Bad boy bad boy. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

Nicely buttoned up and a med school prof at CUNY but for almost ten years he’s reportedly gotten multiple millions in NIH grants by the simple expediency of making shit up. I’m curing Alzheimer’s! Look at these results!

Happens a lot. The rewards are for results, so you produce results.

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

Here’s another result. Stock in the company pushing this guy’s drug just plummeted.

Here’s another. The guy could go to prison for 55 years.

But he won’t. Too buttoned down. CUNY will dump him and he’ll have to pay some of the money back. He’ll leave the States for a job in Saudi Arabia. End of story.

Scathing Online Schoolmarm says Wow.

‘Kamala Harris … would lose by an even bigger margin than the ambling cadaver.

Andrew Sullivan

I didn’t watch. I didn’t watch because I knew – or seriously dreaded – that what happened would happen, and I knew that I couldn’t bear to watch it happen.

Mr UD insisted on watching, so I asked him to watch it way over in the livingroom, with the sound off.

“I stopped watching after fifteen minutes,” he said later. “It was very sad.”

What now? For the sake of the country and the world, Biden should drop out.

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

I had been ready to give Biden the benefit of the doubt up to now, because during the times I engaged with him one on one, I found him up to the job. He clearly is not any longer. His family and his staff had to have known that. They have been holed up at Camp David preparing for this momentous debate for days now. If that is the best performance they could summon from him, it’s time for Joe to keep the dignity he deserves and leave the stage at the end of this term.

How will it affect their dinner parties?

One of UD‘s wealthier friends sups with the opioid-famous Sacklers when he’s in Gstaad; the friend reports that these are really terrific dinners, without any undue pressure from the hosts to try OxyContin.

The good news is that in the foreseeable future my friend can continue to sup in the Alps with the Sacklers; but today’s Supreme Court rejection of the nice deal the family worked out with the trillion or so people whose family members fatally overdosed in order to finance Sackler dinners in Gstaad means that eventually the dinners might be imperiled.

Being a Cult Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.

“[O]ur decision not to share the news [that a member of our community stabbed and drowned her babies] is deliberate and guided by the wisdom of our rabbis.”

Ultraorthodox Lakewood NJ – known until now for its astounding rates of welfare fraud and its refusal to vaccinate its people against measles, covid, etc. – arrogantly responds to media inquiries with pride in its longstanding refusal to face up to what the many pathologies of its community have wrought. Of course this is a very big news story, but by definition America’s most anti-social demographic doesn’t give a shit.

Oh, turns out filicide mom has “severe mental illness,” which, guided by the wisdom of our rabbis, we decided left us free to put her alone in her house with her defenseless offspring. (Not totally defenseless: Apparently she only stabbed the older of the two, presumably because the pitiable child offered a little resistance.)

And of course the madwoman would – will? – continue to produce more babies. More babies is what ultraorthodox women – psychotic murderers or not – do.

A typically sordid college football story has concluded…

… with big ol’ settlements to the parents of a Univ New Mexico player (UNM is among the ickiest of the icky, athletically and in all other ways) who killed himself after a scuzzy coach made him keep playing even though he’d concussed himself into a serious depression.

The lawsuit noted that a year prior to [Nahje] Flowers’ death, UNM suspended [Coach Bob] Davie for 30 days over allegations that he physically assaulted players, obstructed a rape investigation and frequently engaged in racist comments.

UNM, a month after Flowers’ death, agreed to pay Davie a $825,000 buyout. He left at the end of the 2019 season with two years on his contract. During his tenure, Davie had a 35-63 record over eight seasons. He couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.

So pretty, on so many levels.

Analysis: Debate Technique

Political advisers and news outlets have scrambled to pinpoint Trump’s battle tactics for presidential debates since he first appeared as a legitimate candidate in 2016. The Atlantic argued that Trump relies heavily on a rhetorical approach called the Gish gallop, which they describe as a “torrent of incorrect, irrelevant, or idiotic arguments” in which one can bury their opponent. One political insider told Politico Magazine that Trump has “no strategy, just kill and eat.” And Vox created a seven-part taxonomy of Trump’s approach, observing that he “turns tough policy questions into simple stories,” filibusters until the clock runs out to avoid giving details, and leans on his poll numbers and meaningless, three-word slogans.

