UD’s take on QAnon:

She plans on lobbying the Supreme Scrabble Court to make “qanon” a legitimate game word. There are very few q and no u words allowed in Scrabble, and even though QAnon is a proper noun, UD‘s hoping the SSC, cognizant of the paucity of q and no u words, will at least agree to take the case.

Amid the distressing, distracting, unprecedented political situation in this country, UD finds it deeply reassuring that…

… the scummy world of big-time Southern football keeps rolling along. For years and years she’s followed the beautiful, profoundly rooted culture of obscenely overpaid coaches cheating their way to championships that get rescinded when some filthy traitor on the staff spills the beans. Then there’s the old-timey defamation lawsuit the fired coach files, in which he demands a billion dollar settlement cuz of all the damage the school has done to his beautiful reputation. There’s the charming buzz that ensues among the faithful: Who among the equally scummy cheater-coaches out there will be the dumped cheater-coach’s replacement? And everybody cheats, so why were we singled out? There’s the sweet perennial controversy about whether tailgate parties which turn the campus into a urinic heap where drunk out of their minds pre-teens reel about should be subject to a few rules, and the equally perennial controversy about the advisability of a university holding courses during the same week important football game are played (answer: scheduled classes are inadvisable). There’s the inexhaustible thrill of watching this or that heavily-recruited player with a notoriously violent past assault people all over town, as well as the larger traditional spectacle of groups of bulked up football heroes making use of monster SUVs, monster rifles, and illicit drugs all at the same time. The fraternities make their own venerable contribution to the Southern football landscape, killing pledges during fan parties through the time-tested method of alcohol and neglect.

The University of Tennessee is the scummy football school du jour; but places like Ole Miss, which combine all aspects of this culture with campus white supremacy riots, are real – uh – historic.

And yet at the same time what could be more totally up to date than white supremacy rioting?

“Cole, 26, and Ella, 21, named for John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald.”

Cool.

From the Biden/Harris Inaugural Playlist…

UD votes for Your Love Is Lifting Me Higher and Higher… but the Rita Coolidge version!

Burn

Karl Rove: ‘Strong Likelihood’ Trump Will Be Convicted if Giuliani Leads Impeachment Defense

That’s my guy.

UD‘s Representative, Jamie Raskin, grieving, but still able to write articles of impeachment.

I’m not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and my country and my republic in 2021. It’s not gonna happen.

Timothy Snyder, After the First Impeachment.

“Making our institutions a joke is exactly what helps authoritarians like Mr Putin survive. If there’s no example of things going better, it makes their life much much easier. A big sad thing which is happening is that there is no longer an American example … that dissidents in China or [the] opposition in Hong Kong or journalists in Russia or Poland or Hungary or whatever can point to — thanks to Mr Trump.”

Boebert Unplugged

Her communications director has resigned! We are about to get this iconic American voice unfiltered, and UD cannot wait.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (not to be confused with Lorena Bobbitt) is an American original, a tax-noncompliant, QAnon-slinging, gun-slinging, rumored insurrectionist. Boebert is the embodiment of the Capitol-Trashers: Multiple arrests for violent behavior (to be fair, not all of it was her; some of it was her two big pit bulls), refusal to show up in court, violent hatred of authority, general propensity to violence. Boebert tweeted Nancy Pelosi’s movements during the insurrection.

A glance at Boebert’s impressive rap sheet reveals l’essence de Capitol-Trasher lifestyle: Nasty dustups with hubby when they both get a little, uh, hot under the collar; fights with neighbors; fights with cops; Defiant Oppositional Disorder when people request that she take her guns out of their face. Cap-Trash lifestyle means looking to pick a fight while bombing around in your pickup, Barrett M107s bouncing in the bed, pit bulls howling. That’s our Lauren; and why you wouldn’t want to be her communications director I have no idea but anyway she ain’t got one no more and hon LET. IT. RIP.

Limerick

Some hotels might consider it jolly

To welcome Trump-gunfire volleys.

We might be called Loews

But that’s too low to go.

Let another hotel welcome Hawley.

Apparently the Pentagon, in an Unprecedented Move, has Refused to Give Trump a Military Send-off.

A reader sends this to UD, from Defense One:

The Pentagon, in a break with recent tradition, will not host an Armed Forces Farewell tribute to President Donald Trump. 

It’s a shame, but not a surprise. Trump will leave office in disgrace, one week after the House voted a second time for his impeachment, two weeks after his supporters staged a deadly siege in the Capitol Building, six months after he dragged his Joint Chiefs chairman into a political firestorm, and after four years of nonstop assaults on truth.

The military doesn’t … want Mr Fuckface.

Mr Fuckface, you see, is like the gannet – one doesn’t want it, because it wets its nest.

“American Thinker” (the least appropriate name imaginable for a mindless rag) has admitted that EVERYTHING multiple AT writers published about Dominion Voting Systems was completely made up.

They’re really really sorry! It was a grave error… completely false…no evidence… no basis in fact and as a special offer just for you if you don’t sue us for a billion dollars the way you’re suing Sidney our managing editor will come to Toronto and go down on at least one and no more than three designated Dominion employees.

Please do not punish us for extensively publishing sick lies that led directly to a fatal insurrection which has damaged the United States of America beyond description! We meant well.

‘The easiest way out of the self-pardon dilemma would be for Trump to make a deal with Mike Pence, under which he would resign before leaving office and Pence would grant him a pardon. Unfortunately for Trump, Pence is still sore about the whole “whipping up a paramilitary mob to lynch him” episode.’

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

‘[I]f Trump can’t make money luring customers to watch him do the “Lock them up” chant and dance to “Macho Man,” and he can’t do the hard work of launching a lucrative media brand, then he’s back to giving away his rants for free on other peoples’ networks.’

LOLolololololllllloooollll

Hey! We all knew the NRA was Bankrupt.

But now it’s … BANKRUPT!

“Trump plans to hold unprecedented military ‘farewell event’ on Inauguration Day with a 21-gun salute, color guard and martial music when he boards Air Force One for final flight to Mar-a-Lago”

Dress rehearsal.

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

[source]

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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