James T. Fisher
James T. Fisher teaches cultural and religious history at Fordham University.
June 14, 2007, 4:02 pm
Always love Jean's posts but "not sure even we understand why we're like we are" brought me back up here but don't blame Jean. I KNOW I don't understand why we're like we are and that must be editorial 'we' since no persons of Irishness have authorized me to speak for them while
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June 13, 2007, 11:31 am
While blogsite was down last night I wondered if anyone would note return of 'Rescue Me;' thanks Michael Higgins and thanks to John Schmalzbauer the great young sociologist of religion and former Worcester guy (Denis Leary's hometown) for reminding me show was back. I've only seen bits as
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June 10, 2007, 10:26 am
Excellent column by Mark Di Ionno in today's Star-Ledger on "'The Sopranos and Stereotypes, Perfect Together'" (nice little play on the famous Jersey tourism ad campaign of 80s in which Gov. Thomas Kean delivered the punch line in his finest over-the-top boarding school dialect
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June 7, 2007, 10:47 am
If Phil, Butchie and the gang decide to go looking for Tony Soprano at Satriale's Sunday night, I hope they first consult today's Our Towns column in the New York Times. If so they'll waste sufficient time looking for a non-existent New Jersey city on mapquest for Tony to
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June 5, 2007, 9:05 pm
We lived in the heartland of America when The Sopranos debuted; the absence of HBO could not prevent us from being in on the fun, with constant updates from ma and pals: 'Jimmy they mentioned Wyckoff!' [Carm's near-squeeze Vic Musto fled there from her N
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February 15, 2007, 7:59 pm
Thanks to Jean for tip on Sisters of Selma which aired locally last Sunday evening. For teachers and students there is much to work with in this documentary starting with its re-affirmation of the powerful witness offered by members of women's
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January 27, 2007, 7:56 pm
Peter Singer is nothing if not predictable (and predictably awfully limited for someone taken as seriously as he is), but his Op-Ed in yesterday's New York Times newspaper (ok I've always wanted to use that great phrase from Jimmy Breslin) certainly contains material for
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December 29, 2006, 1:14 am
Happy New Year from Oakland. We just returned from a bike ride with Charlie and his Gong Gong (maternal grandfather) through Golden Gate Park and along the Pacific Ocean. Charlie found this most perceptually jarring as bike rides in his New Jersey homeland do not include ocean vistas: I tried to
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December 9, 2006, 12:55 am
The only fatherly advice I can ever give students with family issues is See it Through; See it Through. Now I find myself at mid-life (Ha! as that great Irish theologian Denis Leary once said to Letterman: "Face it Dave: You'
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December 7, 2006, 9:02 pm
In his America essay Bishop Thomas J. Curry of Los Angeles opines: "The dominant academic interpretation of American Catholic history, one that portrays the role for Catholic laity as 'pray, pay and obey,' is itself a recycling of the anti-Catholic interpretation that prevailed in the
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November 30, 2006, 8:48 pm
"I've terminated the life of my autistic child," Jose Stable, age 50, told police on the morning of November 22 outside Kelly Towers, the Bronx apartment building where Mr. Stable, a single parent, lived with his son Ulysses, age 12, who was later found lying in the bathtub of their 16th
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November 21, 2006, 4:42 pm
Jim McGreevey did not enter politics for the money; of that we can be certain after Channel 2 News (in New York) last night showed viewers the interior of the Woodbridge condo McGreevey continued to call home even after being elected New Jersey's governor in 2001 (until a mold problem at the
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November 14, 2006, 5:28 pm
Last night I attended a reception for Special Olympics at The New York Historical Society, where I spotted my former Governor, James E. McGreevey and his partner Mark O'Donnell; unfortunately the evening's program began just as I was about to regale them with stories of bike rides with Charlie
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