Perhaps the Last *New Blog!* Ever

And, frankly, it's not even all that new. (She's had the blog for a couple years now, it seems.)

It is a little odd to be adding new links to the sidebar as I'm in the process of winding things down, but I just thought I'd be remiss if, before I shut the Fox down for good (which won't be for a little while yet, so feel free to hold off on the weeping and gnashing of teeth), I didn't direct your attention to the blog of my friend Windy Twilley (nee Booher), an Alabama-based supermom who I knew during her golden college years as a red-headed junior Ann Coulter (just so we're clear, I mean that as a compliment).

(And that, folks, is a long-ass sentence.)

I'm not promising anything, but there may just be a non-trivial chance that if you click the link you may be treated to some fairly adorable son Tyler. Just saying.

NOTICE

Internet/email access is about to get very spotty for me. I'll hopefully be able to check occasionally, but if you really need to get in touch with any kind of promptness, the best option will be my cell phone until approximately August 6.

"I'm Feeling Less Nuts, Thank You."

I'm not a smart man (and my brain is perhaps a little addled still from the Bar [plus it's pretty early]), but am I correct in my reading that Dahlia Lithwick's beef with the Washington Supreme Court is that, in its recent gay-marriage decision, it applied the *actual* Rational Basis test, as opposed to Heightened or even Strict Scrutiny under the Rational Basis name, as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did in Goodridge?

Living Up to My Billing

Having been declared awesome, I feel I must now do something to merit the title. Should I juggle 3 razor-sharp poodles? Should I recite War and Peace backwards, whilst standing on one foot? Shall I...

How about this: I'm done with the Bar exam, I don't think I failed, and somehow I've managed to win and keep the love of the most amazing woman in the world. If that's not awesome (well, the last part at least...the first two were just accomplished by ten and seven thousand people, respectively, approximately...) then I don't know what is.

Porkpie? Check. Bad Jokes? Check.

You Are Fozzie Bear

"Wocka! Wocka!" You're the life of the party, and you love making people crack up. If only your routine didn't always bomb! You may find more groans than laughs, but always keep the jokes coming.

The Muppet Personality Test

H/T: Zorak

Open Source Invitations

Important notice over at Sarah and my wedding blog.

(And, yes, we have an engagemet and wedding blog. We're dorks. Sue us.)

Basically, I'm almost done compiling the addresses for the wedding invitations but I'm short a few. I'm hoping that a general notice-by-blog will get at least some of those people to send me their addresses without my having to track them down. Is it a vain hope? Probably. But it's worth a shot, at least.

So, if you're a potential invitee (basically: are you a friend or relation? do you want to come to the wedding? you're in!) please email me your mailing address. (angus.dwyer@yale.edu or angusdwyer@yahoo.com)

Also, keep checking the wedding blog for future updates. (On Saturday afternoon, I'm tuxedo-hunting, for instance.)

Flophouses and the Elm City

Eve Tushnet: What this country needs is a good five-cent flophouse? On the return of rooming houses as a way of combatting homelessness.

Meanwhile, New Haven closed what I think was the city's last flophouse last fall. (Read the article, and get treated to a nice piece of the "destroy the village in order to save it" logic that largely doomed rooming houses in the past:)

Andy Rizzo, LCI's director, says the building did not pass the annual housing code inspection, which found such problems as blocked stairways and broken windows. [...] "We've had problems in the past with this building," Rizzo says, "and we want to make sure it's safe for the tenants."

For the tenant's own sake, we must thrust them out of the only in-city housing they can afford, and onto the streets!

Among those tossed out were the "Shakespeare Lady", Margaret Holloway. I lost track of Margaret at around this time; if anyone knows of her whereabouts, I'd be interested to hear it. Otherwise, I guess, just keep her in our prayers.

(unrelatedly, how can it be that there are no videos of Margaret up on YouTube? this seems like the kind of thing YouTube was created for!)

"Hey, Aren't You Joi Ito?"

I get that a lot. It turns out, not without cause. Play with the MyHeritage.com face recognition software to figure out what celebrities you look like.

Thusfar, I've been: Joi Ito, John Ritter, George Best, Enrique Inglesias, Kenneth Branaugh, David Copperfield, Vassily Ivanchuk, Rowan "Mr. Bean" Atkinson, Mariah Carey, Philip Roth, and Melanie C of the Spice Girls.

Every Man a Bishop

To my mind, the most interesting part of this piece:

The six dioceses that announced their intention to break away — Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Central Florida, San Joaquin, Calif., and Springfield, Ill. — had long threatened to leave, and they constitute a small minority of the Episcopal Church's 110 dioceses and 2.3 million members.

110 dioceses? Does that strike anyone else as an awfully high bishop-to-parishioner ratio? If you meet an Episcopalian on the street, there's a 1-in-21,000 chance that he's currently serving as a bishop somewhere.

The Catholic Church, in contrast, has approximately 195 dioceses in the United States (mostly Roman Rite, but a few Eastern Rite eparchies of various kinds). Living in those dioceses are about 65 million Catholics, roughly 333,000 Catholics per bishop. To get to the Episcopalian bishop-to-parishioner ratio, the Church would have to add over 2,800 dioceses in the United States; to get to the Catholic ratio, the Episcopalians would have to downsize to approximately eight bishops. Which would make the General Convention a less complicated affair, at least.

The Great Shaving Debate

Obviously, I think both sides are mistaken.