Ask not whose speech you can steal.

A.F. Branco, May 18, 2016 - NeverTrump, SCOTUS, 

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, 2016, political cartoon 

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National media recently used the words “bombshell,” “firestorm,” and "plagiarism" to describe Melania Trump's use of portions of Michelle Obama’s convention speech eight years ago.

I think "plagiarism" is a little harsh, since Barack Obama did it himself (later defended as "poor footnoting" - "Michelle Obama Copied Alinsky in Speech Melania Trump Allegedly Plagiarized" >) 

The "plagiarism" I'm especially fond of recalling is JFK's use of Cicero's "ask not what you can do for your country," a line that defines his presidency to this day, but was written by the Roman orator over 2,000 years ago (and apparently borrowed from Juvenal).

Uncredited borrowing wasn't always considered plagiarism, but it is today, and it doesn't matter how old the words are.

So, call Melania Trump a plagiarist if you will, but be fair and apply the same standard to everyone. If there’s a scale of such things, Melania was on the sloppy and naive end, and Obama was on the deliberate and surreptitious end.

If you've spent much time here, you  know my opinion of Trump, but FWIW, despite the energy spent by networks, comedians, and pundits to exaggerate Trump’s flaws and deemphasize or ignore Hillary’s, I predict he will be our next president.

Being that I don’t care for either, I’ve been listening to coverage carefully, and I think it’s fair to say the coverage is lopsided, which goes from sadly humorous to sadly tragic when the same myopia intersects with terrorism and racial tension.

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I lived through the assassinations of the 60s, race riots and Vietnam. Nothing we are seeing today approaches the fear and chaos of those times. But it easily can. There's no rule that says the United States can't descend into disorder so severe that the only way we can hold it together is enforce a police state - suspended elections, marshal law, firearm confiscations, food rationing, etc.

Unfortunately, regardless of our opinion of right and wrong, the most brutal states have survived the longest, growing and prospering until they could no longer suppress internal dissent or protect against external threats (the why's are many, but the outcome is the same).

As a McDowell High School substitute teacher of mine (Mr. Painter) long ago said, if you took all the wars out of your history book, it'd be no thicker than a magazine.

We aren't much more than a large, layered feudal state in which we pledge allegiance in exchange for enough social order to grow crops, make horse shoes, or write advertising copy.

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My book is at 84,142 words. I'm actually skipping around and right now working on the last two chapters, which are postlogs. The final conflict is a hodge-podge of contextless sentences and notes to self regarding who needs to be there, loose ends that need to be snipped, etc. It's slow going.

I'm also picking at my next book, completely different genre. It's a short(er), quick read, but finer detail. 

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