Tuesday, July 19, 2016

True Believers Speak

And as they do, my faith in humanity continues to erode. Watch what Mother Jones has uncovered:

9 comments:

  1. Plagiarism? Not sure. But, these words were put in Melania's mouth. She did not originate any of this.

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    1. That may well be, UU4077, despite the fact that she did attempt to pass it off as her own work, with very little outside help. Cairo Kirby's post today is well-worth reading in terms of what it says about the whole Trump candidacy.

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    2. @UU4077 - Apparently she did write it after shredding the speech written for her. Well, that's what we know so far anyway.

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    3. Thanks for the link, Marie. In the aftermath of all of this, I am amazed at the lengths the Trump camp is going to, not to apologize, but to place it in an outrageous perspective. I think the most bizarre justification I heard was Chris Christie saying that 93% of her speech was different from Michelle Obama's.

      I wonder if this will become the new defense for students caught in plagiarism? ('My paper has 25 paragraphs, and only one is plagiarized!")

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  2. As educators, we both know what would have happened had a student so blatantly lifted someone else's words without proper attribution. Look upon it this way .... at least the Trumpians did not accuse Michelle of plagiarizing her. :)

    Gosh, what a choice it must be for the rational folks: "permanently reckless" or "extremely careless". If ever there is a time to be voting for a third party candidate, this is it.

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    1. The challenge facing the American electorate is indeed large, Anon. I do not envy them their choices, but we are not entirely unfamiliar with the quandary as Canadians, either.

      In my student and teaching days, plagiarism was considered the ultimate academic crime. Nowadays, I fear, it is starting to be looked upon as a 'temporary lapse in judgement.'

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  3. So now we have a retired teacher stating (@1'50s) that "if they stick in a different word it's not plagiarism".

    I'm glad he cleared that up. I should have paid more attention in class.

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    1. I cringed when I saw that, John. Surely, that educator is an indictment of U.S. education. For the record, paraphrasing without attribution is still plagiarism.

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    2. Upon reflection, I realize that I may have been too hard on that retired educator. He could have been speaking in reference to a proprietary standard in practice at Trump University while he was a member of its academic faculty.

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