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Democracy Now! Iraq War Timeline Recaps a Decade of Independent Reporting on Occupation and Protest

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Renee Feltz - Mar. 20 (Special Report) - watch video highlights from a decade of Democracy Now! coverage of the Iraq War and the peace movement. It was 10 years ago, on March 19, 2003, that the United States invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Six weeks later, President George W. Bush stood under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" and declared an end to major military combat operations. But Operation Iraqi Freedom would lead to an almost nine-year U.S. military occupation. Democracy Now! producer Renée Feltz explains how the timeline works and highlights some of the featured videos

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Rebels Stand Alone

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Chrus Hedges - Feb. 26 (Not sure) - I was in the Swiss village of Begnins outside Geneva shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. I spent three days there with Axel von dem Bussche, a former Wehrmacht major, holder of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross for extreme battlefield bravery, three times wounded in World War II, and the last surviving member of the inner circle of German army officers who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

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First inaugural use of the word 'gay'

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Politico - By Kevin Robillard - Jan. 21 (News) - President Barack Obama on Monday became the first president to use the word “gay” in an inaugural address in reference to sexual orientation, making two references to gay rights as he began his second term. “Our journey is not complete until our gay brot

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Obama So Far: Making History, Inspiring An Opposition

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

All Things Considered - By Frank James - Jan. 20 (Opinion) - Barack Obama was always going to have a place in history as the first African-American president. That's no small feat given the nation's peculiar past. But achieving what other Democratic presidents couldn't fueled deep divisions within the country and set the table for a second term with daunting challenges.

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Anatomy of a News Map

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

ProPublica - By Jeff Larson - Dec. 10 (Special Report) - A little over a month ago, Al Shaw and I made an interactive map of the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the rural south to northern cities during the 20th century. The housing discrimination suffered by African Americans in their new cities led to calls for reforms, resulting in the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But as the fantastic reporting by ProPublica reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones shows, the federal Housing and Urban Development agency has fallen short of its requirement to take affirmative steps to curb segregation in America’s cities and provide fair housing for everybody.

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Atomic Comics: comic books and the atomic education of America | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

thebulletin.org - By John Mecklin - Nov. 13 (Review) - Between 1939 and the Hiroshima bombing, Szasz writes, some 40 comic books contained atomic stories, many of them doozies. In 1940, Spacehawk could already fly a million miles an hour "because he had tapped the secret of 'applying atomic power.'" In 1941, "the Human Torch destroyed an 'atom gun,' but not before it demolished an island, a building, and the Statue of Liberty with a single burst of power."

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Vietnamese-Americans try to save elders' stories

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Amy Taxin - Oct. 28 (News) - "It is not enough to have one or two 'boat people' stories."

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50 years ago: The Cuban Missile Crisis and its underappreciated hero | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

thebulletin.org - By A. Walter Dorn, Robert Pauk - Oct. 15 (Special Report) - Though historians have credited American resolve for Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's decision to stop his ships and withdraw his missiles, resolution of the crisis was actually far more complex. UN Secretary-General U Thant played a crucial mediatory role and received secret urgings from Kennedy to do so.

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Stone bowl from Neolithic period found in Galilee

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Jerusalem Post - Sep. 23 (Special Report) - Colored beads and carvings on stone have been discovered at Ein Zippori, said to be remains of "Wadi Rabah" culture.

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Maya Collapse Tied To Drought, Deforestation

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Wynne Parry - Aug. 23 (Special Report) - Scientists have found that drought played a key role, but the Mayans appear to have exacerbated the problem by cutting down the jungle canopy to make way for cities and crops, according to researchers who used climate-model simulations to see how much deforestation aggravated the drought.

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The Liberal's Enduring Dilemma: Whether To Vote For Disappointing Centrists?

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Robert Perry - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - It seems that on the Left – even more than on the Right – there is this quadrennial debate over whether one should withhold support from the Democratic nominee out of a sense of moral purity or hold one’s nose and accept the “lesser evil,” i.e. the major-party candidate who will inflict the least damage on Americans and the world.

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13 days: the real story behind the Cuban Missile Crisis

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

thebulletin.org - By Kingston Reif - Jun. 22 (Special Report) - For example, unbeknownst to Kennedy, 98 Soviet tactical nuclear weapons were in fact already in Cuba. What's more, ground commanders had been authorized to employ the weapons should the United States invade. (And Soviet commanders likely would have done just that.) Kennedy also did not know that some Soviet submarines escorting ships to Cuba were armed with nuclear-tipped torpedoes. Which led to October 27 -- the most dangerous day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A Soviet submarine commander, under barrage by US depth charges, believed war between the Soviet Union and the United States must have already begun. He prepared to fire the nuclear-tipped torpedo. However, authorization to fire the torpedo required assent from the three officers on board. Two officers were in favor of launching the torpedo -- fortunately, one was not. One. It was what Kennedy and Khrushchev did not know and could not control that made the crisis so perilous.

