Yet another article about soaring suicide rates that never mentions guns.

Anderson County SC’s suicide rate is suddenly amazing:

Suicide numbers in Anderson County are rising fast and have tripled compared to this time last year. According to the Anderson County Coroner’s Office, there have been 24 suicide-related deaths so far in 2025, which is a 300% increase from the eight suicide deaths in the first quarter of 2024. 

Why? Why? Why? asks the reporter, who seeks the answer solely from the pastor of PowerHouse Christian Church, who quotes a bit of scripture and tells everyone to buck up. SC’s ridiculous gun laws, which blanket everyone in weaponry, don’t come up at all, even though we know that the gunniest states have the highest rates (big winners: Montana, Alaska, Wyoming). Anderson’s suicides were overwhelmingly male, and it’s likely all or most of the men used guns to kill themselves. How many of their families and friends knew or suspected they were in crisis? How many were willing or able to do anything to keep them away from guns until the crisis subsided?

Answer: It’s effing South Carolina — look at SC’s first family, the Murdaughs, if you want to know about SC and guns, babe. The idea of doing anything in the gun lock or gun take away line is… It ain’t even an idea, hon! Let’s say you’re even a reporter for a respectable outlet tasked with writing about — well did you know SC state suicide rates have gone up 43% in the last twenty years? Wouldn’t you want to look at this picture – county level, state level – and consult guns rather than God?

A guy from Navis showed up this afternoon…

to take three of our old family portraits to the Museum of Noble Tradition in Poland, where there will apparently be a Soltan room.

A missing Princeton student is, horribly, most likely a suicide.

They’re searching a local lake for him. There’s no evidence he was drunk; his last reported location was the library.

Watching this local news report about him when he was still home in Indiana deepens the sadness.

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

Update: His body has been found in the lake.

‘Ben Gvir … hung a picture of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron in 1994, in his home.’ 

Israel’s super-icky national security minister is wined and dined by a once-respectable Yale intellectual salon. The Times of Israel offers background on the moral deterioration of this group.

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

If a figure as eminent as a rabbi based at Yale can legitimize a viewpoint as extreme as Ben-Gvir’s, well, that adds fuel to [anti-semitic] fire. If a Jewish educator grants a hechsher (the kosher seal of approval) to a Kahanist, then he’s making the job of the Israel haters easy.

C’mon home to the Land o’ Suicide!

Montana’s governor has a new commercial out, directed to Colorado-based gun manufacturers, in which he tells them to move their business from Colorado to his state. Colorado is insane, incredible, obscene, demented, and insane for having recently passed some gun control legislation.

“Move back to America!” shouts the guv; move back to Montana, Real America! “I don’t want to brag,” he enthuses, “but the gun suicide rate up in our magnificent hills is the highest in the country; and some of our counties, like Anaconda, have so many suicides everyone knows someone who’s used a gun to blow his head off!”

It’s true.

‘”This is a norm — people die by suicide,” said [child psychiatrist Kelly Irons,] who moved to Anaconda in 2019. “Everyone has someone in their family here who has died by suicide.“‘ ‘“It’s in the culture,” [says another Montanan]. “If you don’t know someone, you know of someone who has died.”

“Come home to America I say! Just look at this suicide rate-by-state map and compare the pathetic washed out peach color of Colorado to the deep bloodred of Montana! We’re Number One, and every blown off head in the state needs a gun, and you sell guns. Get the picture? Get on over here!”

The governor concludes by singing the national anthem.

“The bullets’ red glare! The brains bursting in air!

More lonely drunk men than you’ll find anywhere!”

Lucky breaks…

… with Minnesota’s law allowing 18-20 year olds to carry guns. Lucky Rosenbloom‘s a firearms instructor, and he has announced that despite the law he himself will not admit that age group into his classes. “These kids are impulsive. They’re not going to think. Some of these kids still think that they’re invincible.”

Panting gunfuckers attacked Rosenbloom for not believing in the Second Amendment. “I’ve been teaching the permit to carry class for over 20 years. I’m not against the Second Amendment,” explained Rosenbloom.

Meanwhile, in Memphis…

 “There were five deadly shootings Tuesday night, and 13 since April 14. It brings the total to 91 for the year so far... There has been over one homicide a day for the past 10 days.”

Shooting the Con Edison crew…

… to make them shut up.

O Beautiful…

“All school shooters in U.S. history had easy access to the firearms they used — even those who were very young or severely mentally ill. Many came from a gun culture where firearms are symbols of affection, bonding, and identity. The weapons were often freely accessible in the shooters’ homes... For many school shooters guns were what they called their ‘only friend’, or ‘the love of their life… There’s not a single school shooting in the US where a shooter had trouble getting a firearm.


‘If you really care, you’d do something. Your empty words mean nothing until people stop dying. Your inaction is complacency. You are making us hide in our classrooms. You are killing us. You are letting us die. And you will be remembered for it.’

‘You will either change or not. But either way, we will not be silent. You will hear our cries. You will hear our screams. You will hear our shouts. You will hear us.’

O silly FSU massacre-survivor! It hasn’t yet occurred to you – but it will – that the politicians you and your parents voted into office are at home eating popcorn, binge-watching your massacre. “Hon, is that a Glock he’s using?” “Looks more like a long gun.” “Weird. Looks like Jessie Ikner’s kid.” “Fuck it is her kid [munchmunch].” “Want another beer?” “Yeah thanks.”

They’re excited. They’re having fun. They’re not complacent. They’re totally into it.

The BB Blueprint: Better Behavior through Ballistics

A Missouri woman finds herself in trouble with the police for having disciplined her children by shooting both of them with a BB gun.

But she’ll be smiling soon. A major publisher has approached her about writing a book with the above suggested title. “We’ll provide a ghostwriter, etc.,” said the head of acquisitions at Penguin Random House. “We’re convinced this is a real child-rearing trend, and we’d like to get out there before the rest of the crowd.”

Bouquet taken from my garden…

… for the Easter meal.

“[An attorney said that] the only scenario where criminal charges might be considered is if the deputy knew her stepson posed a serious threat and still allowed him access to a gun.”

Well, let’s see. Did he successfully keep the fact that he was a mentally ill violence-loving fascist from her?

And that’s only criminal. She’s about to be sued like crazy in civil court.

Limerick.

Two billionaires love Giacometti
It’s made them behave rather petty
As suits follow suits
Between rich greedy brutes
The sick’ning tableau is perfetti

The Pope has…

died.

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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