…  Robert Alter's Masterful Translations of the Bible as Literature – Tablet Magazine  (hat tip, Rus Bowden.)  Only if we approach the...

The Signal and the Noise . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known. — Blaise Pascal , born on this date in 1623 l

I refute it thus.

... Michelle de Kretser wins Miles Franklin literary award

... Clear Minds Come Out with Clear Words

…  New England Writers At Work: Donald Hall - Books - The Boston Globe . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  William Gaddis: A very fine shambles | TLS . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  The Prettiest Publications of the Past on AbeBooks .

…  3 Former NSA Employees Praise Edward Snowden, Corroborate Key Claims - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic .

…  A Less-Noticed, More-Influential Reason Writers Write: To Talk - Noah Berlatsky - The Atlantic . (Hatip, Dave Lull.)

Warrior Princess  A former Navy SEAL has written a book about the 20 years that they spent in the elite squad before living life as a ...

… ' Real men don't do poetry': Israeli army refuses to let IDF soldier read verses on the radio - Middle East - World - The Inde...

…  The Millions : Tom Wolfe on “The Human Beast” and its Kingdom of Speech . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  From An Unwritten Theory of Dreams by Zbigniew Herbert | The New York Review of Books . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... Grammar: The plucky punctuators fighting against apostrophe catastrophes

…  Edward Snowden: NSA whistleblower answers reader questions | World news | guardian.co.uk . (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)

…  The American Scholar: Too Much Information - Paula Marantz Cohen . The other day, a colleague came into my office disgusted. He had a...

…  Job advice from Casanova … with a few diet tips, too. | The Book Haven .

..Jay Ponteri thinks there's another way to make sense of things. Not to get divorced, but to talk about exactly what's going ...

…  Maverick Philosopher: Does Anyone Really Believe in the Muslim Paradise?  (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) If we are to be as charitable to Atra...

…  Americans' Confidence in Newspapers Continues to Erode .

…  Poetry: Floyd Skloot discovers the necessity of music for insight | OregonLive.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Continuous and Discrete | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) … without going into a detailed constr...

It is a trick among the dishonest to offer sacrifices that are not needed, or not possible, to avoid making those that are required. — I...

... Riotous writers

…  Bryan Appleyard — A Boomer Bites Back . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I really have no dog in this fight, since I'm even older than the bo...

…  Paul Davis On Crime: Crime Beat Column: A Q and A With Dick Lehr, Co-Author of 'Whitey: The Life Of America's Most Notorious Mob ...

…  Edward Snowden and Catholic Social Teaching | Catholic Moral Theology Edward Snowden and Catholic Social Teaching | . While there may ...

... Google launches Internet-beaming balloon

... Was Uri Geller a secret CIA spy?

… but what exactly are we supposed to do about the people who go around decapitating other people, claiming they do so for religious reasons...

…  Anecdotal Evidence: `Like a Frock Coat on a Mermaid' .

…  Controversy erupts as "undiscovered" Joyce manuscript is published just in time for Bloomsday | MobyLives . (Hat tip, Dave Lull...

Defending the Commune: 3 | The American Conservative . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Thus the warning of  Sir Thomas Browne  in the seventeenth ce...

…  First Known When Lost: By The Sea, Part Two: "So Of The Soul" .

…  THUS WAS ADONIS MURDERED by Sarah Caudwell | Petrona Remembered . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Luminary by RS Thomas: Poem of the week | Books | guardian.co.uk . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education. — John Hersey , born on this date in 1914

... Curtis Sittenfeld: 'I know my characters are unlikable sometimes' I think we can have this tendency to feel like famous peopl...

It's often said that the Romantics invented childhood, as if children had merely been small adults before. Hmmm...What about "un...

…  Sam Tanenhaus on Conservatism and Culture | FiveBooks | Five Books . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Well, I'm older than Tanenhaus, I spent ...

…  Bloomsday and the Gloves of Love .

…  I ssa's Untidy Hut: Huff Dedication Redux: John Paul Moore .

…  Language Log Çapuling . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Moore College of Art and Design - Blog - Retired Shoe Designer Bonnie Smith Finds New Career in Cars . Bonnie and Debbie knew each othe...

…  Paul Davis On Crime: Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop': Journalism Is A Duplicitious Business .

…  THE VIEW FROM THE STANDS  . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Happy Fatha’s Day . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Anecdotal Evidence: `Tableau Vivant if You Will' .

