Jul

2016

Letters about plagiarism

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.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: plagiarism

27

Jul

2016

The freeze-frame entry to eternity

Author: Jim Taylor

Do you remember Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid charging out into a hail of bullets? It was, I’m told, the most memorable use of a “freeze frame” to end a movie. The camera caught the two outlaws, racing forward into certain death -- vibrantly alive, but already gone.

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: eternity

24

Jul

2016

Plagiarism is theft, no matter who does it

Author: Jim Taylor

Ah, yes, I remember writing university essays. The process assumed that a mere student could never have an original thought. Anything that deserved thinking had been thought before. Therefore every assertion had to be referenced. I spent hours in the library, frantically thumbing through texts that I was sure I had read but now seemed utterly unfamiliar, looking for a page on which I was sure I had seen a particular sentence that I didn’t realize would be important at the time I read it, so that I could properly footnote it. Of course, in those days we assembled our data on 3x5 file cards. We didn’t have Google. Or Wikipedia. Or TurnItIn.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: plagiarism

20

Jul

2016

A handful of theologies

Author: Jim Taylor

In another column, I challenged academic theologians to explain the differences between theism, pantheism, and panentheism in terms that a teenager could understand.
No one took the challenge. But a reader asked, “Why don’t you do it?”
Okay, I’ll try.

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: theologies

17

Jul

2016

Livestreamed video vs viral venom: pros and cons

Author: Jim Taylor

The Internet is a blessing. The Internet is a curse. When Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez shot and killed black driver Philando Castile during a routine traffic stop, Diamond Reynolds was sitting in the passenger’s seat. She had her smart phone out. She livestreamed the incident to the Internet. Unlike conventional broadcasting, which includes a short delay so that unacceptable words or images can be bleeped out, livestreaming goes to the world instantly. Even if the Minnesota police seized Reynolds’ camera, her livestreamed video can’t be censored or recalled. I see that as a blessing. Cops may see it as a curse.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: livestreamed video, viral venom

Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

Letters about plagiarism

The freeze-frame entry to eternity

Plagiarism is theft, no matter who does it

A handful of theologies

Livestreamed video vs viral venom: pros and cons

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