Note changes on the right hand column over there: I now start with commentary about University Diaries, then comes Archives, then Categories, and that’s that. UD thanks Carolyn, her blogmistress.

UD is a firm believer in not listening to, not using the name of, not acknowledging, evil-doers. She is totally on board with the famous Monty Python sketch in which we encounter, in a nice post-war British hotel, a curious group of German gentlemen, one of whom is “Mr Hilter.” You can very lightly manipulate the name and use that, but you must try very hard never again to use the name itself, and you must contort yourself in all sorts of ways (turn off the radio, as I just did, when a comment by Dead Cruz is forthcoming) to avoid granting actual ongoing empirical social existence to evil-doers. UD takes shunning way seriously.

Yet she has all this time kept the name Fuckface off this blog – rather surprising, you might say, given UD‘s … pahnshah for bad words. But since we’re now in a real fight with him and his fellow fascists (Round One at the Capitol goes to them) it’s time to get explicitly down and dirty. Fuckface it is.

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UD was just listening to an interview with Sen. Pat Toomey, who referred to Ff as “this person.” Brilliant. Family-friendly – unlike Fuckface – and profoundly contemptuous.

Brilliant. Like: Who is this person? Does anyone know who this person is? What this person is?

… all of the other things in which UD takes a keen interest. Certes, though, she has been virally distracted, and has had difficulty returning to normal.

But she’s getting there; and as always she thanks you for the tips and links, and will attend to them soon.

… Pencil, which features (scroll down)

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan [who] writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.

UD spends this weekend in New York City. Assuming there’s a strong enough internet connection on the train this morning, she’ll be posting a bunch of stuff that’s been sitting around waiting to be posted. Ne quittez pas.

On Andrew Sullivan’s site, an echt-bloggische exchange. Sullivan and his readers have been making fun of sexually suggestive names (inspired by A. Weiner). One of his readers writes to complain:

As someone with an unusual last name in which teenagers and adolescents can find a sexual reference if they try hard enough, I can assure you that all those “Dicks” and “Weiners” out there have heard the same jokes over and over. How about moving along?

Sullivan responds:

You think I have my own blog so I can “move along” when talking about funny names?

… my readers, who regularly send me items of interest on which they think this blog should comment? University Diaries couldn’t do its thing without all of you linking UD to university stuff.

Just in the last couple of days, readers sent me this facility-porn from the University of Oregon; an instance of jesuitical reasoning in the Georgetown University newspaper; strong commentary and – in the comments on the commentary – strong debate on the just-released MIT report in the Aaron Swartz case; and details on growing civil resistance against threats to privacy at Penn State.

As the new academic year begins, UD will – with your help – continue covering and commenting on university stories like these.

… as Stevie Smith might have said. Our bog, University Diaries, has been dood, and is still somewhat moribund (takes rather a long time to open, for instance). The reasons are complex (we weren’t hacked; the problem has to do with success, as in this blog generates too much traffic for the old server it’s on) but they are (slowly) on their way to being resolved, and I have as always to thank my webmistress, Carolyn, and my readers, several of whom wrote to tell me that things weren’t working. I apologize for the difficulties UD readers have been having with the site; things should be much better very soon. Feel free to write to me or Carolyn (see bottom of this page) with any updates.

Meanwhile, I’ll try to post a bunch of new stuff I’ve been accumulating. We’ll see how things go.

… on the subject of the Rutgers University basketball scandal – is now up at Inside Higher Education.

… gather ye assortative rosebuds while ye may controversy is here, at Inside Higher Education.

…is now up.

… on what she calls Insider MOOCs, will be available for viewing this evening. I’ll link to it when it’s up.

… my latest Inside Higher Education column, will appear early Monday morning. I’ll link to it here.

… features horrendous University of Hawaii.

… reveals that for whatever reason a number of people are searching for this 2008 post of UD‘s, titled Better Living Through Consciousness: Why You Should Take Your College Education Seriously. There’s the link to it, in case you’re having any difficulty finding it. It appeared at UD‘s other blog, at Inside Higher Education.