Book Bazigar: Sid Harth
http://navanavonmilita.wordpress.com/book-bazigar-sid-harth/
A 'Raging Storm': The Crackdown on Tibetan Writers and Artists
By ICT
The detention of the influential Tibetan writer Shogdung from his
office in Xining on April 23 signals a deepening crackdown on Tibetan
writers, artists and educators since protests against the Chinese
state began in March, 2008. Shogdung ('Morning Conch'), is the pen
name of Tragyal, the most high-profile of some 31 writers, bloggers,
intellectuals and others now in prison after reporting or expressing
views, writing poetry or prose, or simply sharing information about
Chinese government policies and their impact in Tibet today.
Shogdung's new book, "The Line between Sky and Earth," and other
writings by Tibetan intellectuals since March, 2008 are among the most
wide-ranging indictments of Chinese policy in Tibet for 50 years.
There has been a vibrant literary and cultural resurgence in Tibet
since Spring 2008 when protests against government policy and in
support of the Dalai Lama swept across the plateau. Writers, using
print and the internet, who are often fluent in Chinese as well as
Tibetan, in Xining and other areas of Amdo (now part of Qinghai
province) have been at the forefront. Singers and educators have also
been involved in this cultural resurgence, which is grounded in a
strong sense of Tibetan identity.
In daring to refute China's official narrative of events since March,
2008, this new generation of Tibetans represents a more profound
challenge to the ruling Communist Party authorities than before and,
as a result, individuals are at greater risk. For the first time since
the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, singers, artists and
writers have been the target of a drive against Tibetan culture in
which almost any expression of Tibetan identity not validated by the
state can be branded 'splittist.'
Although less well-known outside China than high-profile Chinese
dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo and Hu Jia, many of the Tibetan
intellectuals named in this report are famous among Tibetans, and are
also enduring long prison terms for peaceful expression. Their
concerns about restrictions and repression mirror those of their
Chinese counterparts.
This report details:
The cases of more than 50 Tibetans, including 13 writers, involved in
the arts and public sphere who are either in prison, have been
'disappeared' or have faced torture or harassment due to expressing
their views. (List available separately as a pdf file from www.savetibet.org
from May 18, 2010).
New information on the detention of the well established civil
servant, editor and essayist, Shogdung, and the first English
translation of extracts from his new book, "The Line between Sky and
Earth." Shogdung's new book - likely to be the reason for his arrest
on April 23, 2010 - is a detailed analysis of the 2008 spring protests
as a re-awakening of Tibetan national consciousness and solidarity,
and advocacy for the right to civil disobedience following Gandhi's
non-violent example.
There are cases of Tibetans sentenced to long prison terms for simply
speaking about the crackdown via email or telephone conversations. The
penalties attached to these cases indicate a zero tolerance policy for
even low-level information sharing in Tibet that is counter to China's
obligations to freedom of speech under its domestic law and
international human rights law.
A listing of Tibetan singers and performers that were arrested because
of their song lyrics, and a translation into English of the official
sentencing documents of one young singer, as evidence of the measures
being taken by the Chinese government to silence Tibetans who do not
conform to the state's narrative about Tibet, whether with reference
to Tibet before the 1950s or the Spring 2008 protests.
Crackdown and dissent
Since March, 2008, the Chinese government has engaged in a systematic
attempt to block news of the arrests, torture, disappearances and
killings that have taken place across Tibet. The dangers faced by
Tibetans who seek to describe the situation on the ground or simply
express their views to the outside world are significant, which is
linked to the widespread availability of the internet and other means
of communication and the challenges that poses to China's aspirations
for domestic and international message control.
Despite and because of the severity of Beijing's response, dissent
continues to be openly expressed, particularly through the written
word. Since March, 2008, there have been a large number of unofficial
writings about the protests, usually expressing grief or sadness at
the killings and detentions. These have been published in blogs,
articles in one-off or unauthorized literary magazines, in books
published and distributed privately, and also in the lyrics of songs
sung in public places, uploaded onto Youtube or as cellphone ring-
tones. (See ICT report, 'Like Gold that Fears no Fire: New Writing
from Tibet' http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/gold-fears-no-fire-new-writing-tibet).
At the forefront of this resurgence of Tibetan cultural identity is a
new bicultural, bilingual generation of educated Tibetans familiar
with digital technology, with Chinese writings and official policies,
and often too with unofficial accounts of Tibetan history that are
banned in China.
A common theme of their writings is the solidarity of Tibetans across
the plateau and a pride in their unique cultural and religious
identity. An awareness of the historic upheavals in Tibet from the
1950s and a new sense of urgency for political change infuses their
work. The writings are often poetic in style, such as the articles
included in "Eastern Snow Mountain" (Shar Dungri), a literary journal
which was banned as soon as it was published in eastern Tibetan area
of Amdo in 2008.
The writers of "Eastern Snow Mountain," who are from the Ngaba
(Chinese: Aba) area of Sichuan, show extensive knowledge of Chinese
and Tibetan law and policy, and discuss the sufferings of ordinary
Chinese people as well as their own struggles against the state.
(English translations of some of the essays are in:
http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-press-releases/a-great-mountain-burned-fire-chinas-crackdown-tibet).
Shogdung's book also includes Tibetan people's struggle for freedom
within China as an overall aim for all citizens of the Chinese state.
An important underlying message of the protests and dissent expressed
across Tibet since March, 2008 is the desire for the return of the
Dalai Lama to Tibet. Tibetans have risked their lives to assert their
loyalty to him. The Tibetan writer and poet Anjam, who lives in exile
in Dharamsala, India, says: "The literature of Tibet has been
transformed since [March] 2008; it has taken on a new direction and is
expressing new dreams.
Some Tibetan writers have also taken on the responsibility of
expressing their real feelings and facts about the situation in Tibet
to the outside world. Many of these Tibetan writers represent the
hearts of the Tibetan people inside Tibet through their writing.
[Referring to several publications] they [various Tibetan writers in
Tibet] speak about the failed policies of the Chinese government [...]
and their writings strongly express their hopes for the return of His
Holiness to Tibet.
"Because [Tibetans inside Tibet] are sacrificing or risking their
lives to write these things, we should respect the value of their
contribution - it can lead to a real understanding and connection of
Tibetan people inside Tibet and those in exile. This dialogue is
important while His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] is alive, but it will
take on even more significance in future. It is very important that
the voices of those Tibetan people who have risked their lives and
expressed the failed policies of Chinese government should be heard
globally. We should read and reprint their writing whenever we can."
A further feature of the cultural resurgence in Tibet has been the
development of new alliances and understanding with Chinese
intellectuals. On March 22, 2008, shortly after the March 10 outbreak
of protests, leading Chinese intellectuals and writers released a
petition that appeared on several websites in Chinese, entitled
'Twelve Suggestions for Dealing with the Tibetan Situation.' It was
significant that Chinese voices were being raised in response to the
way Beijing has handled Tibet policy. Points in the petition included:
"We strongly demand that the authorities not subject every Tibetan to
political investigation or revenge" and "The government must abide by
the freedom of religious belief and the freedom of speech explicitly
enshrined in the Chinese Constitution."
A year later, in June, 2009, a bold new report by a Beijing-based
think-tank called Gongmeng (Open Constitution Initiative) challenged
the official position that the Dalai Lama "incited" the protests that
broke out in Tibet in March, 2008, and outlined key failings in the
policy of the Chinese government on Tibet. (http://www.savetibet.org/
media-center/ict-news-reports/bold-report-beijing-scholars-reveals-
breakdown-china%E2%80%99s-tibet-policy). It was the first such
analysis from inside China. Several Chinese lawyers have offered to
defend Tibetans, though this was in most cases not allowed by courts.
(ICT report, 'Chinese lawyers blocked from defending Tibetans,'
http://www.tibetpolicy.eu/news/update-on-tibet-situation/267-chinese
-lawyers-blocked-from-defending-tibetans).
The Tibetan writer Woeser listed details of unofficial books published
in Tibetan areas since 2008 protests on her blog, where she wrote:
"[...] Any one of us could be a statistic. And we could also be a
finer detail, a more robust part of the record. None of this is going
to be over soon, and we must be clear, meticulous and thorough in
presenting the undeniable and ineradicable truth about those whose
lives disappeared behind the unknown and limitless dark veil during
the blood and fire of 2008. Since then, there has been a constant
stream of books, magazines, articles and songs in the mother tongue.
Tibetan writers have broken through the silence, [beyond] the terror,
and even more of them are inspiring even more Tibetans." (http://
woeser.middle-way.net/2009/08/blog-post_03.html).
Fears for 'official' intellectual Shogdung after he reported on impact
of March '08 protests
The whereabouts and welfare of influential Tibetan writer, Shogdung,
detained on April 23, 2010 remain unknown. His detention followed the
publication of a book about the meaning of what he terms "peaceful
revolution" and the significance of the protests across Tibet since
March, 2008, which he describes as: "a sign of the rediscovery of the
consciousness of nationality, culture and territory." Just before his
detention, Shogdung and other intellectuals had also written an open
letter critical of the authorities' handling of the earthquake on
April 14 in Kyegundu (Chinese: Yushu), Qinghai.