“We women don’t wait for their permission to remove our hijab; right now already, many don’t wear hijab.”

The brave women of Iran keep at it, subverting the vile clerics and the even viler morality police through sheer force of numbers. Even some presidential candidates there are condemning the vicious, degrading treatment of women who hate the hijab and don’t want it anywhere near them or their daughters.

I mean, they really hate it. They are willing to be beaten and go to jail in order not to wear modesty caps and blankets. (‘On a recent afternoon in northern Tehran, women sat in cafes and other public places, as a police officer in his 50s told those passing by: “Please cover yourselves, ladies,” and then muttered audibly: “My God, I am fed up repeating this without getting any attention.”‘) A whole nasty regime with police and an army calls them whores and hunts them down and in response they say fuck you. All glory to these badasses.

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

And why do they hate them, UD? It’s just a tight bit of head cloth – plus a loose evil/sexy body blanket cover. What’s the big deal? You’re willing to go to jail for refusing it? To get humiliated and beaten in public? To be fined huge sums? To lose your car? Your job? REALLY?

Well, ok. Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Historically, the women of Iran have had serious exposure to you’ll forgive the term freedom. They actually know – they have muscle memory of – what a non-theocratic, non-authoritarian world looks like, and that world is so attractive that nothing a bunch of withered old dicks wrapped in turbans throws at them is going to stick. In respectable countries, you can be a Muslim, an atheist, a Christian, or a warlock; your government doesn’t threaten you with incarceration if you don’t take mandated Intro Islamic Chastity and Virtue courses.

In respectable countries, you might prefer energetic erotic activity to C+V; in Iran, your frisky clit might find itself subject to FGM. Frisky Islamic Republic dicks have no trouble releasing themselves from thin jeans and going at it, and here you’ve been introduced to the concept of equality and all and you know it just seems pretty graphically unfair.

To go a bit deeper: Your self-image has nothing at all to do with hiding your beauty, your character, your individuality. You want to greet the world with as much self-assertion as men are able to, because that is who you are, not the hidden nothing the withered dicks dream about. They, to be sure, are dead. You are not.

The number of times I have heard Saudi women here, who are conditioned to believe that covering is an unquestionable issue, sigh as they watch uncovered women on TV and say لهم الدنبا ولنا الأخرة (they get the world and we get the afterlife).

La Kid, being stupendously stylish, in…

… NY’s Little Italy tonight.

Morning shadows on the front door.

My very own Rothko.

Hajjtag…

#everybodydies

The All-American Murder/Suicide

Just two days after Olin Johnson shot his wife and then himself to death, his neighbors invite you to this afternoon’s celebration of his life:

PLEASE BRING GOODIES TO SHARE!

Bloodsoaked bodies are still warm, but this will be a wholesome Mormon hoedown, promising “warm memories!” A maniac with a million guns in his house just up and slaughtered his wife with one of them. Let’s celebrate!

Wealthy, well-connected Olin had a big ol’ church to help him, plus a psychiatrist or two out in American Fork, Utah. Did he consult any of that as he descended into madness? Did anybody around him (he had six grown kids and tons of neighbors/business associates) wonder whether they should at least be a mite disturbed by the fact that Olin had turned his house into an armory? “Hey, Olin’s acting real weird. Shouldn’t we try taking his guns away?”

Ah fuck. As if anyone could imagine anyone in Utah – aka Suicide Central – saying something like that.

Sig Sauer: Chose this for his FB photo. Guess it was his favorite out of all of his guns.

THE BEACH AT HERCULANEUM

No basking on the black volcanic sand

Imported here by antiquarians —

Sun Protection Factor:  Vesuvian.


That is, a skeletal and scorching strand

Ghost coast of ancient Roman carrion

Dead viticulture under dense black vine.

Visitors must be made to understand:

The parching here is post-millennian.

Dead dash to the Mediterranean.

‘The lawyer representing Mrs Macron and Mr Trogneux presented their electoral cards to the court, proving that they had both voted in the European Elections on June 9 – in different towns.’

Ah, but the “Mrs” Macron one was a body double!

At Melbourne’s Jewish Museum…

… the little boy Mr UD’s mother saved – by hiding him in her Warsaw apartment from 1942 to the end of the war – visits a display about her.

UD thanks Sandy.

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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