PLAGIARISM: After Da Wolf, Here Comes Da Tiger!

And I couldn't resist extending one Tiger a welcome. I use "him" because often times, animals still display a sense of honour, like thieves. But recently a human sub-species called politikus, in the most developed prescinct called Klang, in the sole developed state in NegaraKu called Selangor, had proven themselves believers of the Law of the Sub-Terrestrial Jungle. Even the wolves and tigers and elephants are above this level of extra-terrestrial hooliganism.

And the state chief is chiefest hooligan of them all.

And I'm in awe because at the federal level, the Chief CEO by his inaction beyond a mere tap on the wrist, falls back into half-stupour, and announced grandious multi-billion ringgit plans in Johor. What these gigantuan sums would attract are more of the sub-species like the three Datuks, Zak, ... & .... (I won't dignify them with names because that would be an injustice and insult to my friends in Animal Kingdom, wouldn't It?)

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Okay, after a long rambling Intro, let's go to a Trailer, cun?
Actually that was a superfluous question; afterall, it's My Blog and I can do what I want, even bordering on Plagiarism; witness now:

Today is a special Sunday; besides Inter:Lude, you get this!


V for Vendetta: V'm Vurprised Vit Vis Vot Vanned Vin Valaysia!

OKay, lest I land up in court because some lundun-based guy is itchy for Money, Honey, the above is best seen in wideHousescope at the Cinematheque furthest you, because you don't want to be seen having SpecialBrunch@howsy.blogspot.com on the Saturday, March 18, 2006.:( God look after thee, and Me, and Nicole, and Mimi. I.S.A:....

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I'm again revisited by the The Beauty of blog-writHing -- in the still of the serene night (is 'serene' reduntant to still?), whence Another penny fell from heaven. And my following day's quota is partially met, like last night (I wanted to use 'lust' for last, but that would be nigh plagiarism of a guy I know too well, which actually is not good. Familiarity breeds contempt, hence I believe this conversationist hides under a pennama called some blardy goodfellow. Do you take His word he's one?


"Desidedata. Sorry to deviate from the your blog topic. Hmm, actually, I am coming close to plagiarism here!!!__________________________________________
(Interruptus by Desi: Because he's first timer here, I allowed his THREE xxclamation marks as in my Desiderata.English, that would be transgression. If Malaysians can make do with te transgressions by Zak & Co, I guess my ER would mind a mild one from this RGF!)

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"Do not make personal attacks or mock any particular individual. This is the advice of Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to members.

"Other than that,the delegates are allowed to bring up issues or matters close to their hearts at the discretion of their respective divisions.""

Excerpt lifted from The Star 5 November 2006.

Based on DPM's past words and deeds, I would not be surprised if a certain ethnic group or a defunct political ideology is cast as the cause of all of UMNO's self-inflicted woes this coming November. Which, incidentally reminds of a Story.....

***Once a Tiger cub strayed away and ventured into a herd of Elephants. Unfortunately, the cub being small and all, was trampled in a stampede. Soon after a Jackal found the body of cub and immediately informed the parents.

"I have terrible news. Your son is lying dead in the field." the Jackal said.

"How did it happen? Who did this? I will never rest until I have my revenge!" roared the father Tiger.

"The Elephants did it." answered the Jackal. Quite startled by the Jackal's reply, the Tiger paced back and forth for a few minutes, growling and shaking his head.

"No! you are wrong," the Tiger said at last. "It was the Goats who murdered my Boy!"

