‘In 2022, two … fellows at [the] Brookings [Institution] published a … warning, prescribing a course of “reality therapy” to Democrats, including over the party’s “cultural bubble,” which they said put many in the party out of touch with less-educated or lower-income Americans.’

Judging by the shenanigans at the recent DNC meeting, my fellow Dems will simply never get it.

‘Severely underutilized [federal] buildings can also pose heath risks to their occupants, as GSA recently discovered with Legionella outbreaks in many of its buildings when water stagnated in their plumbing systems from underutilization.’
We had fed the Fed on fantasies
The Fed's grown fecal from the fare,
Stagnation in amenities
Breeds microbes everywhere. Oh, GS-bees
Come build in the empty house of the State.

Why Trump…

won.

Even if you don’t subscribe to the Atlantic, all you need are the first three paragraphs that they provide.

Hadn’t thought of the Arkansas angle.

This guy seems upset that one of this nation’s standard-issue retarded nazis is a way-proud Arkansan who drapes a Razorback flag behind him whenever he films himself talking.

Apparently, this featherweight champ and all round flat earther – I mean all flat flat earther- “defile[s] the very name of ‘Arkansas'” when he shares his knowledge that the mass killings of children in this country are carried out by the deep state to make us think guns are dangerous, that Hitler was sent by God to kill dirty Jews who were going to make everyone gay, that Jesus is King, and that our greatest state by far is Arkansas.

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

Well. We’ve followed the benighted state of Arkansas on this blog for years – a standard-issue brainless drunk sports obsessed southern wasteland – and it’s been on a self-defilement tear for decades. It really needs no help from some fascist clodpole, and he won’t have any effect on the state’s ranking cuz it’s already third from the bottom and it’s hard to get lower than that.

‘I see all of the many, many, many helicopter flights following that same flight path. They come right down over the marina. And it’s one thing, when there’s an urgent need or a security issue, to move people by military helicopter to the White House or from one base to another in the D.C. area. It’s another to do it for convenience for generals and “very important people” who don’t want to sit in traffic.’

Who knew wee Reagan Airport was one of the most dangerous places to land/take off in America? If you grew up here, like ol’ UD, you think of Reagan as the dinky downhome alternative to sleek vast Saarinen-designed Dulles (with BWI — we’re really spoiled; lots of terminals near ‘thesda — a kind of afterthought for a quick hop to Bermuda). Now it turns out that self-important assholes have been jamming the place and creating a hellscape people in charge of the airport have been screaming about forever. Reagan Airport “is probably the most dangerous airport in the United States,” one pilot wrote in 2015. “The controllers are pushing, pushing, pushing in an attempt to handle the traffic they have.”

And ain’t it sweet that little Wichita’s Rep. pushed and pushed and got a daily flight out there THAT THE AIRPORT CAN BARELY HANDLE AND ITS ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN BEGGING FOR ALL THE ADDITIONAL FLIGHTS TO STOP.

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

That copter thing. Reminds me of the Rennert/Bloomberg thing of just landing your immense thundering personal helicopter whenever and wherever you feel like it — illegality, and torment of homeowners, be damned.

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

“Every senator in particular wants a nonstop flight to and from wherever they live,” said [Peter] DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat. He noted that a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration passed last year added even more flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. “The airport said, ‘Don’t do it.’ And they did it. So they added to what DCA said is already an overly congested and over-capacity airport.” (Congress has added more than 60 new flights to Reagan since 2000, over the objections of airport officials.)

… The airport authority said, “We are over capacity. We cannot accommodate more flights, and we think this is going to be disruptive.” Unfortunately, … Congress mandated adding more flights into National Airport, so that more senators can have direct flights. I was chairman of the committee, and I always had to connect somewhere. I didn’t ask for a direct flight. So, that’s a problem. That is a problem, the political influence over the airport, as most recently exhibited in the last FAA bill. So, I think we might need to revisit the amount of traffic.

How third world, my dears. Bigass military egos, bigass senatorial egos, and here we are. Disgusting.

‘He told officers he found the firearm while conducting a “perimeter check” around the school, the complaint says, which was not true.’

Parents who produce gun-bearing eleven year olds; school principals who lie about armed attacks on elementary school children: The USA has quite the perfect storm, yes? The principal’s original version was all about what a big strong man he is, the hero of his own myth… ie, he found the gun on one of his regular security sweeps. But no – A babe brought it from home and shot at a classmate, but the gun failed to go off. The almost-killed student told her teacher, who took the gun to the big strong man. The teacher was supposed to report the gun to the police, but look at that. Although one of her students was practically killed, she didn’t.

