Ah yes. I remember it well.

One of thousands of bogus holocaust survivor stories, Mischa Defonseca’s (a made-up name to go with her made-up story) got covered on University Diaries a few years back because the bogus story was so immediately, so obviously, bullshit (parentless, she was raised by wolves; at the age of seven she stabbed a Nazi to death) and yet she got very far with it indeed. Made a lot of money off of it. Oprah came calling.

Which seemed odd to UD at the time, but of course now in l’age du Trump … I mean, UD has come to understand that millions of people will believe anything…

Though to be entirely honest some teeny mewling desperately rational part of her still resists this knowledge…

Anyway, there’s a new Sundance film all about this lovely person; and if your idea of a good time is a couple of hours in her world, go for it.

******************

UD’s own brush with holocaust-liar fame: She was a student of Paul de Man’s when he was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago.

Mass Medieval Morbidness.

A spreader scene worthy of Bosch.

These days, it’s no joke: Don’t live in a theocracy if you don’t have to.

******************

Sample headline in the Israeli press: WHEN FUNERALS ARE FATAL. Read the article accompanying this headline and ask yourself: Do you want to live in a country where tens of thousands of massed, violent fanatics, “helpless” in the face of God’s command that they and the unfortunates who live near them die of disease exposure, take to the streets undeterred by any government?

They’re…

coming around!

Another photo of La Kid in Deep Creek Lake, Md.
Her friend Natasha rented a cabin and invited a bunch of friends to celebrate her thirtieth birthday there. I’ve been to Deep Creek a few times and haven’t been too impressed, but clearly I was missing something. At least in winter the place is magical.

UPDATE: I keep gazing at this insanely well-composed photograph.

It’s like Munch’s The Scream for happy people.

Is La Kid carrying a bar of radium in her pocket, like Marie Sklodowska Curie?

Know Hope.

Only a small handful of states report voter registration data on a weekly basis. Others report monthly activity, and many states do not report granular details about those who leave one party or the other. Once more states report party registration data, the true number of Republicans who have [switched to Democrats] in recent weeks may prove to be much higher.

Song of America’s Most Prominent Republican.

Double, double toil and trouble
Ginsburg was a body double
Rothschild did a fire make
Parkland massacre’s a fake
Spawn of Newt and and scourge of Hogg

Neo-fascist demagogue
Vampire bat with blind-worm’s sting
Not a human but a thing
Ginsburg was a body double
Double, double toil and trouble.

After a talking-to from McCarthy, Greene Deletes her Tweets.

GREENETWEETS

Sing it with me.

Alas MccCarthy you do me wrong
To cuss me out discourteously;
I’ll take my rifle oh so long
And scare you bad, you pussy.

Greenetweets were my delight,
Greenetweets were my murder threats
Greenetweets were all my joy
Now must I delete my Greenetweets?

I have been ready at your hand
To grant whatever thou would’st crave;
I’ve scrubbed my mock of wee dead babes
Your love and goodwill for to have.

Greenetweets were my delight,
Greenetweets were my murder threats
Greenetweets were all my joy
Now must I delete my Greenetweets?

Must I erase my hate for Jews?
My trait’rous love of rioting crews?
Oh please don’t make me have to lose

My dearly beloved Greenetweets.


La Kid Gets Outdoorsy…
…at Deep Creek Lake, MD.
Now Congress Sets Up A Greene Zone

Maskless, armed Marjorie Taylor Greene has, with her staff, belligerently confronted a fellow Representative in the shared hallway outside their offices. By order of the Speaker, for this person’s safety, her office has been moved to a different floor from Greene’s.

Apparently security officials are also looking into placing Greene into constraints when she is on federal property.

“We will begin to see the evolution of mutants.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci weighs in on Marjorie Taylor Greene.

MAKE ARZAMAS GREAT AGAIN!

“[Trump] was [a Russian] asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we’re going to develop this guy and 40 years later he’ll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people.

Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election.”

Just a handy reminder of two of UD’s most venerable truths:

1.) Plagiarists almost never plagiarize just once. Plagiarism is a compulsive, prolific act.

2.) In America, school superintendents are notorious career plagiarists. I’m not sure why this group in particular is always rising to the top; but in years of blogging, I’ve covered school superintendents more than any other group.

The Lin Wood, Esq., Padded Cell, Mercer University School of Law

Mercer’s rich benefactor, namesake of its Lin Wood Courtroom, has been told that in order to retain his law license he must “undergo a mental health exam.”

Wood, who is the Second Coming of Christ, fails to understand how some measly licensing entity dare approach Him, much less threaten his livelihood. His own family’s in on the persecution too… Everyone’s hanging him out to be crucified…

Last month, Wood shocked even his allies by suggesting former Vice President Mike Pence could face a “firing squad” for certifying the election results. Wood has allegedly referred to himself as the son of God and the second coming of Christ, and suggested Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is a murderous pedophile.

At least Mercer University continues to emblazon His Holy Name on its walls! All praise that saving remnant, yea even faithful to the end of days!

LOL

[S]ecular critics fail to acknowledge the changes for the better in the haredi world (albeit at a slow pace), with more of them working and joining the army, and with the birth rate per woman dropping from 12 to around eight.

********

With covid putting these socially corrosive bitter-enders right there in everyone’s face (not that non-cultic Israelis haven’t been seeing haredim for what they are for years), it’s maybe possible that …

No. Things won’t improve. In Israel, things are much too far gone. As large numbers of haredim begin to drift away from their once-authoritarian rabbis, that country will find itself with scads of unemployable uncontrollable disaffected and often quite violent people out and about on its streets.

Jews in Space

Jonathan Chait notes that the nation’s highest-profile Republican representative

suggested in a Facebook post that [the Camp fire] in California [was] not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes had been started by PG&E, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project.

… The Rothschild family has featured heavily in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories since at least the 19th century. Anti-Semites have generally updated the theory by replacing the Rothschilds with George Soros, a more contemporary and plausible-seeming mastermind for a global conspiracy to spread left-wing ideology. [Marjorie Taylor] Greene’s version has instead updated the theory by giving the Rothschilds possession of a secret, powerful space laser.

Now, you might wonder why, if an international cabal of Jewish bankers wanted to finance a rail project, they would go about it by using their space lasers to set a catastrophic blaze. Aren’t there easier ways to get your rail stations approved by the state legislature? If you can pull off a massive conspiracy like that and keep it quiet, and you have a space laser you can use to immolate basically any target on Earth, there have to be more direct profit-making opportunities than burning down trees in order to arbitrage the land value for a public-transit contract.

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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