Instantaneous Velocity and the Red Menace

“This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner.”

And since America is already, according to Trump, “a fascist state,” we’d be layering communism ON TOP of fascism.

Yes. Communo-fascism. Fucking scary.

You can read this long mad bloody narrative and never encounter…

one reference to anyone doing anything to take the massacrist’s guns away.

Everyone did one hell of a lot of praying, though.

The Family that Shoots Together Loots Together

Last December we ran this adorable Ogles family photo. Now the FBI’s raiding Andy Ogles’ house in search of evidence of campaign finance fraud.

Watch for Andy to blow his head off when things with the feds get too hot. Also shooting the wife and kids seems a popular option these days.

Told ya.

This lil ol blog’s been telling you for a week it’s Walz. It’s Walz.

Wanna know how I knew?

Buttigieg is too closely associated with the Biden presidency.

Shapiro trends too urban, too intense. We’ve already got that in Harris.

Kelly’s only a so-so public speaker. And I’ve wondered throughout about the stamina of Gabby Giffords, diminished by a gun attack, in the context of a grueling national contest.

Don’t know about Beshear. Never seemed a front-runner.

I figured it had to be Walz after simply reading his Wiki page and watching a couple of his public presentations/interviews. Although I wonder about the obvious, like his knowledge of the international scene, I’m bowled over by the ECHT Americanness of the dude. I’ve called him Truman on steroids cuz the decency, straightforwardness, modesty thing is there in him like crazy. He seems to be the best of us.

I mean, barring unpleasant surprises about the dude, let me say it again: He seems to be the best of us.

It’s a fine opinion piece, but its last paragraph drew the attention of Scathing Online Schoolmarm.

The outcome of saddling up for another four years with Trump is preordained to be cloaked in chaos, anger and vitriol, the same unproductive position as when he disgracefully left office last time. Trump’s obsession with power fuels head-scratching disappointments at unexplainable times and places. 

This writing demonstrates the problem of mixed metaphors. They’re not the worst problem in the world — the meaning of the sentences is clear. But if there are enough of them, they can muddle things. As in – if you’re going to start with the charming, all-American saddle up, your next bit of figurative language should probably not be cloaked, which comes from a place other than the stable. You could write preordained to be a bumpy ride, or something like that. Instead of fuels, I’d just forget figurative language there and write prompts, for instance.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Ego

… On Friday, Trump fired off multiple Truth Social posts excoriating Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, the chair of the Republican Governors Association, for being a “RINO.” Lee’s sin, according to Trump, was that he had months ago endorsed an incumbent GOP state senator, while Trump had more recently endorsed the challenger…

[On] Saturday [Trump] uncorked on Georgia Republicans, including Gov. Brian Kemp, calling him “a bad guy” [for being an insufficiently enthusiastic election denialist]. Reacting to that rally message, former Georgia Republican Party leader John Watson said: “Attacking Brian Kemp and his family is a galactic unforced error.”

“Galactic” is good.

We’re definitely on our way to this iconic scene.

JD Vance and the Upcoming Erection

He has promoted Viktor Orban’s pro-natalist policies in Hungary, which offer paybacks to married couples that scale up along with the number of children…

Let’s stop beating around the vice-presidential bush: While Kamala Harris’s choice – probably Tim Walz – is a mild-mannered older person with two kids, Vance “The Lance” is a raging bull with three kids in quick succession and certainly more to come, if he takes seriously his pro-stiffy convictions.

Pragmatically, after all, the central pillar of anti-IVF natalism (no techno-cheating!) must be what Morrissey, winner of the 2015 Bad Sex in Fiction Award, dubs one’s “bulbous salutation.” Absent a willingness to scale up the “large pink prong,” as novelist/critic Edmund Wilson called his, there’s not going to be any other form of scaling up, Hungarian or what have you.

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

A Trump/Vance pro-natalist presidency would perhaps feature graphic encouragement to men along these lines… So for instance take this Pyongyang poster:

Lose the Korean writing, and alter the exploding shaft to look more like a phallus, and imagine this image flashing at you day and night in the middle of Times Square. That sort of thing.