The detention of Shogdung, the pen name (meaning 'Morning Conch') of
Tragyal, is significant because he is a well-established editor and an
'official intellectual' whose views have been seen by many Tibetans as
close to the Party and the Chinese state. This was particularly since
he wrote an article in 1999 denouncing Buddhism and Tibetan people's
profound religiosity as an impediment to development. But his new
book, "The Line between Sky and Earth" (gnam sa go 'byed) - which sold
out on its first (unofficial) print run of 1000 copies - is a
passionate indictment of the Chinese government's policies in Tibet
and a discussion of events there since March, 2008, in which he
describes Tibet becoming "a place of terror."
Shogdung, a 47-year-old editor at the Qinghai Nationalities Publishing
House in Xining, is the highest-profile writer to be detained since
the current cycle of arrests and disappearances began following
protests in March, 2008. His detention was reported almost immediately
in a blog posting by a Tibetan who knows him, who reported that five
or six police took him from his office in Xining, searched his
possessions, and took him into custody. They returned later and took
two computers and other written documents. (Full report and
translation at High Peaks, Pure Earth,
http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2010/04/earthquake-in-tibet-leading-tibetan.html).
The website that gave this information was closed down a few days
after it publicized this news.
Shogdung's wife was given notification that he had been detained on
state security charges but has not been told where he is being held.
Further information from the area indicates that the family's bookshop
in Xining was closed by the authorities on April 13, and 35 copies of
Shogdung's book were confiscated.
Shogdung had sought to travel to Yushu, where the earthquake struck on
April 14, to help with relief efforts but had not been permitted to do
so. According to the same blog, "Until the day of his arrest, he was
busying himself with consoling and giving comfort to injured people at
Xining hospital."
Shogdung and seven other intellectuals, including the singer Jamyang
Kyi - who was detained temporarily in April, 2008 - signed an open
letter expressing condolences to, and solidarity with, the victims of
the earthquake in Kham, eastern Tibet (the Tibetan area of Yushu in
Qinghai). But according to Tibetan sources who know Shogdung, the
reason behind his detention is almost certainly his new book, "The
Line between Sky and Earth."
A Tibetan from the eastern area of Amdo said that people in the area
speculated that the security services took months to detain Shogdung
because they needed to translate his book into Chinese. The same
source said: "Just before his arrest, he went to his hometown to
celebrate his father's 80th birthday and he told him that it might be
his last time to be with him. He went to mountains to throw rlung rta
[windhorses, prayers printed on small slips of paper or on prayer
flags] as prayers for the mountain gods. I was told that it was first
time he did that since his childhood." According to scholars familiar
with Shogdung's work, in the past Shogdung opposed these rituals,
which he regarded as damaging to Tibetan efforts at modernizing their
culture.
A correspondent in Beijing for the French magazine Le Nouvel
Observateur, Ursula Gauthier, met Shogdung in Xining two weeks before
his detention. In the article (published in French), she wrote:
"Shogdung was expecting - with a somewhat fatalistic courage - that he
would have to 'pay the price' of the last book he had published a few
months ago, outside the normal publishing channels, without ISBN
number, that is to say without authorization. [...] Pirated editions
have taken over. In China, all books are pirated, even those written
in Tibetan, even illegal ones, as long as they sell. Shogdung's book
was a best seller, a phenomenon resulting purely from word of mouth.
One could find it everywhere in Xining, including at the main station.
The book was not displayed conspicuously and one had to ask for it."
(http://gauthier.blogs.nouvelobs.com/archive/2010/04/27/encore-un-
intellectuel-tibetain-arrete.html#comments).
Shogdung's new book is a conspicuous contrast to his earlier work.
Together with other intellectuals from Xining, Shogdung founded a
group called 'The New School of Thought,' and his controversial
writings, including prominent articles in the Party paper, Qinghai
Daily, led to intense debate among Tibetan intellectuals in Amdo.
Shogdung argued that Tibetans should embrace modernization and
disassociate themselves from traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings.
Scholar and historian Tsering Shakya writes on the website High Peaks
Pure Earth: "Shogdung's hyper-critical attack on traditional Tibetan
cultural practices was seen by many Tibetans as a remnant of the
Cultural Revolution, and because his article was published through an
official channel, it was seen as resembling the view of the Chinese
Communist Party."
His new book, however, includes a section that has been described by
other Tibetan intellectuals from the area as "moving and personal," in
which he acknowledges his mistakes and misjudgment about monks' roles
in Tibetan society and apologizes for his earlier views.
Shogdung's views appear to have been changed by events in Tibet that
began in March, 2008. Although there are fears that Shogdung may face
charges of supporting Tibetan independence or 'splittism,' a Western
scholar who has read the book in Tibetan said: " I have not read
anywhere in Shogdung's book that he calls for separation or
independence from China. He says Tibetans should keep the spirit of
the peaceful revolution in which they have engaged since 2008, with an
aim to asserting what he thinks are their rights, with peaceful means
- he gives statistics at the end about what percentage of peaceful
struggles for one's rights in the history of the world in the last two
centuries have yielded results, and what percentage was successful
through violence.
The figures he quotes indicate that non-violence is more successful.
He also calls for peaceful civil disobedience when one feels the legal
frame in which one lives is not proper and is against one's
principles." The same scholar said: "This is certainly one of the most
open and daring critiques of the Chinese Communist Party policies in
Tibet over the past 50 years, and is even comparable in scope to the
Panchen Lama's 70,000 character petition to Mao, a forbidden text
which Shogdung often refers to and quotes as it has become recently
available for the first time to Tibetans in Tibetan."1
Shogdung writes that he believes that March, 2008 was the result not
only of the conditions experienced by Tibetans for so long, but also
of individuals becoming more aware of concepts of freedom. He also
notes that, due to his iconoclastic views publicised in the late
1990s, he feels that he had become cut off from society, and so had
failed to see the events of 2008 coming. Now, he writes, although he
fears for his own life as a result of speaking out, he feels that he
had to do so because he could not bear the repression that he has
witnessed over the past few years.
In the book, Shogdung also challenges the Chinese authorities'
representation of events in March, 2008. He says that while it is true
that there was some looting and violence on March 14, 2008 in Lhasa,
"one should draw a line between small and major events and that
compared to the violence [by the authorities] that followed, and over
the past 50 years, it is not as significant."
In an extract of the book, translated by the same scholar, Shogdung
writes: "So what is a large-scale beating, smashing, looting and
burning? In 50 years, among Tibetans, be they lamas, chiefs, nobles,
elite, lay or religious, men or women, old, adults or young, farmers,
herders, blacksmiths, shoe menders, with many rights or devoid of
rights, rich or poor, be they enterprising and capable or not, brave
or cowards, guilty or innocent, many have been hit by hammers, whipped
with whips, put in chains, killed by arrows, put in jail, subjected to
struggle sessions, or have died of hunger. This is stated in the
history of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands of dead people. Even now, these ways of doing things have
not been abandoned."
To support his claims, Shogdung quotes from a few sources such as the
Panchen Lama's Petition (see above), as well as Jamdo Rinzang's "My
Homeland" (Nga'i pha yul) and other books, and Tsering Dhondup's
archive-based novel "Red Wind Roaring" (Rlung dmar 'ur 'ur) - books or
texts that have circulated widely among Tibetans in Amdo over the last
two years.
Shogdung emphasises the importance of non-violence, saying that if
Tibetans dare to launch a revolution through peaceful means, the
impact would be profound.
He further describes the situation in Tibet since March, 2008 as
follows : "As to how they [the Chinese authorities] have transformed
Tibet into a terrifying battle ground: ever since they [Tibetans] have
launched [literally, the peaceful movement], all corridors in the
monasteries have become archery grounds, they have aligned their tanks
and guns. It makes one's hair stand on end. At most of the junctions
of monasteries and villages, soldiers parade. Such places are full of
spies. It is so frightening! It makes one shiver with fear.
At the top of the houses, in the streets and in the main places, they
have hidden secret weapons. Spies are waiting. My flesh is petrified,
my bones hurt. Tourists or pilgrims are searched at the point of the
gun, they are interrogated and required to register and to do all
sorts of such things. It is freezing, it feels so cold. Most of the
monks have been expelled to towns, most town-dwellers are locked in
their houses. They [the authorities] listen and watch on the sly
letters, phones, computers, websites, tea-houses, cafes.
"They have made everyone, be they close or distant, powerless,
helpless and desperate. In daytime, they run like jackals. At night,
they sneak in like bandits. Without warning, they attack chapels and
meeting halls in monasteries, and homes and families in towns. They
search houses from top to bottom, and again from top to bottom. They
look for pictures of the Victorious One [the Dalai Lama]. They look
for hidden weapons. Incidentally, they look for money. They look for
valuables. They throw holy images on the floor and trample them. They
say that people with a human face have the heart of beasts and are
wolves wearing monk's robes. They show signs of folly and of having
been struck by madness. (Red soldiers, although they have a head, have
no brains and they have been served too much of the water of folly
full with 'Motherland' and 'China' so one should not be surprised at
the fact that they have become utterly crazy). When they have found
ritual objects [phyag cha] in the protector's chapels, they claim it
is a proof that weapons have been hidden. [...]
"If one is a Tibetan, one is not allowed to stay at a hotel, one is
'welcomed' with the request to take off one's hat and shoes at
airports, one does not get a ticket. One is not hired for jobs.
Because of the deceptive propaganda, Tibetans are looked at with an
air of mixed fear and terror. They are targets of suspicion. To sum
up, Tibetans are considered like terrorists, they are treated like
mindless children who are put under great pressure.
"Actually, it is not the first time this has happened. Ever since we
have been conquered by dictators, in a series of campaigns, we have
been beaten, struggled against, seized, arrested, condemned,
sentenced, massacred. They have made us unable or afraid to move, to
speak, to think. Everything and everyone has become inert because of
fear. These inhuman methods have been going on for more than 50
years."
