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I read in today’s paper that Pultizer Prize-winning author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, will be the keynote speaker at some local conference. Here we have a plagiarist who has been caught red-handed being treated with kid gloves… almost being honored, so to speak, and probably collecting a nice honorarium for her trouble.

As a writer, nothing bothers me more than plagiarism. Writing is hard work and I strive to write without plagiarizing. Then I see successful writers like Goodwin not only getting away with plagiarizing, but being treated with respect as if nothing ever happened.

It reminds me of the story of a local car wash that I occasionally patronized. Turns out that the owner of the car wash was pushing drugs to schoolchildren from his place of business. He got off on a technicality, but I swore that I would never patronize his business again and I never have. Yet, I see cars lined up at his business everyday and it drives me crazy… why would anybody do business with someone who is trying to push drugs on their children? (Recently, this bum got caught again. I hope that the law did a better job this time and is able to put this guy away for a long time.)

Another plagiarist, Mike Barnacle, lost his job with the Boston Globe because of his crime, but he managed to find work elsewhere. He has a regular stint on the Don Imus radio program where he is treated like a king by Imus’ gang of yahoos, who usually treat more honorable people with less respect.

Then there is the case of the bum who wrote the Da Vinci book. An English judge found that the bum did not steal the ideas for his book from another writer, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I guess money talks and that bum walks.

Is there no justice? I must be naive because I just don’t get it.

Nonetheless, I will continue do my part: I will not plagiarize and I will not support those who do (or those who support the plagiarists).