For eight years, police have been trying to prove that Charles Adelson had Dan Markel killed. Anyone who followed the appalling story of a man killed simply because he wanted to share custody of his children knows that the evidence has always pointed to the brother of Markel’s ex-wife, but authorities only recently had sufficient proof of the conspiracy. Now a trial can proceed.
Benson failed to detect on John Eastman
Any obvious Mark of the Beastman.
‘It was only much later
He came out as a traitor!
We ask you to leave us in peace, man.’
This writer stresses America’s fast-growing 4 – 14 shooter cohort: The NRA’s putting Glocks in Christmas socks, and our littlest ones are shooting them all over the place — at themselves, at party guests, at their families.
It’s a curious development. The onrush of America’s infantile infantry.

Spring, UD‘s garden.
Leave it around and it just might kill your kid.
To be sure, they’ve got the weapons to deploy. But it seems increasingly important to call the Russians exactly what they are.
THE BIRD THAT WANTS TO NEST IN MY RAFTER
The bird that wants to nest in my rafter
Has birdlike clarity what it’s after:
The comforts of home. Of course I agree
That water source, sight-line, privacy
All make for quite the nest. The question though
(As I sweep off twigs and it returns
Tirelessly, with energy to burn)
Remains: Which one of us will have to go?

… “perimeter walk,” when Les UDs walk the length and breadth of their property. This often coincides with sunset, but this evening was so beautiful that we took our walk early.
The main thing I wanted to say about this image is that you’ve GOT to imagine the sweet powerful aroma coming off those white viburnum flowers. It says here that the scent is a “sweet, rich, spicy vanilla,” which sounds about right. There’s something of chai tea to it.
But that was 2019. Little Oberlin’s endowment currently stands at $1.09 billion.
A few years ago, Oberlin College did a hell of a lot of damage to a local bakery – falsely accused it of racism, got tons of people to boycott it – and a jury’s decision that it pay the bakery $33 million in compensation doesn’t sit at all well with the school. But the decision has been upheld; the school’s only option at this point is to kick things up to the Ohio Supreme Court… or hey, maybe the US Supreme Court would like to air, for the nation and the world, a billion dollar school’s vicious attack on a local small business.
Let’s wait and see what Oberlin decides to do. Not paying will expose it to yet further penalties, one assumes; so it can’t do nothing forever. I’m figuring an Ohio court at any level will share the outrage of an Ohio jury in regard to the arrant vileness of Oberlin’s behavior. I doubt the Supreme Court would look at the case. And, you know, Oberlin has enough money in its endowment to pay what it owes.
It’d be nice if they concluded something humane and useful for themselves as a result of all of this, but that ain’t gonna happen. Mob rule will prevail.
*********
UD thanks David.
… group. There’s insider-trading-charges-evading-tho-no-one-knows-how-the-hell-he-pulled-THAT-off Steven Cohen; there’s all-round terrific guy Ron Perelman; most recently, there’s New York’s naughty Lieutenant Governor, just today arrested on big ol’ fraud charges.
It is UD‘s considered opinion that Brown is in some kind of obscure competition with Yeshiva University (Madoff, Merkin, and oh so many more) for grubbiest greediest grotesquest trustees.
New York City’s not like San Francisco – it doesn’t have a depraved political class willing to let the city die. It has a tough on crime mayor. But even the toughest mayor can’t do anything about current gun-soaked American life; and the pictures of people bleeding, this morning, on subway platforms … it’s something we’ll have to get used to.
… Biden and his party [need to] counter Republican demagoguery about anarchy in “Democratic cities.” By falsely smearing all Democrats as closet [police] defunders … Republicans hope to obscure their deep complicity in today’s violent crime wave. Conservative pro-gun absolutism is the reason that criminals, street gangs and aspiring mass shooters can get quick and easy access to guns.
*************

… at Quiet Waters Park, along Maryland’s South River. Site of today’s walk.
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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

