Roundup

Books image

dsd

Jeff Stein: Covert Affairs ... A Short History of Spies and their Sex Scandals

Jeff Stein, an investigative reporter specializing in U.S. intelligence, defense, and foreign policy, is author of the blog Spy Talk. He was an Army intelligence case officer in Vietnam. As long as there have been spies, there have been spy scandals. Usually, however, it's because a senior official got hooked up with an enemy spy, most famously like British Secretary of War John Profumo, who in 1963 was "dating" an alleged call girl who was also involved with a Soviet naval official suspected of being a spy. Down he went. That was a long time ago.

David

Voter ID Requirements Map

Obama gives Chimney Rock a National Monument designation

A thousand years ago, the ancestors of modern Pueblo Indians were among the ancient people who watched the sky.They built a village near an extraordinary rock formation in southwest Colorado that captures the rare Lunar Standstill. Today it is called Chimney Rock, a sprawling archaeological site covering nearly 5,000 acres in San Juan National Forest. President Obama gave it a National Monument designation last week, his third and the nation’s 103rd overall.Chimney Rock is surrounded by the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. Since its construction, Pueblo tribes split into the 19 current groups that are governed by the All Indian Pueblo Council.Santa Ana, Zuni, Acoma and other tribes spread into New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and other parts of Colorado, abandoning Chimney Rock, but recognizing it as an ancestral place of origin.Santa Ana, Zuni, Acoma and other tribes spread into New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and other parts of Colorado, abandoning Chimney Rock, but recognizing it as an ancestral place of origin.

An Atom Smasher Is Squeezed Through a Museum’s Doors

If physics has to do with the actions and reactions of something, then this is about physics. But really it is about a thing — a thing that was at the heart of breakthrough physics experiments that led to the crash program for the atom bomb in World War II.It is also about whether the movers could squeeze the thing through a door. It was a 16-feet-7-inch-long piece of the machine that scientists working on the Manhattan Project built to smash atoms. The door belonged to the New-York Historical Society on Central Park West.The historical society borrowed the device, a cyclotron, from the Smithsonian Institution, which has had it since 1965. The society is preparing an exhibition, “WWII & NYC,” that is scheduled to open next month and offer a look at the city’s contributions to the war. The cyclotron has not been on public view since a display at the Smithsonian was taken down in 1977....

Jason Farago: 9/11 at 11 ... Where the Real Ground Zero of a New American Century Lies

Jason Farago is a New York-based writer and critic who contributes to the London Review of Books, Monocle, n+1, and other magazines. He is also editor of The Bugle, an American publication on culture and ecology. 9/11 was the day America has promised never to forget, but today, 11 years on, is the quietest anniversary of that terrible day we have yet seen. Last year, the tenth anniversary and the first after the death of Osama bin Laden, felt almost like the final one. Today, most newspapers have some pro forma editorial on the importance of "pausing to reflect", and the two presidential campaigns are suspended. But here in New York, the commemorations are minor, and the nation's politicians are not in town. In Washington, the National Cathedral isn't even bothering to hold a special service. September 11, as we never expected, is close to becoming just another day. If you go down to the World Trade Center site, you'll see some propaganda that the reconstruction process is "picking up speed", and that the city and the nation are "honoring the victims". But it won't feel that way...

Jane Warwick Yoder and Edwin M. Yoder, Jr.:

Jane Warwick Yoder and Edwin M. Yoder Jr. live in Alexandria, Virginia. Jane Warwick Yoder is a clinical social worker and a Jungian psychotherapist. Edwin M. Yoder Jr. won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing at The Washington Star and was later a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post.As the current presidential campaign winds down and the major-party candidates drearily accentuate the negative, has it dawned at last on Bill Clinton’s critics, and even some of his old political enemies, that the Clinton era wasn’t so bad after all? The former president is now perhaps the most admired political figure in the country. If so, an old adage has been vindicated: truth is the daughter of time, and as a rule Americans tend to think better of their presidents when they’re well out of office and the irritants and errors are forgotten.

What do American History Museum curators collect at the Republican National Convention?

It takes a committed partisan to wear a funny hat or campaign button at a presidential nominating convention. But it takes two committed curators to plow through the convention crowds to collect the hats and buttons, plus the bumper stickers, lapel pins, party geegaws and discarded texts of speeches delivered in moments of extreme hope.Larry Bird and Harry Rubenstein, curators at the National Museum of American History, have been navigating the crowds at both major parties’ conventions to collect such stuff since the 1980s—all to keep the museum’s political history collection of more than 100,000 artifacts current.“We go to the conventions to sample and see,” says Bird, a Smithsonian curator since 1976. “We’re documenting the continuing American political tradition of how people elect a president.”...

