What’s in a Face?

Gay and straight men’s visages may differ in form, researchers say; cops in New Mexico have taken to administering anal exams for minor traffic breaches; meanwhile, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would divest European governments of any power to defend their citizens from big business. 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.

Gay and Straight Men May Have Different Facial Shapes, New Study Suggests Researchers have found that homosexual and heterosexual men have distinguishable facial shapes.

A Founder of Twitter Goes Long Between downtown San Francisco and the new Twitter offices six city blocks to the west, things get sketchy.

N=1: A Social Scientific Inquiry into Happiness and Academic Labor A young scholar’s doctoral education is a quintessential period for both personal and professional development.

Fail to Use a Turn Signal? Anal Exam (Video) A second driver says the cops in the same town as before stopped him for failing to use his turn signal, and he ended up getting an x-ray of his stomach and multiple anal exams at the same hospital that violated the previous driver.

Western Voters Say No to Fracking and Coal Fossil fuels took a licking in local elections in Colorado and Washington on Tuesday, as voters resoundingly said no to oil and gas fracking and coal exports.

Liberman: Israel’s ‘Bad Cop’ Returns Akiva Eldar’s acquaintances in the Palestinian Authority’s public relations department in Ramallah shed no tears Nov. 6 when they heard about the court’s decision to acquit former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman.

Glenn Greenwald and Bill Keller Are Wrong About Objectivity in Journalism A debate has been raging for 50 years or more over whether journalists should try to be “objective” in reporting events or describing controversies.

The NYT Paywall Plugs the Hole Unsurprisingly, print ads are still the behemoth of New York Times revenue, comprising 63 percent of that pile.

An Unhappy Lawrence Lessig Takes on Apple Almost everyone who uses computers or smartphones has tales of upgrades gone awry—sometimes horribly awry.

Transatlantic Trade Deal Is A Full-Frontal Assault On Democracy Remember that referendum about whether Europe should create a single market with the United States?

Mondragón And The System Problem As America moves more deeply into its growing systemic crisis, it is becoming increasingly important for activists and theorists to distinguish clearly between important projects and “institutional elements,” on the one hand, and systemic change and systemic design, on the other.