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No, plagiarism doesn't just "happen"

Back when the shitstorm surrounding Kristi Diehm, plagiarist, aka The Story Siren¹, broke out, I posted about apologies, and how I think it’s useless to expect–or indeed to receive–an apology from a plagiarist. Like many other offenders, said apologies tend to be of the “fuck, I’m sorry I got caught” variety. Or, much worse, they include so many excuses, explanations, rationalizations and justifications that in the end, to many an uncritical follower/fan, they read like a justification to hate on the victims of the plagiarist.

Well, that queen of chutzpah, Kristi Diehm, is at it again. The short hand for those who don’t go to the SmartBitches: apparently this plagiarist, who has still to apologize properly (as in, without excuses) to her victims, and who has failed to address her fans outright hounding of said victims, has decided to organize a week long event on plagiarism, designed to ‘educate herself’ (yeah, because that very pointed post she wrote on the topic, after allegedly being plagiarized herself, shows that she reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelly didn’t know what the fuck she was doing when she stole Beautifully Invisible and Grit and Glamour. Right.) (more…)

"I love my half brother, and he loves me. We are practically boyfriend and girlfriend"

I know that it’s best to live and let live, but blood incest is just something I find hard to understand. I wrote this blog post about step-siblings falling in love a while ago, and every now and again, I get somebody posting, defending incestuous relationships.

This is the latest comment from somebody called Mel:

I don`t really see what`s so bad about loving your half brother or sister. Like, father and daughter or mother and son is crossing the line. But, brother and sister (fully related or not.) is not wrong in my eyes. Like Hannah said, love is love. Everyone has the right to love whoever they like and the people who are disgusted by it all i have to say to you is you can`t change the way people feel and if you have such closed minds you are the reason why some people are bitter; it`s because you don`t understand love. love makes the world go round. I say, if you love your sister, brother, teacher or anyone older of younger than you, go for it. it`s your choice who you want to love and you never know they may have mutual feelings.

I love my half brother, and he loves me. We are practically boyfriend and girlfriend. I was the one who gradually made the moves on him and now were still together and through all the hardships we face, we still love each other.
So love who you want to love. :)”

Seriously, I don’t get it.

Oh my good lord, how did I miss this?

I love videos of flash mobs dancing something everyone (or most everyone) has heard and at least tapped his/her toes to. But this? Absolutely amazing.

 

To celebrate what would have been Michael Jackson’s 51st birthday, some 50,000 people (give or take a few hundred or so) gathered near Mexico’s City historical center on August 29th, 2009 for a flash dance to the choreography of the original Thriller video.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bonus points: the actual dancing crowd broke the Guinness Record–by a mere 13,300 or so.