Good summary of our focus here at University Diaries over the years. It’s from Theo Baker, whose book provides useful Stanford University orientation materials.

UD’s loving the Spy Who Came in with the Gold – a real pot boiler, destined to become a classic of its type.

How did the mysterious self-fabricator David Rush gain entry to the CIA in the first place, much less be promoted to a senior agency position? How did he – like the pyramid-building Egyptians; like the Moia-mounting Easter Islanders – move thousands of gold bars into his suburban Virginia manse? An enigma for the ages.

Like David himself. Like the super well-endowed federal agency that fed him the bullion while he fed it the bull.

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And these are only the opening chapters. Where do we go from here? UD is panting to know. Certain plot lines are obvious – his explanation that he had a debilitating gambling addiction, frinstance… Was he clever enough NOT to buy seven Aston Martins in order to avoid suspicion? We’ve heard not a peep about his car collection.

Did a Russki kleptocrat on orders from Putin set the whole thing up?

Is it good for the Jews?

He’s not quite comfortable looking straight at the mug shot camera, but then he’s used to cloak and dagger. His dark identity needs to be carefully protected, along with the reason why, as a high-ranking CIA officer, he stole forty million dollars worth of gold bars, courtesy of your federal taxes.

Oh – also oodles of foreign currency, and “three dozen luxury watches, many of them Rolexes.”

He lied to the CIA about pretty much everything, including his extensive, totally made up, education. And was rewarded with a senior position that lasted decades. What gives? Is he a mole?

UD wonders if the current administration, faced with unbelievable negligence and stupidity at the highest level of American intelligence, will be able to blame it on an earlier administration.

A reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Ed offers a book-length interview with the curiouser and curiouser Dan Ariely – a Duke sociologist already outed as a likely research fraudster (sometimes with his buddy, the notorious F. Giro).

Ariely is now being … scrutinized because of his long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship he talks about with the same idiocy/evasion as his other buddy, none other than Prince Andrew himself!

Okay, merely an acquaintance. They had tea together in a palace. But read the whole Ariely interview to see what a slightly smarter, slicker, Andrew would have said.

I think that we are developing very much a fear culture. I feel that given that I was in the Epstein files, I feel that I’m lucky that I’m a social scientist. If I were a physicist, I would just get the negative consequences. As a social scientist, I get to also learn something new about humanity. So every time somebody calls to wonder or to cancel or something, I have a discussion with them. And I try to understand what is going on. And my sense is that we are getting to be more of a culture that is driven by fear.

Driven by fear, or by disgust that amoral elites don’t give a shit about – or in the case of Andrew even seem to share – the vile sexual ethics of some of the super-rich? Fun as it is to receive lectures from Ariely about what cowards we are because we’re afraid to plagiarize or make stuff up or hang around with sick motherfuckers, UD thinks it’s better to keep the focus on people who plagiarize and make stuff up and hang around with sick motherfuckers.

La Kid was with friends in Adams Morgan. Not for the first time, I texted her with instructions about what streets to avoid in order not to get shot.

… Saturday nights will be SOOOO much less exciting.

They also had a psychotic Nazi teenage son at home who went on to commit a mass shooting.

Vazquez “would not allow officers to confirm if firearms were stored properly.” If they were stored properly, Little Hitler would have trouble getting at them.

After the shooting, the police searched three homes connected with the teenagers and confiscated more than 30 guns from one of them.

In an obscene effort to avoid indictment, the Vazquez parents have released a weepy public statement. It’s incredibly important for the legal system to go after Nazi-enablers.

… on one of our old tree stumps.

Florida’s AG disagrees, and he promises a legal attack on a local development that would simply like people not to carry during big public events. Big public events bring out psychotic gunnies, and the people of Beaches Town Center don’t want to be blown away. But Florida will force them to expose themselves to armed fuckheads.

Wowsa. Should definitely be giving squatting seminars.

Teenager with an arsenal kills people — and shares his reasons.

And you kept several accessible weapons in the home although you knew your son was suicidal because … ?

Bring charges against the mother.

… but in these few moments of police video, it pours out at you with the pure intensity of a child’s wail.

An assistant principal who ignored repeated warnings about a fucked up student who ended up shooting a teacher goes on trial this week for felony child abuse.

Her attorney in an earlier civil trial said that thing up there in my headline … that thing about how a six year old plugging his teacher is just unthinkable, man… I mean, this is America, land of sensible gun policy…

The assistant principal was found guilty in that case, and she’ll be found guilty in this one. UD doubts she’ll be sent to prison, but I suppose it’s possible.

Looks as though the trial will be televised, so we can all sit back and revisit those thinkable and foreseeable events.

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Well, that was quick. The judge just dismissed the charges.

… People marvel at his seemingly impossible output — until someone notices that he saves time by copying other writers.

These are all Young Man in a Hurry stories.

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This one tries a Hyperlink Hail Mary.