‘[O]fficers saw multiple bullet holes through the truck’s rear and front windshields, a deflated tire, a bullet embedded in another tire, as well as bullets embedded in a pavilion located behind the truck.’ 

… Musselman admitted to shooting the victim’s truck but said he was aiming at a groundhog. Musselman told officers he used an AR-15 …

Deer with green ear tag and GPS collar…

… in UD’s meditation garden.

On this morning’s walk.

Moody broody evening.
‘On Nov. 14, 2023, Patterson fired two rounds into the ceiling of [Portland International Airport] causing mass panic and thousands of dollars worth of damage to the airport already under construction. But Thursday [in court] Patterson insisted she is doing better…’

I’m sure she is! I’m sure she is! It’s always good to let off steam, and blasting two rounds in an airport and scaring hundreds of people seems to have done the trick. Great.

The mean judge gave her five years anyway. Booooooo.

The DEI revolution eats its children

D.E.I. Official at University of Michigan Is Fired Over Antisemitism Claim

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

She’s gonna sue all those rich fucking Jews.

Yours, Mine, …

and Ours!

Gun Death Cult

 James Madison, the principal author of the Bill of Rights, proposed two highly restrictive gun control bills in the Virginia legislature banning the carrying of guns outside of their owners’ property. They didn’t pass, but the effort indicates that Madison believed such laws were entirely allowed by the Constitution.

And this is not surprising. Madison was a smart guy, and regulating possession, sale, and use of deadly weapons is about the most legitimate activity imaginable for any state. For instance, Ancient Rome had strict rules about when and where weapons could be carried. Indeed, in Weberian terms, establishing control over the instruments of violence is part of what it means to be a state in the first place. The idea that a government scheme to, say, simply regulate the concealed carry of handguns is a priori illegitimate would have been regarded by all the drafters of the Constitution as staring madness. No idea so crazy would have even occurred to them.

… [T]he current American gun cult has little or nothing to do with either history, the Constitution, or plain common sense. 

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

Then what’s it got to do with? The writer doesn’t specify.

UD thinks that whenever America births yet another insane gun baby, the handiwork of insane gun parents, the country is afforded an opportunity to gain focus about what many observers term the gun death cult here.

You often see the simpler formulation, gun cult, as if what’s going on in the nation is tens of millions of super-enthusiastic hobbyists buying and futzing with gun collections. Indeed, while the author of this piece uses the shorter phrase throughout, he titles it THE GUN DEATH CULT, which is the correct formulation. The word death deserves pride of place because Americans both delectate death and realize that, on a practical level – as with the enthusiastically applauded assassination of a representative of a disliked insurance system – guns solve or help solve many, many problems. They are the magic wand which makes people and organizations you don’t like go poof.

If you don’t like yourself, they remove you. American rates of suicide, especially in gunny states, astound. The love of death, wedded to our famous American pragmatism, extends to a delight and fascination with your own debraining.

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

We can’t get enough of the bloody pragmatics of the gun. When mass shooting isn’t really mass – see the timid Madison psychotic who gunned herself down when she heard police and therefore only had time to kill two (maybe more – two children are currently trying to survive) – we feel cheated; whereas the bold Vegas shooter who kept going until he murdered 58 and injured 500 is far more satisfying.

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

Take a town like Jackson Miss. The state has by far America’s highest gun violence rate, and Jackson has the state’s highest rate of same. It’s all made possible by a fantastic synergy between white Republican politicians who don’t seem to mind an 85% black city killing itself with guns, and a black population willing to kill itself with guns. White and black may have their differences, but all embrace the cult.

“Funeral Mass,” translated into American, means…

… mass shooting at a funeral home. (Introit, Missa pro modulus duae carbine, etc.)

Exsanguinatus in Pace Amen.

All of it’s out there for anyone to see. A bit late now. Feast your eyes.

An X account believed to belong to Rupnow included a post shared within minutes of the time she opened fire featuring a person flashing the “OK” sign with their hand, a gesture linked to other school shooters, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The account also shared video from the 2015 Trollhattan, Sweden, school stabbing attack, and another disturbing post days before the Madison slayings includes a video of somebody committing suicide at a gun range

An account on social blogging platform Tumblr also believed to be connected to Rupnow features images of guns and other school shooting-related content, including a profile picture showing what appears to be a screenshot of surveillance footage from a shooting, authorities told ABC News.

The account also posted a picture of Parkland high school shooter Nicholas Cruz, and other posts mention a deadly 2007 school shooting in Jokela, Finland.

A CashApp account also reportedly linked to Rupnow features a picture of the Columbine shooters.


Her father, asked by a Facebook user if that was “Kiddo’’ in his shooting-range snapshot, replied, “sure is!!!!

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

We have so many insane gun babies in this country that there’s no way we can really see them coming anymore. Most of their parents of course know all about them. But they don’t care.

A wasp nest dangles from a thin limb…

… in UD‘s woods.

Durham NC, aka the San Francisco of the East Coast…

… boasts a DA who learned everything she knows from Chesa Boudin. Durham’s DA doesn’t typically prosecute felons with violent pasts who are found with guns cuz it’s just so not nice.

It’s always good to remind ourselves that America’s daily butcher bill is brought to us courtesy of the political left as well as the political right.

Sing it.
O give your fucked up kid a gun, a gun
Let her practice neath the setting sun
And then when inner sounds command
She'll traverse o'er this gunny land.


Because she feels a little riled
She'll kill a teacher, kill a child
Tis what you raised her up to be
Your psychotic mini-me.
Whether or not this orange mold is Acremonium Strictum…

UD likes the name so much she’ll go ahead and use it to identify the stuff she found on a branch during this morning’s walk.

‘Trump previously trolled Trudeau by calling Canada [a US] state.’

I’m not saying there won’t be moments of levity in the next few years.

‘“This [hijab] law suggests that [the government] want[s] to lead people to paradise by force,” conservative cleric Mohsen Gharavian who has been an outspoken critic of the new hijab law told Khabar Online. “Maybe we don’t want to go to paradise. What should we do [if we don’t]?” he added.’

Gevalt. When the concept of personal liberty makes its way into the mullah population, you can bend over and kiss your theocracy goodbye. All self-respecting religious states want to lead people to paradise by force — it’s what they do. Going to paradise isn’t, like, a travel choice, one destination among others, in theocracies… It’s not like people in theocracies read Conde Nash Traveler and say hm Bali yes Melbourne no Paradise maybe… It’s more like Gershwin —

I’ll build a stairway to Paradise
With a new step ev’ry day!
I’m gonna get there at any price;
Stand aside, I’m on my way!

Any price! Which definitely includes the price of your basic freedoms. It’s an effing theocracy!

But now it begins to look as though the Iranian government is losing its commitment to forcing paradise down peoples’ throats, which means among other things it’s actively considering not beating non-hijabis to death.

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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. ...
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