Freedom From Porn Edition

What Obama hasn’t learned about offshore oil drilling, why Steve Jobs and Apple want to offer “freedom from porn,” and how GM bamboozled the country into thinking it repaid its bailout money.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

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Obama Has Learned Nothing from the BP Blowout President Obama claims to have learned a lesson from the disastrous blowout of British Petroleum drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico: a “cozy relationship” between the agency that regulates oil drilling, the Minerals Management Service, and the oil industry, he charges, allowed companies to drill in vulnerable offshore areas without properly assessing the risks to the ocean and its ecology. He’s only just figuring this out?

Bizarre College-Entrance Questions: Discuss All Souls, a graduate-only college at the University of Oxford, is doing away with a tradition that has existed for nearly a century: the single-word essay question

Global universities — How to create a higher-education supermarket In “The Great Brain Race” Ben Wildavsky points to another mighty agent of globalisation: universities.

Taxes Lowest in Nearly 60 Years Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman’s presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.

200 Moments that Transformed Journalism, 2000-2009 These moments chronicle change in four critical areas …

GM’s Shell Game Indeed, Treasury knew of this unpublicized account from which GM drew the funds to make the payment. GM didn’t use the profits from sales of Chevys and Buicks, but, according to assistant secretary for financial stability Herbert M. Allison, Jr., “the money GM used to repay its bailout loan had come from a tax-payer financed escrow account held for the automaker at the Treasury.”

Steve Jobs Offers World ‘Freedom From Porn’ I didn’t plan to pick a fight with Steve Jobs last night. It just sort of happened: An iPad advertisement ticked me off; I sent the Apple CEO an angry email; he told me about “freedom from porn.” The electronic debate proceeded from there.

YouTube Turns 5, Celebrates New Record Video sharing website YouTube now gets more than two billion hits daily.

The Ultimate Newsweek Cover Line Matt Cooper, a triple-crown veteran of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News, once came up with the greatest newsweekly cover line of all time: “What Would Jesus Eat? The New Science of Biblical Diets Could Be The Secret to Weight Loss.”