LAURENCE STERNE

We can say nothing but what hath been said . . . Our poets steal from Homer . . . . Our story dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best.
                                                          Robert Burton

The Plagiarism of orators is the art, or an ingenious and easy mode, which some adroitly employ to change, or disguise, all sorts of speeches or their own composition, or that of other authors, for their pleasure, or their utility; in such a manner that it becomes impossible even for the author himself to recognize his own work, his own genius, and his own style, so skillfully shall the whole be disguised. -

                                                            Isaac D'Israeli,

 I am watching a C-SPAN panel showcasing writers. As long as Chris Hitchens is on the panel I am forced to watch and postpone the shower.

But the real reason I had to focus had to do with the emcee. Patton Oswalt is doing the honors for chrissakes.

Patton claims to have a brother-in-law who tutors prodigies. Did you know that they actually teach kids how to read in other languages while they are still in diapers? I mean I was astounded when I discovered that Quincy Adams was reading Thucydides in Greek at age 8. Damn, I mean I cannot get through twenty pages of the Greek Historian in English without nodding off.

Anyway, one of the cherubs had an accident so the tutor said something like:

Is it time to change little Billy's diapers?  To which the baby replied:

It's diaper, singular you idiot.

Hahahah

Oh and don't forget Robin Williams on this subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRie_cRxFfY

You know pretend writers like me have something in common with real writers like Hitchens.

I mean I get to create my own song. I never understood plagiarism because it just seems so ridiculous to steal somebody else's song. I mean I love to 'sing along' and I certainly like to present someone else's song to others.  But I lose the 'I' when I abscond with someone else's song.

There are 6.5 billion people on the planet right now.  There are certainly millions who have enough in common with me as to mirror my reactions to the outside world.  This concept of 'uniqueness' gets a little over-played.

But except for participants in the Super Bowl or in the Miss Universe Pageant, billions are not 'tuned in' to what people have to say or sing.  And nobody really communicates with a million people let alone 6.5 billion people.

So, we get to find our uniqueness among others in a small community, however that community is defined.

Scores of people have written something entitled My Song and here are a few:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrd9pM2oxBI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8XmLuTmKIM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4fcajZJn8s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGpwMDSVTqs

 

Ironically, the band named Rush is a little pissed at Rand Paul:

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Robert Farmer, an attorney for Rush, fired off a letter to Paul's campaign, accusing them of copyright infringement and warning them to stop using the music.

"This is not a political issue -- this is a copyright issue," Farmer told the Louisville Courier-Journal. "We would do this no matter who it is."

Paul, a Tea Party favorite who secured the Republican nomination in the May 18 primary, has used the Canadian rock band's songs, including "The Spirit of Radio" and "Tom Sawyer," in campaign videos and rallies, according to the newspaper. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/04/canadian-rock-band-orders-rand-paul-stop-using-music/

I mean this is hilarious. A band called Rush hating Paul? Hahaha

David Byrne is having similar problems with Charlie Christ:

"I was pretty upset by that," says Byrne, who had Warner Bros. Records contact the Crist campaign, which subsequently stopped using the ad. But, Byrne contends, "in my opinion the damage had already been done by it being out there. People that I knew had seen (the ad), so it had gotten around. The suit, he adds, "is not about politics ... It's about copyright and about the fact that it does imply that I would have licensed it and endorsed him and whatever he stands for.": http://wonkette.com/

And two years ago Jackson Brown went bat shit when he caught McCain's campaign grabbing his songs:

Byrne's lawyer is the same attorney who successfully sued the McCain campaign for its 2008 use of the Jackson Browne song.

Now these are all copyright matters whether or not politics is in the picture. I sure know that Byrne is not in love with Florida repubs and Jackson Brown would never vote for McCain.  But it brings up a point.

You can come up with a song in the form of music or as an article or as a book but you sometimes have little control over who listens to that song.

And you may find that your message is being misused if not misconstrued and that you have no control over that problem at all.

Now animals like Rush Limbaugh and Savage and Hannity and scores of others have learned to use hate language.

Years ago people like me were called commies and hippies and ...whatever.  Since the 'wall' was taken down, the sobriquet 'commie' has lost its luster although it seems to be making a come back.

