‘Sesame Street’ Songs Used to Torture Inmates

To make inmates in Guantanamo Bay divulge information, guards play “Sesame Street” songs; studies are attempting to show that people can suffer from a clinical addiction to Facebook; meanwhile, the Catholic Church is looking into the Girl Scouts for their ties to organizations that promote safe sex. 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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What’s the best music to use when you’re torturing someone? Guards at Guantanamo Bay tried to coerce inmates into talking with songs from Sesame Street played on repeat, according to a new Al-Jazeera documentary.

The Wall Street Journal ‘cannot generate enough video streams’ to meet advertising demand The Wall Street Journal announced the launch of a new early-morning show, Asia Today, which will broadcast weekdays at 6:30 a.m. (Eastern), with a focus on business, finance, and breaking news in the region.

Obama ‘Socialist’ Claim Persists On Right Despite Inaccuracies When President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign unveiled its new slogan, some conservative critics were quick to pounce.

Clinically Addicted to Facebook? In a society awash with digital media, concerns about addiction are natural. But are they unfounded?

Why Should Anyone Trust Bill Clinton When It Comes to Wall Street? Well, so much for Barack Obama’s reelection campaign talking at all about Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital.

Debunking Fox & Friends’ Dishonest Anti-Obama Attack Ad Fox & Friends aired a video attacking President Obama by resurrecting dishonest and misleading attacks on his economic record. The video, which was produced in the style of a campaign ad against Obama, furthers Fox News’ role as the communications and campaign arm of the GOP.

Anonymous strikes back A D.C. computer executive thought he could outwit the hacker collective. He was very, very wrong.

Why I’m Voting Against California’s Tobacco Tax Increase Californians will vote on an initiative to raise taxes on cigarettes. It’s called Proposition 29, the “California Cancer Research Act,” and it would increase the state tax on cigarettes by $1 a pack, raising $700 million a year, which would be spent on cancer research.

Vatican Investigating Girl Scouts for Links to Safe-Sex Education Groups The Catholic Church is not investigating the Girl Scouts for their sinfully delicious cookies, but rather for the organization’s ties to nonprofits such as Médicins Sans Frontières.

White House Didn’t Ask New York Times Not to Publish Classified Information When the New York Times published a detailed story by chief Washington correspondent David Sanger confirming the U.S. as the co-author of the Stuxnet virus and outlining Barack Obama’s role in directing a highly classified digital monkeywrenching program against Iranian nuclear facilities, many observers noted that the story couldn’t have been written without White House support.