Iran’s Narco-for-Hire

The Iranian government may have tried to hire a member of the Zetas drug cartel to kill an ambassador; condoms have been made to commemorate the Occupy Wall Street protests; meanwhile, Facebook is after your kids. 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.

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Hiring Narcos to Murder the Saudi Ambassador? If It’s True, Tehran Is Pretty Dumb If Iranian government operatives really did try to contract a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., as the Obama Administration alleges today, then they weren’t just being diabolical. They were being fairly stupid.

Occupy Wall Street Condoms Unveiled If you’re worried about all of those protesters engaging in unprotected sex and contracting ghastly sexually transmitted diseases, you can breath a sigh of relief. Now condoms to honor (and protect) the Occupy Wall Street movement have been rolled out, reports Gawker.

The Controversial Willingham Case: What Rick Perry Knew and When On the day in 2004 that her first cousin Cameron Todd Willingham was scheduled to be executed in Texas, Patricia Cox had good reason to believe he was innocent.

What caused the wealth gap? If you are still scratching your head trying to figure out Occupy Wall Street’s aim, you are not alone; the three-week-old movement has remained stubbornly resistant to stating clear demands.

Can OWS be turned into a Democratic Party movement? Even the most establishment Democrats have fundamentally changed how they talk about the protests — from condescension and hostility to respect and even support — and The New York Times makes clear one significant factor accounting for this change.

Why Facebook Is After Your Kids In May, Consumer Reports announced that 7.5 million kids age 12 and younger are on Facebook.

Academics on the Occupation “Bill O’Reilly has connected the dots to identify me as being behind the occupation,” said Frances Fox Piven. “I’m sorry to say that’s not true.”

The Solipsist: What Anderson Cooper Has Done to Journalism Anderson Cooper the daytime talk show host does not look all that different from Anderson Cooper the disaster reporter.

Internet Censorship Growth Hampers News A detailed study of Internet censorship in China and Iran shows that blocking techniques are changing rapidly and are becoming significant new obstacles for news organizations, governments and businesses.