djdj123

You may have picked up on the author's not-so-subtle self-congratulation in the use of the phrase: "our great culture".

There is a lot of wonderful material to be absorbed in the ancient texts of India, but the text of that page has a strong Hindu religious nationalist tone (which in Indian languages is called "Hindutva", or "Hindu-ness").

The vast (in time and space), and diverse Indian culture that produced these works was far more tolerant and open to the world's ideas than the apparent mindset of the individual(s) who created this site.

So try to enjoy the actual linked texts, but observe, and then ignore the religious nationalism that seems to have inspired the site.

This generalization gets bandied about too much. Crime trends and patterns are highly local. I'm sure violent crime is dropping in many places, but in other places it's spiraling out of control, for example, South Chicago, East Oakland, Detroit. I think it's a mistake to throw those places in the same basket as a small city in Ohio (unless it really has similar crime stats).

Another criticism of Gladwell's writing by Steven Pinker some years ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html...

Er, iphones and other fancy smartphones are being stolen because they fetch hundreds of dollars from black-market wholesalers and unwitting craigslist buyers. Not because people don't use a PIN. Of course, using a PIN is a good idea in the event that the person who eventually gets possession is an identity thief.

Living in a bay area city with a recent alarming increase in armed robbery due to a shrinking police force (guess which one), I would suggest that crime, like real estate, is local, local, local. Perhaps Times Square and Talinn are safer than before, but the negative dividends of the crack epidemic, the rise of gangs and guns and glorification of criminal culture, the lack of parenting in at risk communities, and the collapse of municipal finances since 2008 has left cities like mine in the US with soaring violent crime rates.