September 4th, 2026
Know Hope: When America’s Most Cretinous Cults are Crushed by the Courts…

… the church/state separation remains intact.

So much depends (to quote WC Williams) on swinish theocrats being hogtied by judges, and the way Maine recently affirmed that truth was inspirational.

A divorced mother took her 11 year old daughter to a church where the pastor told the child her father would rot in hell for eternity, which – astonishingly – severely distressed her. Ol’ Mom of course never informed her ex that she was dragging the increasingly anxious and depressed kid to these vicious precincts, though apparently the woman did tell her ex that under the guidance of this cult she would never give vaccines or antibiotics to their daughter.

The Maine courts have granted the sole parent with any mentation – any morality – sole control over religious and medical decisions.

August 27th, 2026
‘Mr. Koch had not sought approval from voters before commissioning the art pieces, which had been stored in a warehouse while the Supreme Judicial Court was hearing the case.’

Whooooops.

Separation of church and state, doncha know. Apparently Americans feel strongly about it.

August 6th, 2026
‘Why are so many young women leaving the LDS Church?’

Babe, do you really have to ask?

July 23rd, 2026
The super busy Freedom From Religion Foundation can currently be found in the Baby Food Capital of the World, Fremont MI.

Nowheresville Fremont has been smuggling proselytizers into its public schools, and someone there seems to have complained to the FFRF.

One of the Christian groups is the famed Gideons, whose bibles burst out of your hotel drawer. The Gids were doing what they do, unloading masses of Big Books onto their captive student audience.

The other group pilgrimmed around the school, itinerant preachers looking for 15 year old souls to save. Muslim souls? Atheist souls? Fuck! That’s the reason we’re preaching, dummy! It bugs us that they’re all going to hell.

Another save, back in 2022.

July 18th, 2026
Whether they’re speaking Ultraorthodox or Ultramuslim, we all recognize the international language of Asshole.

They refuse to sit next to women on planes, and I guess sometimes airlines accommodate their assholery; but when they don’t, things can get very bad very quickly. The latest incident featured a Sharia maniac slapping a female crew member who attempted to reason with him when he did his no-women-next-to-me thing. He was arrested.

July 3rd, 2026
‘Judge slams Malaysia’s mandatory female circumcision edict as “primitive patriarchal practice”’

All praise to Melbourne judge Jonathan Beach, who is not only willing to notice that ALL Muslim girls (babies. toddlers.) in that benighted country MUST get slashed and desexed, but who is even willing to condemn it publicly.

It’s the whole fucking country, folks, and you didn’t even know about it. Islam is the official state religion. 65% of the place practices the religion. Virtually everyone practices FGM.

July 2nd, 2026
‘I sat in an Amish church once where whooping cough was making rounds; the group preferred this over the unknowns of vaccination.’

The Amish and the Jewish ultraorthodox – when serious disease runs rampant in the larger population, it will probably be these baleful sects we have to thank.

Even as yet another court – this one in New York State – says you can’t kill our kids, even if you’re willing to kill your own, these ignorant people continue to fight for their right to be exempt from human decency.

July 2nd, 2026
Catholic church excommunicates an anti-Semitic breakaway.

The nutty SSPX has always reviled UD types (Jews, that is), which upsets the Vatican; but now that they’ve gone and consecrated a bunch of bishops that is the last straw.

For its part, SSPX delivered a fuck you in a sermon anticipating the excommunication. Boys will be boys.

June 29th, 2026
Trying to find out where Dr Dewayne Walker got his Doctorate.

It’s nowhere online, but now that he’s all over the news it would be good to find out who educated him. He runs a Baptist school in Kentucky which gathers its little kids in a room and makes them watch as a bunch of men in fatigues rush in and shoot massive guns at a man onstage. The man writhes and wriggles and moans and spasms until he dies.

The shooters drag the corpse offstage and blow it up.

And even though it’s all just pretend, the pastor explains that the kids should shoot and then explode the corpse of the devil, just the way the pretend killers did.

