If this horrible man gets his way and makes fraternities illegal throughout the state of Tennessee, say goodbye to butt chugging. You won’t have anal enemaists to kick around any more.

Yes, say goodbye to lengthy press conferences like this one, offering precise details about what it’s like when fraternities full of drunk teenagers “introduc[e] alcohol into the rectum and colon via the anus.”

Farewell, golden college days…

No, that’s the wrong color. That’s the color when they make pledges lie down and then they piss all over them, and then they make them sit up and drink piss.

Farewell, russet college days.

We prefer – we even assume – this trajectory, in which human character is not utterly set at birth, but expands toward some form of realization and even – given a strikingly bad set of character traits – conversion over time.

The story of one of this blog’s minor, persistent, characters – Yeshiva University benefactor Ira Rennert – represents an all too human reminder of the difference between literature and life. For as this multi-billionaire enters his 83rd year of life, as he winds down his tale, he simply persists in his awfulness.

And this is interesting. UD finds it interesting to contemplate such a man, with his Long Island residence so notorious that, when he was on trial for looting the retirement fund of one of his businesses (he was found guilty), his lawyer begged the judge not to allow the jurors to see photographs of it because it would “inflame” them; a man, who having been made to repay the retirement funds, is now suing his lawyers for that amount.

Whenever America’s obscenely rich behave obscenely, there you will find Rennert — flying his private helicopter illegally; polluting the world’s environment; cheating on his taxes, bankrolling illegal settlements.

Like Bernard Madoff’s right-hand man, Ezra Merkin, Ira Rennert is a very high-profile pious person. His name ornaments a business institute for Orthodox Jewish entrepreneurs; he was until recently head of New York’s most prominent synagogue. Ezra Merkin’s synagogue. All three men (along with comrade in whatever Zygi Wilf, after whom a Yeshiva campus is named) were/are majorly involved with/major donors to the extremely curiously run Yeshiva University.

But that, of course, is literary: religious hypocrisy.

1 Rich Rod is our shepherd; we shall not want.

2 He maketh us to lie to his wife: he leadeth us to his erection.

3 He bribeth our staff: he leadeth us to the path of visually enhanced underwear for his cock’s sake.

4 Yea, though we plead for jobs in other departments, we will get no response: for “Coach Rodriguez would be pissed.”

5 Our school preparest six million dollars for him to go away; yea, he will take the money and sue us for forty million more.

6 Surely his woman-beating players will follow us all the days of our life: and we will dwell in the house of The Rod for ever.

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UD thanks David and John.

A lede that packs in a lot.

Keeping up with the latest in France.

Houria Bouteldja, the [Party of Indigenous People of the Republic’s] charismatic spokeswoman, has in recent years won notoriety for her defense of Muslim men accused of sexual violence. Faced with “testosterone-fuelled virility among indigenous men,” she has argued, women of color should look for its redeeming side, “the part that resists colonial domination,” and stand with their brothers.

I can barely make time to attend drawn-out sorority meetings that usually consist of practicing chants, lining up at a door, or archaic traditions in a dimly-lit basement.

Prior to joining my chapter, I had no idea the time commitment that Greek life required. For events such as initiation, I’m trapped in the house all weekend, repeatedly chanting the same rituals on a loop every 20 minutes.

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And as for further dispatches from the frats… Not sure how many of these you can take, but…

… Hell

Dream…

… in Adelaide.

… Alabam.

Not a problem. They’ll be running promos for this instead.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a Christian
Giving all your love to fallen men
You’ll have bad times
And they’ll have good times
Telling kids to touch them with their hands

But if you love God you’ll forgive them
For Satan makes their cocks to swell
Satan grabs their tighty whities
And then he hurls them down to hell

Stand by your man
Give him your child to cling to
And something young to come to
When Satan’s lusts are burning

Stand by your man
And give him teenly pleasure
Your man’s a godly treasure
Stand by your man

You be the judge.

As it turns out, we can. Perhaps we can. Consider this headline, about one of America’s most Islamophobic politicians:

So! It turns out that Roy Moore has something very fundamental in common with more than a few Moslem men: They all believe fourteen year old girls are fair game.

Some Muslims who follow a conservative interpretation of sharia argue that Islam permits child marriage…

Once you find a common ground like this one, you have a chance to build on it toward greater and greater mutual understanding. And that’s how you make the world a better place.

Senate candidate Roy Moore’s poem warns us that the end is nigh because of our indulged lusts and aimlessly wandering children.

He knows whereof he speaks.

… to suspend the notorious Tariq Ramadan.

We now know the answer to the question What does it take for Oxford University to suspend a professor facing many well-grounded lawsuits alleging sexual violence, some of it against minors?

It takes weeks of complaints, petitions, global press coverage, and incredibly bad publicity for the school. That’s all it takes.