A few weeks ago I advised Tom Fakehany to stick to writing poetry because he completely confused the facts about Malibu’s campaign laws. That advice will have to be retracted since some of Tom’s finest letters weren’t written by Tom at all. Prompted by the odd familiarity of one of his recent poems (11/29/01) extolling the virtues of curmudgeons, I searched the Internet using the standard software used by college professors to spot plagiarism in term papers. The results reveal the secret to Tom’s prodigious writings.
It turns out that Tom’s letter appears to be a replica (without giving credit) of a poem found in Commonsenseliving.org where he simply replaced the word ‘geezer’ with the word ‘curmudgeon’. In just a small sample of his borrowing Tom writes :
“A Malibu curmudgeon is easy to spot. During the playing of the National Anthem, curmudgeons will hold their hands over their hearts and sing without embarrassment. They know the words and believe in them. They remember World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Normandy and Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War, the Cold War, the jet age and the moon landing, not to mention Vietnam. The City of Malibu… needs Curmudgeons with their decent values and common sense.”
And Commonsense.org writes :
“A geezer is easy to spot. During the playing of the National Anthem, geezers will hold their hands over their hearts and sing without embarrassment. They know the words and believe in them. They remember World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Normandy and Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War, the Cold War, the jet age and the moon landing, not to mention Vietnam. This country needs geezers with their decent values and common sense.”
So can we believe that Mr. Fakehany’s thoughts are original? Probably not. Can he mend his wicked ways? Sure, there is hope for all of us. So, speaking of decent values and common sense, your next assignment Tom, is to write a letter (all by yourself) about ethics. Maybe you’ll learn something!
Anne Hoffman