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Tony Kushner on the Overlooked "Radicalism" and Lessons of Abraham Lincoln's Presidency

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 10 (Interview) - For his latest project, Tony Kushner is writing the screenplay for an upcoming Steven Spielberg movie about Abraham Lincoln. Kushner says an understanding of Lincoln's presidency carries valuable lessons for political life today. "I think [Lincoln's] incredible ability to finesse very treacherous political circumstances and continue to move the country forward in the midst of the most horrendously difficult period in its history, I think, is breathtaking and awe-inspiring." [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Cinco de Mayo History Short on Beer, Long on Bloodshed

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

National Geographic - By Stefan Lovgren - May. 05 (Special Report) - U.S. partygoers may be surprised to learn that Cinco de Mayo history is less about margaritas than military conflict.

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Selections from The Spoken Word

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Smithsonian Magazine - Oct. 29 (Other) - Listen to famous British and American writers talk about their work and their views on culture and society.

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10 myths about Afghanistan

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Jonathan Steele - Sep. 28 (Special Report) - In 1988, the Soviet army left Afghanistan after a concerted campaign by the western-backed mujahideen. But since then, many enduring myths have grown up about the war-torn country. In his new book, Jonathan Steele sorts the fact from the fiction 1. Afghans have always beaten foreign armies, from Alexander the Great to modern times Afghan history is certainly littered with occasions when foreign invaders were humiliated. But there have also been many cases when foreign armies penetrated the country and inflicted major defeats. In 330BC, Alexander the Great marched through the area of central Asia that is now Afghanistan, meeting little opposition. More than a millennium later, the Mongol leader Genghis Khan also brushed resistance aside. Since Afghanistan emerged as a modern state, there have been three wars with Britain. The British invasion of 1839 produced initial victory for the intruders followed by stunning defeat followed by a second victory. In 1878, the British invaded again. ...

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What did Nixon say?

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Rick Perlstein - Aug. 09 (News Report) - A judge says the disgraced president's grand jury testimony, the one time he was required to tell the truth of Watergate, should be unsealed. Prepare to be shocked anew by the politician's venality.

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The Past Is a Foreign Country

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jo Nesbo - Jul. 27 (Opinion) - A FEW days ago, before the bombing here and the shootings on Utoya Island, a friend and I were talking about how the joy of being alive always seems to go hand in hand with the sorrow that things change. Not even the brightest future can make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what came before — to the innocence of childhood or the first time we fell in love.

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What our Declaration really said

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By E.J. Dionne Jr. - Jul. 04 (Opinion) - Our nation confronts a challenge this Fourth of July that we face but rarely: We are at odds over the meaning of our history and why, to quote our Declaration of Independence, “governments are instituted.”

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The space shuttle: Into the sunset

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 03 (Special Report) - If the weather holds and there are no unforeseen complications, then early in the morning on July 8th a woman and three men will ascend the launch tower at Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre, strap themselves into Atlantis, the last operational space shuttle, and, as the engines ignite, wait for the countdown to reach zero. Burning thousands of litres of rocket fuel every second and blasting superheated gas into the water-filled trench beneath the pad, the engines will kick up the vast gouts of steam and smoke that characterise a rocket launch.

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The day the drug war really started

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Jonathan Easley - Jun. 19 (Interview) - On June 19, 1986, 25 years ago Sunday, University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of cocaine intoxication. Many believed the 6-foot 7, 220-pound small forward possessed a level of talent equal to that of Michael Jordan, and only two days earlier he'd been selected as the No. 2 overall pick in the NBA draft by the reigning champion Boston Celtics.

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“A Moment in the Sun”: An Extended Interview with Independent Filmmaker, Author John Sayles

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, John Sayles - Jun. 17 (Interview) - “However small your audiences, however frustrating it is to get where your version of the world or what you want to talk about out there, it is part of the conversation. If you shut up, the conversation is one-sided,” says Sayles.

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Debbie Reynolds is parting with her movie treasures

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Susan King - Jun. 14 (News Report) - The actress has amassed a collection of about 5,000 pieces of memorabilia. Finally admitting that her dream of a permanent museum won't be a reality, she is auctioning off the artifacts.

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In China, a long path of writing the Communist Party’s history

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Andrew Higgins - May. 27 (News Analysis) - BEIJING — China’s Communist Party has finally got its story straight. It took 16 years of editing and four extensive rewrites. Chinese leaders, otherwise preoccupied with running a rising superpower, weighed in throughout. “I never thought it would take so long,” said Shi Zhongquan, who helped craft what the party hopes will be the final word on some of the most politically sensitive and also bloodiest episodes of China’s recent history — a new 1,074-page account of the party’s early decades in ...

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Separation of Church and State: PBS Airs Documentary of a Mother's Story

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Chris Benson - May. 11 (Review) - The powerful human story behind the story of the fight that led ultimately to the Supreme Court's 8-1 ruling in 1948 that provided the framework for the contemporary principle of separation of church and state. It is a story that is beautifully rendered in the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary, The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today.

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