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‘I once encountered a man carrying an AR-15 rifle at a summer festival.’

The writer – a native South Dakotan – seems to think there’s something noteworthy about a man openly carrying this

(that’s a Dad picking up his kid at the airport) in the sweet idle setting of a summer fair. Massive overt personal weaponry seems wrong, somehow, in places like summer fairs, airports, churches, hospitals, schools…

But steely-eyed thin-lipped SD Sen. Mykala Voita

presses hard and successfully on the legislature to arm South Dakotans everywhere – in particular, on college campuses and in bars.

Instead of letting any student keep a handgun in their dorm room and carry it to class if they wish (as the original bill, unbelievably, would have done and as Voita made clear she still prefers), SB 100 now allows only gun owners who have qualified for an enhanced concealed carry permit to have a pistol on campus. 

Now, see, again, that “unbelievably” – this is from the same SD’an who thinks it’s really something to see a man openly toting an AR15 at a summer fair – tips you off that this writer is out of step with her state and should probably be living in godless gunless Garrett Park with UD. As should Republican Senator Steve Duffy (Rapid City), who not only voted against arming bar patrons but said, “This is crazy. When you mix booze and guns I don’t know how you can expect anything good to happen. Sooner or later, there’s going to be trouble.”

But hey this is fuckin Deadwood South Dakota! Sure there’s gonna be trouble, and Voita knows that, but it’s the wild fuckin west so let ‘er rip. Nihilism, ho!

Margaret Soltan, March 16, 2025 2:54AM
Posted in: guns

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
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[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
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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...
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As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
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University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
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