Raf

I wanted to guess, but I came down with a severe case of acronymitis.

I would have thought the Truffle Shuffle was the giveaway. "The octopus was really scary." **** "Okay, this is the little boys' room, and that cave over there is the little girls' room. Brand, where're you going?" "This is the men's room." **** "Now, Rosalita, this is the attic. Mr. Walsh doesn't like anybody up here, ever. I guess that's why it's always open." (not a quote: the next person speaks in Spanish, supposedly translating what was just said above for Rosalita:"Never go up there. It's filled with Mr. Walsh's sexual torture devices." "This is my supply closet. You'll find everything you need - brooms, dust pans, insect spray... I would really like the house clean when they tear it down. Clark, can you translate?" [translation to Rosalita]"If you do a bad job you'll be locked in here with the cockroaches for two weeks without food or water." "You are so fluent in Spanish. That was so nice of you." "'Nice' is my middle name, Mrs. Walsh." **** "Pants and shirts go in the... oh, forget about it. Just throw everything into cardboard boxes. Clark, can you really translate all that?" "For sure, Mrs. Walsh. [in Spanish] The marijuana goes in the top drawer. The cocaine and speed go in the second drawer. And the heroin goes in the bottom drawer. Always separate the drugs."

HCW, Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I wanted to comment right now, if I could, on this matter (after I described the collaborative process that brought about JCOP and JCOPS, you said): I don't disagree. I was not complaining that this was how the books came about. Nor was I accusing VPW or anyone else of doing anything wrong here. I was simply trying to state and show that this was how the books came about. I was trying to show that this was not someone's opinion, but clear and documentable fact. I believe it would have been better for VPW to credit himself as editor or publisher of the books (and we can get into a discussion of what qualifies someone to the title "editor," but I believe it is entirely appropriate here) than as author. But I haven't lost a second of sleep over that issue. Others may feel differently. Anyway, you wrote "you may not like it...," and I wanted to clarify that I neither like nor dislike it. It's simply a fact, like the fact that the color of the blue book is, in fact, blue.

I don't think there was anything passive about Wierwille's quest for glory, as though it were something that sprung up around him and he was powerless to stop it. It was something he fostered, propping himself up as "The Teacher," etc.

Yes, sir. And that would be: Conan the Barbarian Ahnuld. The Terminator

Close enough. I'm sure they worked off The Word's Way, When Judas Hanged Himself and other written articles.

Before you got on this thread, I said there were only three logical positions to take: VPW plagiarized and it matters. VPW plagiarized and it doesn't matter. The tooth fairy told me VPW didn't plagiarize. You appear to fall into that second group. While I disagree, I don't lose sleep over it. I don't have patience for people in the third group, whom I consider to be willfully ignorant on this topic. I didn't mean to be so coarse in saying I wasn't going to look for RG's posts. It's just that I read them ages upon ages ago, and it would take me a long time to find the particular posts in question: time I don't have. As for whether we're finished, that depends on you: do you now agree that at least two of Wierwille's books were a big collaborative process and that he was not as active in the writing as he was on, say, The Bible Tells Me So? That was the kickoff point of this discussion, no?

This was the person WordWolf talked about originally when you guys drummed up this discussion. I do not have his posts handy (nor am I about to go digging for them).

As for HCW as expert, my point was that you were not explaining what you were considering him an expert IN. You wanted testimony from someone on the research staff... to tell you what? I thought you wanted such a person to tell you whether some of Wierwille's books were a collaborative effort, a subject HCW did not address. He spent his time talking about copyright law (and, best as I can tell, getting some important info wrong in the process). I think Wierwille's account of how JCOP and JCOPS came to be carry at least as much weight as HCW's. I also think it's convenient of you to dismiss what Research Geek has said (he was on the research staff) while giving weight to HCW (and I'll need him to clarify whether he was on the editing staff or the research staff). A research staffer's comment would, by "legal court" standards, carry greater weight than someone not involved in the research process, no? Uh huh. So, generally speaking, as long as it's legal, it's moral? Like, oh I don't know, adultery in most states? Uh huh. Cursing at your parents? Yup. Plagiarism of works for which the copyright has expired? Sure. Dude, what are we TALKING ABOUT HERE? Forget the hypotheticals and get to the point of here: you know Wierwille plagiarized. You know it was wrong for him to do so. Bully for him that he didn't face legal consequences! But I don't need a jury to find him guilty to recognize that we he did was fundamentally dishonest.

