A lede that packs in a lot.
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.
******************
And as for further dispatches from the frats… Not sure how many of these you can take, but…
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
As it turns out, we can. Perhaps we can. Consider this headline, about one of America’s most Islamophobic politicians:
Four Women Accuse Senate Candidate Roy Moore
of Inappropriate Sexual Contact
When They were Teens
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.
… 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.
The answer to a British judge’s question about a co-ed school in England that systematically and humiliatingly discriminates against female students is obvious: It’s crucial to communicate to girls as early as possible in life that they are worth a bucket of spit.
The other question is whether British taxpayers should pay for daily lessons in female servitude and worthlessness.
Apparently, after some thought, the courts of that country think not.
*****************
And then there’s the school’s library:
[Library books] contained comments such as: “The wife is not allowed to refuse sex to her husband.” Another book said that a wife “cannot go out of her husband’s house without his permission and without a genuine excuse”.
It stated that a man can beat his wife “without causing any mark”. One book, called Islamic Family Guidelines, said that the husband is in “the position of leadership over the family” and that “women have thus been commanded to obey their husbands and fulfil their domestic duties”.
“That [Tariq Ramadan] had many mistresses, that he consulted sites, that girls were brought to the hotel at the end of his lectures, that he invited them to undress, that some resisted and that he could become violent and aggressive, yes, but I have never heard of rapes, I am stunned,” [Bernard Godard] told French magazine L’Obs.
I would like to emphasize this cultural fact: we women of Muslim faith know how much we have been accustomed, from a very young age, to submit, to obey, and even to be silent when we have been attacked. We are often treated as inferior from childhood; we are programmed to submit.
*************
“You’re either veiled, or you’re raped.”
No problem. Stay inside or wear a burqa.
*************
The struggle continues. Promising developments here.
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