Less Driving, More Texting

Smartphone apps have revolutionized the way Americans use transportation; the CEO of The Guardian says his paper can’t survive in the U.K.; meanwhile, why aren’t millennial liberals protesting the shutdown? 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.

What the Rise of Technology Has to Do With the Decline of Driving In dozens of small ways, emerging technology has been subtly nudging our behavior – at work, at home, while socializing or traveling – in ways that directly impact how people use transportation.

The Foolish, Malicious War on Apostrophe’s In the debate over whether the apostrophe should be eliminated, there may appear to be connection with real life.

Why Aren’t Those New, Millennial Liberals Protesting the Shutdown? Is a new, young left really on the rise?

Guardian CEO: My Newspaper Can’t Survive in the UK The chief executive of The Guardian has delivered a rather grim verdict about the newspaper’s future (or lack thereof).

Behind Putin’s Op-Ed and the Growing Power of Publicists Just as the noise over Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times on September 11 died down came the news that John McCain responded in kind with a pretty much universally panned op-ed in Russia’s Pravda, or, more properly, a Russian Pravda.

How America’s Marriage Crisis Makes Income Inequality So Much Worse The familiar story about income inequality and the lost middle class often starts with bots and boxes.

Schoolchildren at Their Most Generous, City Bureaucracy at Its Least This is a tale of good deeds gone unrequited.

Bernie Sanders: A Single-Payer System, Like Medicare, is the Cure for America’s Ailing Healthcare Obamacare’s reforms are a welcome but small step. To give all Americans healthcare as a right, we need a fair, efficient solution

John McAfee Reveals Details On Gadget to Thwart NSA John McAfee lived up to his reputation Saturday as tech’s most popular wild child, electrifying an audience with new details of his plan to thwart the NSA’s surveillance of ordinary Americans with an inexpensive, pocket-size gadget.