Okay, so if I publish "The Iliad, by Raf" and sell it to you at Barnes and Noble and pretend that I wrote it, I've done nothing wrong? Come on, you know dang well that morality and legality are not the same thing.

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to, or even whether you're agreeing with HCW or not, but let's look at a couple of things (I wasn't going to get any further into HCW's postre, but since you did, and you appear to be giving it greater weight because he was there, I feel compelled). HCW's expertise appears to be in the area of his presence at HQ and in the publications area. Fair enough. This does not make him an expert in copyright law. This does not make him an expert in plagiarism. This does not make him an expert in non-profit exemptions to copyright laws. This does not make him an expert in anything other than in the things he saw and heard. I don't believe he is claiming otherwise. So let's look at some things that were said: Generally, I'll accept that firsthand testimony as self-evident, but at the very least in the cases of JCOPS and JCOP, they went to a higher standard.Next, HCW gets into copyright infringement, which I've already explained is not synonymous with plagiarism. He also makes the statement (and I can't tell if he's quoting someone or not) that "The LEGAL issue is not the copying of the copyrighted work but the damage the copier inflicts on the original author by PROFITING from the USE of the copy." Again, that is true. That is the LEGAL issue. It is not the moral issue. The moral issue is plagiarism, which, again, is not necessarily a copyright infringement. HCW then writes: "There is a 'Fair Use' provision under copyright law that allows that any copyrighted work can be used for educational purposes." Again, true, as far as it goes. However, fair use does not liberate you to lift someone else's words and pass them off as your own, which is what plagiarism is. Then HCW goes into the discussion of the concept of lifting "ideas," and follows up with this: "In short. ALL of the stuff you guys point out that VPW lifted were ideas contained in books." I don't know what HCW could have been thinking, but this is flat out untrue. SOME of the stuff people have pointed out falls into that category, but I almost NEVER talk about that. When I'm talking plagiarism, I'm talking of specific instances of taking the words someone else wrote and inserting them into your "work" and making like you wrote it all along. Thus we have VPW referring to people as "faith blasters who go about making statements that have no foundation in scripture," and lo and behold, Stiles ran into the exact same type of people and called them the exact same thing. That is NOT talking about "ideas." And it is not talking about "fair use" (which would entitle Wierwille, or anyone else, to quote that segment of Stiles' book, with attribution, without having to pay Stiles). Interesting, then, that either no one caught or corrected the flagrant plagiarism in Order My Steps in Thy Word. I would suggest that what HCW was told was stringent was not as stringent as he thought. Then again, Kenyon's family has been known not to care all that much that his work was plagiarized, even given flagrant examples. So the legal scrutiny may have persuaded TWI that they were legally safe. Fine and dandy. There was still flagrant plagiarism in that book. Not extensive, but painfully obvious. This, of course, proves absolutely nothing. Why would anyone be talking about plagiarism? No one suspected it. And those who did, didn't care all that much about it. But I notice HCW stops in the mid 80s, shortly before the 1987 publication of Will the Real Author Please Stand Up?, a book that undisputably documented numerous incidences of Wierwille plagiarism (along with some incidences that, imho, make little sense). Legally speaking, this is absurd. First, just because an organization has "non-profit status" does not mean it does not make a profit. Heck, if you make more money than you spend, you've turned a profit (aka, a surplus). The legal conclusion that "it was impossible for any damage from copyright violation" is patently absurd (sorry HCW). Non-profit status means that profit is not the reason for your organization's existence. It does not mean the organization does not turn a profit. Most businesses are in business to make money. Non-profits are in business for entirely different reasons. But they still strive to take in more money than they spend, thus ending the year with a surplus. If, through copyright violation, you are able to earn or enhance a surplus, or lessen a deficit, you've profited from that action. I'm not saying TWI profited from copyright violation. I am saying that its status as a non-profit organization does not somehow exempt it from copyright law under some (sorry) ridiculous notion that it can't profit of that action. Irrelevant distraction from the point: Talking about Stiles to a (very) limited group of people does NOT entitle a writer to pass Stiles's words off as his own! Whether his books were covered from legal violations depends on a number of factors: discovery of the infraction (which, given the limited exposure of Wierwille's works, was not likely); willingness to sue (which, given a Biblical prohibition against taking a brother to court, might have persuaded BG Leonard not to go with that approach and instead include an explicit warning against plagiarism on future editions of his books); concern that it has taken place (some authors have better things to do than chase down third rate cult leaders who steal their lines); talent of the legal defense; etc. If so, they were very bad lawyers. More likely, the legal dept might have been the ones to insist on changing specific wordings in later editions to obscure the very obvious plagiarism. And how does HCW remember "some talk about that stuff but not a whole lot of details," yet earlier says "I don't remember hearing ONE WORD about plagiarism"? Sorry, Wierwille was a rampant and unrepentant plagiarist. That he didn't get caught or sued probably had more to do with his limited influence than his legal expertise/rightness.