The open letter about the earthquake signed by Shogdung and other
intellectuals is critical of the authorities' handling of the crisis,
and ends with a passage in which signatories advise not to give money
to 'certain organizations,' which could be a reference to the Chinese
Red Cross, the only organisation officially entitled to receive
donations for earthquake relief.
The letter, translated by High Peaks Pure Earth, an internet site that
provides translations from writing in Tibetan and Chinese posted on
blogs from Tibet and China, reads: "[...]We who live in Xining,
Qinghai province, several writers, express our condolences and
sympathy with the Yushu brothers and sisters affected by the disaster,
offer our condolences to the dead and are pooling funds and
furthermore are preparing to visit the affected areas personally as
soon as possible. However, as the news from the mouthpiece for the
Party organizations cannot be believed, we dare not believe in the
Party organizations.
For political reasons, the Party organization ordered the temporary
suspension of sending people to the disaster area. For this reason, we
in faraway Xining out of concern for you and your suffering send you
this letter, apart from this, there is nothing else we can
do." (http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2010/04/earthquake-in-tibet-
leading-tibetan.html).
Controlling information flow: state secrets and the penalties for
spreading 'rumors'
A few months after protests began in March, 2008, the authorities
began to convey warnings of penalties not only for 'spreading' but
also for listening to 'rumors,' presaging a wave of detentions and
signaling a more systematic approach to blocking the flow of
information. 'Rumors' is a term that is typically used to refer to
dissenting views and sentiment in the PRC or simply sharing
information that is critical of state policies. (See: ICT report,
http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-press-releases/a-great-mountain-burned-fire-chinas-crackdown-tibet).
The official press announced that a Public Security Bureau task force
had even been established specifically targeted at the fabrication and
spread of rumors, with 108 People's Armed Police personnel deployed in
14 units. (Tibet Daily, December 26, 2008).
Tibet Autonomous Region Propaganda Bureau Chief Cai Yuying made it
clear that it was not only an offense to spread 'rumors,' but also to
listen to what people say: "Without any hesitation, we must prevent
rumor-mongering and stop people listening to rumors" (XZTV, June 2,
2008).
The focus on 'rumors' was reiterated recently following the earthquake
in Kham (Kyegundo/Yushu, Qinghai), when the authorities announced a
drive to crack down on spreading rumors through cellphones or
internet, and also on 'pornography' and 'illegal publications,' both
euphemisms for subversive or 'splittist' literature and videos in
Tibetan areas. China National People's Radio reported that the
authorities specifically ordered officials to pay special attention to
"lawbreakers who use illegal publications to disturb people's hearts
and disrupt the relief effort." (SCMP, April 22).2
Beijing has tightened controls in China to block use of the internet
for criticism of the government or expression of views. Wang Chen,
chief of the Cabinet's Information Office, said last week: "We will
strengthen the blocking of harmful information from outside China to
prevent harmful information from being disseminated in China and
withstand online penetration by overseas hostile forces." (Xinhua, May
3, 2010).
The Chinese government has also announced the strengthening of a law
requiring internet and telecommunications companies to inform on
customers who discuss 'state secrets,' a term that is not clearly
defined by the state, so citizens are not aware whether or not they
have crossed the invisible line of what is defined as a 'state
secret.'3 This new addition to the law, made last week, tightens the
controls over information flow still further (see Human Rights in
China report, http://www.hrichina.org/public/index).
At least one Tibetan on the enclosed list faced 'state secrets'
charges. Kunchok Tsephel, an official who founded a Tibetan cultural
website, disappeared in February, 2009, but his family did not know of
his whereabouts until they were instructed to attend court nine months
later to hear the verdict - a 15-year prison sentence on 'state
secrets' charges. No details have been published by the state about
what these secrets were, but unofficial sources indicate that Kunchok
Tsephel may have shared some information about the situation in Tibet
since March, 2008, or it may have been linked to comments about
Tibetan culture on his website.
Similarly, two young Tibetan men who worked for Western NGOs received
a 14-year and life sentence for apparently attempting to pass on
information about the situation in Tibet. Wangdu, a former health
worker for an HIV/AIDS program in Lhasa run by the Australian Burnet
Institute, is serving life, while Migmar Dhondup, a passionate
conservationist who worked for the Kunde Foundation, is serving 14
years. Both are likely to be held in Chushur (Chinese: Qushui) Prison
in Lhasa. The sentences, which were announced in the Lhasa Evening
News in November, 2008, were unprecedented in their severity for
Tibetans accused of passing on information to people outside Tibet.
(http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/ngo-worker-
sentenced-life-imprisonment-harsh-sentences-signal-harder-line-
blocking-news-ti).
This tightened control has heightened the climate of fear in Tibet.
Disappearances have been a key characteristic of the crackdown
following the March, 2008 protests; in many cases, families inside
Tibet have no idea of the whereabouts of relatives who have been
detained nor of their health or conditions. In the current climate in
Tibet, being detained or 'disappeared' for even a few days can lead to
death or permanent psychological or physical damage. Tibetans detained
during the crackdown over the past two years have been treated with
extreme brutality, according to numerous reliable and eyewitness
reports, leading to some Tibetans being profoundly physically
disturbed upon release, with others unable to walk or speak, or with
broken or dislocated limbs. (See cases detailed in
http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-press-releases/a-great-mountain-burned-fire-chinas-crackdown-tibet)
and ICT report http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/deaths-two-tibetans-after-torture).
Compiling the list of writers, artists and intellectuals included with
this report required the piecing together of fragments of information
and consultation with a number of Tibetans and scholars with
connections in Tibet, most of whom preferred not to be named. There
are likely to be many more cases of writers and artists who have been
detained and whose names we do not know, due to the efforts of the
Chinese government to silence Tibetans and prevent news of the
detentions reaching the outside world.
Disappearance of Tashi Rabten, author of 'Written in Blood'
Tashi Rabten (pen name: The'urang), editor of the essay collection
about the March, 2008 protests "Eastern Snow Mountain" and a student
at the Northwest Nationalities University in Lanzhou, was detained
again on April 6, 2010 and is believed to be in detention in Chengdu,
according to unofficial sources.
Tashi Rabten, who is from Dzorge (Chinese: Ruo'ergai) county in Ngaba,
Sichuan province, part of the Tibetan region of Amdo, is due to
graduate this year. He was detained temporarily in July, 2009. He is
the editor of a literary magazine banned after publishing an edition
on the 2008 protests in Tibet and author of a new, unauthorized
collection of work called "Written in Blood."
One of his friends said: "He has won great respect and popularity
among students, intellectuals and ordinary readers in Tibet as an
outstanding and brave young thinker." Referring to his recent book,
"Written in Blood," the same Tibetan said: "It consists of many
valuable writings on democracy, freedom and equality. In fact, I
didn't see anything illegal in there." The same source said that Tashi
Rabten had been under surveillance for some time, with his activities
strictly monitored, and copies of his book confiscated from the
university campus.
"Written in Blood" is introduced by the author as follows: "Given my
[young] age and [lack of] qualifications, the appearance of this
little book may be premature. After an especially intense year of the
usual soul-destroying events, something had to be said, and after
pondering on whether to speak out, I finally produced this humble
little book between 2008-09, shed like a drop of blood."
Tashi Rabten edited the edition of the magazine "Eastern Snow
Mountain" (Shar Dungri) about the protests in 2008. It includes the
details of the case of a 45-year old nomad, Paltsal Kyab, also known
as Jakpalo, who was beaten to death in police custody in May, 2008.4
The magazine was quickly banned, but not before copies had circulated
in Tibetan areas of Qinghai and Gansu provinces and beyond. In an
afterword to the collection, the publishers say that they felt they
had no choice but to publish, despite knowing the risks: "The magazine
staff and associates did not commit to the foolishness of smashing
this egg against a rock and knowingly leaping into an abyss out of
rashness or for the sake of reputation. We did so out of the pain of
separation from the tens of thousands of souls caught up in this
deplorable violence, and the tormenting thirst for freedom, democracy
and equality for those who should have them but do not." The writers,
including Tashi Rabten, added that the publication "appeared as a
sketch of history written in the blood of a generation." (See: "A
Great Mountain Burned by Fire: China's Crackdown on Tibet,"
www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-press-releases/a-great-mountain-burned-fire-chinas-crackdown-tibet).
'Torture Without Trace': pop singer Tashi Dhondup
"First, a sad tune for my brother who hasn't returned from afar.
Second, the pain because there is no harmony for people.
Third, the occupation and denial of freedom for Tibetans.
This is all torture without trace"
Tashi Dhondup, a popular Tibetan singer from the eastern Tibetan
region of Amdo, was detained by police on December 3, 2009 at a
restaurant in Xining, the capital of Qinghai province "on suspicion of
incitement to split the nation," according to a document issued by
police in Henan (Tibetan: Sogpo) county, where Tashi Dhondup is
originally from. According to one ICT source, four police officers -
two from Xining and two from Henan county - drew guns on Dhondup when
he initially refused to stand up after being ordered to do so by the
officers, who then put him in handcuffs and took him to a waiting
police van while his wife and two friends who were with him at the
restaurant demanded to know where he was being taken.
