The Lesser Offense?

 A few years ago, one of my students disappeared a couple of weeks into the semester.  She re-appeared near the end of semester, begging me to allow her to make up the work she missed.  I relented.  She submitted the essays and research paper a week before the final exam. 

I didn’t have to read much to confirm my suspicion:  She hadn’t written those essays or the paper. On the day of the final exam, I returned her work with red “F”s scrawled across them, along with the web addresses where I found “her” work.

“I didn’t plagiarize.”

“So why did I find these papers on the web?”

“I didn’t plagiarize them.  My friend did it for me!”

This week’s “Sunday funny” reminded me of that episode. Just as my former student thought she was not violating the college’s academic integrity policy because she hadn’t done the plagiarism herself, a public official tried to save face by claiming that he was behaving more responsibly by riding his bicycle rather than driving after a night of drinking.

Ty Ross, a Fernandina Beach (Florida) City Manager, had been in his post for only two weeks when police found him lying beside his bike on a roadside. 

Whether or not getting on two wheels instead of four is more responsible behavior after drinking, the officers decided he hadn’t committed a citeable offense and offered him a ride home, which he accepted.

If I recall correctly, my former student failed my class but the college didn’t expel her. That didn’t upset me. But I wonder whether she refined her sense of what is right or wrong—or whether Ross will.

Had he caused or suffered any harm, he would’ve been a candidate for a Darwin Award.

From The Bicycle Man and Bicycle Woman to the Bicycle Medea

 

People in Fayetteville, North Carolina still talk about “The Bicycle Man.”  For more than two decades, Moses Mathis repaired bicycles and gave them to kids in the community, many for Christmas. In its heyday, the charity he and his wife Ann—“The Bicycle Woman”—founded gave away 2500 bikes a year.

He passed away ten years ago. Ann took over and kept the program going with volunteers and donations.  She retired last year. 

Fears that the program would not continue were allayed when Bernie Bogertey-Harvey took the baton.  For years, she has been on the board of The Bicycle Man Foundation.  She has, however, another connection:  More than thirty years ago, her son received one of the first bikes Moses gave away.

Her grandkids have dubbed her “The Bicycle Medea.” While the program is smaller (It no longer has its warehouse.), she hopes to build it back up.  “This year, we’re targeting ages one to seven,” she said.

While it’s too late to register for a bike at this year’s 16 December giveaway, the project is still taking donations.

As one of her grandkids says,”The spirit of the Bicycle Man lives on” in Bernie Bogertey-Harvey.

John Lennon and Howard Cosell

Today I am invoking my Howard Cosell Rule because of an event that led to its creation.

On this date in 1980, Cosell was, along with Don Meredith and Frank Gifford (before he was married to Kathie Lee), calling a Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots.  It was near the end of the fourth quarter. Patriots’ kicker John Smith took to the field to kick the potential game-winning field goal.

“Remember, this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses,” Cosell intoned. “An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News.” With that, he announced the murder of John Lennon.

“Hard to go back to the game after that news flash,” he said with uncharacteristic understatement.