Well, I'm stumped on the first and fourth songs.

The third one is "Come and Go With Me," I think. I can definitely hear it in my head. And everytime I think of it, I picture the establishing credits at the beginning of a bunch of episodes of Happy Days.

HCW: There are two separate items to consider. First, did Wierwille lift other people's ideas? Sure he did. No one's arguing he didn't. Is that plagiarism? Agreed, the answer is no (otherwise, I'm guilty of plagiarism for writing about Wierwille's plagiarism when John Juedes beat me to that subject by decades. Second, did Wierwille take other people's writings and lift them, word for word, without attribution? Again, yes. Indisputably. Is that plagiarism? Yes, by definition. Changing a few words or the order of a couple of sentences does not change the fact that this is plagiarism. The problem with bringing the law into it is that, again by definition, you bring lawyers into it, and they're not interested int he truth. They're only interested in defending their clients against the legal consequences of their actions. For example, you're deaf and dumb (that is, stupid), if you don't know that Vanilla Ice lifted Queen's "Under Pressure" for his hit "Ice Ice Baby." It's undeniable. Except in court, where Vanilla Ice won. Bravo for Vanilla Ice, but anyone with two working ears knows the work was lifted. In musical cases of sampling, the original work is often credited in the jacket or liner notes or whatever they call the booklet that comes with CDs these days. Few pretend they wrote what they're sampling. Even Billy Joel credited Beethoven with writing some of the music for "This Night," and there was no threat of copyright infringment there. Wierwille, by contrast, pretended he wrote the answer to question 8 in RTHST, when anyone with two working eyes can see Stiles wrote it first, and Wierwille just changed a word here and there. The fact that no one sued, etc, doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means no one sued for it. Another point, as I hinted at earlier: Plagiarism is not automatically copyright infringement. But even if the copyright has run out on a published work, lifting it without attribution is still plagiarism. That's why you don't see "The Iliad, by Raf" on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. I didn't write The Iliad. If I put out "The Iliad" under my name, I would not be violating copyright law, but I would be committing plagiarism. The reason plagiarism is wrong is not that it's a copyright infringement. it's just wrong because it is wrong. It's lying. It's dishonesty. It's puffing itself up. It demonstrates a lack of integrity.

