Don's column from last week (DP: my oversight for forgetting)

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   3/19/2013

Opinion page curiosities and hypocrisies

Please come see newly-elected supervisor Burt Bundy at tonight’s Tea Party Patriots meeting, 6 PM, Westside Grange.

A few “curious” items have transpired on this page: First, I found unimpressive Mr. Mazzucchi’s explanation for copying over 300 words of a scientist’s writing (Charles Keeling), from a web site, planetforlife.com (real source: UN’s IPPC), without attribution. While hardly a firing offense (we aren’t employed nor compensated), it shouldn’t be explained away without acknowledging the seriousness of the literary crime of plagiarism.

All manner of punishments have been levied against writers who plagiarize, or “present another’s writings as one’s own” (Webster’s New Pocket Dictionary). Reporters have been fired, degrees withheld, research papers withdrawn and classes failed, with personal embarrassment, shame, even loss of income. Plagiarizing writers often allow for an error, oversight or lapse, when source materials somehow inadvertently show up in the writer’s own text.

Simply admitting the obvious bears no personal virtue, particularly when the explanation avoids the severity of what a writer has done. In Mazzucchi’s case, it is clear, as admitted, that sections of the paper posted at the web site were copied into the article. Included among the 320 words copied in several paragraphs, were bits of his own writing, without any separating punctuation.

To avoid such things: 1) I routinely quote an authority by starting with quote marks, followed by word-for-word typing, the writer and the source (column length is an unacceptable excuse for failing to cite source). 2) If I simply wish to lift and paste a paragraph, I highlight the chosen section and copy into my MS Word document. All quote marks are then properly placed, together with the writer, source, web site or publication. I may paraphrase with attribution from that writer, if space prohibits the length of original quotes. This process would have disallowed for Mr. Mazzucchi to have casually written as he did.

A larger issue, touching on all writers, is the undeniable fact that we columnists each have limited fields of our own true expertise. If we were to restrict our writing to those fields, readers would quickly wander off. For instance: the intricacies of roofing tear-offs, door to door sales, restaurant management, real estate transactions and skiing (using my life, for example); a lifetimes worth of classroom experiences (Mr. Harrop); or the many joys of dad’s meat plant, real estate stories, and property management (Mr. Minch).

Otherwise, writers may take an interest in anything from local goings-on, places traveled, contentious issues of local, state or national interest, but true expertise escapes us. Others may possess more knowledgeable perspectives on all of those subjects.

In the case of human cause global warming/climate change, I provided readers with weeks worth of columns last summer that more-than-adequately supplied thoughtful material disputing and disagreeing with much of the accepted conventional wisdom of those alarmed over the issue. The first disingenuous objection the alarmists have is that there’s no legitimate debate or serious scientific difference of opinion; I demonstrated the falsity of that contention.

I could devote every column to the “realist” or skeptical side of the issue, especially since our fair town has been roped into an illusory task: “inventory” our “greenhouse gas” production. Obviously, we will pay more for everything associated therewith. I may yet devote columns to the issue, even as scientists and authorities worldwide are acknowledging the futility of schemes and strategies to reduce our carbon dioxide output, or even the necessity or desirability thereof. I could do so with indisputable evidence from unimpeachable sources, all the while legitimately claiming, as does Mr. Mazzucchi, “I have studied this topic extensively.”

I found Mr. Harrop’s castigation of my writing as more “diatribe” than “debate” to be remarkable, hypocritical and mildly offensive. Offensive in the subtle message that my thoughts are beneath taking seriously, are worthy of disregard or not legitimate. Unless, of course, I were to take his advice and write in ways he approves of. Not likely to happen, but the message reveals how intellectuals attempt to frame discussions in ways that are self-serving in the least, or undermining of another’s freedom to speak at the worst.

The first thing we hear from liberals who are so described is objection to the label (check); then they dispute the idea that labels mean anything (check); then they insist that their positions or beliefs are not “left-of-center” (check). Such are the knee jerk retorts of liberal journalists, for example. 

Those bemoaning uncivil discourse/diatribe should look in the mirror, as when Harrop accused me of making things up (over factual errors I corrected re: America’s Christian foundations), or wrote untrue things about Sarah Palin in 2008. Incivility/diatribe even emanated from Mr. Minch, calling me heartless and un-Christian (never retracted or apologized for) over my views on the homeless; he recently referenced one of the most notorious fabrications of the 2008 campaign, that Sarah Palin didn’t really know where you could see Russia from Alaska. Mr. Mazzucchi never apologized for advancing the “Tea Party is racist” line in 2009. Liberals would object to all these diatribes if the political shoe were on the other foot; sorry, but I’ll skip the civility/diatribe lecture.