Monument will probably remain closed until well into next year as workers repair earthquake damage, officials said Thursday.The repairs on the shuttered monument are unlikely to start until late summer at the earliest, the National Park Service said.The work is expected to take up to a year, and the monument will likely be closed most of that time. The structure, which was entered by about 1,700 visitors a day, has been closed since Aug. 23, when it was damaged by a 5.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the Washington area.Details of the repair plans were announced at a Thursday news conference called to mark the donation of $7.5 million to the $15 million repair project by David M. Rubenstein, a billionaire Bethesda philanthropist.The gift confirmed Rubenstein’s status as a generous repeat benefactor for Washington’s endangered national icons....
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Source: Boston College
January 19, 2012
Boston College is awaiting the decision of a federal appeals court in Boston that will determine its obligation to turn over to the US Attorney’s Office an interview with former IRA member Delours Price, which was conducted as part of the University’s oral history archive on The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The oral history project, which was directed by author and former Irish Times journalist Ed Moloney, and overseen by Executive Director of Irish Programs and University Professor of History Thomas E. Hachey and Burns Librarian Robert K. O’Neill, contains dozens of personal accounts of individuals from the predominantly Catholic nationalist movement and the largely Protestant loyalist cause in Northern Ireland. Last spring, Boston College was served a subpoena by the US Attorney’s Office on behalf of an undisclosed law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom requesting the interviews of two individuals who participated in the project....
Source: Washingtonian
January 18, 2012
When it comes to presidential families, the Eisenhower family is among the quietest. Rarely do they speak up about anything, but that has changed dramatically as plans are finalized for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial adjacent to the Mall. Last week the family members joined forces to protest the design by architect Frank Gehry and the speed with which the Eisenhower Memorial Commission is moving the project forward.A letter sent to the National Capital Planning Commission read, “We are calling for an indefinite delay in the approval process and an indefinite postponement for the groundbreaking for the memorial until there is a thorough review of the design.” It was signed by Anne Eisenhower with the note: “representing all members of the Eisenhower family.”Anne’s brother is David Eisenhower, who resigned from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission in December. Susan Eisenhower, who is an author and an expert on international security and US-Russian relations, is another vocal opponent of the design. We talked with Susan about the memorial, the controversy, and what the family hopes to achieve. The Eisenhower family does not strike me as a family that seeks out controversy. How did this happen?
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 18, 2012
A cast taken from the face of William Shakespeare is to go on display for the first time later this month. The bard's death mask will be shown at the University of Edinburgh's Anatomy Museum from January 28, when it unveils a macabre collection of medical artefacts to the public. Presently on loan from the William Ramsay Henderson Collection, the famous face will soon find a permanent home at the museum.Visitors can also cast an eye over the death masks of Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, world-famous physicist Sir Isaac Newton, and King George III....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 19, 2012
Adolf Hitler's secret 'Wolf Lair' set deep in the heart of a forest in north-eastern Poland is to be turned into a major tourist attraction.Forestry workers are looking for an investor to help make the Nazi leader's ruined fortress more accessible to holidaymakers.The camouflaged complex in the woodlands of what was once German East Prussia was one of Hitler's key military headquarters during World War II.It is famed as the site of a dramatic assassination attempt on the dictator by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in 1944....
Source: Fox News
January 19, 2012
WASHINGTON – An international group seeking to preserve the legacy of Winston Churchill is announcing plans Thursday to create the first U.S. research center devoted to the longtime British leader.The new National Churchill Library and Center will be established between 2013 and 2015 at George Washington University with an $8 million pledge from the Chicago-based Churchill Centre. Rare books and research materials will be transferred to the university's library and housed in a new street-front center with exhibit space, officials told The Associated Press. University President Steven Knapp said the center will become a destination for scholars and students of the former British prime minister along with Washington's many museums, archives and libraries. Churchill is widely admired for his leadership of Britain during World War II....