According to an ICT source, Tashi Dhondup had been under intense
political pressure for several weeks following the October, 2009
release of a CD containing songs which in Tibet's current political
climate were regarded by the Chinese authorities as highly charged,
including lyrics calling for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet and
lamenting that "There is no freedom in Tibet." Copies of music videos
of his songs and translations of his lyrics are at:
http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2010/03/torture-without-trace-five-songs-by.html,
and also see:
Copies of official documents detailing the investigation, detention
and eventual sentencing to "re-education through labor" of Tashi
Dhondup confirm that he was sent to a labor camp for 15 months in
early January, 2010 following his detention in December, 2009 on
suspicion of "incitement to split the nation."
The official documents go into detail about the content of Tashi
Dhondup's songs, referring specifically to the lyrics, for instance,
of his song '1958,' which compares the repression of Tibet from March,
2008 onwards with the crushing of resistance to the Chinese takeover
in Amdo, eastern Tibet, in 1958. The document states that this song
states clearly "That 1958 was a year of horror, a year of strife among
the Tibetan people, and a year when a great enemy arrived in Tibetan
areas. The year 2008 was a year that shook the world, a year when the
people were massacred by the black earth." The official document,
which does state that Tashi Dhondup did not write the lyrics of the
songs, concludes: "These songs twist the facts and are reactionary in
nature."
It is not clear from the documents, translated below into English by
ICT, why Tashi Dhondup's case was not prosecuted in the courts, and
was instead passed on to the local "re-education through labor"
management committee. The documents indicate that police claimed to
have amassed a considerable amount of evidence against Tashi Dhondup,
including copies of CDs featuring "Tibet independence songs,"
testimony from police and other witnesses that he regularly performed
the songs, and Tashi Dhondup's own 'confession.' In this case, police
either chose not to pursue prosecution through the courts, or
alternatively, state prosecutors chose not to accept the case from
police.
Under such instances in Chinese law - if the courts are unwilling or
unable to prosecute a case - police have the option of sending it to
be considered instead by a "re-education through labor" committee.
Such committees, which are usually staffed by senior police officers
and other Party and government officials, have the authority to send
defendants to labor camps for up to three years without any judicial
oversight and without the defendant having any right to hire a lawyer
to mount a legal defense against police accusations of wrongdoing.
Tashi Dhondup's sentence of 15 months 're-education through labor' is
to be counted from the day of his detention - December 3, 2009 - and
according to the document detailing the decision, he is therefore due
to be released on March 3, 2011.
The document includes a standard entry about the requirement to inform
a detainee's family or workplace within 24 hours of the detention, or
to provide a reason why no such notification was given. In the case of
Tashi Dhondup's detention notification, that particular entry is left
blank. According to ICT's sources, Tashi Dhondup's father was only
notified of his son's detention on December 6, three days after his
detention, when he was told to bring warm clothes for his son at the
detention center in Xining where he was being held.
When Tashi Dhondup's father arrived at the detention center, he was
refused permission to see him. He was told that his son was undergoing
"education," and that if the results were unsatisfactory, he would
have to return to assist in the education. Sources later reported that
Tashi Dhondup was severely beaten and tortured while in detention.
Official court documents of Tashi Dhondup
Copies of these court documents, in Chinese, were received by Tibetans
in exile. Enclosed below is a translation into English by ICT.
Huangnan Prefecture Re-education Through Labor Management Committee
Re-education Through Labor Decision
Huangnan Prefecture Resolution [2010] No. 1
Name: Zhaxi Dongzhi; male; born April 15, 1979 [further details
omitted]
Criminal experience: taken into criminal detention in accordance with
the law by Henan County Public Security Bureau on December 3, 2009 on
suspicion of incitement to split the nation.
Facts and evidence of the crime. Facts and evidence ascertained by
Henan County Public Security Bureau: On April 16 and 28, 2009, the
criminal suspect Zhaxi Dongzhi performed the reactionary song "1958"
and was subpoenaed by Henan County Public Security Bureau according to
law. During interrogations, the criminal subject Zhaxi Dongzhi
confessed fully to performing a reactionary song and willingly
admitted his error. Henan County Public Security Bureau criticized
him, which was followed by issuing a police warning.
On November 10, 2009, the criminal suspect Zhaxi Dongzhi performed the
reactionary song "Torture without Trace," which appeared in large
quantities in Henan county town's cultural market. On November 11,
Henan County Public Security Bureau in conjunction with culture and
trade departments, formed a joint inspection group to carry out a
concentrated inspection of culture markets within the jurisdiction,
confiscating more than 40 discs of the criminal suspect Zhaxi Dongzhi
performing reactionary songs and two posters advertising the album.
[PAGE 3]
On December 3, 2009, Henan County Public Security Bureau detained the
criminal suspect Zhaxi Dongzhi in Huoguo Cheng [?a restaurant?], on
Bayi Road, Chengdong District, Xining City. The criminal suspect Zhaxi
Dongzhi confessed without reservation to the criminal behavior of
colluding with others to produce 3000 copies of the album of
reactionary songs "Torture without Trace" for marketing in Henan
county, Zeku county, Tongde county, Gande county, Banma county and
Dari county in Qinghai province, in Luqu county in Gansu province, and
in Aba county, Hongyuan county and in Ruo'ergai county in Sichuan
province.
Upon receiving Henan County Public Security Bureau's report of Zhaxi
Dongzhi's crime of incitement to split the nation, this Re-education
Through Labor Management Committee convened a collegial group to
verify the case. From April 16, 2009 onwards, the criminal suspect
Zhaxi Dongzhi performed in Tibetan the reactionary song "1958," the
lyrics and music for which were written by someone else, which incites
"Tibet independence," and which states clearly that 1958 was a year of
horror, a year of strife among the Tibetan people, and a year when a
great enemy arrived in Tibetan areas. The year 2008 was a year that
shook the world, a year when the people were massacred by the black
earth.
These songs twist the facts and are reactionary in nature. "Torture
without Trace," the album of reactionary "Tibet independence" songs by
the criminal suspect Zhaxi Dongzhi clearly states, Tibetans were
invaded and have no freedom, and there's pain in having our own
mineral wealth taken. Such opinions flagrantly contradict historical
facts. In the song "Unable To Meet," it clearly states "I cannot raise
the Snow Lion flag," which is an expression of the strong desire to
hang the "Tibet independence" flag in Tibetan areas, which is
reactionary in nature.
In the "Tibet independence" song "For That I Shed My Tears," it states
that Tibetan people have no freedom. In the "Tibet independence" song
"No Regrets," it states of wanting to sing a song to say Tibetans have
no rights, and that even if he were shot dead there would be no
regrets. These songs forcefully propagandized "Tibet independence"
opinion, harmed state security, and seriously disrupted the stability
of social order in Tibetan areas. Because the writer of the "Tibet
independence" songs' words and music has escaped, interrogation of the
criminal suspect Zhaxi Dongzhi was pursued. Zhaxi Dongzhi fully
confessed without reservation to the acts of performing, copying,
transporting, distributing and broadcasting "Tibet independence"
propaganda goods. This committee has ascertained the facts are true
that Zhaxi Dongzhi on numerous occasions performed "Tibet
independence" songs, conspired with other to produce discs, and to
market 3000 discs of "Tibet independence" songs in 11 counties in the
three provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan.
Following examination and verification, the evidence confirming that
the criminal suspect Zhaxi Dongzhi broke the law is: translations of
"Tibet independence" songs, "Tibet independence" discs, posters
advertising "Tibet independence" songs, on-the-spot investigative
diagrams, photographs and records of "Tibet independence" songs being
performed, the testimony of witnesses, the criminal suspect's
confession, and an itemized list of confiscated goods and documents,
etc.
In accordance with regulations contained within Article 10, Clause 1,
Item 1 and Item 4, and Article 13 of the State Council's
"Implementation Measures for Re-education Through Labor," it is hereby
decided to commit Zhaxi Dongzhi to one year and three months re-
education through labor. Prior to the decision on re-education through
labor, the individual committed to re-education, Zhaxi Dongzhi, had
been held in criminal detention. For each day held in criminal
detention, a day is taken off re-education through labor. The period
of re-education through labor is [therefore] limited to run from
December 3, 2009 to March 2, 2011.
If this decision is contested, an administrative review by the
Huangnan Prefecture People's Government or the Qinghai Province Re-
education Through Labor Committee (address: Rule of Law Office, Public
Security Department, Qinghai Province) may be applied for within 60
days of receipt of this certificate of decision; or, an administrative
suit can be brought to Tongren County People's Court within three
months of receipt of this certificate of decision.
Huangnan Prefecture Re-education Through Labor Management Committee.
January 5, 2010.
Torture without Trace: song lyrics
Reproduced below are lyrics to two of Tashi Dhondup's songs, which are
published at http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2010/03/torture-without-trace-five-songs-by.html
The first song expresses his sadness about the lack of freedoms of the
Tibetan people, while "1958-2008" compares the repression of Tibet
from March, 2008 onwards with the crushing of resistance to the
Chinese takeover in Amdo, eastern Tibet, in 1958.
Torture Without Trace
First, a sad tune for my brother hasn't returned from afar
Second, the pain because there is no harmony for people
Third, the occupation and denial of freedom for Tibetans
This is all torture without trace
First, the regret as our ancestral wealth is lost to outsiders
Second, the pain that we aren't the owners of our resources
Third, the practice of sterilisation to wipe out our race
This is all torture without trace
This is all torture without trace
First, the hurt from being denied my parents' love
Second, the failure to hear the inner voices of my people
Third, the grief that our mountains are belittled
This is all torture without trace
Third, the grief that our mountains are belittled
This is all torture without trace1958 - 2008
Hey!
