January 18th, 2022
Lara Logan, the Fox person who said Anthony Fauci is just like Josef Mengele, has been dropped by her talent agency…

….and even Fox isn’t sure it agrees with her that Fauci is history’s worst psychotic sadist.

But her problems are just beginning.

Congressperson Paul Gosar is reportedly suing her for defamation on behalf of the Mengele estate. An email sent to major news outlets, purporting to come from his office, says: “No one, arguably, has been more consistently and viciously maligned in our time than Dr. Josef Mengele, whose contributions to twin studies alone merit acclaim. Now Lara Logan puts him in the same boat with a man who with his Chinese abetters released a fatal pathogen into the world population and is directly responsible for the deaths of millions. Logan will answer for this calumny.”

January 6th, 2022
“His bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution. He can’t accept he lost.”

On his favorite day of the year, Trubu gets a presidential shellacking.

But like his namesake King Ubu, he will bounce back jollier and jollier and jollier!

October 28th, 2021
John Eastman: “I just dropped in to see what condition my sedition was in.”

His take on his famous memo keeps changing. Where is his sedition today?

Makes UD think of the classic song, featured in The Big Lebowski.

August 5th, 2021
‘At the hearing last month, [Gary D.] Fielder protested that he had a “good faith” belief that the election was stolen. He cited theories by other attorneys and Trump allies — such as, no kidding, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.’

No kidding.

July 22nd, 2021
A Tale of Two Bar[r]acks

One, a now-arrested foreign agent whose anti-American, illegal behavior “strikes at the very heart of our democracy,” was a hugely admired best friend of Donald Trump. The other, unrelentingly attacked by Donald Trump as a disloyal non-citizen of America, is ranked one of the best presidents this country has ever had.

Both men bear foreign names. Trump darkly ridiculed Obama’s names. He had nothing bad to say about Barrack’s foreign name, or about his two Lebanese grandparents. He constantly implied Obama was an African and a Muslim because he had African roots.

One has to assume Tom Barrack and Donald Trump had a big laugh about this – the two Barracks.

July 17th, 2021
Bullshitter in a China Shop

‘FRANTIC TRUMP AIDES WORRIED “DRUNK” AND “WEAVING” GIULIANI WOULD START BREAKING VALUABLE WHITE HOUSE CHINA’

July 17th, 2021
There’s seeing which way the wind is blowing, and then there’s…

… Alan Dershowitz.

Nobody does it better.

May 19th, 2021
‘Barack Obama called Trump a ‘madman,’ a ‘racist, sexist pig,’ a ‘fucking lunatic’ and a ‘corrupt motherfucker,’ according to new book’

As usual, Obama understates.

April 28th, 2021
Ukraine Run All ‘Round My Brain

Sing it.

Early one morning, half past four
FBI come knocking at my door
Ukraine run all ’round my brain

First come Igor, then come Lev
Diggin up dirt on the streets of Kiev
Ukraine run all ’round my brain

Donnie, Donnie, save me quick!

This Ukraine ’bout to make me sick

Ukraine run all ’round my brain

March 23rd, 2021
Fragile P Syndrome

Many university medical school positions come with words like “voluntary” and “courtesy” attached; unlike tenured medical faculty, clinical faculty enjoy little more than the professional use of titles like “professor,” and, if you’re Bandy Lee, affiliations like “Yale.”

Untenured, and needing to be renewed every few years, associated medical faculty positions are fragile. As Lee – famous for having led the “Trump is dangerously insane” charge – has just discovered. Yale has fired her – chosen not to renew her, if you like – because in diagnosing a public figure without ever having met him, let alone analyzed him in a professional setting, she broke the Goldwater Rule. What really tipped Yale over, though, was a letter of complaint it received from rich, well-connected, and incredibly litigious Alan Dershowitz, also branded psychotic by Lee, and not happy about it. Lee is suing Yale.

First, a quick, surgical contrast between tenured and untenured at Yale medical school. Michael Simons, a powerful, tenured presence there, was found guilty of sexual harassment way back in 2013. And then – wow.

Details from Simons’ case date back to 2010, when he sent a romantic letter to a female junior colleague, who subsequently told him that she did not reciprocate his feelings. According to Simons’ complaint, the letter was “a declaration of love and romantic interest of the sort men have sent to women from time immemorial.”

She started up a relationship with another doctor who subsequently faced professional difficulties, which the two alleged was due to Simons’ interference.

In 2013, the junior colleague filed a sexual harassment complaint with the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct. Former Connecticut Superior Court Judge Beverly Hodgson investigated the claim and found Simons guilty of sexual harassment, and the UWC recommended he be suspended as chief of cardiology for five years. Simons appealed and the suspension was ultimately reduced to 18 months.

