In Online Journalism, ‘Fast Doesn’t Always Equal Right’

Once something’s out on the Web, it’s hard to retract, even if it’s factually incorrect; old age may not begin when we traditionally thought it did; meanwhile, Richard Martinez, the father of one of the Isla Vista shooting victims, hits the nail on the head when it comes to the politics behind many mass murders. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have 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.

Journalistic Ethics at Internet Speed Several weeks ago, I read a New York magazine report that Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government would soon require incoming students to attend a class on “checking their privilege”.

The Brave New World of DIY Faecal Transplant You would have to be desperate to take a sample of your husband’s excrement, liquidise it in a kitchen blender and then insert it into your body with an off-the-shelf enema kit.

You’ll Never Guess When a New Study Says Old Age Begins — And 25 Signs You’ve Hit It When would you say old age begins?

Christopher Michael-Martinez’s Father Gets It Right I don’t think I’ve ever been as heartbroken by anything as I was by the video of Richard Martinez, whose twenty-year-old son, Christopher, a college student at the University of California Santa Barbara, had been murdered the day before.

The Left Ought to Worry About Hillary Clinton, Hawk and Militarist, in 2016 When it comes to Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, start first by disentangling the nonsense about Benghazi—a nonexistent scandal if ever there was one—from the broader palette of Clinton’s own, relatively hawkish views.

How UC–Santa Barbara Can Turn Grief Into Action: Divest From Gun Manufacturers Our communities are bearing the brunt of gun violence while corporate executives reap the financial rewards.

Margaret Drabble on the Joy of ebook You can buy texts at midnight while on the train to Taunton and read with ease in the full glare of the sun. What’s not to like about electronic reading devices, asks Margaret Drabble.

Music Data Analyst Turns Sights to Books In 2009, Alexander S. White, a former Universal Music Group intern, co-founded a company called Next Big Sound that analyzed vast amounts of data about musicians — from Twitter activity to Wikipedia searches to radio appearances — and showed how it affected sales.

Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ Is Up for Sale at What May Be a Dream Price to Some The furore around the work, complete with vodka bottles and pregnancy tests, helped to give lift-off to Emin’s career.

Keep Spinoza Excommunicated! In February of 1927, the historian Joseph Klausner stood before an audience at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and delivered a lecture on the “Jewish character” of Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy.

Hillary Clinton By the Numbers Amount the country run by the Sultan of Brunei, who wants to stone gays to death, has given to the Clinton Foundation: $1-5 million.

Admit It, Political Scientists: Politics Really Is More Broken Than Ever Scholars restrain themselves out of fear of being seen as partisans, but what’s happening now is different, and false equivalence is no virtue.

Six Legs tasty: First Edible Insect Farm Opens in U.S. A twitching mass of European house crickets clings to a maze of meshed cardboard in a tent about the size of a minivan.

The Decline of Humanities in Israel For the past few years, faculties of the humanities in the Israeli academia have been facing a serious crisis, in light of the considerable decline in numbers of registered students.

Israel-Egypt Anti-Terrorism Cooperation at Zenith On the night between Thursday and Friday, May 23, the leader of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization, was killed.

Privatization Won’t Fix the VA First it was Social Security, then Medicare and Medicaid, and then the public health care option under Obamacare.