The year of 1958,
is when the black enemy entered Tibet,
is when lamas were put in prison.
That time was terrifying
That time was terrifying
Hey!
The year of 1958,
is when Tibetan heroes were put in prison,
is when innocent Tibetans were put in prison.
That time was terrifying
That time was terrifying
Hey!
The year of 2008,
is when innocent Tibetans were tortured,
is when the earth destroyed people's lives.
That time was terrifying
That time was terrifying
1. The first translation into English of the full text of the Panchen
Lama's 1962 "70,000 Character Petition" was published by the Tibet
Information Network, now closed, as: "A Poisoned Arrow: The Secret
Report of the 10th Panchen Lama." At the time he wrote the Petition to
Mao, the 10th Panchen Lama was the most senior religious leader
remaining in Tibet. Believed to be the most extensive internal
criticism of Chinese Communist policies ever submitted to the
leadership, Mao Zedong reacted by denouncing the report as "a poisoned
arrow shot at the Party" and its author as "a reactionary feudal
overlord." Two years later the 10th Panchen Lama was condemned as an
enemy of the people, and spent most of the following 14 years in
prison or under house arrest. Written four years before the start of
the Cultural Revolution, the Petition argues that China's policies
were leading to the eradication of religion, the decline of Tibetan
culture and potentially to the elimination of Tibetans as a distinct
nationality.
2. The authorities also issued directives on coverage of the
earthquake, saying that state media should reduce coverage of the
consequences of the earthquake, not focus too much on the role of
Tibetan Buddhist monks in helping the victims, and prioritise coverage
of the Shanghai Expo. (Reporters without Borders, rsf.org, April 30,
http://en.rsf.org/shanghai_en.html).
3. The revised State Secrets Law, passed on April 29 by the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, will
take effect on October 1, 2010.
4. An essay in the collection reads: "Shikalo [Jakpalo] a man in his
forties from Charo Xiang in Ngaba county, was beaten to death on false
charges. His precious life has fizzled out. This father and
cornerstone of his household leaves behind him a widow and [five]
orphans, weeping inside. This life-demeaning disaster has ruined life
for one household." For a full report on the death of Jakpalo, see:
http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/deaths-two-tibetans-after-torture.
http://newsblaze.com/story/20100517153025zzzz.nb/topstory.html
Fiction1. The 9th Jud...
Published on Sunday, May 16, 2010
Fiction
1. The 9th Judgment, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. Detective
Lindsay Boxer pursues a killer who's preying on women and children.
2. Lover Mine, J.R. Ward. Book 8 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
series.
3. The Help, Kathryn Stockett. A young white woman and two black maids
in 1960s Mississippi.
4. Deliver Us From Evil, David Baldacci. Two agents are tracking the
same man, a human trafficker who is now dealing in nuclear arms.
5. Hannah's List, Debbie Macomber. A doctor receives a letter from his
dead wife in which she asks him to marry one of three women she has
chosen for him.
Nonfiction
1. The Big Short, Michael Lewis. The people who saw the real-estate
crash coming and made billions from their foresight.
2. This Time Together, Carol Burnett. The comedian describes her rise
in show business and the people she's met along the way.
3. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, Chelsea Handler. More humorous personal
essays from the comedian.
4. Oprah, Kitty Kelley. The biography.
5. The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore. A tale of two Wes Moores living in
Baltimore: one, the author, a Rhodes scholar, combat veteran and
former White House fellow; the other, a man serving a life sentence in
prison.
Advice, how-to,
miscellaneous
1. Women, Food and God, Geneen Roth. How women can free themselves
from the tyranny of fear and hopelessness surrounding their bodies.
2. The Master Your Metabolism Cookbook, Jillian Michaels. Recipes and
health tips from a fitness expert on The Biggest Loser.
3. This Is Why You're Fat (And How to Get Thin Forever), Jackie
Warner. A celebrity fitness trainer offers her path to an elusive
goal.
4. So Long, Insecurity, Beth Moore. The Bible instructor shares her
insights for boosting women's self-confidence.
5 Bringing Up Girls, James Dobson. Parenting advice based on biblical
principles.
Paperback nonfiction
1. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen. Life's detours
send Janzen back to the Mennonite home where she was raised.
2. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, Chelsea Handler. Humorous
personal essays from the comedian.
3. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert. A writer's yearlong journey in
search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.
4. My Horizontal Life, Chelsea Handler. A memoir of one-night stands.
5. Conservative Victory, Sean Hannity. The Fox News host calls for
action against the policies of Barack Obama.
Mass market paperbacks
1. Wild Fire, Christine Feehan. A leopard shifter from Panama and the
woman he betrayed, a shifter from Borneo, cross paths again in the
jungle.
2. Sweet Tea at Sunrise, Sherryl Woods. A single mom returns to
Serenity, S.C., and goes to work for the sexy owner of a radio
station; a Sweet Magnolia novel.
3. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson. A hacker and a
journalist investigate the disappearance of a Swedish heiress.
4. Summer on Blossom Street, Debbie Macomber. People seeking a fresh
start join the Knit to Quit class in Seattle.
5. The Last Song, Nicholas Sparks. A 17-year-old spends the summer
with her father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love.
— New York Times
Fiction
1. The 9th Judgment, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. Detective
Lindsay Boxer pursues a killer who's preying on women and children.
2. Lover Mine, J.R. Ward. Book 8 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
series.
3. The Help, Kathryn Stockett. A young white woman and two black maids
in 1960s Mississippi.
4. Deliver Us From Evil, David Baldacci. Two agents are tracking the
same man, a human trafficker who is now dealing in nuclear arms.
5. Hannah's List, Debbie Macomber. A doctor receives a letter from his
dead wife in which she asks him to marry one of three women she has
chosen for him.
Nonfiction
1. The Big Short, Michael Lewis. The people who saw the real-estate
crash coming and made billions from their foresight.
2. This Time Together, Carol Burnett. The comedian describes her rise
in show business and the people she's met along the way.
3. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, Chelsea Handler. More humorous personal
essays from the comedian.
4. Oprah, Kitty Kelley. The biography.
5. The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore. A tale of two Wes Moores living in
Baltimore: one, the author, a Rhodes scholar, combat veteran and
former White House fellow; the other, a man serving a life sentence in
prison.
Advice, how-to,
miscellaneous
1. Women, Food and God, Geneen Roth. How women can free themselves
from the tyranny of fear and hopelessness surrounding their bodies.
2. The Master Your Metabolism Cookbook, Jillian Michaels. Recipes and
health tips from a fitness expert on The Biggest Loser.
3. This Is Why You're Fat (And How to Get Thin Forever), Jackie
Warner. A celebrity fitness trainer offers her path to an elusive
goal.
4. So Long, Insecurity, Beth Moore. The Bible instructor shares her
insights for boosting women's self-confidence.
5 Bringing Up Girls, James Dobson. Parenting advice based on biblical
principles.
Paperback nonfiction
1. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen. Life's detours
send Janzen back to the Mennonite home where she was raised.
2. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, Chelsea Handler. Humorous
personal essays from the comedian.
3. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert. A writer's yearlong journey in
search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.
4. My Horizontal Life, Chelsea Handler. A memoir of one-night stands.
5. Conservative Victory, Sean Hannity. The Fox News host calls for
action against the policies of Barack Obama.
Mass market paperbacks
1. Wild Fire, Christine Feehan. A leopard shifter from Panama and the
woman he betrayed, a shifter from Borneo, cross paths again in the
jungle.
2. Sweet Tea at Sunrise, Sherryl Woods. A single mom returns to
Serenity, S.C., and goes to work for the sexy owner of a radio
station; a Sweet Magnolia novel.
3. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson. A hacker and a
journalist investigate the disappearance of a Swedish heiress.
4. Summer on Blossom Street, Debbie Macomber. People seeking a fresh
start join the Knit to Quit class in Seattle.
5. The Last Song, Nicholas Sparks. A 17-year-old spends the summer
with her father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love.
— New York Times
http://www.ohio.com/entertainment/93875759.html
Guy Sorman
The Silicon Lining
California’s innovative high-tech firms keep creating wealth, but will
bad state policies drive them out?
Eric Demers can’t remember how many pseudo–Silicon Valleys he has seen
around the world while traveling for Advanced Micro Devices. The
globe’s second-largest microchip designer and producer (after Intel),
AMD was created 40 years ago in the authentic Silicon Valley in
California. Demers, the firm’s chief technology officer, has no
intention of moving. Across the world, he points out, private and
public attempts to create new Silicon Valleys have achieved only “pale
copies” of the original.
That original has remained the undisputed cradle of high-tech and
communications innovation. Historic leaders like Hewlett-Packard and
Intel have stayed here; more recent giants Google, Facebook, and
Twitter cluster around the pioneers. The Valley’s economy,
concentrated in a 60-mile corridor running from San Francisco to San
Jose, attracts one-third of all venture capital invested in new
businesses in the United States—39 percent in 2009, though the $7
billion made it a slow year. A new start-up launches every working
day. From among these high-tech ventures will emerge the next Google
or Intel.
Silicon Valley faces a serious threat, however: the fiscal and
regulatory earthquakes rocking California, which verges on becoming a
failed state. Measured by per-household state and local government
spending, California ranks third-highest in the nation, behind Alaska
and New York. The state government is trying desperately to squeeze
money out of any profitable activity to meet the crippling costs.