But details of the proceedings surfaced in a subsequent New York Times investigation. Later in 2013, Simons resigned as chief of cardiology, and his complaint alleges the University forced his resignation due to the public outcry.

Simons continued to hold the position of the Robert W. Berliner chair of cardiology until Nancy Berliner ’75 MED ’79, the daughter of Robert Berliner and a former professor at the School of Medicine, objected to Simons’ professorship. In July of 2018, the University transferred Simons to the Von Zedtwitz Chair.

The action prompted public backlash, including an open letter from medical school students, alumni and faculty that amassed more than 1,000 signatures. The University then removed Simons from the position.

In October 2019, Simons filed a complaint against the University.

Hey, why not find a third chair! If not the Berliner, then the Von Zedtwitz, and if not the Von Zedtwitz the … something from the middle of the alphabet… Berliner comes early, Von Zedtwitz at the end… maybe Mr Simons would care to see something in a Smith?

And yes, you read that right – it’s been twenty years since Simons purportedly harassed, and he remains in excellent, though non-chaired, status at Yale. He also remains an infuriated, vengeful troublemaker, a scalpel in the side of the school, which first dealt with him by conferring multiple chairs upon him, and now spends its time simultaneously boasting he’s on the faculty and angrily batting down his latest litigation.

Yale’s folie à deux with the hugely compensated, hugely pissed Simons will play on till the cows come home cuz that’s how tenure rolls.

And now back to Bandy Lee. Her fragile condition means that punishment for something maybe a bit less egregious than fucking with the junior staff is rapid dismissal.

UD blows somewhat hot and cold on Lee and her fellow invoke the 25th amendment Trump-diagnosers. No one who watched Trump in his notorious debate with Biden could fail to be grateful to Lee and Co for having, years before, laid out the framework for understanding the obscenity playing out in front of us. In short, they weren’t far off in their clinical appraisal of Trump.

OTOH: It really is a crude, easily corruptible, and unethical sort of thing, using your position as a professional analyst to lend special credibility to a judgment as extreme as mentally unfit for office. UD‘s extended remarks on the matter are here.

March 5th, 2021
Meet Donald Trump’s Ambassador to…

the insurrection. Federico Klein goes all-out for Trumpism.

March 1st, 2021
UD’s subjects a New York Times article to slight editing.

The former American president Donald Trump was found guilty on Monday by a court in New York on charges of corruption and influence peddling.

The verdict was the culmination of just one of several long-running legal entanglements that are coming to a head for Mr. Trump, 74, who led the United States from 2017 to 2021 and is still widely popular among conservatives…

He received a three-year prison sentence, with two of those years suspended. However, it was widely expected that Mr. Trump would appeal, a process that would place the sentence on hold…

Mr. Trump, who lost his bid for re-election in 2021, has denied wrongdoing in a complex web of financial impropriety cases that has plagued him since he left office.

February 18th, 2021
Terrific take-off on the film 1984.

Via Sean O’Kane, a Facebook pal.

February 11th, 2021
It’s a start.

IT SURE LOOKS LIKE TRUMP WILL FACE

CRIMINAL CHARGES FOR ELECTION FRAUD

February 11th, 2021
Legendary Coach Fails to Complete Play

Pride of ‘Bama Tommy Tuberville forgot to lie to Politico about having told Trump his vice-president’s life was in danger.

[T]he detail that Tuberville informed Trump his vice president was in danger is a new and potentially significant development for House prosecutors seeking Trump’s conviction: it occurred just around the time that Trump sent a tweet attacking Pence for not having “the courage” to unilaterally stop Joe Biden’s victory. And Trump never indicated publicly that he was aware of Pence’s plight, even hours after Tuberville says he told him.

Whoops! Instead of leaving your quarterback vulnerable to attacks from the civilized world that he reveled in the thought of his vp dying from mob violence, you were supposed to (didn’t you read the offensive play charts?) say that the president had no idea where Mike Pence and his family were.

Senior aides to the House impeachment managers said Thursday that they considered Tuberville’s comments to be new information that confirms their case that Trump abandoned Pence and Congress to the mob rather than attempting to quell the violence.

“It squares with what we already know, that the president knew his vice president was in danger and did nothing,” said one of the aides, adding, “We will have more to speak on that point today.”

Or as the fully embarrassed Alabama media puts it:

There are only a few ways to interpret this. Either Trump didn’t care his vice president was in danger and recklessly put his life at further risk. Or Trump did care — and wanted him pursued, or hurt, or killed.

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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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