Happy Hypocrite Holiday!

[ham]

CBS News tonight quoted an aide to Mr. Biden as saying he had been exonerated. However, an academic official said Mr. Biden had been found guilty, ''threw himself on the mercy of the board'' and promised not to repeat the offense. This, according to the official, persuaded the board to drop the matter and allow Mr. Biden to remain in law school. Mr. Biden's office declined to clarify the circumstances surrounding the case, saying the Senator had insisted on handling the matter himself at the news conference.

Heroes are often pieced together.

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/room.asp

Self-proclaimed Christian guy dies. Upon his death, a poem is discovered, which details his inner conundrum and deep moral stature.
The poem is published and the guy becomes almost a saint...until it is discovered he lifted "his" poem from a book in print...Christian...high morals...blahblah...

Brian Moore did read this essay aloud at a meeting of Christian athletes, and he did claim to his parents that he'd written it as an assignment for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes approximately two months before his death. The 17-year-old Teay's Valley High School student (not "Teary Valley," as claimed in the e-mail) did die on 27 May 1997 in the manner described. All that is true.

However, it's the little known story behind the story that proves most worthy of comment. You see, it turns out the deceased was a plagiarist. The piece he'd claimed authorship was actually the work of Joshua Harris, and it appeared in a book Harris published before Moore died. It had debuted two years earlier, in the Spring 1995 issue of New Attitude magazine, which was then edited by Harris.

Moore's parents had no reason to suspect the work in question was not their son's, and it was read at the boy's funeral. They and other relatives and friends subsequently broadcast the essay as his work, sincerely believing that it was. Only after the piece was published in The Columbus Dispatch on the anniversary of Moore's death did the truth about its authorship become known, when readers responded with corrections that pointed the newspaper to Harris and his book.

It's ironic that an essay describing the author's sense of shame over his personal accumulation of sins would be used by another to add a few file cards to his own stash. The dead boy not only stole someone else's work but also presented it as his own before a Christian fellowship he was part of and lied to his parents about it. That's three of the ten commandments right there (stealing, not honoring parents, and bearing false witness).

Another: the saying if you don't want to help people, at least don't hurt them, is typically credited by many to the Dalai Lama. Seneca too had written that almost 2000 years ago.

The saying power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is credited by most to some XVIII century Englishman...it turns out Parmenides had said so 2000 years earlier...