• Summer movies are often described as formulaic. But what few people know is that there is actually a formula—one that lays out, on a page-by-page basis, exactly what should happen when in a screenplay. It’s as if a mad scientist has discovered a secret process for making a perfect, or at least perfectly conventional, summer blockbuster.

    The formula didn’t come from a mad scientist. Instead it came from a screenplay guidebook

    —Hollywood and Blake Snyder’s screenwriting book, Save the Cat! - Slate Magazine

  • One of the successful bidders was Jess Meyers, a 28-year-old self-professed squatter who took over a PHA house in the 5100 block of Funston Street eight years ago.

    Meyers tried to get the authority to take the property off the market and turn it over to her.

    Jeremiah, however, was unmoved by her appeal. “Squatters offend my sensibility,” he said. “They haven’t paid rent or water bills or taxes. It’s private property.”

    Meyers launched an online crowd-sourcing campaign and raised $3,000. She borrowed $5,000 from a property owner who often hires her to do odd jobs.

    With only one other bidder, Meyers got the house, signed a purchase agreement with PHA, and says she plans to upgrade the interior.

    Up until now, she has had an open-door policy at the house, inviting friends and “travelers” who were just passing through to crash there.

    That will change now that she’s a property owner. “I’m still going to allow people to stay,” Meyers said, “but there will have to be money involved.”

  • However, on the whole, our criminal-justice system is so frightfully racist because it’s too easy for prosecutors, not because it’s too hard. Of course, in a racist society, rules that help defendants are going to help the most privileged defendants the most, and that’s maddening. But that shouldn’t stop us from recognising that the least privileged, the most oppressed, the most discriminated against, are far and away most likely to stand accused. That’s why I suspect that a legal system making it harder for the likes of Mr Zimmerman to get away with it would be a system of even more outrageous racial inequity.

    —[Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman: Getting away with it The Economist](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/07/trayvon-martin-and-george-zimmerman?fsrc=scn/gn_ec/getting_away_with_it)