We like to think that America invented the future. We are comfortable with the future, intimate with it. But there are disturbances now, in large and small ways, a chain of reconsiderations. Where we live, how we travel, what we think about when we look at our children… Two forces in the world, past and future. With the end of communism, the ideas and principles of modern democracy were seen clearly to prevail, whatever the inequalities of the system itself. This is still the case. But now there is a global theocratic state, unboundaried and floating and so obsolete it must depend on suicidal fervour to gain its aims…
[Post-9/11, it is] clearer to me than ever, the daily sweeping taken-for-granted greatness of New York.
Don DeLillo, “In the Ruins of the Future.”
[Trumper Warning: Links to articles about Donald Trump below.]
Not merely the first female president.
The first Jewish grandmother president.
… sues to get out of having to cast his delegate’s vote for America’s biggest Brexit fan.
Having wooed and accommodated the forces of chaos, party leaders now fear that Mr. Trump will not only lose, but that he’ll cost them control of the House and the Senate, too …
Republicans: Making the world safe for Clinton/Warren.
We are seeing a very serious role reversal in the Clinton-Trump race. The very criticisms that men unfairly hurled at politically ambitious women are now actually true about Trump. The old stereotypes and attack lines for women have suddenly become part and parcel of who Donald Trump really is:
Who is the most emotional, off-the-wall, candidate? Donald Trump.
Who is shrill and flailing at his rallies? Donald Trump
Who has little knowledge or understanding of the issues confronting the country? Easy one, Donald Trump.
Who lacks basic competency in governing? Donald Trump, hands down.
Who routinely makes statements that lack credibility, don’t rely on facts and depend on his “mood” at the time? Yup, Donald Trump.
We shouldn’t necessarily believe the polling, [Trump’s] arguing, because Americans who intend to vote for Trump are too embarrassed to admit it when asked for their preference in surveys. Once you account for the fact that Trump supporters feel a sense of shame, and don’t want to acknowledge their true beliefs to pollsters, maybe he’s doing far better than the data suggests.
Is there anything to this? I doubt it – there was some chatter about this during the GOP primaries, but the polls tended to be pretty accurate – though it says quite a bit about Trump’s candidacy that he’s been reduced to reassuring partisans by telling them that he has secret supporters who don’t want to admit they’re voting for him.
[L]egal scholars are deeply dismayed by Trump’s suggestion in February that if he wins in November he intends to “open up our libel laws, so that if they [the press] write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money”.
“If you open up the libel laws, the first person who would be sued is Donald Trump,” said Richard Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who is highly regarded in conservative legal circles. “He makes false and malicious statements about public and private people … I regard him as semi-hysterical and self-righteous [and] utterly unfit to be president of the United States.”
There’s every reason to think that Trump can pull off the near-impossible task of losing by more than 10 percent and possibly by much more. Moreover, as he continues to feud with members of his own party, he’ll drive down the value of the Republican brand so the party could end up losing both the Senate and the House. If he manages this feat, Trump will truly have left his mark on American politics.
Even [Paul] Ryan, who has endorsed Trump despite criticizing his behavior, joked during his presentation on Friday that in a recent conversation with magician David Copperfield, he said that he wished he could make himself disappear.
[A New York City public swimming pool is] unmoored from the laws of New York City and the Constitution, and commonly held principles of fairness and equal access… Orthodox Jewish beliefs demand modesty in dress, and a strict separation of the sexes, and those are the beliefs to which the taxpayer-owned-and-operated Metropolitan Recreation Center will yield [in mandating sex-segregated swimming hours].
[The city cannot let stand this] religious intrusion into a secular space. [The city should] immediately end religious segregation in the pools…
Let those who cannot abide public, secular rules at a public, secular pool find their own private place to swim…
Bravo, New York Times.
Andrew Sullivan answers the Should we start freaking out? question.
… by choosing a fanatic as his running mate.
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