June 6th, 2026
‘Rapid bursts of gunfire sent festivalgoers screaming and running for cover between golf carts and food trucks.’

The fate of the festival in the land of four hundred and fifty million guns.

June 3rd, 2026
‘“Although I don’t condone heating up fish in the microwave because I can see why everyone would be upset, I don’t think it warrants pulling a firearm,” [one Myrtle Beach resident] said.’

Many are the reasons Americans need firearms.

June 1st, 2026
‘New Hampshire’s weak gun laws put it in the “national failures” category.’

Here’s what that failure looks like on the street.

Lynne Cooke-Case allegedly threatened [her neighbors with a firearm,] saying she would “put (the gun) in the mouth of anyone who got in [her] way.”… Cooke-Case’s dogs [then] killed a neighbor’s chicken and she [started] firing a gun from the road while threatening people… Cooke-Case fired about 20 rounds into the air. According to court documents, Cooke-Case also claimed there were bombs inside her home, and troopers reported a strong odor of gunpowder inside.

Insane people have no trouble getting guns in NH; and here is an example of how they use them.

May 24th, 2026
America: Where every maniac gets a Magnum.

La Kid was with friends in Adams Morgan. Not for the first time, I texted her with instructions about what streets to avoid in order not to get shot.

May 23rd, 2026
When guns are outlawed…

… Saturday nights will be SOOOO much less exciting.

May 23rd, 2026
‘Marco Vazquez and his wife, Lilliana Vazquez, had 26 guns, including pistols, rifles and shotguns.’

They also had a psychotic Nazi teenage son at home who went on to commit a mass shooting.

Vazquez “would not allow officers to confirm if firearms were stored properly.” If they were stored properly, Little Hitler would have trouble getting at them.

After the shooting, the police searched three homes connected with the teenagers and confiscated more than 30 guns from one of them.

In an obscene effort to avoid indictment, the Vazquez parents have released a weepy public statement. It’s incredibly important for the legal system to go after Nazi-enablers.

May 22nd, 2026
‘“Any of the association property, it’s private property,” [attorney Danny] Weber said. “Despite any state statute regarding the ability to conceal carry, that only applies to public property. So just like a private business, they have the ability to restrict firearms on association property.”’

Florida’s AG disagrees, and he promises a legal attack on a local development that would simply like people not to carry during big public events. Big public events bring out psychotic gunnies, and the people of Beaches Town Center don’t want to be blown away. But Florida will force them to expose themselves to armed fuckheads.

May 20th, 2026
‘In Vasquez’s portion [of the manifesto,] he lamented being short, which he said caused him great pain and humiliation.’

Teenager with an arsenal kills people — and shares his reasons.

May 19th, 2026
‘Clark’s mother … reported her son and vehicle missing, alongside several of her weapons, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said. The mother said her son was suicidal…’

And you kept several accessible weapons in the home although you knew your son was suicidal because … ?

Bring charges against the mother.

May 18th, 2026
It’s rare that you get the absolute quintessence of the country, the beating heart of America…

… but in these few moments of police video, it pours out at you with the pure intensity of a child’s wail.

May 18th, 2026
‘It was unthinkable and it was unforeseeable.’

An assistant principal who ignored repeated warnings about a fucked up student who ended up shooting a teacher goes on trial this week for felony child abuse.

Her attorney in an earlier civil trial said that thing up there in my headline … that thing about how a six year old plugging his teacher is just unthinkable, man… I mean, this is America, land of sensible gun policy…

The assistant principal was found guilty in that case, and she’ll be found guilty in this one. UD doubts she’ll be sent to prison, but I suppose it’s possible.

Looks as though the trial will be televised, so we can all sit back and revisit those thinkable and foreseeable events.

***********

Well, that was quick. The judge just dismissed the charges.

May 14th, 2026
Expect the weenies at Whitman to return him to the classroom asap.

Pulled out his weapon at the local mall during a fight, and has been carrying it – loaded, scratched off serial number – throughout his school day at Walt Whitman High, pride of UD’s ‘thesda. Remember Whitman? UD’s old friend Rita Kosofsky taught literature there for three decades… Has a great academic rep…

But after he’s tried (as an adult) and given probation by the court weenies, he’ll be invited back to Whitman by the school weenies, and the many affluent parents of ‘thesda, realizing little Andre is no doubt one of several heavily armed teenagers at Whitman (which I guess sees itself as too ladidah for metal detectors), will take their kids out of harm’s way and the school’s rep will sink like a stone.

May 11th, 2026
‘[Mark] Mutter said he researched throughout New Jersey for other businesses offering alcohol on the same premises as gun ranges. He found none.‘

Ever the pioneer, New Jersey will provide a place for gunnies to get tanked up before grabbing multiple firearms and letting fly. This all-in-one, booze + Beretta entertainment model is strikingly southern, as in the famous Murdaugh family in SC, drunk out of their minds many evenings, while hoisting some of their hundreds of guns for wholesome family fun.

The Toms River town council loves the idea and wants naysayers like Mr Mutter to shut the fuck up.

May 4th, 2026
“[O]n April 20, a student stashed a semi-automatic pistol in a black backpack, brought it into Valley Forge High School, and fatally shot herself in a cafeteria of kids.”

‘[Schools are] taking all the funding that they’re getting and they’re putting in place cameras. Well, that’s great. I mean, now you have a video of this little girl committing this terrible act.”

A Valley Forge High School parent points out that while America lacks any real means to stop school shootings, it at least has the fun of watching them happen.

May 2nd, 2026
“How this young man at his age ended up with a loaded firearm…”

The speaker seems surprised that an eleven year old almost shot a Milwaukee city inspector to death. The eleven year old was trying to carjack him.

Next Page »

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

Archives

Categories