July 14th, 2025
Found an in-progress nest in my front door wreath.

Had to take it down but GUILT.

July 14th, 2025
‘The Perseid meteor shower occurs annually in August; however, in 2028, the shower is expected to evolve into a storm that will be even more spectacular than the standard, annual event.’

Something to live for.

July 13th, 2025
After a storm, pleated ink caps…

… in the Bonhoeffer Garden.

July 7th, 2025
Still Life Death

Owls were about last night.

The original from which the owl drew inspiration.

July 4th, 2025
Mr UD, as Leopold Bloom…

… DARES you to deny that Ulysses is the greatest twentieth century novel.

Garrett Park Fourth of July parade, whose theme this year is The Novel.

Photo: Frances Eby

June 28th, 2025
Friends enjoy high tea (ICED tea, of course), at UD’s…

… after gathering in the heat to inaugurate her new meditation garden.

June 23rd, 2025
‘Prosecutors asked the judge to keep [Clift] Seferlis locked up pending trial. The judge declined that motion, instead releasing him on a $50,000 bond. As part of the terms of his release, Seferlis must submit to electronic location monitoring and travel restrictions. He’s also required to turn over any firearms. And, notably, he’s not allowed to enter any Jewish institution or place of worship.’

Dude lives three doors down from your blogueuse in Garrett Park. Does not like Jews.

June 23rd, 2025
My new panicle hydrangea’s first bloom.
June 20th, 2025
Wonderful encounter with UD’s mother’s mentor, Wilhelmina Jashemski, in Artnet.

The Pompeii Archaeological Park has just unveiled the restored Garden of Hercules (so named for a statue of the mythical hero uncovered at the site), freshly planted with 1,200 violets, 1,000 ruscus plants, and 800 antique roses, as well as vines and cherry and cotton apple trees. The botanical display is intended to mirror how the garden appeared 2,000 years ago, based on the findings of botanist Wilhelmina Jashemski, who identified pollen, spores, and plant fossils in the area in the 1950s.

Dr Jashemski worked in Pompeii for decades past the 1950s, and my mother sometimes accompanied her, digging for roots in the hot sun. Both of them would be thrilled by the gardens that have now been rebuilt.

June 15th, 2025
Proud to have been part of it.

Biggest protest in US history.

June 15th, 2025
UD. Yesterday.
June 14th, 2025
UD’s in the floppy green hat. Today, NO KINGS, Garrett Park, Maryland.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AeWQsfZJV

June 14th, 2025
Mr UD and a shy neighbor walk home after…

… Garrett Park’s NO KINGS protest this morning. Good turnout, and tons of honks, raised fists, waves, and thumbs up from cars.

June 12th, 2025
‘Garrett Park: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Strathmore Avenue’

Datz me. One of the No Kings demonstrations goes right along my town’s only through street, and Les UDs, plus UD’s cousin and her husband, will be out there with flags and signs.

June 11th, 2025
Strangely, the one piece in my gardens that attracted the most comment yesterday, during the garden tour, was this one.

Years ago I bought three silver/gray wreaths for the house during holiday season. After that, I decided I liked them enough to want to keep looking at them, so I found a gray planter that seemed in the same color realm, piled them largest to smallest in it, and stuck it among some grasses and hydrangeas.

Why does this curious little item pack a certain aesthetic/symbolic punch? Why does it draw the eye?

Best I can do: Aside from the symmetry (tapered wreaths; tapered container) and the bird-nesty, kinetic feel of the wreaths as they deteriorate and put out a mess of needles, and the texture thing (rough/smooth), there is, I guess, the anthropomorphic nature of the thing. Piled up hair/turban, on a human face?

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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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