December 9th, 2024
At least his death had meaning.

[W]itnesses at the laundromat on Saturday said Coriz got into an argument with a male juvenile and two female juveniles over use of a washing machine, which escalated into a fight. 

December 9th, 2024
‘Evil fucks.’

Navratilova nails it on the Sadeian sick boys of Iran, who elaborate upon their torture fantasies with each iteration of the beautifully named Chastity Bill.

And keep your eye on the Islamists who just took Syria. UD’s optimism about them is high; but they too may want to scrape clits off, force black robes on, forbid going outside, etc. etc.

Sure hope not! But wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the cards.

December 8th, 2024
Seton Hall University is One of Those Schools.

A scandal-magnet, it’s always sandblasting the names of generous scummy alumni from its buildings, firing degenerate coaches, and, as of yesterday, watching as an assistant law school dean is escorted to prison for three years for stealing the shit out of the place over ten – count ’em! ten! – years.

‘A number of administrators departed Seton Hall after the embezzlement was uncovered. Kathleen Boozang stepped down from her post as law dean but remains on the faculty.’ Why all the departures? Because they appointed as a dean a person who under their noses for a decade stole – with two additional employees – the school’s money. And all of this also under the close eye of the Catholic church (read Seton’s pretentious and – in context – hilarious holier than thou thing here).

UD‘s thing is go ahead and be Yeshiva University, run by Madoff, Merkin, Wilf, and Rennert; be Liberty U under Falwell Jr; be slimy Seton Hall. But don’t try to snow me with your piety.

December 7th, 2024
Sunset this cold evening from UD’s front door.

Other people noticed.

December 7th, 2024
Says here they’ve identified…

… the shooter.

December 7th, 2024
As 2024 winds down…

UD contemplates an enormous American Elm leaf blown into the Bonhoeffer Garden by yesterday’s wind, and this year’s BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD award.

December 7th, 2024
The Week in Men

State Senator Filmed Urinating On Himself During DUI Arrest

Football Chairman Fined for Gun Photo in Programme

December 6th, 2024
Brianne probably wants to kill her kid…

… but not be incarcerated for murder, so she came up with this.

December 6th, 2024
What humor looks like when everyone has a gun.

Now the cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their health care plan and has access to guns… This guy [wrote on his bullet casings because] there’s so many bullet casings on the streets of New York … he wants to make sure we knew which ones were his.”

December 6th, 2024
‘[T]he appointment of cabinet officials with absolutely zero subject matter expertise, such as RFK Jr., and the promise to clean house of the bureaucratic state, augur at a future when experts are booted from the seat of government.’

Scathing Online Schoolmarm says: I don’t think you need augur at; I think you only need augur. Also: Too much figurative language in here, clashing away: clean house, booted, seat.

You could also quibble with the repetition of experts and expertise.

December 6th, 2024
Leaves Can Only Be Raked Backwards, But They Must Be Mulched Forwards.

A gloss on Kierkegaard. UD‘s meditation garden is already generating insights!

December 5th, 2024
The closer the authorities get to his identity…

… the closer Brian Thompson’s assassin possibly gets to suicide. Recall the very similar broad daylight ambush of Gianni Versace; his killer offed himself as the police zeroed in.

December 5th, 2024
Curly grapevine twigs resting on a planter.
December 5th, 2024
HMS Hegseth

When I was a lad I served a term
As leader of a US veterans’ firm.
I spent all its money and I shtupped the gals
And I polished off the liquor with my army pals
I polished off that liquor so thoroughly
That now I am America’s Defense Secret’ry!

(He polished off that liquor so thoroughly
That now he is America's Defense Secret'ry!)

December 4th, 2024
‘Helpless, Helpless, Helpless’ is the soundtrack…

… running through this defense of the politicized humanities.

 [A]dministrators — in thrall to university donors at private institutions, and who at public ones serve at the whim of state governments — represent the beachhead by which the academic Trumpism [William] Deresiewicz lusts for will arrive on campus.

Orwell, in “Politics and the English Language,” couldn’t have found a better example of a sentence squirrely with militancy (lusts? beachhead?), and intellectually lost in a strange old world. “Academic Trumpism” might as well be Revisionist Menshevism.

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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

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