Neither did the principal, who handed down NO discipline against the shooter (I guess in order to protect his big strong man story) but did eventually show up at police headquarters with the gun and with his lie.

He doesn’t work at the school anymore, and the shooter (who bragged he’ll bring another gun and do it again) has been expelled. UD does wonder what other public school now has charge of this person; she also wonders why she’s not reading about his gunny parents and their liability.

Think it’s a one-off? Silly you.

‘One of the consequences of the high prevalence of FGM in Africa is that many migrants to countries across Europe, North America, and elsewhere have experienced FGM, a phenomenon known as diaspora FGM. To date, approximately one to two million girls and women in the Global North are living with FGM, largely due to emigration and asylum-seeking driven by instability, conflict, and crises in Africa, as well as the search for socioeconomic opportunities. Instability has disrupted protection systems against FGM in migrants’ home countries, and receiving countries now face the significant challenge of providing protection systems to safeguard the next generation of girls from this practice.’

And because countries are slashing children at younger and younger ages (an ironic result of the success of anti-FGM campaigns in reaching older girls), it’s not unusual to see mutilated infants in Europe and America.

The incidence of the practice is astonishing:

Somalia (99 percent), Guinea (95 percent), Mali (85 percent), Sudan (87 percent), Egypt (87 percent), Sierra Leone (83 percent), and Eritrea (83 percent). 

Note Egypt. There goes the argument that it’s confined to chaotic third world locations.

These are countries where people think God commands them to bloody and disfigure infants. I know you’re too disgusted or morally relative or in denial or indifferent to think it happens here, but I’d ask you to recall Hopkins-educated Dr Jumana Nagarwala, who along with other slashers continues to bring the benefits of FGM to all parts of this great nation.

‘The US, for all its absurdities and manias, has been a functioning republic for more than two centuries. It will take more than Donald Trump to break it.’

Dunno. Hope so.

‘Listen to the reaction of the crowd. They loved it.’

If you don’t get off on fascism, poor you! It’s the coming thing, here and plenty of elsewhere in the world, its hour come round at last yada yada don’t be last in line c’mon in the water’s fine.

Not asking you to have the courage of Rector Father Calvin Robinson at that right to life thing, where the crowd went wild at his nazi salute… Not asking you to out yourself to that extent —

I gave a salute

That started the whole room clapping

I mean, there are consequences… Robinson’s Grand Rapids church – and hey the whole Anglican Catholic confession – has dropped him like a hot McMosley, setting off the twentieth or so iteration of the Father’s Faith Journey … Dude’s been all over the map and I’m wondering what’s next and I’m thinking Romanian Orthodox (“A scandal erupted in 2011 when nuns at the Petru Vodă Monastery in Piatra Neamţ were filmed singing a fascist hymn to celebrate their abbot’s birthday.” OOOH les girls!)…

And yes there’s a gaping hole next to the word “Rector” at the bottom of the St Paul welcome page and Father R is out in the cold again. But don’t worry about him! Don’t you worry about little Calvin Robinson! In a world bristling with black shirts, he’ll be fine.

The Bar at the Visitation Hotel

A Christogram buffeted by booze.

The hotel used to be a monastery.

Horrible news out of Reagan Airport.

Midair collision of an army helicopter and a commercial flight.

Rescue operations ongoing in the Potomac River.

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

Just stood on my back deck, eight miles from the airport.

The sky is pretty clear; visibility isn’t bad. But it’s seriously cold out there.

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

Apparently no survivors. Kennedy Center cameras captured the crash, and you can see a fireball and then broken fragments falling into the water.

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

Images like this make it very real.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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

“Some of those onboard were figure skaters flying from Wichita, Kan., which had hosted the U.S. Figure Skating Championships earlier this month.”

“He is preceded in death by his parents.”

From a Nebraska professor’s obit. Since he died at 85, this would make his parents at least 110, so UD‘s not sure the writer for Roper & Sons Funeral Home in Lincoln needed to include this.

“He was best known for his work in restructured pork, which led to the development of the McRib.”

That seems too many, but I guess it depends on how close by to you…

they live.

‘The cities with the highest “shrimp fraud rate” were Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida, at 96%, according to SeaD Consulting. Only two of the 44 restaurants sampled were serving authentic shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, a study found.’

lolol

The Spirit of America!

Three naughty lads from the heartland headed out to Ohio’s Jungle Jim’s — a supermegasuperstore— and stole “candy, cookies and ice cream,” the scamps. Well, the boys in blue caught up with them, wouldn’t you know, and out popped Devin’s gun magazine! And not only that! Devin’s face got all red when they found a Glock in his jacket! Haha!

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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. ...
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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