Annals of New Pretentious Terms

From a full-page print ad in today’s New York Times for 108 Leonard, a new apartment building.

108 Leonard features distinctive 1 to 4 bedroom residences and over 20,000 square feet of amenities including a 75-foot pool and rooftop gardens, as well as motor reception with private parking.

UD thinks motor reception is what we used to call valet parking; but maybe for the cost of your apartment (“Priced from $1,535,000 to over $20 million.”) you get a catered reception.

When Googled, the term “motor reception” shows up only in the context of speech and hearing studies (“the learner’s motor reception… the latent sequential imitation that analyses the articulatory-phonetic sequencing…”).

La Kid, Chilly Dublin, Saint Patrick’s Day

Alma Mater

High above Cayuga’s waters
With its waves of blue
Stands our schizoid Maximilien
Aiming right at you

Blast the shrapnel, speed it onwards
Loud explosions tell
Hail upon thee alma mater
Hail upon Cornell

High above the busy humming
Of the bustling town
Like his hero Stephen Paddock
Looks he proudly down

Lift the rifle, speed it onwards
All his classmates fell
Hail to thee our alma mater
Hail all hail Cornell

Pat the Hunny

Springtime for Hitler.

Not only did he kill people for personal gain. He didn’t even stay for the sit-down dinner.

Fentanyl-pusher Insys Corporation rigged up pretend dinners where their top-prescribing docs gave pretend talks:

Insys funneled … illicit payments to the doctors through a sham “speakers bureau,” in which the doctors were paid for purportedly giving educational presentations about the drug that, in many cases, were mere social gatherings at high-end Manhattan restaurants.

One of the defendants … sometimes did not even stay for a meal at the programs where he was the featured speaker, instead ordering food from the restaurant and leaving with it, according to the indictment.

Before one program in 2014, the indictment added, [he] wrote to an Insys sales representative, asking, “Is dinner take out or we expecting peeps?”

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

What percentage of fentanyl prescriptions – a drug intended for late-stage cancer pain – comes from oncologists?

One. One percent.

University of Louisville Recruitment: A Perennial Class Act…

… with the safety of their community, as always, paramount in their admissions choices.

‘Law-abiding high school students age 18 years or older should be able to carry long guns inside public high schools, state Rep. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, told the Dayton Daily News in an interview Thursday.’

Sing it.

Put down your books and pick up a gun,
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun!

And it’s one, two, three,
What are we shooting for?
Don’t ask me – we’ve run out of time.
Next stop is Columbine.

And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.

What Do You Do With a Sunken Baylor?

What do you do with a sunken Baylor?
What do you do with a sunken Baylor?
What do you do with a sunken Baylor?
Early in the mornin’

Give it a new coach and a female president
Give it a new coach and a female president
Give it a new coach and a female president
Early in the mornin’

Talk up how we’re absolutely positively Christian
Talk up how we’re absolutely positively Christian
Talk up how we’re absolutely positively Christian
Early in the mornin’

Keep your trap shut about recruiting practices
Keep your trap shut about recruiting practices
Keep your trap shut about recruiting practices
Early in the mornin’

‘Women can feel safe though our players rape them
Women can feel safe though our players rape them
Women can feel safe though our players rape them’
Early in the mornin’

‘It’s just a little sacrifice to give our heroes
It’s just a little sacrifice to give our heroes
It’s just a little sacrifice to give our heroes’
Early in the mornin’

A Pathetic, Exclusively Masculine World of “Unbearable” Violence

Tunisia’s sports minister coins the term “stadium terrorism.” The FIFA representative reviewing the situation in Greece (he’ll be lucky to get out of Athens alive) calls it “unbearable that people are scared to go to a stadium.”

You never see women or children at many world soccer games. Before (on transportation to the games), during (at the games), and after (on the streets; in the pubs), the host city is on fire with drunk, rioting, gun-bearing men. Despite the measures governments have introduced (games played in empty stadia; tv blackouts; massive police presence and massive arrests; physical separation of opposing fans; targeting of known thugs and gangs) everything’s getting worse and worse and unbearably worse.

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

Only it isn’t unbearable. Scores die after games, and cities are torched; armed black-shirted gangs rush the pitch during the game and go after referees. So what. FIFA – a virtually all-male, ridiculously corrupt organization – will do nothing about the latest atrocity in Greece. It’s bearable. It’s all bearable. It’s all boys incorrigibly and escalatingly being boys.

And when it gets even worse – when players and referees are beaten to death during games televised all over the world – FIFA will still do nothing. Unfathomable amounts of money are being made, a lot of it by that organization’s corrupt officials. No one’s going to mess with a good thing.

‘“I think that the minute that you have a backup plan, you’ve admitted that you’re not going to succeed,” Holmes says.’

Here at University Diaries, we respond to high-profile fraud cases like the Elizabeth Holmes thing by scrolling back to the fraudsters’ university years. That happens to be our angle.

Stanford University celebrated its high-profile alumna – and why wouldn’t it? No one knew until a year or so ago that she was lying about her blood testing technology in order to get money out of investors – and one of Stanford’s celebrations quotes her wit and wisdom.

Which includes that thing about the lack of a backup plan… which, in retrospect, doesn’t sound all that wise. Assuming she’s no Bernie Madoff, chances are awhile back she realized she was hemorrhaging, and – having no backup plan… like, say, admitting there was blood all over the floor and returning investor money… she just kept, uh, bleeding out until the SEC noticed.

Disaster at Florida International University

A pedestrian bridge FIU installed only days ago has collapsed, trapping and killing multiple people beneath it.

It costs a lot of money to get this level of performance from your employees, and the University of Michigan isn’t afraid to spend the money.

The director of performance for UM’s football team receives $250,000 a year for knowing how to perform.

Recently, during a very long night of challenges, he hit all his marks and then some.

UM, a once impressive school, is now mainly known for drunks and Rich Rodriguez.

UD is always looking for an occasion to quote her hero.

Saccone:

Meet Zappa.

“I’ll leave my board position when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

Everyone’s all ooh wow ooh about St Thomas University’s CFO resigning her position at that way-Catholic school rather than leave the board of AR-15-mad Smith and Wesson. (She was given an ultimatum from the school.) Everyone’s like: Look! She chose assault weapons over a church school!

But read the fine print, kiddies. Smith and Wesson (they’ve given themselves some new all-natural name… who knows why? … it’s like… can’t remember but it’s like Gentle Valley Breezes…) pays people willing to be associated with it upwards of $100,000 a year — and you and I know what service on a corporate board entails: Two free trips to Hawaii to sit in a room for a half hour and get excited about how much shit (here, AR-15s) the corporation’s selling.

If you had to choose between actually working – as a chief financial officer – and sitting on your ass all year and still pulling in a hundred thou, what would you do? Plus you get all the free AR-15s you want.

Young and FABULOUS

Around 3 a.m., a [Stetson University] security guard noticed a car with a blown tire pull into a handicap parking spot in front of a dormitory. The guard approached the driver, and 20-year-old Preston Barrow told the man that he had just smoked marijuana and had a rifle in his car, according to police.

Police responded and found an unloaded rifle, scope and 27 rounds of ammunition scattered throughout the car.

He’s got the cutest little baby face!

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