… bombs.
This incident shows you there’s something very wrong at the NRA.
Here we see what appears to be the deep state threatening to investigate a citizen of Virginia exercising his second amendment right to shoot at American military aircraft — and not a peep out of that organization.
UD can only imagine the chilling effect this is going to have on other Americans attempting to shoot down our helicopters.
*********
The government’s response is particularly disappointing, given that the shooters were almost certainly young people, just beginning to discover the joy of guns. UD will predict that two fourteen year old boys are the shooters here – bored at home because of covid, and taking their parents’ extensive weaponry out for a spin. Good clean American fun, and just the sort of thing the surveillance state cannot abide.
His retweet of a Trump Forever video sparked the geniuses at the Lincoln Project. (Scroll down for both videos.)
And a-one and a-two. When the Genius of the Carpathians meets the Genius of Bergen meets the Lincoln Project, great things happen.
Couldn’t have done it without the original tweet from Trump. Keep ’em coming.
… fickle.
******************
Donald è mobile…
*******************
[English translation.]
Donald is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
He changes his voice — and his mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter — he is always lying.
In case you haven’t yet heard.
With all this Christian love for a president who makes all ordinary sinners look like amateurs, it’s no wonder that Falwell — the president of Liberty University, which was founded by his dad, the legendary Southern Baptist pastor and televangelist — thought it was no big deal to unbutton his pants a little. … [But] Falwell was asked to take an indefinite leave of absence from his job at Liberty University. …
[T]he American right no longer feels any need to justify their will to power with over-the-top moralizing. Dominance has become its own justification.
So it’s not surprising that Falwell got a little lackadaisical about pretending to believe all that crap he’s been preaching about the virtues of sobriety and chastity. And more than a little dopey that the board of Liberty University is trying to act offended and going through the ritual of asking him to step aside.
*******************
Jerry died for their sins!



Recite The Credo with me.
UD proposes as his replacement King Juan Carlos.
Who knew Bret Stephens was capable of such great zingers?
I mean, okay, yes, you could argue there’s a whopper of a mixed metaphor lurking in there (shellacking/colonoscopy?). Who cares.
“No, [Jerry] Falwell isn’t facing anything like the academic equivalent of the death toll, economic ruin, and social upheaval that’s now occurring on [his buddy and role model] Trump’s watch, but beneath Liberty’s gleaming exterior, there are signs of trouble.
In fact, if you’re an academic, you’ll recognize the significance of numbers like these. Here is the shocking decline in Liberty’s freshman applications.”

… the memoir about UD’s Northwestern University professor, Erich Heller. I’ll have more to say today about the book and the memories it stirred, but the nonsense poems inspired me to try one of my own.
**********************
Every black pit bull speaks some Lithuanian. If you try to engage them in Lett, or Ukrainian They’ll look at you rudely, as if you’re insanian. The custom’s quite different among Pomeranians: With them it is Latvian during their trainian. Polish? Or German? They claim it’s arcanian. With lhasas it’s loopy because they’re Lacanian. They’ll mirror your speech act whatever you’re sayingin – A curious feature too hard to explainian. Whatever the tongue of your canine campanian Conversing with them will transcend entertainingian And move straight to the realm of the supermundanian.
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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