* Michael Gilleland looks into the questions of what texts support the anecdote about Fustel de Coulanges's question, "Do you have a text to prove it?"
* Jonah Lehrer has a nice little article on reductionism.
* I think Steven Pinker usually bungles things when he's trying to write for a popular audience, but this essay criticizing some of the complaints that new technologies are making us stupid makes some good points.
* D. G. D. Davidson discusses Villiers's Tomorrow's Eve, which is a classic I haven't read yet, and apparently should. He also mentions the short story, "The Sandman," by E. T. A. Hoffman, which is available in translation online.
* An Anglican vicar has a little fun with a medieval law, still on the books, that gives her the authority to summon the men of her village to archery practice. (ht)
* Brendan noted, in response to my link to Guedelon, that there's a medieval fortress being built in the Ozarks.
* Science fiction detective novels.
* Pierre Wagner clears up confusions about analytic philosophy. (ht)
* James V. Schall, On Re-Reading the Apology
* Jonathan Spence on China and the West in the seventeenth century.
* Leon Botstein discusses Bard College's summer reading program.
* Jesus was struck by lightning in Ohio last night and went up in flames. Styrofoam, wood, and resin burns well. In any case, the comedian Heywood Banks wrote a fairly well-known comedy song about the statue.
ADDED LATER
* Home library design. (ht)
* An exchange about Flannery O'Connor.
