Six of the Best 376

"This is the problem with the Labour tradition. It forgets that there is anything else beyond meeting needs. It sums up human beings as bundles of needs. It represents the apotheosis of need." David Boyle on The Real Blog, in a terrific post, gets to the heart of why we need a Liberal party.

Kiron Reid discusses the right to protest at Westminster writes in Law, Crime and History.

Byrne Tofferings has a sensible take on the debate on depression: "What has been adopted is the idea that depression is some kind of disease. We man the barricades against those we feel might contribute to any stigmatisation of sufferers at all. In the name of protecting the “victims” from perceived slights, we have decided to shut down discourse altogether."

Bim Adewunmi celebrates BBC4 on the New Statesman site.

Twitter is becoming cooler than Facebook, says Kevin Drum on Mother Jones.

"On the day the riots began, Martha Reeves was in the midst of what was supposed to be a ten-day engagement in downtown Detroit’s Fox Theatre. By strange coincidence, she was actually in the middle of performing “Dancing in the Street” when the stage manager interrupted to tell her that the city was on fire." Rollo Romig writes for the New Yorker on Detroit, music and riots.