But the true beasts of the airwaves call others fascists and nazies and racists now.  They just took their own hate mail and turned it upon their detractors.  I have done scores of posts and read thousands of articles proving that Rush Limbaugh is a fascist, that he is a nazi, that he is a racist....that he should be thrown into just about every despicable category you can think of. But I never called him a commie because he is not a communist. I never called him a socialist, because he is not a socialist.  I would never call him a carrying person either or a magnanimous person or a learned person either.

The plan by these media bastards is to dilute the concepts; make the sobriquets mean nothing.

Take Beck for instance. Glenn likes to sell books. Probably gets a cut and he is known to drive the sales of certain books into the stratosphere.  Lately he is touting an older history by someone named Dilling and loves to talk about all this Dilling  and how she fought the good fight against communism. Except that if you go back seventy or eighty years, some communist fighters were not really nice people:

When World War II began in 1939, Dilling was part of the national network of anti-Semitics, anti-Communists, and Nazi sympathizers such as Father Charles Coughlin, Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith, Reverend Gerald Winrod, and William Dudley Pelley. Material generated by Nazi organizations in Germany to inspire race hated and exploit dissatisfaction in the United States found its way into Dilling's publications. She spoke at rallies hosted by the leading U.S. Nazi organization, the German-American Bund, and had traveled to Germany, pronouncing the country as flourishing under Hitler.

Dilling called for appeasing Germany; she blamed the war on Jews and Communists and accused the Roosevelt administration of being controlled by Jewish Communists. ... After Pearl Harbor, Dilling resisted wartime rationing and denounced the Allies.   http://mediamatters.org/blog/201006040053

Unlike Lindberg, Dilling never apologized for these actions.

This is as it should be of course. Beck is a racist fascist prick anyway so it should come to nobody's surprise that he is selling Nazi propaganda.

But lately beckerhead has really begun to piss me off.

Martin Luther King did -- was Martin Luther King -- was he anti-government? Well, he sure took the government and turned it upside down, now didn't he? He totally transformed the parties in this system -- in this government. If you remember right, it was Robert Byrd that was filibustering against the civil rights movement. Yeah, nobody really remembers that. If the government is going against the rights of the people, if the government in this country is violating the Constitution or reinterpreting the Constitution, it is not our right, it is our responsibility to speak out against it.

Beck compared himself to Rosa Parks, Gandhi. During the April 5 edition of his radio program, Beck said:

BECK: Let me tell you something. You are the key. Not me or people like me. But you and people like you. Millions of people like you. They're not afraid of me, they're afraid of you. Just like Gandhi. Just like Rosa Parks. It wasn't Rosa Parks, it was the millions of people that were inspired by Rosa Parks' non-movement. Rosa Parks wasn't a danger. The people who watched her and said, "Yeah, I'm with her. I'm not moving either." It's the people who sat at a counter -- a soda fountain counter. You think people were afraid of them? No. They were afraid of the people that those people inspired. Martin Luther King was just one man.

You see, what they're doing is they're saying, "Get up from the counter. You don't have a seat at this counter." Yes, you do. They're telling you, "Get to the back of the bus. You sit up here. You sit back there." No, I don't.

Beck's rally to take place on anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. On November 23, 2009, Beck announced on his website that he had planned a rally at "the feet of Abraham Lincoln" for August 28, 2010.http://mediamatters.org

Glenn Beck has just been going on and on and on misappropriating the calls for peace, the calls for equality, the calls for charity, the calls for love. THE SON OF A BITCH COMPARES HIMSELF TO ROSA PARKS, GANDHI AND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Someone has written a biography of Lonesome Rhodes Beckerhead:

Author Alexander Zaitchik has penned, "Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Nonsense" (Wiley, 2010). It was released May 24.  Check out the interview with the author at

http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201006030012

Some of the greatest songs ever written; songs of truth and justice and equity have been misappropriated by miscreants. 

Imagine. This clown, this miscreant, this ignoramus, this fascist, this unschooled and unlearned racist prick is misappropriating the message of one of the greatest orators and thinkers of the 20th century to attack the poor and the disabused and the minorities.

And I do not think that anyone, anywhere, ever is going to change this man's swaddling clothes.

Beckerhead's stench will remain for a long long time.

PS: On a more relevant note, even though most of my friends here get their own Moveon.com emails:

Subject: The disaster in the Gulf

Hi,

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico should be a wake-up call for Washington: it's time for a plan to end America's addiction to oil.

I just signed a petition to Congress and the White House telling them it's time for a bold plan to get America off of oil - can you join me? Just click the link below:

http://pol.moveon.org/nomoreoil

Thanks!