Further, California continues to impose onerous regulations on the
private sector. High taxes and stifling regulations give companies a
strong incentive to move elsewhere. In this increasingly business-
hostile environment, will Silicon Valley’s unique entrepreneurial
spirit survive?
Forty years ago, when Silicon Valley began to expand and soon came to
dominate the high-tech universe, most of its companies were
manufacturing enterprises, producing microchips and computers right on
the spot. No longer. Starting in the 1980s, Valley firms began moving
away from production to concentrate on inventing new products and
services. AMD, for example, outsourced most of its manufacturing years
ago to factories in countries like China, India, and Taiwan—places
with lower wages and high production quality. The approximately 3,000
employees at the company’s Sunnyvale offices are designers, marketers,
accountants, and mechanical engineers; what tiny production lines
remain are for building prototypes.
Was so much outsourcing necessary? Jason Clemens, research director
for the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, one of
California’s few free-market think tanks, acknowledges that countries
like Taiwan offer a powerful “pull” factor for shifting manufacturing
to East Asia. But there has been a major “push” factor, too, Clemens
argues: the Golden State’s excessive income and property taxes and its
web of regulations, which, he believes, have driven up outsourcing. As
Berkeley-based journalist Francis Pisani puts it: “Outsourcing is the
only answer to taxes and regulations.”
California has piled every imaginable burden on businesses. Minimum-
wage laws are among the highest in the country, and health and safety
regulations are among the strictest; cities like San Francisco and San
Jose require businesses to offer employees health insurance; labor
laws are extremely union-friendly; environmental policies drive up
energy costs—and on and on. Small firms have the toughest time in this
business-toxic climate. A recent study by Sanjay Varshney, dean of the
College of Business Administration at California State University in
Sacramento, estimates that the cost of state regulations in 2007
reached an average of $134,122 per small business—the equivalent of
one job lost per company. And it’s not just the small guys: Google,
which uses colossal amounts of electricity, is building its data
centers in other states or abroad, where energy is much cheaper.
Hank Nothhaft is the CEO of Tessera, a firm in the field of
semiconductor miniaturization. He shows me the vacant office parks and
empty lots around his company’s San Jose factory. Silicon Valley, he
observes, lost more than a quarter of its computer, microchip, and
communications-equipment manufacturing jobs from 2001 to 2008, and
Tessera proved no exception. The company has kept some of its assembly
lines and industrial operations going here, but it now produces two-
thirds of its nanotechnology chips in less expensive North Carolina
and in various countries overseas, with China becoming the latest
contender for a production facility. Just back from a trip there,
Nothhaft says that he has been offered terms he “cannot decently
refuse.” Using the Internet and videoconferencing, he can manage
Tessera factories around the globe without leaving his San Jose
office. “The business environment is becoming awful in California,”
Nothhaft complains—just by moving his headquarters to Nevada, he’d
save $5 million a year in taxes.
Why doesn’t he, then? “Inertia,” he answers. “We have a very good team
here, which I wouldn’t want to disband.” He also holds out hope for
change: “Things would turn around if the government became pro-
growth.”
Outsourcing has allowed local entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs
to remain as creative as ever—for now. The Valley continues to attract
innovators who share a “built-in start-up mentality,” Pisani says,
risk-takers who believe that “they can change the world through
technical innovation and become billionaires while doing it.” They’ve
brought “permanent revolution” to the Valley, he adds. After the
microchip, the PC, and the Internet, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs
might have rested on their laurels. But the innovation hasn’t stopped.
Smartphones inaugurated a new era of personal nomadic devices. Now
comes Apple’s iPad.
These dazzling products have opened a new frontier for the software
industry: the seemingly infinite world of digital applications, or
“apps,” for mobile gadgets. Relatively cheap to launch and not
requiring heavy investment or sophisticated equipment to create, apps
could be invented anywhere, Pisani says. But it so happens that most
of them are still created in Silicon Valley—or in other parts of the
Bay Area that can offer cheaper rents. It is invaluable, Pisani
explains, to be “not farther than one hour’s drive from Palo Alto and
Sand Hill Road,” where all the venture capitalists work.
The Valley is a “vast, informal club,” observes Jean-Louis Gassée,
formerly with Apple and now a venture capitalist. Socializing and
networking become vectors of creativity. Palo Alto’s University Road
cafés, school PTA meetings, and gyms become places where one can meet
customers, vendors, collaborators, and investors. Skilled engineers
and smart high-tech entrepreneurs also cluster in the imitation
Silicon Valleys of Bangalore, Saclay (near Paris), and Shanghai,
Gassée acknowledges. But no hub can match the Valley’s innovative
start-up mentality.
Outsourcing has encouraged that creative spirit not just by keeping
costs down but by bringing Silicon Valley firms into daily contact
with other cultures. As a result, Valley entrepreneurs recruit
engineers in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America; a permanent two-
way flow of people, products, and services unites the Valley with
hundreds of regions across the planet. Silicon Valley, observes Alan
Eustace, a Google vice president at its Mountain View campus, has
become a “high-tech melting pot within the U.S. melting pot.” He adds
that the array of ethnicities and backgrounds of Google employees is a
tremendous benefit for the company. Google’s search engine, based on
what Eustace calls “the wisdom of the crowd,” is a good example: it
works well in any civilization, he maintains, because technicians from
all civilizations have helped conceive it. Today, foreign-born
entrepreneurs found half of the Valley’s start-ups.
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, recognizing the benefits of this cross-
fertilization, express frustration with current immigration law. The
federal government’s annual cap on H-1B visas—issued to professionals
working in certain fields, many of them high-tech—is absurd, says
Nothhaft. “Asian students are not allowed to stay in the U.S.; after
they get a degree, they have to return to India or South Korea, where
they become our competitors.”
Where did Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial, creative spirit come from?
There are as many answers to that question as there are political
ideologies, says Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired, a magazine that in
the nineties was the paper expression of Valley mystique. Kelly
eventually sold Wired to Condé Nast (though he retains the title
“Senior Maverick”). One could argue, he begins, that the government
helped create Silicon Valley during World War II by installing
military facilities there, which bought goods and services from
surrounding private businesses and helped them flourish. Or maybe it
was luck: working from his garage, David Packard initiated a technical
revolution in radio transmission—and he just happened to live in Palo
Alto.
Stanford University, Kelly continues, may be another explanation.
Stanford not only trains some of America’s best engineers; it also has
a tradition of cooperating with the private sector. The university
encourages students to start their own companies as soon as they’ve
completed their studies, a practice that began with a professor of
engineering in the 1930s, Frederick Terman, who would give his
students small pots of money to help them test their ideas in the
marketplace. Among his students were Packard and William Hewlett, who
couldn’t have started their firm without Terman’s cash. When Terman
returned to Stanford after the war to become dean of the School of
Engineering, he expanded on this policy by leasing Stanford land to
high-tech firms. Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists consider Terman
their “godfather,” says Randy Komisar, a partner at one of the leading
VC firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Today, Silicon Valley is a
“plug-and-play” environment where innovators can readily seek out
funding—and also tap into the best accountants, engineers, public-
relations professionals, and bankers, all available on the spot.
But it’s the cultural explanation that Kelly likes best. He sees
Silicon Valley as the ultimate Wild West: a geographic frontier and—at
least in the beginning—an unregulated one. This helps explain how the
Valley won out over the Boston area as a high-tech center in the
seventies, Kelly believes. Home to MIT and leading high-speed computer
manufacturers like Cray (which has since disappeared), Boston was the
leader then. But Massachusetts was heavily taxed and regulated; at the
time, California wasn’t. The Silicon Valley pioneers thus had greater
leeway than their Boston competitors to experiment, even to fail. They
could explore fields like software, which wasn’t considered valuable
intellectual property yet but which would pay off hugely over time.
The freewheeling Wild West triumphed over the more controlled New
England. As Michael Bernstam, a scholar at Stanford’s Hoover
Institution, says: “Capitalism is most creative at the frontiers.”
We keep an edge over the rest of the world,” says Komisar. “We know
where the future is.” Forty years ago, Silicon Valley capitalists knew
that computers were the future; later, they knew that the Internet was
the Next Big Thing, and later still, social networking. Knowing
exactly which companies would flourish in these fields was, of course,
more difficult. Only 10 percent of start-ups survive their first year,
and half of those are still alive after two years, with just a few
rising to the level of an Intel, a Google, or a Facebook.
“Alternative energy is the next big adventure,” Komisar tells me. It’s
a plausible argument. True, alternative energy and energy-saving
technologies won’t replace the existing energy industry—they simply
don’t generate enough power. But Komisar contends that, in the long
run, the cost of oil will only increase, while the cost of alternative
energies, through innovation, can only drop. Even if cap-and-trade
legislation goes nowhere and no global-warming treaty ever wins
ratification, he says, companies will want to become more energy-
efficient to improve their balance sheets. Amit Chatterjee, founder
and CEO of Redwood-based Hara, a start-up financed by Komisar’s fund,
sells software that helps manage natural resources. “We do not sell
green tech, ” he insists. “We sell cost reductions.” Among Hara’s
first customers: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. “They count on us
to become carbon-neutral in 2010,” Chatterjee says.
Not all of the Valley’s venture capitalists share Komisar’s and
Chatterjee’s enthusiasm for green energy, it’s important to add. Some
competitors believe that the Obama administration’s support is
artificially boosting the momentum for alternative energy. The future
may not be as green as some expect. Komisar admits that public
subsidies have played a major role in this latest Valley mania, but he
notes that the Internet enjoyed initial support from the government,
too. “We think long-term,” he says. “We are not playing with
derivatives. We associate with entrepreneurial teams for many years
and create real value.”
