The NSA Leaks and the 3 News Outlets

Although The Guardian broke the story on the National Security Agency, it soon collaborated with The New York Times and ProPublica; Glenn Greenwald and Pierre Omidyar have set up a temporary blog until their site is up and running; meanwhile, from the sky, a church is discovered to have an unfortunate resemblance to a sexual organ. 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.

How Three News Outlets Collaborated on the NSA File The Guardian was the news outlet to break the initial story on mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA), but by the end of August it had joined forces with first the New York Times and then ProPublica.

Wanted: Adoring Female Students The intellectual and physical seduction of young female students by older, male professors – usually in the humanities, and in the throes of midlife crises – is so common in movies and books that it’s become a cliché.

In The Name Of The Father, The Son And The Holy Sh*t — That’s A Penis Church Dixon, Illinois’ Christian Science church is serving the body of Christ and the penis of architectural irony.

The Omidyar Group: Welcome to News about Our Endeavor The Omidyar Group has started a blog until their official site is up and running.

Author Max Blumenthal Offers Unfiltered View Into Israel’s Commitment to Ethnic Supremacy In his new book, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, award-winning journalist Max Blumenthal goes deep inside Israeli society, offering a rare and unfiltered lens into the hideous implications of Israel’s commitment to Jewish supremacy.

Ranking the College Ranking Rankings College rankings have long been essential to the functioning of American higher education, but theirs is a troubled enterprise.

Public Intellectuals Against the Neoliberal University “The University is a critical institution or it is nothing,” said Stuart Hill.

Social Advocacy & Politics: Strangers on a Train and Other Twitter Problems Michael is on a train traveling at 120 mph talking with a reporter on the phone giving an interview, as an unnamed source, on US national security policy.

Why the Tiananmen Square Crash Is So Unnerving China’s largest public urban space is more than just the site of the famous student protests 24 years ago. It’s also the symbol of the country—and the country’s power.

Fate of A Statue: The Case of the Duryodhana On a sweltering Friday afternoon two years ago in Phnom Penh, Anne Lemaistre, the head of UNESCO’s office in Cambodia, received an unusually urgent phone call from Paris.