The last blog I watched from Maudlin Street

So he drove me home in the van

Saying, “Women only like me for my mind”…

AfricaPundit: Meet Liberia’s new boss, almost the same as the old boss?

The Cranky Professor: Possible blockbuster scholarly study of the Koran. From the man who brought you 72 white raisins. Weird-osity.

Disputations: Reeves and Booster return! (Starts here, but second installment funnier.) More ecclesiastical Wodehouse-pastiche… fun stuff. Also, help a young woman become a Nashville Dominican sister!

Gideon’s Blog: Same-sex marriage. Big post with lots of good points, somewhat obscured by problematic language. I strongly take issue with Millman’s belief that to sustain marriage as a norm, society has to view people who don’t end up following that norm as “in some sense less than whole people.” Emily Dickinson was certainly not normal, but she wasn’t subnormal either; nor are the many people who end up single as either vocation (consecrated virgins etc.) or just the way the Kaiser rolls. Maybe I’m defensive about this, as I’m neither married nor dating, but… “less than whole people”?! Maggie Gallagher has a basic, tart column here about the problems of reinforcing norms through stigma.

And I think in Millman’s conclusion he seriously overstates the differences between “gays” and “straights.” While the differences between men and women strongly shape the lives of men-attracted-to-men vs. men-attracted-to-women and women-attracted-etc., I don’t think it’s accurate or helpful to reify the concept of “the homosexual” or “the heterosexual.” People are weirder than that.

But, that said, there are several important insights in this post (on marriage and aging, marriage and gender, the importance of making marriage a norm, and the difficulty of both marriage and masculinity) and you should definitely check it out.

The Old Oligarch: Feast of the Transfiguration!

Amy Welborn has moved and changed her blogname.

The Onion’s horoscopes are in fine form again this week. Via The Rat.

And: Nice job, jerk. “Federal authorities said on Monday they had suspended a U.S. immigration judge after a newspaper reported he referred to himself as Tarzan during court proceedings for an African political asylum seeker named Jane. …Jane, who is still in the United States, is described by doctors as a former political prisoner in Uganda who was beaten, raped and tortured, the Herald reported.” Via Cacciaguida.