And, at once the Tiger bounded down the hill and sprang upon a herd of Goats gazing in the valley below, and in a violent rage killed as many as he could in revenge.***

(Freely adapted from a retelling by William J. Bennett)

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Posted by Robin Goodfellow to desiderata-ylchong at 11/05/2006 10:04:26 AM ""


Earlier in the week, I had promised to discuss the issue of Plagiarism, which my ER must have become half-expert by now after the wide-ranging debate on Blogsworld spakred by The Taiko@Screenshots. I won't re-visit all the rants and runs and re-runs and also-rans because I deem 90% of them just that: RANTS. Worse yet, some took potshots at the poor guy in the centre of the controversy, and along the way, hit him below the belt, and also some barbs at Singa-pore. Yes, the Land of Lions! And you know why?
All because a fellow Malaysian Brendan Pereira had served time working for the Singapore's Straits Times. Do you want to condemn hundred thousands fellow Malaysians who cross the Causeway every day to earn a decent wage, my CONversationists dare?
And do you also condemn all overseas resident Malaysians working as expatriates in the United States (like Sdr Dr Musa Bakri in the US; or Howsy serving Dim Sum shoppe in London's chineserie shoppe to pay for his post-grad studies, or another mGf "Jonathien Livingstone Seagull" Mei in Belgium on a busman's holiday to expand her horizon?

And the most Venomous criticisms come from people hiding behind Anonymous ... Now I hope you can undersatnd a little more about my Rant yesterday reprised from AllOfHelen?

Okay, back to Sunday's Inter:Lude on Plagiarism ~~


I'll start from the beginning, from the friendly Wikipediathe free encyclopedia:
Mitch Albom

Mitchell David Albom (born May 23, 1958 in Trenton, New Jersey) is an award-winning American sportswriter, novelist, newspaper columnist for the Detroit Free Press, syndicated radio host, and TV commentator. He is a graduate of Akiba Hebrew Academy, Brandeis University, and Columbia University. Before becoming a journalist, Albom was briefly an amateur boxer, nightclub singer, and pianist.


Albom wrote the best-selling book, Tuesdays With Morrie (1997). After being featured prominently in Oprah Winfrey's Oprah's Book Club, the book sold exceptionally well, and Oprah Winfrey produced a television movie adaptation for ABC starring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon. The television movie adaptation of Tuesdays with Morrie was the most watched television movie of 1999 and won four Emmy Awards. Albom has another book – the New York Times best-seller, The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003). It sold very well, although some have criticized its sentimentalism. It also was turned into a television movie for ABC, starring Jon Voight, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Imperioli and Jeff Daniels.

His most recent book is titled For One More Day, published on September 26, about a son who gets to spend a day with his mother who died eight years earlier.

Some respected book reviewers fault his work for being overly sentimental and for lacking enduring qualities.


Sports Columnist

Albom first gained fame as a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press newspaper. Between 1985 and 2000 Albom wrote several sports column each week, as well as a general commentary column on Sundays. Currently his columns appear on a sporadic basis.

From the start his columns were noteworthy for their excellence, depth, and breadth. They covered sports but often used it as a springboard to discussions of broader issues of life and character.

Each year his sports columns were entered in the Associated Press Sports Editors contest. Albom competed against columnists at newspapers with a circulation above 250,000. All entries are judged anonymously. Preliminary judging is done by more than 90 sports editors, then senior news executives at papers throughout the United States make the final awards. The judges change each year.

Albom is the most decorated winner in the history of the contest. Between 1985 and 2000 Albom won first place in column writing thirteen times, and between 1991 and 2000 he won first prize in feature story writing seven times.



*****CONtroversy

Albom was the center of a journalistic controversy in April 2005. His column on April 3 described former Michigan State University Spartans Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson cheering Michigan State University at a Final Four game against North Carolina on April 2. However, he later announced that this was not true: the players were never at the game.

Upon an internal investigation, the Detroit Free Press explained that Albom's column was written based on interviews he'd had with the two players the week prior to the game. They had both expressed plans to be at the game but were unable to attend. Albom did not have an opportunity to omit this in his column, however, because the deadline for the Sunday column was April 1 - the night before the actual game. The newspaper declared that disciplinary actions would be taken. Some publicly called for Albom's resignation.

