“It was like a moment of humanity because you’re there and you just were holding your heart to them, and they would come up to you. It was a human moment.”

The recent academic history of UNC Chapel Hill is really stinky — just a shitload of scandals — so you might think faculty and administrators there would be superduper careful not to add to the world’s growing sense that a once-respectable school has become a cesspool. But the awesomely titled vice-chancellor — FOR RESEARCH — a man not only eminent, but also distinguished, has been outed as a plagiarist.

In a grant application … but you and I know that soon enough many other instances of his plagiarism will be uncovered… though he seems to have convinced the ninnies at Chapel Hill that this is his one and only eminent distinguished theft from multiple sources, cuz they’re not really punishing the dude.

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Remember UD‘s tripartite plagiarism scheme (refresh your memory here). In this instance, we have Category One: ATELIER. Dude’s simply too esteemed and illustrious to bother writing his own grant applications or (UD feels certain we’ll discover) research papers, etc., etc. He relies on an atelier, his very own workshop of Santa’s elves, to do all his work for him, and he has fallen victim to the same thing all the other busybusybusy atelier-overseers (see oodles of Harvard law professors) fall victim to – he doesn’t review the work that goes out under his name. If you’re going to oversee, you need to oversee!

In short: I didn’t plagiarize! The dumb-dumbs that plagiarize on my behalf plagiarized. I give you my pledge: There’s gonna be a helluva shakeup on my staff and the new crew will know how to plagiarize and not get caught.

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Mr UD: “A reasonable punishment would be a fifty percent reduction in his adjectives. He’s currently the Kay M. & Van L. Weatherspoon Eminent Distinguished Professor of Genetics. The choice is his, but he must lose either Eminent or Distinguished.”

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Update: Yeah. Well. Initial reports that he’d get a slap on the wrist sounded way dumb to ol’ UD, and, as she suggests up there in this post, you don’t deal with a plagiarist in that way. You fire a plagiarist. Esp. one in charge of research for the whole school! Mamma mia.

And that is now what has happened.

UD ain’t exactly sure what she did – seems to have involved giving a buddy access to voting machines so he could … change the vote for Peters’ lord and savior Donald Christ …? I’m also a little unsure whether she’s … evading … the authorities or simply taking a few extra minutes for her makeup.

Five drugs in his system and death was accidental? UD needs to bone up on accidentality theory.

The longtime director of the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center describes UD‘s wild and crazy city. Last time UD visited the city of her birth there had just been a big riot. Inner Harbor, once a real draw, has apparently all but collapsed. Hotels are closing.

… a typically gallant Ukrainian, gives an interview (it’s in German). Ukraine, she points out, is a democratic shield. If that shield breaks, global democracy is under grave threat.

She lives and teaches in Germany; she and Mr UD for a number of years co-directed, in Ukraine, the European Summer Institute of Civic Studies.

The Kremlin spent the last 20 years trying to modernize its military. Much of that budget was stolen and spent on mega-yachts in Cyprus.

Nobody was that shocked when, a few years ago, a Clemson administrator reported that ‘on surveys distributed by U.S. News, the Clemson brass “rates all programs other than Clemson below average.”‘ The main reaction to this revelation was laughter.

But when a math professor at Columbia accuses it of gaming rankings, things look more serious.

But still amusing. Michael Thaddeus describes, among other things, a school suddenly deciding that its entire immense medical faculty – overwhelmingly engaged in research and patient care – is actually an instructional unit.

Even on its own terms, the ranking is [for all schools] a failure because the supposed facts on which it is based cannot be trusted. Eighty percent of the U.S. News ranking of a university is based on information reported by the university itself. This information is detailed and subtle, and the vetting conducted by U.S. News is cursory enough to allow many inaccuracies to slip through. Institutions are under intense pressure to present themselves in the most favorable light. This creates a profound conflict of interest, which it would be naive to overlook… Even as Columbia has [lately] soared to 2nd place in the ranking, there is reason for concern that its ascendancy may largely be founded, not on an authentic presentation of the university’s strengths, but on a web of illusions.

During a feminist theory class in my sophomore year, I said that non-Indian women can criticize suttee, a historical practice of ritual suicide by Indian widows. This idea seems acceptable for academic discussion, but to many of my classmates, it was objectionable.

The room felt tense. I saw people shift in their seats. Someone got angry, and then everyone seemed to get angry. After the professor tried to move the discussion along, I still felt uneasy. I became a little less likely to speak up again and a little less trusting of my own thoughts.

I was shaken, but also determined to not silence myself. Still, the disdain of my fellow students stuck with me. I was a welcomed member of the group — and then I wasn’t.

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Try saying we can criticize people who cut off Dawoodi Bohra Indian girls’ genitals! That’ll make your UVa classmates even angrier.

Isn’t there a law in Mexico against bringing children to soccer games? The games are so bloody (this latest brawl featured at least two deaths and over twenty serious injuries), it’s definitely a form of negligence to allow children into the barbarity.

Soccer riots are an old story – the ones I cover are mainly in Europe – with the only wrinkle being an ongoing escalation of the slaughter. It’s also mildly interesting to see whether security can get the players off the field in time to save their lives.

… by legitimate scholars uncovering his long history of plagiarized sports-injury research.

One could dismiss this jerk as one more no-account, plagiarism-addicted nonentity, except that he’s actually a very high-profile, influential concussion-enthusiast, always in search of ways to justify letting concussed athletes keep playing.

Finally cornered, he’s letting out with all sorts of explanations and apologies (UD has no idea why he’s not blaming underlings, but as more of his plagiarism is discovered, McCrory will no doubt take this time-honored route), and he’s removing himself – or being removed – from this and that committee. Let’s see if the scummy schools and organizations keeping him on board will… keep him on board.

Dude already had a violent crime record.

‘Court records from Wyandotte County show Elmore was convicted in a Feb. 6, 2020, robbery where he stole a wallet from a person “by force or by threat of bodily harm, and did inflict bodily harm.”’

Why was he still enrolled in a mainstream public high school?

Is it because he played for the football team? If so, that’s really fucked up. Putting the safety of everyone at the school at risk because he made the team more competitive…

Of course, having covered the legions of Richie Incognitos out there, UD knows perfectly well that this is a calculation high schools and colleges all over this country make every day: He’s a dangerous person, sure, but he can really play the game. Coaches who make the call – see Art Briles – occasionally have to pay a price for it. The real price is paid by the people raped and beaten.

Background here.

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Richie Incognito! Isn’t that what Roman Abramovich just re-christened his yacht?

My jet tried to make aliyah

It’s always loved Israel, da da
We approached Tel Aviv

But they forced us to leave

So now we fly on to Fatah