How the IMF Raped the Globe

Disregard for human rights runs rampant in the International Monetary Fund; computers are being designed with human DNA; and Playboy reveals the ins and outs of Americans’ sex lives. These discoveries and more, below.

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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Worlds Collide in a Luxury Suite We’re quickly learning, in the aftermath of the arrest of its ex-leader, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, that the culture inside the IMF is almost as toxic as the bitter economic poison doled out by the organization itself.

How Strong Are Network Effects Online, Really? Network effects. Perhaps no other phrase can get a venture capitalist’s pulse higher.

Can Data Save the Studios in the Age of Social Media? Warner’s acquisition of Flixster is Hollywood’s savviest move yet to survive a wrenching transition into the age of social media.

Chomsky: When Did America Completely Jettison the Rule of Law? In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial.

What’s The Fastest-Growing TV Network In America? One TV network is serving the fastest-growing consumer population in the country — and it isn’t broadcast in English.

Future Computers May Be DNA-Based We’ve all heard our brain likened to a computer. But professor Jian-Jun Shu and his students at Nanyang Technical University are taking that comparison quite literally.

The Excuses Discredited Doomsday Prophets Make There’s a line in the book of Matthew that doomsday prophets like Harold Camping — the 89-year-old who promised the world would end Saturday — always seem to ignore: It says that nobody knows the actual day or the hour, not even Jesus or the angels.

Playboy Surveys Sex Lives of Americans Back in 1983, Playboy conducted the biggest sex poll in history, which surveyed 65,396 male and 14,928 female readers. Now, almost three decades later, Playboy has done it again.

Parents Keep Child’s Gender Secret Kathy Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby.

On Tyson’s Face, It’s Art. On Film, a Legal Issue. Hollywood is accustomed to lawsuits, but now a studio may be going to court over a tattoo—or at least over the original concept of the tattoo.