…I’ve read about lately.

It’s a hugely popular sport.

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

Why does Saudi Arabia go to such lengths to enslave its women? Given its contempt for them, its insistence on hiding their vileness from sight under veils and in houses, why not follow that instinct out logically and let them go (there’s what UD calls a “Jane Drain” happening there, with lots of high-profile female escapes from the magic kingdom — hence the popularity of the new female-passport-tracking app).

I mean, let’s say roughly ten percent of Saudi women enjoy wearing blankets in the desert, adore being secured under surveillance in their houses and allowed out only under male custody… wouldn’t have it any other way… So … from this population you derive your vaginas and wombs so that sexual pleasure and procreation may proceed. If you need more of this, you import it from countries where there’s a market in women who in exchange for money will throw on all the black shit and go out and rent their uteri.

SOOOOO many Harvard professors – the latest is Jill Abramson – have plagiarized parts of their books that UD figures it’s time to update Tom Lehrer’s famous song, “Lobachevsky.” It’s not plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize! anymore: It’s Harvardize!

And why wouldn’t a Harvard professor do the deed? They suffer no consequences (“Realistically, you’re not going to fire Laurence Tribe or Charles Ogletree.“).

Very nice sentence, from an amusing and well-written opinion piece by Dan Savage in the NYT.

.. and you can go to school there! The last time this blog glanced at the University of Louisiana Monroe, in 2010, it quoted a member of the campus community complaining that “We spend a disproportionate amount of money on academics.” At the expense of…? Hey whaddaya think… Athletics adds so much to the… ambiance… of Monroe:

[ULM football player] Kerry Starks, 21, grabbed Abriona Kirt, 26, by the throat with both hands and attempted to drag her out of Hammers nightclub in Monroe by the hair. He also allegedly caused an estimated $400 in property damage by punching out the rear windshield of Kirt’s vehicle with both hands.

Kirt was also placed into custody by Monroe Police after police say she pepper sprayed Starks in the back of the head while he was in handcuffs. Both subjects appeared to be intoxicated …

Know your enemy.

A HuffPost writer comes up with the perfect Bezos/American Media, Inc. headline.

(The Harvard one.)

After repeated violent racist events on the University of Colorado campus, “all of Boulder’s fraternities have been banned from renting campus spaces for a year.” Hurling racist epithets at people officiating at their charity football games, driving a motorcycle “at a high rate of speed through a crowd of about 200 spectators and players,” and of course everyone beating the shit out of everyone else – the University of Colorado seems to have decided that these are behaviors incompatible with university life.

In filing an appeal, the frats have hired an attorney, who puts the whole thing in perspective:

“It gets a little rowdy, as you would expect of any football tournament between 19-year-olds. …They are boys, and they get excited playing football. It’s not like croquet.”

Albert Finney, the consul in the failed film version of UD‘s beloved Under the Volcano, has died.

Sing it.

Billionaire — I should go around weeping
Billionaire — I should go without sleeping
Strangely enough, I sleep well
‘Cept for a dream or two
But then I count my keep well
Assets so deep can lull you to sleep
So I should care, I should let it upset me
I should care but it just doesn’t get me
Maybe I won’t be as moral as you
But I don’t care and fuck you

… Purge.

[The UNH football players] became involved in a large brawl at Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. The brawl sent one person to the hospital with minor injuries.

The fight reportedly began when one of the SAE fraternity brothers refused to let a football player into a party.

Deputy Police Chief Rene Kelley said the person who was involved left the house and assaulted several other people.

… Kelley would not confirm or deny reports that the people who joined the football players in the attack were wearing masks similar to those in the movie “The Purge” or that some of those individuals were football players visiting from the University of Connecticut.

“Playing in an empty stadium due to fan trouble, Marseille defeated 10-man Bordeaux 1-0 in a postponed French league game on Tuesday.

… Marseille was without Florian Thauvin and Kevin Strootman due to suspensions.

The normally boisterous Stade Velodrome was uncharacteristically quiet after fans were banned due to disturbances at Marseille’s home game against Lille on Jan. 25, when a firecracker thrown from the crowd landed near linesman Nicolas Danos. The game was delayed for around 40 minutes before play continued, and Marseille went on to lose 2-1.

The 18th-round game against Bordeaux had been delayed due to complications arising from France’s yellow vest protests.”

… recall UD‘s Tripartite A Scheme for plagiarism — i.e., plagiarism almost always falls into the category Atelier, Ambition, or Addicted (details), and it should be pretty easy for you to conclude that Jill Abramson is Atelier. Very busy successful high-profile people (Jane Goodall, Alan Dershowitz – and a raft of other Harvard law school profs – Doris Kearns Goodwin, Fareed Zakaria, Rand Paul) have ateliers of assistants who do much of their work for them, and … you know … it’s hard to find good help.

Wow. UD‘s been looking for a succinct summary of modern athletics, and there you have it! Well done.

… color of my political establishment...