Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 01:33:53 -0600
Reply-To: Ken Hooper <bighouse@TYPE2.COM>
Sender: Vanagon mailing list <Vanagon@Gerry.SDSC.EDU>
From: Ken Hooper <bighouse@TYPE2.COM>
Subject: Bob Hoover and Plagiarism?[via LSMTP - see www.lsoft.com]
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Okay. Let's see if we can't get this disposed of in a way everybody can
live with. Mark Janello quoted the entire Hoover sermon at issue earlier,
so I won't beat that horse except to note that it is (still and always)
here:
http://www.type2.com/sermons/liturgy/retorque.html
Now. Mr. La Rou contacted me first because I am so lucky that I am the only
one with a mailto link from the Sermons archive. 8/ He was very excited
when he wrote that mail and I am not going to retail it now on account of
that; sometimes we say things we regret.
All of La Rou's complaints but one can be handled well by dialog in a
public forum, either the type2 list or some other place. He details several
resentments in his pmail, most of which probably disappeared when slept
upon. If he has a rebuttal to make, I have offered to post it to the lists
for him. The proper place for this stuff is the light of day.
The remaining issue, though, is the accusation of plagiarism. La Rou
outright accuses Hoover of plagiarism. This was pretty bizarre for a while
because Hoover and La Rou are diametrically opposed to each other on the
issue of retorquing heads, so it wouldn't seem to do anybody much good to
plagiarize the other unless he wanted to argue at cross purposes to
himself. And there is no reason to believe Hoover has ever seen La Rou's
work at all, much less found it toothsome enough to risk his reputation
over.
I am not certain, but it now appears that La Rou and his editor, Mr. Otter,
consider plagiarism to be Ken Hooper marking up Bob Hoover quoting Mark
Janello summarizing Matthew La Rou but not naming him -- possibly as much
as several sentences' worth.
The fact of the matter is that that is safe and comfy within fair use, and
that article is staying up absent a request from Hoover or a court order. I
am not taking it down.
But, here's the answer to the question nobody ever asked me: sure, I can
edit the thing. If having Janello's summary of La Rou in the Sermons
archive is so disconcerting, I can remove all traces of it, and just pose
the question: "Should one re-torque heads? My friend says it isn't
necessary." Note that Hoover's prose will survive this treatment nicely
without modification.
Hoover's integrity is perhaps more important to us than the average bear's,
because a lot of people hew to his opinions with close attention, sometimes
zeal. If his integrity is impugned, it makes us think that maybe he is a
hack, and if he is a hack maybe our cars are going to blow up. 8)
So in return for the edit, I want the accusation withdrawn, publicly. I've
read both articles, and NEVER did Hoover try to profit from La Rou's ideas,
or pass La Rou's words off as his own. That's plagiarism, and Hoover didn't
do it. Here again are the URLs, read it yourself:
http://www.concentric.net/~vvwca/mvvc/buyer_beware.htm
http://www.type2.com/sermons/liturgy/retorque.html
No Bob doesn't know I wrote this, yes he's probably going to be pissed at
me, oh well. Why should he be any different? 8)
--Ken
68 Westy, Admin -- type2 -- The VW Bus Mailing List