Time will tell. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers typically sells its
participation in a project a full ten years after beginning to fund
it. The pension funds, endowments, and wealthy individuals who trust
their money with the roughly 20 elite venture-capital firms on Sand
Hill Road aren’t short-term speculators, either. Surrounding these top-
tier firms are approximately 500 smaller, more adventurous, venture-
capital companies that are willing to fund smaller, shorter-term
investments, like social networks today. There aren’t enough Facebooks
and Twitters in Silicon Valley to make all the firms wealthy. Some
will strike gold, however, and perhaps join the elite.
Given California’s harsh business climate, it’s remarkable that
entrepreneurs still flock to Silicon Valley, Sonia Arrison wryly
observes. She’s a Pacific Research Institute scholar with a reputation
for being a high-tech prophetess. “It’s a trade-off,” she says. “If
you leave the Valley, you lose a lot.” The cost of doing business in
the state is rising, but outside the Valley, it remains more difficult
to find venture capital and recruit brilliant students.
Will competitors displace Silicon Valley? “There is pervasive fear of
Chinese competition,” Arrison notes, but China lacks the Valley’s
global appeal and “will not become a melting pot—at least not in the
near future.” Where does she see the next revolution taking place?
“Smartphones are hot,” she says, “and tablets are as hot as
microprocessors were a generation ago. The next big thing could be
cloud computing, and farther out, three-dimensional printers ” (which
would be able to create objects in three dimensions, starting with
basic plastic devices). Whatever the next innovation is, though,
Arrison thinks that it will happen in the Valley.
Carl Guardino concurs, up to a point: he calls the Valley “the
innovation leader of the world,” but he won’t rule out high-tech
breakthroughs elsewhere. As president of the Silicon Valley Leadership
Group, which represents the interests of the region’s 300 most
significant firms, Guardino looks closely at the competition. So far,
he’s less impressed by China and India than by Ireland and Singapore.
“The error of many of our competitors is to copy Silicon Valley,” he
tells me. “They try to reproduce who we are and what we do: the Indian
and Chinese governments built somewhat artificial high-tech parks
without any real entrepreneurs working there.” A more productive
strategy, he thinks, is what Ireland and Singapore are doing:
encouraging research and development by lowering taxes, loosening
regulations, and improving education.
On January 27, 2010, two major events took place in the United States.
In Washington, D.C., President Obama, in his first State of the Union
address, announced steps to help small businesses create jobs. In San
Francisco, Steve Jobs, Apple’s visionary CEO, presented his latest
invention, the iPad. Which event will prove more significant to
America’s future and the world’s?
Tessera’s Hank Nothhaft suggests the answer when he tells me that his
elder son has just created a start-up in the Valley. “We can’t help
it,” he says. “We’re just a family of serial entrepreneurs.”
Innovation still tends to happen first in Silicon Valley. Even the
sclerotic, near-failed state of California hasn’t yet stifled the
extraordinary energy of this unique place. A good thing, because
California’s economic recovery—and America’s—will depend heavily on
its continued vibrancy.
Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor, is the author of
Economics Does Not Lie and other books.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_silicon-valley.html
How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life
Author Kaavya Viswanathan
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Young-adult fiction
Publisher Little Brown and Company
Publication date April 4, 2006
Media type Print (Hardcover)
Pages 314 pp.
ISBN 9780316059886
Dewey Decimal 813/.6 22
LC Classification PS3622.I79 H69 2006
How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life is a young adult
novel by Kaavya Viswanathan, an Indian-American woman who wrote it
just after she graduated from high school. Its 2006 debut was highly
publicized, but the book was withdrawn after allegations that portions
had been plagiarized from several sources.[1][2] Viswanathan
apologized and said any similarities were "completely unintentional
and unconscious."[3] All shelf copies of Opal Mehta were ultimately
recalled and destroyed by the publisher, and Viswanathan's contract
for a second book was canceled.[4]
Author
Kaavya Viswanathan was born in Chennai (formerly Madras) in India and
spent her early childhood in the United Kingdom, moving with her
parents to the United States when she was in middle school.[5] Her
father Viswanathan Rajaraman is a neurosurgeon, and her mother Mary
Sundaram is a physician who gave up practicing to raise their daughter.
[5] As is sometimes customary among South Indians, Viswanathan took
her father's first name as her last name.[5] Intending ultimately to
apply to Ivy League universities, Viswanathan participated in an
assortment of enrichment programs and extracurricular activities,
including summers at the Center for Talented Youth, a Johns Hopkins
University program for gifted children, as well as serving as editor
in chief of her school newspaper and taking advanced placement courses
at her magnet high school, Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, New
Jersey.[5]
Book deal
While attending Bergen County Academies, Viswanathan showed her
writing – including a several-hundred page novel on Irish history she
had already completed – to Katherine Cohen of IvyWise, a private
college admissions consultancy which Viswanathan's parents had hired
to help with their daughter's application process.[3][5] Through
Cohen, Viswanathan was signed by the William Morris Agency under
senior agent and William Morris partner Jennifer Rudolph Walsh[3][5]
and referred to book packaging company 17th Street Productions (now
called Alloy Entertainment),[3][6][7] a media firm responsible for
packaging the Gossip Girl and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
book series, among others.[8] On the basis of an outline and four
chapters of the novel that would become Opal Mehta, Viswanathan
eventually signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown and Company[5]
for an advance originally reported to be $500,000.[1][3] She began
writing the book the summer before college, and finished it during her
freshman year at Harvard College, while taking a full course load.[5]
Opal Mehta was published on April 4, 2006,[9] and Viswanathan was
profiled by The New York Times on April 6, 2006.[5]
Opal Mehta centers on an academically oriented Indian-American girl
who, after being told by a Harvard College admissions officer that she
is not well-rounded, doggedly works to become a typical American teen:
ultrasocial, shopping- and boy-driven, and carelessly hip.[5] With
Publishers Weekly calling the book "Legally Blonde in reverse,"
Viswanathan stated that her own college prep experience had inspired
the novel: "I was surrounded by the stereotype of high-pressure Asian
and Indian families trying to get their children into Ivy League
schools."[5] When asked about her influences in an interview given to
The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey (before any allegations of
plagiarism had surfaced), Viswanathan responded that "nothing I read
gave me the inspiration" to write the novel.[10][11][12]
Michael Pietsch later told The New York Times that Viswanathan’s
advance for her two book deal was less than the previously publicized
amount of $500,000, and that it was split between the author and Alloy
Entertainment.[13] Alloy President Leslie Morgenstein asserted that
while the firm helped Viswanathan "conceptualize and plot the
book,"[13] it did not help with the actual writing.[14] Though Alloy
was no longer involved once the book was sold to Little, Brown,[6][7]
the company shares the copyright with Viswanathan.[3][14] Her agent
Walsh told The New York Times that the plot and writing of Opal Mehta
had been "1,000 percent" Viswanathan's.[6][7] The novel was edited by
Asya Muchnick at Little, Brown,[6][7] and the movie rights to the book
were sold to DreamWorks SKG in February 2006.[11]
Opal Mehta garnered mixed reviews,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21] many of
which described Viswanathan as an author of "chick lit."[22][23][24]
Alleged plagiarism
Megan McCafferty
On April 23, 2006, The Harvard Crimson reported that several portions
of Opal Mehta appeared to have been plagiarized from Megan
McCafferty's first two "Jessica Darling" novels Sloppy Firsts (2001)
and Second Helpings (2003), noting over a dozen similar passages.[1]
[11] At the time, Viswanathan's novel had reached 32nd on The New York
Times's hardcover fiction bestseller list.[1] McCafferty's third
Jessica Darling novel, Charmed Thirds, had just been released a week
after Opal Mehta, and was No. 19 on the same list.[14]
McCafferty stated that she had learned about Viswanathan's alleged
plagiarism through a fan's e-mail on April 11, 2006,[1] the same day
Charmed Thirds was released[25] and nearly two weeks before the story
went public.[26] According to McCafferty, the email's subject read:
"'Flattery or a case for litigation.' I thought, oh my God, somebody's
suing me."[26] Prompted by the email's allegations, McCafferty looked
at Opal Mehta and later said that reading Viswanathan's book was like
"recognizing your own child's face. My own words were just leaping out
at me page after page after page."[26] Contacted by the Crimson the
day before they broke the story, McCafferty responded via email, “I’m
already aware of this situation, and so is my publisher ... After
reading the book in question, and finding passages, characters, and
plot points in common, I do hope this can be resolved in a manner that
is fair to all of the parties involved.”[1]
On April 24, 2006, Little, Brown issued a statement from Viswanathan:
"When I was in high school, I read and loved two wonderful novels by
Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, which spoke to me
in a way few other books did. Recently, I was very surprised and upset
to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my
novel ... and passages in these books ... While the central stories of
my book and hers are completely different, I wasn't aware of how much
I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words. I am a huge fan of her
work and can honestly say that any phrasing similarities between her
works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious. My
publisher and I plan to revise my novel for future printings to
eliminate any inappropriate similarities ... I sincerely apologize to
Megan McCafferty and to any who feel they have been misled by these
unintentional errors on my part."[3][27][28]
Viswanathan's agent Walsh stated, "Knowing what a fine person Kaavya
is, I believe any similarities were unintentional. Teenagers tend to
adopt each other's language."[3] The day after Viswanathan's
admission, Steve Ross of Crown Publishing Group – a subsidiary of
Random House and the publisher of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings –
issued a statement in response:
"We find both the responses of Little Brown and their author Kaavya
Viswanathan deeply troubling and disingenuous. Ms. Viswanathan's claim
that similarities in her phrasing were 'unconscious' or
'unintentional' is suspect. We have documented more than forty
passages from Kaavya Viswanathan's recent publication How Opal Mehta
Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life that contain identical language
and/or common scene or dialogue structure from Megan McCafferty's
first two books, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. This extensive
taking from Ms. McCafferty's books is nothing less than an act of
literary identity theft ... Based on the scope and character of the
similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful
innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act."[11][12][14][28]
Ross said later that "We all felt it was important that we come to
[McCafferty's] defense and make clear that we support our author. The
notion that this was accidental stretches credibility to the breaking
point."[14] McCafferty's agent Joanna Pulcini also identified 45
"strikingly similar" passages, stating via email that "Many include
identical phrasing, establish primary characters, and contain shared
plot developments ... It is understandably difficult for us to accept
that Ms. Viswanathan’s plagiarism was ‘unintentional and unconscious,’
as she has claimed."[11] Ross added that at that time, McCafferty was
"devastated" by the plagiarism, feeling "like something fundamental
was taken" and "not sleeping, not eating."[14]
In an April 26, 2006 interview with The New York Times, Viswanathan
suggested that some of the plagiarism may have happened because she
read both of McCaffrey's books multiple times and has a photographic
memory.[6][7][13] "I remember by reading," she said. "I never take
notes."[6][7] She added "I've never read a novel with an Indian-
American protagonist ... The plot points are reflections of my own
experience. I'm an Indian-American."[6][7]
Sample passages
McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings Viswanathan's Opal
Mehta
Sloppy Firsts, page 7: "Bridget is my age and lives across the street.
