I’ve been away for my week in the woods -- a campsite in remote pass where a patch of crown land separates Banff and Kootenay National Parks. I had a wonderful time. But I was completely isolated from modern technology. No Internet. No cell phones. No hourly newscasts. Not so much as one word about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Glorious! So I couldn’t write, let alone post, a Sharp Edges column for today. But I did get quite a lot of mail about last week’s column, accusing Melania Trump of plagiarizing some sentences in her speech to the Republican National Convention. Here are a few of those letters.
Tom Watson: “Professional speechwriters, according to their own comment, had been hired to write Melania's speech, and were somewhat taken aback when nothing they wrote [made it into the speech]. Instead Melania turned to this so-called ‘lowly speechwriter’ who wasn't really a speechwriter at all, just a dancer and artist who worked somewhere in The Donald's organization and otherwise had nothing to do with the Trump campaign. “You don't suppose they peered around and found someone of the most distant relationship possible to ‘take the fall’ and make the whole ugly business go away? “Reminds me of the former Conservative staffer, Michael Sona from Guelph, who alone took the responsibility for robocalls during the 2012 Canadian federal election, targeting people believed to be ‘nonsupporters of the Conservative party.’ (I received one of those calls myself.) It stretches the bounds of credibility to believe that Michael Sona thought this up all on his own, especially when the same robocalls occurred elsewhere. “Handy as a pocket in a shirt, it is, to find a scapegoat who will let the hands of the masters appear clean.” : John Shafer of Auburn, Wash.: “One often pays a price when one acts on ‘his or her truth’ as it clashes with the ‘truth’ of someone else. A favorite niece no longer contacts me because I support Planned Parenthood. She believes the lies disseminated about that organization. Recently someone spoke a ‘truth’ he had received from the rantings of Rush Limbaugh which I believed to be completely false. I corrected him (not as gently as I usually do) and it has destroyed any possibility of a relationship. “Live and learn. What do I learn?”
Cliff Boldt believes that “Humour and satire will sink the Donald without help from his wife.” To prove his point, he sent along an illustration of a billboard that proclaimed: “Ban shredded cheese. Make America grate again.”
Bob Stoddard thought that “Jim over-simplifies the problem. How would he transition specific words, phrases, and paragraphs to general ideas? To illustrate: We regard the thoughts obtained from reading and listening to friends as worthy ideas. Later we talk to others and incorporate those viewpoints into our conversation. When you multiply this illustration over a period of years, it becomes impossible to determine who is ‘the author’. “Conversely, there are corporations that have copyrighted specific words as being exclusively their brand. Several years ago a well-known Nebraska politician whose name was Exon had to settle with the oil company that used Exxon. “Is wishing a friend ‘Birthday’ plagiarism?”
Steve Hermes: “If plagiarism is a cardinal sin then I'm in trouble. I plagiarize in my sermons all the time. I don't let the flow of the sermon be interrupted by quoting sources unless it feels natural. I'll often also quote lines of scripture without naming chapter or verse. “What I do intentionally is to tell the congregation, several times a year, that I plagiarize from a lot of different sources so don't think it is about me or my brilliant turn of a phrase. The goal is the experience of truth, not who wrote it.”
Coral Cogs Smith, writing from Willunga in South Australia, suggested, “Plagiarism is an interesting topic, especially among preachers! And particularly when so many writings are graciously available on line -- whole sermons if you want them. “I try to keep track of sermons in my notes but don’t of course preach with footnotes unless it is a ‘quotable quote’. “What is interesting is people's reactions. The classic ‘thank you for your sermon’ statement after church, means that I often respond with something like, ‘It was broadly based on Rev. Bruce Prewer's website,’ or ‘the biblical studies of Rev. Bill Loader’ etc. And people seem disconcerted that I name my sources, rather than claim [the thoughts] as my own. “If they do give me a sideways look then I say, ‘They are better scholars than I. I am not much of a scholar but I seem to have good discernment about who to use and what is appropriate for the context I preach to!’ -- which hopefully invites them to think a little further.”
There you are. I’ll have a full column again by this coming Sunday.