Be careful what you wish for! Poor Melania Trump has been caught in that nightmarish scenario that many high schoolers dream about -- she plagiarized her speech and has been found out! And the speech she stole was from one of her biggest enemies, I guess. If you judge by the way Donald Trump talks about Obama. Funny how Michelle Obama and Melania agree on so many "values"!
Whatever was she thinking . . . or maybe she wasn't. I know that when I catch kids plagiarizing things, they are always quite surprised that I figured it out. How would I ever know? Well, people who don't do a lot of public speaking, or reading, for that matter, often seem surprised that you would remember what someone else said or wrote. When I'm marking essays, if someone writes the same sentence, I do actually remember it. I look back through the papers and invariably, there it is!
If it doesn't sound like the person who's writing it (let's face it, your writing has a voice -- if you struggle with grammar and suddenly, there's a great sentence, I know something's up -- if you write like I do, and suddenly, you're writing like Kanye West, then I know), you say, "hey, this doesn't sound like this person!" And it's so easy these days to google it and see -- "Oh, this is a quote from Martin Luther King" . . .
If they had taken responsibility, then you might be able to forgive them. If she'd said, "oh, I was quoting Michelle Obama -- I loved her speech. I didn't know I had to say it was her speech", you'd shake your head, but it wouldn't be out of character with the rest of the campaign, let's face it. But she said she'd written the speech HERSELF, with "a little help" (of course, she didn't say it was Michelle Obama who'd helped her). She said, in the speech, that HER WORD WAS HER BOND. She said that. I guess most of Trump's supporters will think that it is, as Trump handler, Paul Manafort says, just regular every day words, just a coincidence that they came out in EXACTLY the same order as Michelle Obama's and that Hillary Clinton (who has said nothing on the issue) is making a big deal about it because she is threatened by Melania's beauty and charm, but I think most of us know what's going on. Just another sign that you can't trust these people and that, really, they can't trust themselves!
On a brighter note, I went to the Folk Festival on Sunday and it was FAAAANTASTIC! It was like I imagine Woodstock, but better organized (and less mud). There were six stages with different kinds of music going all day and then the MainStage at the end featured the legendary Bruce Cockburn ("If I Had a Rocket Launcher", "Lovers in Dangerous Times", etc.,!!) and a great visual and noisy band called "Lord Huron" who were superlatively dramatic. At the end, there is a lantern procession to lead everyone back to their normal lives and it is magic -- all these lovely lanterns in different shapes wending their way through the crowd. I have never been before, but I will go again for sure!
Hey, everyone -- I'm sitting here in my back yard and a dark cloud has wafted over me and I am feeling raindrops! When is summer going to start? Have we had one day in July without at least a bit of rain? I mean, I know we live in the rainforest, but this is ridunculous! (What's with autocorrect? I MEANT "ridunculous" of course.)
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