Six of the Best 367

Blood & Treasure says Andy Murray does not come from Scotland or Britain: "Like every other modern tennis player his nation is the court, the training camp, the hotel room and the airlines that link them. One thing that struck me about today’s classic Murray mumble is that he sounded more or less identical to the man he beat, Djokovic."

Edward Snowden wants asylum in Venezuela, but Venezuela is a surveillance state, argues Isabel Lara on Boing Boing.

"Children and adults need nature, yet our technology shapes and defines us more and more. We are products of nature becoming confined by our technology. Our innate design skills, driven by our imaginative human mind, has allowed people to settle and to farm the land, further advances saw us leave the fields and villages for a contrasting urban life detached from the natural environment. We increasingly enjoy the natural world as observers – we are of nature, but not in it." Journeys of discovery are not just to wild landscapes, but can be found in simple places close to home says Miles Richardson on Outdoor Nation.

A. Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times Dispatch writes on the increasing militarisation of the police in the USA.

Martin Cloake, on the New Statesman site, mourns the relegation of the Doncaster Belles: "The case appears to starkly illustrate all that is wrong with modern football – a successful club with strong community roots relegated because its commercial model didn't pass muster, in favour of a new team established by moneybags Manchester City."

Sefton Focus looks at an engineering gem on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.