Welcome to the 30th edition of The Wednesday Curator!

I rarely write about the Middle East. Lots of emotions are bound up in any exchange, and I truly believe regular people don’t/can’t know what’s really going on, any more than we can know what’s really going on here in the United States. So it’s with a high degree of wariness that I share The End of Liberal Zionism by Antony Lerman, published in the New York Times on August 22. Mr. Lerman’s provocative piece raises hard questions, not to be considered in the midst of a war but soon after, and for a while. Again, I claim limited knowledge, truly, but I know the status quo cannot be sustained, and at some point people do need to consider core values.

Ian Milhiser, on August 22, wrote Obama Administration Calls the Supreme Court’s Bluff In Hobby Lobby for Think Progress. It’s an update on how the government will deal with the Hobby Lobby case.

Is Senator Ted Cruz smart? Can somebody be smart just because lots of people say so? Nathan Robinson thinks not, and explains why in The “Ted Cruz is Smart” Trap: Why This Garbage is False — and Dangerous, written for Salon on July 28.

The 2014 baseball season is coming to a close. Here’s 90 seconds of pure pleasure, in What’s Up with This Bizarre Major League Baseball Play? The situation is not so exceptionally extraordinary, although it’s certainly not typical. So what’s the pure pleasure? Vin Scully calling the play, three months away from his 87th birthday, and in his 65th season as the play-by-play announcer for the Brooklyn/L.A. Dodgers.

On the food front I have lots of material saved up, but will only share in small portions. There’s Voilà! Something Different to Have With Coffee from the Wall Street Journal’s online edition on August 13. And because it’s important, here’s The Tuxedo Diet: How to Eat for a Living, and Fit into a Wedding Suit by Chris Ying for Bon Appetit on August 5. By the way, Mr. Ying is a founder of Lucky Peach, a beautiful quarterly—devoted to food—which I happened upon a week or so ago.