Be nice, Larry. I found the reference. It was in JCOP, acknowledgments (p. xiii-xv, first edition, seventh printing). Wierwille says he did a bunch of research over the years into the subject of JCOP, but had not organized it. He gave the task to Walter Cummins in the 70s to check Wierwille's research "thoroughly and critically." After Cummins had done a bunch of work on it, Wierwille laid it all out to the research team in 1974. "From this seminar a working manuscript was developed, the embryo of this book." Note that he uses the passive voice, "a manuscript was developed," and not the active "I developed a manuscript," indicating a collaborative effort. In 1978, there's another seminar "to again study and refine previous research." The wording there again indicates collaborative effort (Wierwille does not need to hold a seminar for other people if he's the only one who's going to be studying and refining the research). Then he goes into specific people and contributions made, and concludes with this paragraph: "As is evident, this book is truly the result of a large team effort with years of research, study, checking, and rechecking. Others besides those named above have been consulted and have assisted in the production of this work. To all who have contributed to Jesus Christ Our Passover out of their love for God and for the accuracy of His Word, I am most thankful and grateful. Of course, the final contents are my responsibility." So what do we make of this? Well, WordWolf's post on the subject, in my opinion, almost certainly understates Wierwille's participation in this process. WordWolf writes: Zero percent? WordWolf, you're either exaggerating or wrong. Let's look at it logically: The research team isn't going to embark on this project without Wierwille's prior teachings as some kind of framework. Looking at the acknowledgments of JCOP, we can explore two conflicting presumptions. First, Wierwille is being open and forthcoming. Second, Wierwille is lying. Let's first take the view that he's telling the truth: He did teach more than once on various aspects of the last week of Jesus' life. He goes to Cummins and says "organize all this stuff, please." Cummins does it and gives it back to Wierwille. Wierwille then presents it to the research team with orders to develop a manuscript. The team gets a bunch of stuff done and Wierwille either is or is not an active part of the process of developing the manuscript (his account is unclear on the nature of his involvement). A second weeklong seminar is held, either bringing in more members of the research team or giving the "big picture" to the same members of the team, many of whom presumably workd on part of the project but few of whom had worked on "all" of it. Now we're going to have reassignments and people checking each other based on the big picture. Research meetings are held sporadically from 1978 to 1980, now with people having developed specialties in their areas of study and hammering out the book into its final or near final form. Even by Wierwille's account, his active participation appears to have diminished by this point. He doesn't even credit himself with primary responsibility of editing the manuscript (his daughter gets that credit). His closing line, however (the final contents are my responsibility) indicates strongly that he was not absent from the process, as he's not going to accept "responsibility" for the final product without reading, providing feedback and giving his final stamp of approval to the contents. Now let's assume he's lying. It wasn't Wierwille's idea. It was Cummins's idea. And Wierwille liked it. So Cummins puts a bunch of work together, careful to take Wierwille's previous teachings into account and explaining any disagreements, and teaches Wierwille, who studies it enough to make a presentation in 1974 to the research staff. The staff, without further input from Wierwille, sets about creating the manuscript, and they hold seminars in 1978, 1979 and 1980: the seminars are primarily for each other, with Wierwille present. During this process, Wierwille gives his feedback, but is otherwise sitting back having a drambuie and seducing the wives of the researchers. At the end of the process, Wierwille reads it, likes it, and puts his name on it. With either interpretation, you have Wierwille's prior "research" and presentations as the framework. The research staff fleshes it out, develops and refines the manuscript. Wierwille is in on the process but is neither writing nor directly leading it (that responsibility goes to Cummins). Big collaborative effort, not matter how you slice it. Wierwille's level of involvement is arguable, but what's clear either way is that he is not the primary collector of the information, nor is he the primary writer. He may or may not have played a strong active role in developing the big picture. The acknowledgments of JCOPS indicates a similar process, except in that case Wierwille did not say anything about the final contents being his responsibility (which I don't read anything into).

WordWolf and I are, in fact brothers. We just have different mothers. And different fathers. But other than that, we're brothers. What we are not, I must say, is the same person. Before I join in my brother's complaint about the removal of the word "Christ" from that verse in Philippians, can I ask whether it appears in the Greek?

"Madam, could you tell us what happened?" "Yes. I was leaving the store and outside there was this big fight goin on, and people was arguin and yellin and then they pulled out they guns." "And Ma'am, were you shot in the fracas?" "No, sir. I was shot between the belly button and the fracas." *** "Okay, suspect number one, step forward and say 'Gimme all the money, tens and twenties and fifties only.'" "Umm, Gimme all your tens and your twenties and only fifty." "Thank you. Number two, step forward and say 'Gimme all the money, tens and twenties and fifties only.'" "I want all your tens and twenties. And your fifties, too. Now!" "Thank you. Number three, step forward and say 'Gimme all the money, tens and twenties and fifties only.'" "But that's not what I said."

Born and raised. But South Florida now.

