Of a self-tormented shore,
And I clasp within my coat
Little dwindled bits of votes—
How few! and how they slide
Through my fingers to the other side,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! Call down the pricks
That slashed and burned on January 6!
Is all that we see or seem
A horrid dream within a dream?
I’m pissing myself over Tuesday’s debate
And I’m wondering now if it isn’t too late
To get the thing scrapped.
I know nothing, and there’s so much at stake.
How clearly I recall James Galbraith (a conspiracy guy) excitedly leaning in to bestow upon me The Actual Truth of the JFK killing… UD stood in the living room of John Kenneth Galbraith’s Vermont farmhouse (stood for a long time; it’s an incredibly elaborate story) politely waiting for Jamie to finish, but he never finished. Dinner was announced, and I was rescued.
Now, centuries later, Trump, with similar excitement, attempts to stimulate ol’ UD with the use of titillating clues about the CIA, Oswald, Ruby, and the Trilateral Commission. Vote for me and you’ll see how Jamie’s conspiracy was TRUE!
But if much younger, higher-estrogen-level UD failed to respond to JFK conspiracy blandishments, imagine how little the much older UD responds.
And now think about how everyone born after 1953 is likely to respond.
Half a billion, half a billion,
Half a billion — onward!
Out of the valley of Trump
Rides the Dem Brigade.
The repulsive ultraorthodox refusal to sit next to a woman on an airplane is met with repelled refusal in turn on many flights, UD is happy to report.
I mean, it’s an old story, and we’ve followed it for years on this blog. Crews now have clear instructions to tell sexist shits to sit down or leave the plane, and I’m guessing quite a few do leave, and they try their luck on another flight. Most I figure put up with sickening proximity to a female for the duration of their flight.
Some of course decide to fight, holding up departure, upsetting fellow travelers, etc. A group like this was recently thrown off a flight and they’re suing because religious freedom anti-semitism yada yada. The case will be thrown out, and the VERY slow learning process (of course it’s slow; ultraorthodox children get virtually no education) of these ridiculous people will move forward by an inch.
******************
Well last week I thought all abortion’s wrong
If you bled out, well too bad so long
Punished all the bad girls, that’s no lie
Not my fault if the losers died
Because God told me to kill Roe, but it’s all over now
Because God told me to kill Roe, but it’s all over now
Well the bitch has me beaten all over town
Tellin’ everybody I’m a mad ol clown
She puts me down, it’s a pity how I cry
So listen: Now I don’t think raped children ought to die
Because God told me to kill Roe, but it’s all over now
Because God told me to kill Roe, but it’s all over now
*******************
UPDATE: ME change MY mind too, Daddy!
Sure it is. You can go after a child.
Both are entitled playboy sons of northeastern wealth; both (in Michelle Obama’s words) were “afforded the grace of failing forward” as misbehaving, underachieving adolescents admitted to Ivy League colleges thanks to “the affirmative action of generational wealth”; both were reckless lifelong adolescents, both attention-craving philanderers and liars, both jerks.
Only one, however, dealt cocaine.
A lengthy piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education features a Pomona College English professor who thinks an interest in aesthetics on the part of a literature professor is not merely racist, but just about the worst racism in America: Trump racism.
It’s a disgusting claim, but useful to mention here, since it goes to the mindless (j’accuse MAGA racists of considering the formal properties of Liberty Leading the People!) but sometimes effective bullying that exists in more than a few departments/administrations.
The real point of the bullying in the Pomona instance is simply intellectual turf-protection: One professor is outraged that another professor wants to teach a course that trespasses on territory she owns, you see.
After all, if this professor truly cares about the work of Ralph Ellison (the writer in question) being broadly taught to the largest number of students, she will welcome additional courses on him.
Over on Truth Social, Donald Trump has begun “live truthing” the Harris speech. But … he seems to be stuck on the Bidens. He posts, bizarrely: “WHERE’S HUNTER?”
Best line so far of Harris’s acceptance speech.
Hate to be Debbie Downer, but lest we get lost in the sheer delight of the Democratic convention, we need to venture for just a moment into the dark night of the Project 2025 soul.
In case we need reminding what the battle’s about.
Bring back the good old days!
C’mon! Your voters are already all over it! Don’t be a pussy, Don!
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