… I review a couple of books by Gerald Stern:   Thinking, feeling in poems and prose . …  Twisted tale of murder and power . …  He just...

A modern person has no energy to love any other time than his own. — Torgny Lindgren , born on this date in 1938

... Isaiah Berlin's letters reveal his despair at the 'growth of barbarism'

... E

… Harry Nilsson, in 1941.

…  Secret to Prism program: Even bigger data seizure . Years after decrying Bush for it, Obama said Americans did have to make tough cho...

…  Dante…Rodin…Philadelphia | Dreaming in Iambic Pentameter .

…  zmkc: No Laughing Matter .

…  Lincoln Hunter Web Log: On Freedom .

…  Important: Researcher Says that Berenstein Bears, Franklin the Friendly Turtle Perpetuate "Racist," "Socially Dominant Nor...

…  A Bloomsday Appreciation of Ulysses by James Joyce, Greatest Mind-Scientist Ever | Cross-Check, Scientific American Blog Network . (Hat t...

…  Anecdotal Evidence: `What Culture Survives the Century' . “The great historical fact of the immediate past is therefore not that N...

…  Zealotry of Guerin: The Sense of Speed (Dali) .

…  Instapundit — ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL: A reader who requests anonymity emails .

…  Allen Ginsberg’s Personal Recipe for Cold Summer Borscht | Open Culture . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

…  Press Freedom Index 2013 - Reporters Without Borders . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Bookslut | The Riotous, Wounded Wit of Stanley Elkin: On Illness as Muse . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Ivebeenreadinglately: Penelope Fitzgerald on Barbara Pym . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms. ―  Kobayashi Issa , born on this date in 1763

... Flying drama

... Long-lost diary of top Hitler aide offers window into Nazi soul

… Leon Wieseltier: “Perhaps culture is now the counterculture.” | The Book Haven . The problem is what the academy has done to the humanit...

…  Issa's Untidy Hut: Ed Markowski's treeee: Small Press Friday .

…  Bloomsday Memories - NYTimes.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Today is Bloomsday, when readers worldwide celebrate Leopold Bloom’s Dublin w...

…  Footage from the RC drone that was shot down by police [HD] on Vimeo . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Gary Jansen: 9 Reasons Why Dan Brown is One of the Most Important (Living) Authors . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) " Critics too, while proba...

The Only Surviving Film Footage of Anne Frank - Rebecca J. Rosen - The Atlantic . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  W. H. Auden’s Juicy Missing Diary Appears! And Then Promptly Disappears, For $74,426.56 | The Awl . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Instapundit — 21ST CENTURY WATERGATE? CBS News confirms multiple breaches of Sharyl Attkisson’s computer.

…  Collateral damage by William Logan - The New Criterion . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  The Sickening Snowden Backlash - The Daily Beast . When one major institution (the Washington media establishment) so seamlessly partn...

…  Gezi Park in the words of five writers | MobyLives . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... "An imp with brains": The forgotten genius of Charlotte Mew It is no mistake that she wrote so many dramatic monologues: the ...

…  Anecdotal Evidence: `The Sport of Truly Chastened Things' .

…  A Commonplace Blog: The audacity of revenge . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Bedford Park, by Bryan Appleyard - review — The Spectator . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful. — Kath...

... The Quarry by Iain Banks

…  REBEKAH HIGGINS CONTEMPORARY SACRED ARTIST .

…  Ivebeenreadinglately: You can never have too many turtles, but maybe you can have too many Turtle Diaries? Or, a contest!  (Hatip, Dave L...

…  Agee, Before He Was Famous . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Winning Poems for 2013 June : IBPC . … The Judge's Page . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

…  Winning Poems for 2013 June : IBPC . … The Judge's Page . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

…  Anecdotal Evidence: `I Try and Stay Away from Being Kooky' .

Three Beards : The New Yorker . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Except for brief period when I settled for a mustache, I have been bearded since the...

…  The Visionary Detective by Joyce Carol Oates | The New York Review of Books . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) These may be great reads, great fic...

…  Paranoid Government - NYPOST.com .

…  Has David Mamet lost the plot? | Stage | The Guardian . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Perhaps he's paying the price for heresy.

…  The TLS blog: Authors’ nous – Eliot, Dickens and Sterne . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Paul Davis On Crime: My Washington Times Review of 'Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss' .