Mitch Albom stirred controversy once again in an October 2006 column in which he dismissed allegations that Detroit Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers had used pine tar in the palm of his pitching hand by stating he had 'shaken Kenny Roger's hand after the game and there was not sticky substance on it'. A New York Times Sports Writer pointed out several days later that Kenny Rogers is a left handed pitcher (most people shake hands with their right hand)."


And from www.regrettheerror.com is extracted the following:

And here is Albom's mea culpa, which ran the day before the editor's note:

To our readers: I made an assumption in a column this past weekend. It was a bad move. In a column written Friday for our Sunday newspaper, I assumed that what I had been told by Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson had indeed happened, that they had indeed flown to the Final Four, sat in the stands together rooting on Michigan State in Saturday's game. That was their plan. Both told me so in separate interviews. Because the column had to be filed on Friday afternoon, but appeared on Sunday, I wrote it in the past tense, as if it already had happened.
While it was hardly the thrust of the column -- which was about nostalgia and college athletes -- it was wrong just the same. You can't write that something happened that didn't, even if it's just who sat in the stands. Perhaps, it seems a small detail to you -- the players still love their teams, they are still nostalgic, they simply decided not to go after the column had been filed -- but details are the backbone of journalism, and planning to be somewhere is not the same as being there.
So I owe you and the Free Press an apology, and you have it right here. It wasn't thorough journalism. While our deadlines would have required some weird writing -- something like, "By the time you read this, if Mateen and Jason stuck to their plans, they would have sat in the stands for Saturday's game" -- it should have been done. We have high standards at this newspaper, and I have high standards for myself. We -- the editors and I -- got caught in an assumption that shouldn't have happened. It won't again. Thanks"

April 13, 2005 at 08:00 AM in Major Errors, Newspapers | Permalink

DESIDERATA:

Which shows the occupational hazards of Journalism. We have had Orbituaries of living personalities being "aired" before time when "mock practices" were inadvertently broadcast so that even the "deceased" heard the news of his/her own death. So what else is new/s?
The important thing is that Mitch Albom did Apologise for his errors.
And generally, readers are forgiving.


Okay, now to the Root of the Debate!
I Cut&Paste from some Blogger's (I think), who also C&P from the Internet, I surmise, who must have got permisssion to circulate it freely, I presume. Anyway,I reiterate here that Desiderata-YLChong is a non-profit proposition. I presume I am not that famous to receive a suit for Plagiarism, so here it goes, i all its naked glory:




Published: September 10. 2006 3:00AM
Nation/World

MITCH ALBOM:

Remembering the day before the day

Email this Print this BY MITCH ALBOM

FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Tomorrow, we remember.

But today, we lament.

Tomorrow, Sept. 11 -- the five-year anniversary -- we see the deluge of grizzly images, we hear speeches from politicians, we make vows to avenge those who perished, we make grim promises to fight on in the war on terror.

But today is just as sad an anniversary. Today, in some ways, aches even more.

If Sept. 11 was the day we never saw coming, Sept. 10 was the day we will never see again.

And we miss it terribly.

We miss when you could pull up at an airport without bracing for a military exercise.

We miss when toothpaste was not considered a weapon.

We miss when the most well-known Muslim names in America were professional athletes.

We miss when a "cell" was a biological term.

We miss when politicians didn't make you feel that you're one of us or you're one of them.

We miss when one party didn't call the other party cowards and consider that a foreign policy.

We miss Sept. 10.

The tragic reminder

We miss when going to New York City meant a mandatory trip to a Broadway play, not a mandatory trip to a large, sad hole in lower Manhattan.

We miss when seeing someone reading the Quran didn't make us nervous.

We miss when we actually celebrated how free and open our borders were.

We miss when Al-Jazeera was just another TV channel we'd never heard of.

We miss when we saw war crimes and said, "Our soldiers don't do that," instead of, "Well, look at what the other guys do."

We miss when Islam was just another religion in the world.