8 million people are out of their minds?

Definitely not. but thanks for checking. I'll try to find it tonight.

We make judgments on things that require judgment. We make observations on things that don't require judgment. You may judge the sky to be blue, but to me, that's merely an observation, not a judgment. I think it was Flags of Iwo Jima, or something like that. Look, the perspective of the Japanese soldiers is an unexplored part of history. But it is not up to your judgment to determine whether the U.S. and the Japanese militaries were opponents during World War II. That's not judgment or perspective. That's history. We fought the Japanese. Just like it's history that there was a collaborative effort to put some of Wierwille's books together. Not disputable. No one's arguing it. There's an old saying: you're entitled to your own opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts. Challenge my opinions all you want. But that's not what you're doing here. You're challenging facts, which itself is fine. If you need more proof, good luck finding it. I don't. I think it's fairly established. Not at all. But I think it's an unnecessary waste of time. "Is there a law of believing"? is arguable, and a judgment call, and worthy of debate. "Is the color of the jacket of 'Jesus Christ is Not God' yellow"? is not arguable, and wrangling over it is a waste of time. My condolences. A word search depends on inputting the correct word. Crack open the books if you're really going to look for the comment, rather than declaring it to not be there. It's definitely there. The only thing I question right now is my memory and characterization of the context. Try a word search of "debt" and "responsibility." Maybe "contents" as well. I'm trying to remember the exact words, but I cannot.

Your mistake is thinking that there's a judgment call to be made here. This method of putting at least two of those books together is not subject to someone's judgment or opinion. It's history. It's indisputably how it happened. No one argues otherwise, because even Wierwille admitted it. Valid point. There's a slight difference in style between the red book (Order My Steps) and the blue book. I was making one point in conjunction with several other points, which you chose to pick apart rather than put together. No single point I raised is proof of anything, but the whole picture is what I was going for. Ah, but you missed something significant. Order My Steps, among the last books Wierwille wrote, definitely has plagiarism in it, which bolsters the point I made that the more direct hand Wierwille had in writing a book, the more likely you are to see plagiarism in it. So it's not a matter of improving. It's a matter of him having a direct hand or having a less direct hand in the writing process. You didn't look hard enough. I'll find it later, assuming I get a chance to dig these books out. But the presence of this paragraph is likewise indisputable, and it was in a book, not a magazine. Now, my memory isn't perfect, so it's possible I'm mistaken about the context of the statement. But if you have time (and the books handy), sheck the intros of all his books. The last paragraph of at least one will contain the statement I'm referring to. From there we can tell whether I've mischaracterized it (a distinct possibility). Again, the weight of evidence supports the article's statement about how certain books came about. I'm not trying to vigorously defend every statement made therein. You mistook my paraphrase for Juedes's words. Actually, Juedes's words were: "Use of a writing team expedites larger volumes and makes possible deeper treatments of a topic. However, to conform to the rules of scholarly practice, Wierwille should have listed himself as the general editor of these works, rather than author. One is left with the impression that the writing was done by him." My paraphrase was less absolute, reflective of the fact that while I see his point, I don't see it as the huge infraction he makes it out to be. WTH: Once again, I do not have time or patience to educate your seared conscience about what is and what isn't plagiarism. Arguing with you on the subject is like trying to argue the existence of the color blue to a blind man. Your stubborn unwillingness to see what happened and your decision to subject whether it happened to an arbitrary test does not impress me. I do not allege Wierwille plagiarized. I recognize it. It happened.

Would have to know what was considered profanity in his day. "Hypocrite" is unlikely to be considered profanity. Same with whited sepulchre. But I don't know either for a fact. I would hesitate to put it in the same category as the foul language LCM used. One is an accusation against character; the other a metaphor (or a simile. I don't have the verse handy). Then translation is an issue as well. I could see how someone could translate something literally and strip it of its profanity (sort of like calling someone an anus when "the original" had the word a******.

"Tell us everything! Everything!" "Everything. OK! I'll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max's toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog... When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out... But the worst thing I ever done - I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life." "I'm beginning to like this kid, Ma!" **** "That's what I said, booty traps." ***** "First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."