‘[V]ance is hardly the most offensive Republican out there. He is no Louie Gohmert, the Republican congressman from Texas, or Marsha Blackburn, the senior Republican senator from Tennessee, people who create an electrostatic field of stupidity around themselves when they speak.’

Electrostatic etc. Nice.

Do I Hear a Walz?

His chances continue to look pretty good.

Dispatches from Operation Enduring Freedom: The Fight Against Donald Trump.

On the vp front: UD‘s thinking that if the Harris campaign’s going to press hard on the weird thing, her pick might be the inventor of the weird meme, Tim Walz. A mere Wiki acquaintance with the guy uncovers abysms of unweird. Tales of the Unweird. Crypts of the Unweird. Nights of the Living Unweird. He’s a sixty year old boy scout, a ramrod-straight product of a world UD – evil right coaster – will never know.

Let’s scrutinize. Working from top to bottom: Bad haircut, goony glasses, flannel shirts, slight beer belly… everything about him’s authentically askew. He’s so deeply him. Up against hillbilly turned cat obsessive Vance, he will look like Harry Truman on steroids. Sounds like Truman too, with that flat prairie twang. No fancy schmancy lectures about the therapeutic society from this Chadron State College-trained high school geography teacher, babe! Tim Walz won’t be checking your sheets for spilled sperm. He’ll let you decide how you want to bonk.

‘Usha Vance Responds to Media’s “Caticature” of Her Husband’

“I wish people would paws and catually hissten to the words he says and try to understand their preening and purrpose.”

Just cannot get away from it.

“Donald Trump Might Drop Out of Race, Ex-Official Says: ‘Don’t Be Surprised'”

Don’t laugh. UD had the same thought.

Fight Fight Fight is his post-assassination-attempt battle cry, but he won’t debate his opponent, and he didn’t mind all of us seeing how petulantly he refused.

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

I’m seeing a pilot entering a death spiral, and instead of relying on his instruments (ie his advisors) he’s going by the seat of his pants.

Trump’s pant seats have served him well, so I get it, but age is kind to no one, and his rear’s gone saggy. Fond foolish old man, he listened to his son on the vp pick and now he’s picking cat hair out of his rear. He thinks insulting women and black people will give us all a pleasant buzz, and instead grating alarms are emanating from 538.

He always knew he was bogus as hell, but huge numbers of Americans didn’t.

UD has no doubt his staff is telling him how to keep the con aloft, but his pants are telling him something else.

Nothing easier than conjuring a life-threatening illness and stepping aside to see what the cat lady guy can do.

‘Donald Trump Says He WILL Debate Kamala Harris, But Only On Fox News’

And only if he can wear one of these.

And only if …..

‘[M]ocking Trump’s tendency to … post in all caps, former Barack Obama speechwriter David Litt [wrote]:

“I HAVE AGREED TO A SWIM MEET WITH KATIE LEDECKY SO LONG AS SHE WEARS A FULL SUIT OF ARMOR AND HOLDS HER BREATH THE WHOLE TIME ALSO I GET A JET SKI.”

‘Trump Vows to “Unleash Hell” on Harris at Atlanta Rally’

“I will have such revenges on you,

That all the world shall—I will do such things—

What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be

The terrors of the earth!”

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

Wittle King Lear prepares us for his next rally.

Near-total abortion ban: How’s that going, Idaho?

 I’ve been sort of involved with some of the recruitment efforts and interviewing of some of the potential candidates. Last year, we had five potential candidates, and … all five decided to go elsewhere. Idaho used to be a state that attracted OBs for the outdoors, for the family values, the recreation — it’s a good place to live. But I think the overturn of Roe v. Wade had an impact…

What I heard from others was that those who were interviewed in the last year expressed concerns regarding the legal climate and concerns of prosecution, which led them to not take our offer of employment. 

A doctor at Idaho’s third shuttered obstetrics unit talks about why the total abortion ban is also becoming a total birth ban.

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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