We miss when pilots used to let kids come up to see the cockpit.

We miss when movies would open with shots of a skyline and two giant blue towers.

We miss when we never thought of sending anthrax through the mail, or lighting a shoe on fire, or putting explosives in sports drink bottles.

We miss simplicity.

We miss Sept. 10.

A troubled future

We miss when "jihad" was a foreign word.

We miss when belts could stay on.

We miss when we didn't war amongst ourselves over a war somewhere else.

We miss when we thought paying for gas was just an expensive habit, not a means of enriching our enemies.

We miss when we spoke to our Arab neighbors and didn't hear a voice in our heads whispering, "I wonder whose side they'd be on?"

We miss when you didn't have to show ID for everything.

We miss the feeling that there wasn't a large cloud hanging over our future, and our children's future, and our grandchildren's future, a feeling that nothing could be trusted, that you were never really safe, that this enemy which is only too happy to die for its cause wants to make sure we go first -- and this enemy is not going away.

We miss sleeping soundly.

We miss not being so smart.

We miss our naivete.

We cry on Sept. 11.

But we miss Sept. 10.

Yes, as a form of "tit for tat, butter for fat", I'm also plugging for Mitch:Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. Order tickets for the charity launch of Albom's new novel, "For One More Day," at 248-433-1515 or ticketmaster.com. The Sept. 27 event at Fox Theatre features Tony Bennett, Hank Azaria and Joe Dumars. Tickets are $40 and include an autographed copy. www.freep.com/mitch.




Okay, to the lamb chop proper!

Brendan Pereira on Monday: How dearly we miss June 6
30 Oct 2006
Brendan Pereira

WE never saw June 7 coming. Sure, there were whispers that he was not happy with the way his successor was running the country; with the way ministers and business friends were not returning calls.


But no one saw June 7 coming. That was the day Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad accused the PM of stabbing him in the back; of reversing his policies; of cancelling projects, including the half-bridge to Singapore. He attacked with the ferocity of a street fighter and suggested that Abdullah was the second choice for the top job in the country.

He wanted to know why Tengku Mahaleel Tengku Ariff was no longer running Proton, why development in Putrajaya had slowed down. He wanted to know why the person he left in charge of the country was no longer dancing to his tune.

Looking back, that was the day when he crossed the line. History records these watershed events because they change the mood of the country, pit kin against kin and dominate the landscape.

If June 7 is the day we never saw coming, June 6 is the day we will not see again for a while. And how we miss it.

We miss going to lunches or dinners and just shooting the breeze, instead of spending hours dissecting the latest tirade and figuring out why power is so hard to let go.

We miss those days when people didn make you feel that youe one of us or youe one of them.

We miss the time when "half-past six" was used in a moment of levity between childhood friends.

We miss the time when exclusive interviews about Malaysia on CNN, BBC, CNBC or Bloomberg were about the country and its prospects, not about a political sideshow.

We miss when a can of aerosol can was not considered a weapon.

We miss the days we watched leaders in other countries slug it out in public and said: "At least our leaders don do that."

We miss when we didn war among ourselves over a war being waged by an individual.

We miss when we spoke to a friend and didn hear a voice in our heads whispering: "I wonder whose side he is on?"

We miss when peace talks referred to discussions between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lanka government or between the warring factions in Palestine.

We miss the feeling when there wasn a cloud hanging over the political landscape, and a feeling that no words or explanations can be a balm to this festering sore.

We miss the days when the mention of Dr Mahathir name unleashed a vision of a leader handing over power at the peak of his powers, not a mental picture of someone seeking to bring down someone in power.

We miss the days when the prime minister had to defend his policies, not parry personal attacks.

We miss when a volley referred to a sweet left foot strike by Wayne Rooney, not a barb fired across the bow by the former PM against his perceived enemies.

We miss when we spoke of a legacy in glowing terms not with a sense of doom.

