… Jerry Lewis, behold my colleague Faye Moskowitz’s niece, Sandra Bernhard, holding a gun to his head.

… an amazing storm approaches

the Soltan upstate NY house.

The row of evergreens marks
our driveway.

Photo by Joanna Soltan.

The brave and tragic Bohra women who fight at least to protect the next generation.

Consider signing the petition.

UD and her sister (at the wheel) driving into Woodstock NY two days ago.

He loved our corner of the deep country, and with his framing hands he set about creating one bounded garden after another on his big sunny acres.

After his death, they’re
still beautiful –
still bounded – barely –
in ruined abundance.

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

He, the prior owner of the gardener’s
acres, loved their massive true dark
skies, and he built himself an observatory
in the field across from the house.

During intermission yesterday at the otherwise way gloomy Siege of Calais at Glimmerglass, UD was amused to see a woman wearing this t-shirt.

Family, cat, birthday breakfast.

View with cupcake.

Chinese goodies, a gift from Ashley,
a student of UD‘s from China.

… hero of mine. Especially today, with Stone’s release of an email exchange he had with the notorious Richard Spencer.

In an April 18 op-ed in the New York Times, Stone defended Spencer’s First Amendment right to speak at Auburn University.

According to Stone, he received an e-mail from Spencer thanking him for his piece saying, “[he thinks] it will be looked back upon as significant in changing the contemporary free-speech debate.”

In the e-mail, Spencer also expressed his desire to return to his alma mater for a speaking event.

… Stone wrote back, saying that he thought Spencer’s views were not worth discussing, and that he would not extend him an invitation.

“My strong support for the right of students and faculty to invite speakers to campus to address whatever views they think worth discussing does not mean that I personally think that all views are worth discussing. From what I have seen of your views, they do not seem to me [to] add anything of value to serious and reasoned discourse, which is of course the central goal of a university. Thus, although I would defend the right of others to invite you to speak, I don’t see any reason for me to encourage or to endorse such an event.”

More here.

… at the University of Florida.

[Several University of Florida football] players were alleged to have to taken part in a scheme that saw them purchase electronic products with school-issued [student aid] debit cards before selling them for cash. While this practice is not uncommon in college football, the Gators’ players then went to university officials to report their cards stolen, triggering a school investigation into possible credit card fraud. After investigation officials deemed the cards were not stolen and looked into the purchases, they found the players at fault for misusing funds given to them.

Here’s more on one of the guys, the team’s “top play-maker,” Antonio Calloway.

This is not the first time Callaway has faced suspension during his time at Florida. He was suspended last spring amid sexual assault allegations. Callaway was accused of sexual assault in December of 2015 but testified that he was “high on marijuana” during the incident and was “so stoned I had no interest in having sex with anyone.”

Your education tax dollars at work.

… I’ll be bringing to the Soltan
place in upstate NY tomorrow.

UD‘s ‘thesda house is crammed with very carefully chosen teas – mainly black fruit brews from all over – and she had to give some thought to what she’d select from all that to take to Budy.

Budy‘s the official Polish name of our one little house, one littler semi-collapsed house, one pond, twenty acres, spectacular views, spread. The word means “Shacks.”

Say BOO dee.

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

This particular tea was a gift from two students of UD’s. They came back to DC from NY to attend one of UD‘s poetry lectures at the Georgetown Library, and with them they brought this tea. UD chose it not only because it’s excellent, but because it’s in sachet form, and Budy is not well-provisioned for brewing good loose tea.

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

So the tea’s the central thing, but this picture discloses so much more about UD. Her much-played baby grand speaks to your blogger’s long, incredibly amateurish, devotion to the instrument (and to singing along, less amateurishly, to what she plays). The featured music is the very same adagio cantabile UD’s father also spent years swooning over at the keyboard. There are also, in this picture, books and vases and ancestors and tall windows with greenery outside of them — and all of this, as well, is very UD.

Anyway, she leaves tomorrow morning to celebrate her birthday up there. She will blog about the experience.

Time to wheel onstage at the University of Louisville John Dowland’s melancholy air.

Now that the school’s longtime chiseling president and his cronies (some of them? most of them?) have been, uh, made to absent themselves from felicity, the question is: Shall we sue to get back at least a little of the tens of millions they seem to have .. taken? Or shall we, as we desperately seek a new president, say fuck it – We’ll never find a non-larcenous president if we’re on the front page of every paper in the country – UNIVERSITY SUES PRESIDENT FOR MILLIONS IN STOLEN FUNDS — a national embarrassment, a school universally ridiculed as the U of Smell for years of financial and sexual scandals… Plus it’ll cost a fortune to sue these assholes…

ON THE OTHER HAND! It somewhat rankles that Ramsey took all our money and bought four houses and …

Auditors determined Ramsey was paid $12.4 million by the university and the [university’s fund-raising] foundation [which Ramsey also ran!!] from 2010 through 2016, including $7.2 million in deferred compensation. The report shows Ramsey and eight other employees collected $21.8 million in deferred compensation, apparently without foundation board approval.

Two days after his forced resignation last July, Ramsey and his wife paid $800,000 in cash for a 4,200-square-foot home in Miramar Beach, Florida. They also own two other Florida properties purchased for a combined $1.08 million, as well as a $470,000 home in Oldham County.

Yeah, don’t worry ’bout little Jim Ramsey!

“Don’t worry about me. Nobody is more blessed than Jim Ramsey of Fern Creek, Ky.”

Little Jimbo! Blessed, blessed, a thousand times blessed! Just a little ol’ fella from Fern Creek, Ky!

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

All the rats are scrambling:

[E]x-foundation officer Kathleen Smith, who was fired in June, [has reportedly] recently moved about $800,000 worth of properties to limited liability corporations.

I mean, the endowment was just sitting there:

[T]he foundation’s officers and directors depleted the university’s endowment to fund excessive spending on compensation, football tickets and bad investments in real estate and start-up companies.

Hate to quote myself, but…

How did U of L get so bad? Just put it together. Just put it all together: The southland, good old boys, football, basketball, sex, and money. Add a hundred jiggers of Kentucky bourbon for a brilliant finish.

This here’s a BIG ol’ story, folks. Hold on to your hats.

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

Words fail me.

I know you’ve been waiting for an update on the fate of this guy. We covered his legal argument that because of something having to do with the history of the post office he lies outside the jurisdiction of American courts.

He also represented himself in the case.

Apparently these approaches to his problem did not solve it.

Whether you’re hiding out in the showers or in the Lasch Building; whether you’re raping a boy or avoiding a subpoena… There’s always something happening at Penn State University!

… at the Dublin Horse Show.

She sends this snap.

Wait a minute. I’m on a university board with Vinod Khosla?

The board of an academic center dedicated to global poverty and inequality??

Are you fucking kidding me?