ramble through the bronx

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Headline of the week...

Just posted to the NY Times website: Bush's Realization on Iran: No Good Choice Left Except Talks. Really? Wow.

It begins,

WASHINGTON, May 31 — After 27 years in which the United States has refused substantive talks with Iran, President Bush reversed course on Wednesday because it was made clear to him — by his allies, by the Russians, by the Chinese, and eventually by some of his advisers — that he no longer had a choice.

But of course it ends,

The question now is whether there is any middle ground between Mr. Bush's demand that Iran give up everything, and Iran's insistence that it will give up nothing. Without breaking that logjam, the American-Iranian dialogue may never begin.

Sigh....

jane 10:39 PM [+]

Yay Edmonton!

Watched the game with Doug, Dawn & Dave in roommate Emily's room. Drinkin' the beer. Watchin' the hockey. Great game. Holy 6-on-3 batman, right at the end -- way to go to Edmonton for keeping it together.

jane 12:19 AM [+]

Someday...

Someday this will be my gown. link is to another picture of the Fordham gown





Here's a story about Fordham's commencement ceremonies last Saturday, which shows folks actually wearing the gown. I don't have photos of my recently begowned friends, alas.

jane 1:56 PM [+]

meh, hopeless crush

as per usual. I was doing perfectly well, perfectly happy being single, no interest in wasting my time with boys. And really, really, really, I still am doing perfectly well. When I think about it carefully, the last thing I want is to have to make time for some guy when I'd rather be playing banjo, hangin' with the girls, or hangin' with my cat. yay Trouble!

But of course this doesn't stop the whole crush process, and I'm just stupid enough to moon over it (yes, and google him incessantly) instead of wisely putting it out of my head. I'm not going to specify whether it's hopeless because of (a) gay (b) married (or seriously dating) or (c) celibate, since it really doesn't matter. I just wanted to whine about the situation.

Further, it's never fun to hear one's crush talk about his crush on someone else. Now that just isn't fair.

OK, done now. Back to whatever. Going to bed.

jane 1:35 AM [+]

Semester over, for me!

I posted grades this morning (no failures! YAY!! Actually, this was a really great class -- every other time I've taught I've managed to keep the average around a B-, which seems reasonable; this time, even with my grading frustration, the average came out a B/B+... and they really deserved it, which was exciting. Seeing freshmen business students writing about the hegemonic formation of 'common sense' which contributes to ongoing racism -- GREAT STUFF! yee-haw. And some of them even understood what they were writing! sigh.... argh... oh well. I really did try!) and am now in the process of putting together a syllabus for my summer course. I'm thinking of doing Macintyre's Dependent Rational Animals instead of the usual unit on existentialism & identity. Since we basically just have four weeks, it might be more straightforward to do another unified text, instead of a bunch of scattered articles.

One of my students this summer has, as her email address, "next ----------" (name of a well-known super-fanatic conservative blonde woman, who tends to write about liberals as if she means 'rabid dogs', all one word), @ ---.com. Hm. I wonder what she'll be like?

Meanwhile I'm also scanning through the Middle States Report that was just completed -- they're our accreditation agency, & it's always nice to see that one's university will remain accredited. Yay! We finished our huge Strategic Planning process & review last year (I was on the Graduate Student Association committee for this... we had many many long meetings) & handed in a Self-Study that related to that last year, & this year they came & visited.

I think these Middle States people are a little optimistic... I'm not sure I'd use the word 'excellence' in application to Fordham. Particularly not in any context of trying to live up to our mission statement. Well, maybe a little. When I chatted with Jude Jones this week about the Social Justice Forum (and ended up saying I'd like to go to the organizational meetings) we spoke quite a bit about the mission statement.

Fordham's Mission Statement is actually pretty groovy, if I haven't posted about this before. We only recently adopted & approved it, as part of last year's Strategery. You know, groovy stuff about "Fordham is committed to research and education that assist in the alleviation of poverty, the promotion of justice, the protection of human rights and respect for the environment."

Basically, it would be awesome if the mission described what we actually did -- if we actually did take particular care of each student's whole formation as a moral & intellectual being, leading them to excellence and a sense of being 'men and women for others', that sort of thing. I'm not sure that we do.

And in a broader sense, the institution just seems messed up. I mean, there's no recycling on campus. And why there are gates around the whole thing, so no one from the neighbourhood -- the Bronx -- can come in to use our library? I'm not going to get into the usual litany of woes suffered by all the students -- e.g., how Financial Aid regularly loses aid applications & fails to process incoming loans until months after the school year begins.

Our president wants us to be the premier Catholic university by 2017. By 2017, Father Joe McShane wants us to have surpassed Georgetown, Notre Dame, all the biggies. On our eensy little endowment.

OK, I'm just rambling now, and this is probably very boring to anyone who isn't me. I'll stop. But I'll just say, that what with the GSA job, and working with the Social Justice Forum and the Student Global AIDS Campaign, and teaching, and regularly talking to Doug & Reuben about institutional politics & procedures & missions & Jesuits & failures to live up to ideals, this is all very much on my mind & will continue to be. Sorry about that.

jane 10:56 AM [+]

argh argh argh argh

Read through a whole pile of student essays... argh argh argh... so obvious that they hadn't read the texts they were talking about... at least some of them bothered to cite the class notes. Listening to Joy Division. Then, just to feel even worse about myself, went to ratemyprofessor.com and read the latest crap comment about me & my teaching.

Emily pointed out that this was all probably not helping my mood. So I decided to stop grading for the day, listen to more cheerful music, play some banjo, and probably read some Fichte.

Fichte frequently yells at his readers, basically saying "hey, if you don't understand me by now, clearly it's you who are stupid" -- while of course this is huge arrogance, & really, Fichte could have been a better writer, after grading my students' papers I can empathize with him.

Fichte, you and me babe. Ah yes. Misunderstood geniuses we are.

Or not... OK, going to pour me some whisky... thanks for putting up with this rant.

jane 5:05 PM [+]

GO Transit's scrolling message boards vs. Stephen Harper

Scrolling message on the GO Train: "Stephen Harper Eats Babies"

The best part of the story is the fact that someone actually felt the need to rebut, by saying that "I worked with Stephen Harper for five years and never once did he, in that time, eat a baby."

I'm glad we got that cleared up.

Although a note of skepticism -- is baby-eating something Harper would have talked about with his colleagues? Maybe he ate babies on the sly?

jane 3:11 PM [+]