Stuff and linkage

[yendi]

shadesong's post over here reminds me of one of many reasons I'll never recommend Leo Frankowski's masturbatory Conrad Stargard series (one of the first Mary Sue series of books I ever read).

Pam Holt's latest column is something all writers should read. I'm guilty of #3 quite often, actually.

The Missouri Review has rejected underrated poet George "Shrub" Bush's poem.

Oh no! I'm not the only victim of plagiarism! Some soldiers in Iraq are guilty of it, too!

And finally, iTunes for Windows comes out next week!

Comments

[tablesaw]

Um, guilty of plagiarism? The soldiers thought that their signatures were an expression of support, not a claim of authorship.

[yendi]

Based on whisperedstorm's explanation of the situation, I'd agree that plagiarism isn't the correct term, but it's still pretty inappropriate (just not the soldiers's fault). But any who signed a single letter (instead of a petition) words as such had to know that they were passing another's words off as their own.

[amokk]

Reading the article, I got that someone wrote a letter and they signed their names in support and somewhere down the line someone sent it to different papers without all the signatures.

Saying "they had to know" is assuming the soldiers know anything about ownership, plagiarism, etc. Most are 18-20 with high school educations and little to no college. It's also a bit much to say "signing a letter instead of a petition means you're claiming ownership". We wrote letters in grade school and the class signed it individually: we weren't taking credit for writing it but showing that we agreed with it. Like group letters to the editor or members of Congress.

Or the Declaration of Independance. That's not quite a petition.

[rhiannonstone.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say they were guilty of plagarism, either. It's entirely possible that some of them didn't have much of a choice about signing them, and even if that's not the case, they were, as the commenter above mentioned, just signing their support and not a claim of authorship. I don't condone the mass sending of letters, though, and I really can't believe how stupid the people who sent them were to think that in this day and age it would have gone undetected. Especially after some politician (or political party, maybe?) pulled the exact same scam last year and got caught.

[amberfox.livejournal.com]

iTunes for Windows? YES! *does a little dance of glee*

[slsweets.livejournal.com]

I had to comment:
The soldiers in Iraq were passed out a letter, prolly during some briefing, and told if they agreed with it, sign it.
Let me tell ya about such briefings. I'll use the Combined Federal Campaign for an example.
The unit COs get together, get told "the base is going for X amt of dollars this year. Units that meet this, will get a Comp Day (compensation day for working weekends, like the '3 Day Pass').
By the time it gets to an individual unit, on the company level, the guys are told the same info, but there is an underlying pressure from the command and your peers, to participate.

I think whoever came up with the 'Letters Home" that are being sent out, is the result of some PR rep in the Pentagon actually getting a bright idea, that will sink himself and whoever can't get free of the undertow.

Stormy

[yendi]

Ah. I was not aware of quite how coersive the situation was. And the fact that no one knows who mailed the letters defiinitely implies that the real culprits are most likely stateside.

[rhiannonstone.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm trying hard to eradicate empty adverbs from my writing, too. I don't think "the road to Hell is paved with adverbs" like Stephen King does, but if I got paid solely by the number of adverbs I use in an LJ entry or political essay or report at work, I'd be a fairly well-off writer.

(See--I just did it!)

My biggest offender is "actually." I am in the process of attempting to strike that word from my vocabulary entirely.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Me, too. Way too many adverbs. And "really" and "actually" are my favorites. Good thing I'm not a writer! -although I do want to pare down my use of these.

[amokk]

Damn adverbs. I need to get my copy of On Writing back from my mom...

[amokk]

Excellent article, thanks for the link. All writers should read that.

Re: Writing

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I know I use 'that' far too often. (I had to work to not put a 'that' after 'know' even though I'm writing about it.)