plagiarism and copyrights...

So I got my first plagiarized paper today and I was so pissed and cheated that I had to stop grading papers. But then I started thinking about the nature of plagiarism and the ideas of intellectual property at large.
Is it weird to have mixed emotions about the cornerstone of Western education? We preach to these students that copying without giving credit is wrong wrong wrong, but is it really that bad? It all comes back, I think, to the story of bootstraps and buckling down. Doing work, getting credit, getting paid, all that stuff. However, it's all tied to the idea of getting what you deserve. The capitalist-anti-socialist idea of what's mine is mine, goddamn it.
What's an alternative? Do we just throw the book out the window and wish for a time when everyone shares, everyone gets money, there are no poor artists, and we all hug instead of fight? Or do we say that college is a time for your own thoughts, your own expressions, your own, individual ideas? Maybe that's the answer, but by now I've forgotten the question...

-Brian

poop on the shoes

Today I am confronted with the decision to either wear shoes with a poop smell or go shoeless and make the people around me work with a dirty foot smell. Which is worse?
Additionally, I think that this is a metaphor for the way my day is going.
Which should raise my eyebrows as I ponder the nature of metaphor and how we as humans can read into anything some semblance of metaphor. But instead, I am struck with the smell of poo and as such, cannot concentrate.


-Brian