We miss when the world looked at us with pride and wondered why other young countries could not have a smooth change of guard.

We miss when Dr Mahathir spoke like a statesman.

We miss the time when we did not have to rake up our dark past and remember stories of former prime ministers taking on incumbents. Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn deserve their rest and place in history.

We miss the days when the battle lines were clear -- government versus opposition.

Yes, we miss June 6.



DESIDERATA:

I think Brendan's wirting clearly showed that he ADOPTED the style that Mitch used in his comparison of September 11 and the Day Before. The local 911 was equivalent to a fromer Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's June 7's Face-Off with Prime Minister Pak Lah (which I have written about in a ongoing series... so I don't wish to bore my ER what it;s about. If you still wonder aloud what it's about, please continue with your Rip van Winks Okay! You might even be better for it!:).

Brendan's act would have been excused if he was an Honourable Schoolboy like in our school days making speeches or debating based on the well quoted Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or even Shakespeare's "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..."
Oh, no -- this is one top Editor of an UMNO-controlled organ who is the cynosure of many loaded eyes, especially hailing from UMNO which is now famous by its top leaders' admissions and convictions, is just filled with Money-Politicking so much so the Crocodiles from Lake Titiwangsa have come ashore and lurking at every nook and corner of some royal towns. But another species including some famous Bloggers have also entrenched themselves into UMNO politics, which is inevitable as some benefited from the Olde Regime, and others are left out in the Nu'e Regime. Changing of the guards, and the majority of the electorate remain as spectators at the Sandiwara going on on the PWTC Stage, which will reach another climax come November.

Perhaps, some of these Bloggers need to be reminded of the concept of Ad Hominem logic that Y&A johnleemk articulated so well ... if you don't know where, I'm not going to tell you because sometimes Ignorance is bliss.

Yes, another blogger mGf @xpyred.textfiend.net has a good write on same subject; just an extract, from: ~~


"monsterblog naysayers and ‘out-ing’ people

Dismissing someones opinion, argument or statements on the basis that they work for the ‘evil empire’ or NST, TNB or Monsterblog is wrong. It is a fallacious argument to say:

1. She works for TNB.
2. Therefore her arguments are suspect.

That’s faulty reasoning, and the fallacy is, in general form, an ad hominem, and more specifically, poisoning the well. It’s intellectually dishonest, at least, to refuse to engage a person’s arguments on the basis of their affiliation with anyone or anything.
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:....(Go and read the rest, for your own education if not elevation.--Desi)"

AM I digressing? Or you want Desi to provide te relevance and context? No, I won't insult my EsteemedReaders' intelligence.
One parting shot:
To err is human, To forgive divine.
I'm also reminding myself on this Good Sabbath Die.because you never know when your Maker is going to tap of thy shoulder and say: Let's go and meet those Eight people in Heaven! Seven is Desi's fave number; Eight is all the Chinoserie's.


I borrow from a Conversationist's views at JeffOoi's Screenshots; I only wish the writer Legal Beagle could identify himself/herself after reading this so that I could propelry acknowledge her succinct and ariculate input... A sincere request which can be considered also rhetorical in tat I would respect the writer if he/she wants to remain merely a penname in blogosphere.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From LegalBeagle's~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"This is a very difficult and nebulous area - establishing plagiarism these days is hard because wholesale plagiarism is rare these days. In an academic context, plagiarism usually refers to lifting or copying of other people's work - such as journal articles and scholarly works - without attributing it correctly. In artistic plagiarism, it could relate to style, or perhaps sentence structure, or a certain way of expressing things. The case of the Harvard student, Kaavya Viswanathan, who was accused to plagiarism of another author's work, for her own book is a good example. In that instance (check the Harvard Crimson for the comparison) the plagiarism was quite clear when the comparisons were done because whole sentences, down to structure were lifted.

