ramble through the bronx

yes, this here is ramble through the bronx, the continuing musings of a graduate student* who should be writing her dissertation, but honestly, living in new york city there's really so much else to do...

* and her commenting friends. And guest blogger.
[welcome to ramble through the bronx | bloghome
[archive]
[I wish I was a mole in the ground]
FRIENDS
NYC
Meredith [>] (NYC/Toronto)
Emily [>] (Brooklyn)
Emily's music site[>]
Jeremy [>] (Bronx)
Ryan [>] (Bronx)
non-NYC people I miss
Jennifer [>] (Toronto)
Tokyo Tintin[>] (Tokyo/Toronto)
Dawn [>] (Ottawa)
Caitlyn [>] (Ottawa)
CBC [>] (my true love)
del.icio.us/janeyjane [>] (my social link collection, alas, not updated lately. I am apparently not delicious)
The Keeper [>] (try it, you'll love it)
comics sites that I check every day
Newsarama [>] (check out the 'blog' section especially)
When Fangirls Attack [>] (women in comics links)
politics, media, and gossip
AlterNet [>]
Wonkette[>]
Gawker[>]
'Fuddle duddle' incident [>]
The Nation [>]
Catholic stuff
America Magazine [>] magazine of US Jesuits
Commonweal Magazine [>] biweekly magazine of lay Catholics
Karl Rahner Society [>] site dedicated to awesome 20th c. theologian
Liberal Catholic News [>] blog for progressive catholics
Pacem in Terris [>] Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical
music - mostly folk music and banjo links
The How and Tao of Folk Music [>] Patrick Costello's podcasts & banjo & folk guitar instruction
Back Porch News [>]News, Commentary & Links for the folkie community
E-Z Folk [>]Folk music instruction and tabulature
amuse yourself
Piled Higher and Deeper [>] (comic about grad student life)
Cat and Girl [>] just what it sounds like
The Onion [>]
Sluggy Freelance [>]
The Boondocks [>]
Eric Conveys an Emotion [>]
philosophy
Society for Women in Philosophy [>]
the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy [>]
The Hegel Society of America[>]
North American Fichte Society[>]
Journal of Neoplatonic Studies [>]
Women Philosophers [>]
Brian Leiter's blog [>]
read/see/hear
Harper's [>]
Neil Gaiman [>]
Charles de Lint [>]
Making Light [>]
McSweeney's [>]
WFUV [>]
Anti-pedantry page: Singular 'their' in Jane Austen [>]
places I miss
Cafe Diplomatico [>] (Toronto)
The Red Room [>] (Toronto)
The Free Times Cafe [>] (Toronto)
Sneaky Dee's [>] (Toronto... aka Sneaky Disease, best nachos in town)
Kensington Market [>] (Toronto)
College Street [>] (Toronto)
Perfection Satisfaction Promise [>] (Ottawa - formerly the Painted Potato)
Piccolo Grande [>] (Ottawa)
The Market [>] (Ottawa)
Stray cats of Parliament Hill [>] (Ottawa)
other nonsense
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Alibris [>]
Metafilter [>]
and thank you
Thanks to Haloscan for blog-comment-ability

Monday, October 31, 2005

Happy Hallowe'en!

OK, the stalker note, that I found when I went into my office Friday morning, read, on a scrap piece of the student newspaper, as follows:
Hey Jane! It's 3.37 AM and you're amazing. (See you in class)
Preliminary investigations concluded that it was not a prank by a fellow graduate student, as (1) I don't have any classes with other grad students right now and (2) everyone likely to have left such a note was out of town at a conference.

I think it's my smart-alec student. The one who, in class, when I called on him ("You have a grin on your face -- do you have the answer?") replied, "I always have a grin on my face when I see you bouncing around up there." yes. He said that! I think I kinda looked stunned, as he went on, "Oh, and I also have the answer..." and I went on with the discussion. That was about a month ago.



In other news, there was a Hallowe'en party on Saturday. As you can see, I was an evil dead cowboy. Do you like the bullet wound in my temple? I also wore my BRAND NEW COWBOY BOOTS. I had bought them earlier in the day, after attempting to go to the Hallowe'en store on 4th ave, and seeing that the lineup to get into the store was around the block. Fuck!

(Also, on the same day, to keep on with the cowboy theme -- Josh and I went wandering around the music stores on 48th street -- and I found my banjo! Yes, the Goodtime Banjo! It was in the window of one of the stores, and I got to play it! I love it! love love love love love love love love love love! I also got to play some of the several-thousand-dollar banjos as well. There were also cool. But I love my Goodtime. Now I just need to wait 'til my birthday.)


