"In their minds, I could only say these things as the result of some plot, some conspiracy..."

The Wire, Serial and the Decline of the American Industrial Empire | TIME: "Social disorganization theory holds that location is the key factor for crime, not an individual’s race or personal tendencies: put very simply, people in rough neighborhoods are more likely to be rough. Paradoxically, while housing projects were meant to clean up crime-ridden areas, in many places they made it worse — for precisely the reasons the sociologists should have expected. Once criminal elements took over the projects, kids within them were more likely to be drawn to crime. These projects — and the world they created — were partly responsible for how gang crime changed since the 1960s, when it was largely a juvenile phenomenon of petty delinquency, to a system of groups that include older members and more entrepreneurial activities. Changing attitudes in social control meant that, rather than seeing troublemaking youngsters in need of guidance, authorities saw organized crime in need of punishment." 

What It’s Like to Be an Atheist in Palestine - The Daily Beast: "Like many non-religious people around the world, I use the Internet to express my thoughts. It provides a relatively safe way of speaking freely, especially in a country where the vast majority believe in one religion and do not like to hear criticism. Or so I thought. I used to run a blog in Arabic called “Nour Alakl” and ran a satirical Facebook page under the pseudonym “Allah.” But in October 2010, Palestinian security forces stormed into an Internet cafe and arrested me. Until then, I had been under the impression that I had a right to freedom of speech and to the freedom of belief. But in jail, I was told that my online statements about religion and Islam were illegal. I was told that society didn’t accept such criticisms. I was beaten by prison guards who demanded to know who had made me write against Islam. In their minds, I could only say these things as the result of some plot, some conspiracy. The idea that I might simply want to express my independent thoughts was alien to them...

My views, however, cannot be changed by a prison sentence or by persecution. I still believe that Islam often stands in opposition to human rights and women’s rights. I believe that the Qur’an relays that Muhammad demanded death for non-believers. Many Muslims may disagree with my view, or interpret Islam in a more moderate way, but I cannot accept this religion myself. That is what my conscience tells me. I am an atheist. I believe in human rights. I have the right to say these things. Whose fault was it that I was treated so unjustly? Islam is religion, but it is also a culture. Certainly some people simply cannot stand to live alongside someone who does not conform to their views."

  

  

  

  

Prewar Japanese beer posters: the most beautiful ads ever made? - Boing Boing: "if we've entered the golden age of Japanese beer, we've missed the golden age of Japanese beer advertising. That came before the Second World War, a time when, if the advertising industry needed drawing, painting, or lettering, it was done by hand."

'Hate Speech Is Misusing Freedom of Speech' - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "And who decides what's a proper use? Prosecutors and government officials, of course, who would surely never misuse their power to suppress speech or ideas they don't like. Nope, that's never been known to go horribly wrong and—oh, wait, what? Well, we'll be better about it this time! "

  

"For years I have been telling the story of Prince Peter Ouspensky, who in his early years in the Gurdjieff Work did not understand Gurdjieff’s insistance that most people are are so deeply hypnotized that they act exactly like mechanisms. Then, shortly after World War I started, Ouspensky saw a truck headed for the front, carrying artificial legs. Suddenly, looking at a truck full of artificial legs to replace legs that had not yet been blown off, but would certainly be blown off very soon, Ouspensky understood that all human behavior on the large, historical scale is so mechanical that it can be mathematically predicted." - Robert Anton Wilson