The focus of plagiarism (whether academic or creative plagiarism) is not that you copied it, but that you passed it off as your OWN. So, using that as the context...

In defense of Brendan Pereira, it could be said that his op-ed was 'inspired by' the piece by Mitch Albom and that he merely copied certain 'style' attributes of the piece. Perhaps he was on a deadline and 'inadvertantly' recalled the style of the piece and thought it would work.

Or perhaps he was just plain lazy - which is usually the reason why people plagiarise. And it might have just been that he thought - it's such an obscure article, in a paper probably no Malaysian reads - who's going to know? (another typical thought that plagiarists usually comfort themselves with)

Here's the difference: Smart writers don't plagiarise, they 'pay tribute'. It is true that when you want to steal, steal from the great masters. But smart writers steal and make it better, so the work eventually becomes their own. (think Tarantino). Copycats only know how to lift something, without making it better or truly their own.

Pity he forgot to add the bit about 'tribute' and 'inspired by'. Because that would have made it clear he was a smart writer, instead of a hack.

In a time when we're busy trying to make examples of wrongdoers and the people at the top are trying to restore wrecked values, nothing could do more for the credibility of the NST as a publication, and the profession of journalism in this country, which is not above stealing from the Internet (even the Star has done so) and badly written stories, than for Brendan Pereira to be SACKED. Like the NY Times sacked Jayson Blair, who fabricated stories.

And so...with apologies to Mitch Albom and regards to Brendan Pereira:

I miss the days when newspapers understood the meaning of investigative journalism, rather than the language of advertising dollars.

I miss the days when I looked forward to reading the newspaper, rather than regarding it as a waste of money and kitty litter tray liner at best.

I miss the days when integrity was the hallmark of a journalist, and sensationalism was something that came out of the pages of The Sun (UK).

Oh wait a minute...there never were such days. Ever.

Posted by: LegalBeagle


DESIDERATA:

As I wrote earlier, the important thing is that Mitch Albom did Apologise for his errors.
And generally, readers are forgiving.

Would Brendan also tender an apology?
"To be or not to be? " That's the question.
If I did not attribute where this came from, would Desi be guilty of Plagiarism. Your Call, mGf...
Because always remember, this is a very thin, gray line.

It's a sad development in media, and bloggers should not behave like Wolves and Tigers rushing into the slaughter house baying for blood.
Everyone's blood is commonly red.

My own verdict on Brendan's endeavour is that he's guilty of recklessness in failing to at least say "I'm inspired by Mitch Albom's write etc, etc ....". On the charge of Plagiarism, it's a dicey decision at best, which means I sit on the fence, and return a "hung" verdict.

As a fellow writer, I would be heartless to add on to any more pain after all the uncalled and ungrounded gore and condemnations (some just one-liners with no grounds to support their findings of guilt! WHICH I DETEST as in my discourse with fellow conversations, I have always demand that one gives Da Rationale, mousey-one also can!)

At the end of the day, I learn that in Criminal Law, what little I know OK! ~~ they teach you a concept called mens rea (the motive for a crime or offence) in relation to the finding of guilt.
Is there mens rea in Brenda's case?
Only the writer himself, Brendan, and his God, however he deems Him to be, will kniow the Truth, the absolute truth. I give Brendan the benefit of the doubt there was no mens rea in his October 30, 2006 piece.
Would someone be wishing that October 29 would pass by him once more?

I think the best person "to make a judgment call on Brendan's piece whether it be Plagiarism or Not" is Mitch Albom himself. I believe a person who erans B&B through wordsmithry will be also a humanist at heart. I know at heart Mitch'd be forgiving, as I deciphered from his Tuesdays With Morrie (on which I did a three-piece rumination, did I?) -- as long as Brendan swallows his pride and does an Apology along Mitch's line as captured at www.regrettheerror.com, Yes?


PS: I would myself forward this piece to Mister Mitch Albom and await his reply, even it is from Heaven. Or Healthlah.