As you can see from the photo on the right, I evilly attacked the pinata. The pinata was hard to break. And, to be completely truthful, I sneaked a look at the pinata the second time I took an aim. And I still didn't succeed in bringing it down. Too bad I didn't have a cowboy sixshooter. A Colt? I don't know -- what kind of pistol would a cowboy have? An evil dead pistol?

Emily came to the party, too, wearing devil horns, a red feather boa, and a blazer - we figured she was a yuppie demon, or something. She also had my red cigarette holder. It worked, I think, but alas I have no photos of that.

Speaking of scary things -- yay fun new Supreme Court nominee. Since Harriet Miers was liked by no one, Alito is now up for the Supremes. As the MSNBC article states: "The judge has earnt himself the nickname of 'Scalito' for having a judicial philosophy similar to that of fellow Italian-American Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia." Yee-haw!


Oh, and I may as well post these two photos from the party Emily and I had at our place over Canadian Thankgiving/US Columbus Day weekend -- we were jamming on some guitars. The guitar sitting by its lonesome represents Emily, who took the photos with her cellphone camera. (Ah, technology.)








(Natalia -- pictures, and the stalker note. Is that a good enough blog post, do you think?)


jane 3:00 PM [+]

Thursday, October 20, 2005
almost finished grading

sigh... I've been trying to get through grading midterms & papers as quickly as possible, so I haven't really been able to take the time to share anything with you all. but this is priceless (and I'm almost done...):
The Republic proposed many different opinions about the soul. The source is a remarkable achievement to have been written, in the times before Christ. Although there is little reference amongst modern philosophers, the works of Plato remain a historical hypothesis that started this wave of "thinkers" that is still very popular to this day.

Sigh.....


jane 6:19 PM [+]

Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Check this out --

Harriet Miers has a blog. Well, I doubt it's really her. But that would be cool. I'd like a Supreme Court Justice with such a pretty pink blog.


jane 7:32 PM [+]

Saturday, October 08, 2005
taking a break from grading

So... if you were to think of a few music albums that should be in everyone's music collection -- that are so good that it doesn't matter what genre they're in -- what would they be? I'm listening to Gillian Welch's "Time (The Revelator)" and would definitely nominate it as being one of these transcendently good albums.


jane 2:16 PM [+]

Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Harriet Miers. Her one qualification her lack of paper trail.

I just want to say that as I'm writing this, I'm listening to Toronto's Mojo 640 radio on the internet, and wearing my Leafs jersey (my vintage Daryl Sittler jersey, actually). Go Leafs! (Of course, around here, all people are talking about is the first round of the major league baseball playoffs... blah blah blah, Yankees won last night against the Angels, whatever)

Anyway. I just wanted to bring this to your attention; I don't often read the conservative commentary, but it kind of made me scary when I ended up agreeing with some of Pat Buchanan's analysis:
A paper trail is the mark of a lawyer, a scholar or a judge who has shared the action and passion of his or her time, taken a stand on the great questions, accepted public abuse for articulating convictions.

Why is a judicial cipher like Harriet Miers to be preferred to a judicial conservative like Edith Jones?

One reason: Because the White House fears nominees “with a paper trail” will be rejected by the Senate, and this White House fears, above all else, losing. So, it has chosen not to fight.

Other things, of course, that Buchanan said were just scary. But that's normal.

This article had some creepy moments -- from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Some groups on the right were angry at revelations that Miers had filled out a Lesbian/Gay Coalition of Dallas survey in 1989 stating that gay men and women should have the same civil rights as heterosexual men and women.

A conservative Web site, covenantnews.com, alluded to Miers as a "sodomite" in reference to the issue.
Ooh! Scary! Civil rights!! Apparently this is enough even to reflect badly on Bush:
At one point in his news conference, Bush felt compelled not only to defend Miers' qualifications to serve on the high court — "I picked the best person I could find" — but also to respond to questions about his own politics.

"Are you still a conservative?" a reporter asked.

"I'm still a conservative, proudly so, proudly so," he replied.
Meanwhile, oddly enough I also find myself in agreement with the hyper-conservative, kind of nasty James Dobson (from Focus on the Family):
Still, Mr. Dobson said he intended to keep a wary eye on the confirmation hearings. "This is for all the marbles," he said. "It is a scary moment for many of us."
(That last bit was from the NY Times.)


jane 7:23 PM [+]

Monday, October 03, 2005
Compromise of the Century!

I will change/clean the cat litter, and my roommate will handle the trash/recycling.

I think this is excellent.

Meanwhile, the CBC and its union are working out a deal, hopefully in time for hockey.

Huzzah.


jane 8:41 PM [+]

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