He’s watching his dunce-nemesis, Alaska Rep. Don Young, twist slowly in the wind after having made his contribution to the Republican party’s effort to rebrand itself.
Of course Young has not apologized. Why should he apologize? Wetbacks is what they’re called.
UD definitely believes, along with Roman Hruska, that mediocrity has a right to representation in our government. She’s less sure about people like Don Young.
The most macabre headline is this one, in USA Today:
EXPLOSIVE DEVICES, CORPSE, FOUND ON UCF CAMPUS
A dorm was evacuated, and the campus closed, after – in response to a 911 call – police found a dead person in a dorm room and, near him, an assault weapon and improvised explosive devices.
This is a big story because it’s part of an emerging new normal for certain disturbed Americans. UD guesses that this suicide had in mind going out with a bang, as in Aurora and Sandy Hook. For whatever reason, though, he decided to skip the part where he murders forty people, and instead went straight to killing himself.
The Pope quits.
“[G]ases from the melting, brown load hindered firefighters.”
We’re on our way to one mass killing by a crazy person with guns every day.
The death toll is the highest from a school shooting in U.S. history since a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007.
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Comment from an Andrew Sullivan reader:
I could never feel anything but contempt for the asshole who did this, but the truth is we are a nation of assholes. I include myself in that. Most radio stations I heard could only be bothered to touch on this massacre of children for a moment or two before getting back to the critical topic of football. That wonderful game full of violence that has no regard for the well being of the young men who play it.
Someone’s been shooting on the campus of Casper College, a public community college in Wyoming. One person is confirmed dead, and the shooter is either injured or dead.
The incident is still going on.
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This report says it’s over – one dead, and the injured shooter in custody.
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Apparently the person killed was an instructor at the college.
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And apparently guns weren’t involved, as originally reported. Stabbing, it sounds like. And now three deaths are reported.
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Phys ed exam?
We need to know if (as UD suspects) the teachers cheating on these tests came out of only a handful of universities in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Massive, long-term conspiracies of this sort maintain themselves through word of mouth. I’d guess that only four or five schools generated the cheaters. Once we know the identities of the schools, it’s important to publicize their names (of course accreditors, and the schools themselves, will do nothing) and warn students away from them.
An ABC news pundit just summed up the problem that’s kept the Republicans down in this election. And we can quote it here at University Diaries because it’s a university reference.
UD will cop to being extremely excited to hear, just now, that Elizabeth Warren won in Massachusetts. UD has been a big supporter of Warren from the start, and it’s been a close race throughout. Big sigh.
… supporters, maybe Donald Trump is something God intended to happen.
… a Chinese novelist, wins the Nobel. Presumably we’re all off to read, among his novels, Big Breasts and Wide Hips (1996).
One of the two recipients of the Nobel for chemistry describes The Phone Call.
UD suspects, though, that hearing five Swedish accents might have the opposite effect. Might make you think it’s just a more elaborate joke.
… a student at Utica College – an award-winning hockey player in high school – is charged with having beaten his girlfriend – a College at Brockport student – to death in her dorm room.
This is breaking news. University Diaries will cover the story as it develops.
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Update: The story has quickly jumped to the Associated Press.
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Unverified details suggest some more similarities to the Virginia lacrosse case: The boyfriend is rumored to have been drinking with friends before he went to the woman’s dorm room; the couple is said to have had a stormy relationship with a lot of fighting; there is a suggestion that she may have tired of the relationship and tried to end it.
Unverified details of the attack are also similar. As in the Yeardley Love case, this woman was battered to death.
There are also rumors that the killer knocked out the woman’s roommate by hitting her with an iron.
And like Love’s killer, this suspect has a drunk and disorderly arrest on his record.
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Students are not being held in the dorm, but many have been seen leaving the hall with parents, as well as some with full backpacks and purses.
SUNY Brockport’s newspaper suddenly has a big story on its hands, and so far is doing an excellent job, providing incident-by-incident updates. Its journalists are best-situated to convey a sense of the feel of the campus in the immediate aftermath of a murder. And yes – of course those parents are swarming to take their kids out of that bloody building.
… other sites, was down for most of the afternoon. Her host, GoDaddy, apparently got hacked.
But I’m back, to share with you the Headline of the Day:
MEN CAUGHT WITH TINY PRIMATES IN THEIR UNDERWEAR IN DELHI AIRPORT