Larry’s List: Mrs. Robinson Edition

While the real-life Mrs. Robinson, an ultraconservative, “sanctity of marriage” homophobe from Northern Ireland, was shtupping a teenager, our feet were all getting bigger. Confused? Keep reading for clarification — and maybe even a little enlightenment.

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.

Newer links are on top.

One high street shoe retailer has seen a marked increase in sales of larger sizes. But are our feet really getting bigger or are we coming round to the idea of “sensible shoes”?

Growth of Citizen Co-Ops Is a Positive Development as Corporations Fail Us As economic hardship threatens communities, there is one bright light in the fog — cooperatives — which already serve four in 10 Americans and are growing strong.

How to Make America More Innovative Is America no longer the land of innovation? Everyone from tech billionaires to Times columnists is sounding the alarm, and everyone has his own diagnosis of the problem. …

How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? Read any newspaper or magazine and you will notice the many flavors of the one big question that everyone is asking today.

The Real Dangers Facing America’s Most Important Universities What do the following have in common: the bar code, congestion charging, the cervical Pap smear and the Internet? All emerged from work done at America’s pre-eminent research universities.

Geithner and the AIG E-Mails: Tip of the Iceberg In a December New York Times Op-Ed, we called for the full public release of AIG e-mail messages, internal accounting documents and financial models generated in the last decade…

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California’s Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California’s constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.

‘There Is Cause for Optimism’ in the Federal Prop. 8 Trial At 8:30 Monday morning, the curtain will rise on one of the compelling legal dramas of our time.

Irish Mrs. Robinson Bangs Teenager, May Bring Down Government And Mrs. Robinson knows something about the sacred institution of marriage: the 60-something lady has been married for more than 40 years … which makes her marriage more than twice as old as the teenage boy she got caught fucking.

Fox News’ Shameless Christian Crusade At Fox News, religion is easy: Christianity is right and good and must be defended from its relentless persecutors, and other faiths are dangerous, inadequate or a joke.

Factually Challenged Fox News Channel Hires Factually Challenged Palin Palin is a master practitioner of pushing false claims and bogus information. Now she’ll be doing that as a regular Fox news contributor.

Making Sense of the New CIA Battlefield in Afghanistan It was a Christmas and New Year’s from hell for American intelligence, that $75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones.

Why Just About Everything You Hear About California’s Water Crisis Is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong The media and the governor are warning of the “worst drought in history” in California We’re being lied to.

Oxygenating Academe: The Unpublic Intellectual Louis Menand—Luke to those who know him—has all the credentials of a public intellectual.

Video Palindrome:

Physics, Blogs and Dogs When I started my blog in 2002, I had no idea it would lead me to talking to my dog about physics. Let alone to writing a book about explaining physics to my dog.

Law Schools Resist Proposal to Assess Them Based on What Students Learn Law schools would be required to identify key skills and competencies and develop ways to test how well their graduates are learning them under controversial revisions to accreditation standards being proposed by the American Bar Association.

Bank Whistle-Blower Gets Jail, Bank President Gets Golf With Obama Instead of rewarding Birkenfeld, Obama’s Justice Department is sending him to prison. He begins serving a 40-month federal sentence Friday for conspiracy and bank fraud.

Something Spooky in Obama’s Past? WMR has learned from a veteran member of the White House press corps that the Obama administration has made it known through White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and other White House communications officials that certain questions posed by the reporters who cover the White House are definitely off-limits.