Will Obama win in this economy? History says maybe not

Even though President Obama is favored to be reelected in the fall, a quick look back at economic and electoral history reveals just how much the odds are stacked against the White House amid the lackluster recovery.According to Barclays (BCS), key economic metrics including unemployment, gross domestic product growth, consumer confidence and capital spending are currently substantially weaker than the average for winning incumbent presidents in reelections since 1948.Even a seemingly positive measure, the 20% year-over-year jump in the S&P 500, fits more into the historical storyline of an incumbent about to be denied another four years by the voters than one on the cusp of reelection....

Cave of the Monkeys: Photos Reveal Early Modern Human Remains

Evidence strongly suggests modern humans migrated out of Africa and into Southeast Asia by at least 60,000 years ago. However, a notable absence of fossil evidence for modern human occupation in mainland Southeast Asia complicates this theory. A partial skull from an anatomically modern human found in Tam Pa Ling, "the Cave of the Monkeys" in northern Laos ... helps fill in this mysterious gap in the fossil record....

John G. Turner: Why Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons

John G. Turner is an assistant professor at George Mason University and the author of “Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet.”“I BELIEVE that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people,” sings Elder Kevin Price in the Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon.” The line is meant to be funny, and it is — in part because it’s true.In a June 1978 letter, the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaimed that “all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color.” Men of African descent could now hold the priesthood, the power and authority exercised by all male members of the church in good standing. Such a statement was necessary, because until then, blacks were relegated to a very second-class status within the church.

test hnn

test

Test

Test

In mid-July, relatives of three U.S. citizens killed by drone strikes in Yemen filed a wrongful death lawsuit against top security officials. Their complaint charges that the lethal strikes "violated fundamental rights afforded to all U.S. citizens, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law."This raises an important question: When one country polices the world, who polices the police?In the aftermath of World War II, America's leaders forged an internationalist foreign policy in defiance of popular pressure to return to "isolationism," or conventional national defense. This internationalism had two tracks. One was rooted in U.S. expansionist and interventionist history and took the form of a "world policeman" role against communism. The other was based on the principle of collective security associated with the recently established United Nations.

A mausoleum built for Bolivar but worthy of Chavez

The towering, white mausoleum in downtown Caracas is for many Venezuelans a lot like Hugo Chavez, only in architectural terms: disproportionately larger-than-life, flamboyant and self-important.And no, the grand tomb was not built for Venezuela's socialist president, who has grappled with his own mortality in his recent battle with cancer and is running for re-election.It will cradle the remains of South American independence leader Simon Bolivar, who Chavez daily, rapturously and exhaustively exalts as the spiritual father of his own self-styled revolution.The 160-foot (50-meter) mausoleum is to be inaugurated in the coming days, though it is not quite finished.

600-year-old linen bras found in Austrian castle

A revolutionary discovery is rewriting the history of underwear: Some 600 years ago, women wore bras.The University of Innsbruck said Wednesday that archeologists found four linen bras dating from the Middle Ages in an Austrian castle. Fashion experts describe the find as surprising because the bra had commonly been thought to be only little more than 100 years old as women abandoned the tight corset.Instead, it appears the bra came first, followed by the corset, followed by the reinvented bra.One specimen in particular "looks exactly like a (modern) brassiere," says Hilary Davidson, fashion curator for the London Museum. "These are amazing finds."Although the linen garments were unearthed in 2008, they did not make news until now says Beatrix Nutz, the archaeologist responsible for the discovery....

French Holocaust records exhibited for 1st time

They are among France's darkest days: Police dragged over 13,000 Jews from their homes, confined them in a Paris cycling stadium with little food or water, and then deported them to their deaths in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. But even in France, one of the most brazen collaborations between authorities and the Nazis during World War II is unknown to many in the younger generation.Police are hoping to change that, opening up their archives on France's biggest single deportation of French Jews for the first time to the public on Thursday.

Julian Zelizer: Obama Should Ignore 'Class Warfare' Gibes

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and of the new book "Governing America."Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- During a meeting with historians in 2011, Politico reported, President Obama said: "What you could do for me is to help me find a way to discuss the issue of inequality in our society without being accused of class warfare." For Obama, this is not an esoteric question. Rather, this is a challenge that will be integral to his campaign and, if he is re-elected, to his second term as president.Many Democrats have argued that Obama should have tackled this issue from his first day in the White House. But this is an issue the president didn't think he had the political capital to address. He has also continually feared that touching on inequality would open him up to Republican attacks of being left of center.

test