This upsets me greatly.
Posted On 22 December 2008 at at 21:12 by gforcingI don't know how many of you read Texas Monthly, but my grandmother gets the magazine (we're here for Christmas). If she didn't, I might never have found out about this. My close friend Ty McDonald received a Bum Steer award - essentially a "point and laugh" kind of thing - for being fired from the DT last spring for plagiarism, after publishing an article entitle "Plagiarism Is Not a Sin."
What those idiots at the DT (the editor specifically) failed to realize and refused to listen to was the entire frigging point of the article. Yes, Ty did plagiarize the article, but that's because the article asks to be plagiarized. The passages he used were from a book called Days of War, Nights of Love, a book published by the anarchist group Crimethinc. Click here for more information about the book itself. Anyway, the point of the articles Ty wrote was that through "plagiarism," innovation and the spread of ideas can flourish - not to say that you should steal someone else's work and claim it as your own, but that in a world where published works were no longer "intellectual property," ideas should be improved upon without concessions to the original author. It was an editorial article, so you don't have to agree with him. But the real issue was the fact that he took passages from this book. An excerpt from the preface to the book (which can be found on the linked webpage):
This book is composed of ideas and images we've remorselessly stolen and adjusted to our purposes, and we hope you'll do exactly the same with its contents.
When Ty tried to explain his position to his editor, he was told to leave the office and not come back. He wrote a very polite and thorough letter after that, asking that it be published in the DT in response to their announcement of (and "apology" for) what he did. This was ignored, and every article he had ever written for the DT - going back three months - was removed from the website.
So, Ty wrote an article on plagiarism, trying to make a point about intellectual property, making a sarcastic stab at the whole idea by plagiarizing a book that asked to be plagiarized. He was fired, given no chance to explain what happened, and now this. I just....I don't know. I keep hearing that he should have expected it, or seen it coming - "after all, it is the DT - it's not like he didn't know what to expect." But that doesn't seem fair to me! I don't care if he should have expected that they wouldn't like what he had to say - if it was the content of the article that was the issue, they shouldn't have published it at all!
And now that he's been in the magazine (which, when I talked to him about, he had no idea) it could affect any number of things - his trying to get back into school, for example, or applying for a job. This is a very public thing, and he was never given the chance to tell his side of the story, which bothers me on a very deep and personal level.
glen...the article was less than 50 words. I seriously doubt that this is going to hinder any of Ty's chances at getting jobs any more than his other personal choices already have. It was meant to be FUNNY, an it is FUNNY, and people are going to laugh, and then forget about it. If they even pay any attention to it in the first place.
Also, i don't remember the actual events of that day Ty got fired happening quite that way. His editors didn't tell him to "leave and never come back", and he was allowed to explain his side, only they didn't care. I also don't remember ty ever writing a "polite" letter to the editors of the DT, either. the only one who wrote a letter was Phil, and it wasn't polite.
You are being way too dramatic about this.
Also, i don't appreciate you putting what I said in quotes, and not citing that I said the quote.:-)
Also, you aren't being fair to the editors of the DT. In all honesty, because plagiarism is such a big issue at texas tech, if Ty wanted to write a piece such as he did, he should have cleared it with the editors first. As an opinion columnist, he represents the DT, and they have guidelines that they have to follow as a university paper. if he published the piece independently, and then got in trouble for it, that would be a different story.
What I really don't understand is why you are more angry about this than Ty is, and why this makes you so mad.
god laura, chill out. I appreciate the concern Glen, thanks for so viciously defending me. I'd love to have you on my side in an impromptu knife fight, or a pokebattle.
not you though, laura.
-ty (on whitney's account)
Actually Laura. I know of 4 separate others who wrote a note to the editor, including me.
Plagiarism is a "big" issue everywhere, not just Texas Tech. As an opinion columnist he represents himself, NOT Texas Tech. It's an opinion, not empirical data. The editors did this to themselves by not reading over his article first. I mean...they're editors, right?
I'm Ty's cousin. In fact, I sent him the book. He was mad; he was livid, but he doesn't openly express his emotions like some personalities. There was quite a bit of discourse over what happened. You're ignorance of it is apparent in this. We came to the conclusion though, that, with consideration to the current zeitgeist, arguing something which goes against the grain as heavily as this does is a moot point when arguing with compulsive bigots.
p.s. Explain how the article was ever meant to be funny? I don't recall a single pun, entendre, or outright joke in it's entirety.