We must all shoot and detonate the devil, he goes on to explain in the video he made to respond to the fallout the skit is generating.

June 25th, 2026
Denmark continues to be a model for secular democracies.

Its leftwing government will soon likely ban the Muslim call to prayer, where men only are summoned several times a a day, loudly, to their religious duty. Denmark already restricts burqas, niqabs, and religious dress in schools. Like France, Quebec, and other self-respecting liberal democracies, it knows that the price of freedom and equality is eternal vigilance.

The [immigration] minister’s comments reflect concerns in Denmark that the public broadcasting of the adhan represents more than a simple religious practice. The adhan is performed five times each day and is intended to summon Muslims to prayer. Critics argue that broadcasting it over loudspeakers imposes a religious message on the wider public, including those who do not belong to the faith.

The controversy is further intensified by the meaning of the words being broadcast. The adhan can be translated as “God is great, there is no God but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Come to prayer.” For opponents, the wording goes beyond a simple call to worship by publicly proclaiming Islam’s religious claims.

June 25th, 2026
‘[Church Pastor Tony] Spell sued former Governor John Bel Edwards, East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux and Corcoran, adding [his neighbors, the] Sherwins to the lawsuit in 2023 when their home security system caught footage of Spell allegedly trying to hit a protester outside Life Tabernacle Church with a church bus.’

Plus he just beat up one of the Sherwins. They don’t make men of God like this outside of Louisiana.

June 15th, 2026
The Jew hater looks like Jack Antonoff’s younger brother. The hated Jew looks like Conan O’Brien’s younger brother.

But in the wonderfully mixed up way of these United States, the one that looks Jewish won’t work for a Jew, and the one that looks Irish is a proud kippah-wearing Jew.

Never the twain would have met, except that the Jew invited the anti-semite (a rising junior at Cornell) to apply for a job at his startup, and the anti-semite’s now hugely viral response was “Not interested in working for a Jew.”

************

The Jew – the hero of the piece – posted the lad’s anti-semitic turndown, but went to some trouble to erase his name: “He’s just a student, he might not know any better — it could be people in his environment, or on social media he saw something about Jewish people and he is just following the wave.”

The anti-semite’s name got out anyway, and … you can imagine. His life has become a lot more difficult than it was before he sussed out a Jew based (he explains) on his “physiognomy.”

And yet the Jew returns vileness with kindness: “At the end of the day, I hope he realizes that he shouldn’t have generalized like that. … You never know who you might work with, or work for, or be friends with that comes from a different background or different religion. I really don’t wish that he ends up not finding a job from it. I just hope he learns from it, and people can realize he changed and accept it.”

Cornell’s investigating the dude, etc. I guess it’s possible he could be expelled.

I’m with the long-suffering Jew – the student is 19 years old. Shaddup and give him a chance to change. He’s been called out enough.

In any case, his real problem ain’t with UD and her fellow Jews. He has I’m sure attracted the attention of the equally highly educated Richard Spencer and his gang. There’s a whole anti-semitic cadre in this country just waiting for bright young recruits to groom for frontline positions.

June 7th, 2026
Latter-Day Plaints

Blame it on the musical.

While the Pentagon is perfectly happy to retain the even-freakier Pentecostals on its new list of officially recognized faiths, it has decided that Joseph Smith’s peeps – the nation’s first polyamorists – are too fucking weird for prime time. The official LDS Churchmen (ain’t no Churchwomen) are complaining.

June 3rd, 2026
THE SACRED ART OF CASH FLOW

One of the many people just arrested for massive insider trading wrote a financial advice column for Orthodox Jews.

May 13th, 2026
‘Texas Attorney General, senate candidate, soon-to-be divorced guy, human lawsuit machine, alleged granite connoisseur, and noted pen thief Ken Paxton announced Thursday that his office is investigating school districts that are not displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms.’

Awesome writing.

Next Page »

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan 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.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

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