For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I
needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget's braces came off
and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh
grade Honors classes."[29] page 14: "Priscilla was my age and lived
two blocks away. For the first fifteen years of my life, those were
the only qualifications I needed in a best friend. We had bonded over
our mutual fascination with the abacus in a playgroup for gifted kids.
But that was before freshman year, when Priscilla's glasses came off,
and the first in a long string of boyfriends got on."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 6: “Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another
example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart.
Guess which one I got. You’ll see where it’s gotten me.”[1][29] page
39: “Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example
of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty. I had
long resigned myself to category one, and as long as it got me to
Harvard, I was happy. Except, it hadn’t gotten me to Harvard. Clearly,
it was time to switch to category two.”[1][29]
Second Helpings, page 67: “... but in a truly sadomasochistic dieting
gesture, they chose to buy their Diet Cokes at Cinnabon.”[1][29] page
46: “In a truly masochistic gesture, they had decided to buy Diet
Cokes from Mrs. Fields ...”[1][29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 23: "He’s got dusty reddish dreads that a girl
could never run her hands through. His eyes are always half-shut. His
lips are usually curled in a semi-smile, like he’s in on a big joke
that’s being played on you but you don’t know it yet."[29] page 48:
"He had too-long shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes, which were
always half shut. His mouth was always curled into a half smile, like
he knew about some big joke that was about to be played on you."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 68: "Tanning was the closest that Sara came to
having a hobby, other than gossiping, that is. Even the webbing
between her fingers was the color of coffee without cream. Even for
someone with her Italian heritage and dark coloring, it was unnatural
and alienlike." page 48: "It was obvious that next to casual hookups,
tanning was her extracurricular activity of choice. Every visible inch
of skin matched the color and texture of her Louis Vuitton backpack.
Even combined with her dark hair and Italian heritage, she looked deep-
fried."
Second Helpings, page 69: "Throughout this conversation, Manda acted
like she couldn’t have been more bored. She lazily skimmed her new
paperback copy of Reviving Ophelia—she must have read the old one down
to shreds. She just stood there, popping another piece of Doublemint,
or reapplying her lip gloss, or slapping her ever-present pack of
Virginia Slims against her palm. (Insert oral fixation jokes, here,
here and here.) Her hair—usually dishwater brown and wavy—had been
straightened and bleached the color of sweet corn since the last time
I saw her...Just when I thought she had maxed out on hooter hugeness,
it seemed that whatever poundage Sara had lost over the summer had
turned up in Manda’s bra."[29] page 48: "The other HBz acted like they
couldn’t be more bored. They sat down at a table, lazily skimmed heavy
copies of Italian Vogue, popped pieces of Orbit, and reapplied layers
of lip gloss. Jennifer, who used to be a bit on the heavy side, had
dramatically slimmed down, no doubt through some combination of
starvation and cosmetic surgery. Her lost pounds hadn’t completely
disappeared, though; whatever extra pounds she’d shed from her hips
had ended up in her bra. Jennifer’s hair, which I remembered as
dishwater brown and riotously curly, had been bleached Clairol 252:
Never Seen in Nature Blonde. It was also so straight it looked washed,
pressed and starched."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 23: "Though I used to see him sometimes at Hope's
house, Marcus and I had never, ever acknowledged each other's
existence before. So I froze, not knowing whether I should (a) laugh
(b) say something (c) ignore him and keep on walking ... 'Uh, yeah.
Ha. Ha. Ha.' ... I turned around and saw that Marcus was smiling at
me."[3] page 49: "Though I had been to school with him for the last
three years, Sean Whalen and I had never acknowledged each other's
existence before. I froze, unsure of (a) what he was talking about and
(b) what I was supposed to do about it ... 'Ha, yeah. Uh, ha. Ha.' ...
I looked up and saw that Sean was grinning."[3]
Second Helpings, page 68: “‘Omigod!’ shrieked Sara, taking a pink tube
top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny out of her shopping
bag.”[29] page 51: “...I was sick of listening to her hum along to
Alicia Keys, and worn out from resisting her efforts to buy me a pink
tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 237: "Finally, four major department stores and
170 specialty shops later, we were done."[1][29] page 51: "Five
department stores, and 170 specialty shops later, I was sick of
listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys..."[1][29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 217: “But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and
said something so random that I was afraid he was back on the
junk.”[29] page 142: “...he tapped me on the shoulder and said
something so random I worried that he needed more expert counseling
than I could provide.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 46: “He smelled sweet and woodsy, like cedar
shavings.”[29] page 147: “...I had even begun to recognize his cologne
(sweet and woodsy and spicy, like the sandalwood key chains sold as
souvenirs in India.)”[29]
Second Helpings, page 88: “By the way, Marcus wore a T-shirt that said
THURSDAY yesterday, and FRIDAY today.”[29] page 170: “He was wearing
an old, faded gray sweatshirt that said ‘Tuesday’ on it. Except that
today was Thursday.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 209:“Pause.
‘So I don’t need a ride...’
Another pause.
‘But do you want one?’ he asked.
God, did I want one.
He knew it, too. He leaned over the front seat and popped open the
passenger-side door. ‘Come on, I want to talk to you,’ he said."[29]
page 172:“Pause.
‘So I can’t really stay...’
Another pause.
‘But you want to?’ he asked.
Did I? Yes...
He knew it, too. He patted the chair again. ‘Come on, I want to talk
to you,’ he said.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 213: "He was invading my personal space, as I had
learned in Psych. class, and I instinctively sunk back into the seat.
That just made him move in closer. I was practically one with the
leather at this point, and unless I hopped into the backseat, there
was nowhere else for me to go."[29] page 175: "He was definitely
invading my personal space, as I had learned in Human Evolution class
last summer, and I instinctively backed up till my legs hit the chair
I had been sitting in. That just made him move in closer, until the
grommets in the leather embossed the backs of my knees, and he finally
tilted the book toward me."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 223: “Marcus finds me completely nonsexual. No
tension to complicate our whatever relationship. I should be
relieved.”[29] page 175-176: “Sean only wanted me as a friend. A
nonsexual female friend. That was a good thing. There would be no
tension to complicate our relationship and my soon-to-be relationship
with Jeff Akel. I was relieved.”[29]
TV interview
On April 26, 2006, Viswanathan appeared on NBC's The Today Show with
Katie Couric.[30][31][32] Viswanathan maintained her innocence, saying
that any and all similarities were "completely unconscious and
unintentional" and that she must have "internalized [McCafferty's]
words," never deliberately meaning to "take any."[31][32] She
maintained, "as I was writing, I genuinely believed that every single
word I wrote was my own. I was so surprised and horrified when I found
these similarities, when I heard about them over this weekend."[31]
[32] Asked about the plot similarities between Opal Mehta and
McCafferty's novels, Viswanathan told Couric, “I wrote about what I
knew, my personal experiences. I’m an Indian-American girl who got
good grades, from New Jersey, who wanted to go to an Ivy League
school, and I drew upon my own experiences, upon quirks of the people
around me and my culture, to create my character Opal Mehta.”[30][31]
[33] Viswanathan stated her intention to put an acknowledgement to
McCafferty in the foreword of future printings of Opal Mehta, and said
of McCafferty "I hope that she can forgive me for whatever distress
I’ve caused her."[31][32] Couric then asked, "Do you think that's
realistic ... given all the controversy surrounding James Frey and his
book ... Or do you think that ... they can forgive and forget?"[31]
[32] Viswanathan responded, "I mean, that's what I'd hope that people
can do. I hope that people who know me will believe that I'm telling
the truth, that I've never been anything less than honest in my entire
life, that I'm so horribly sorry for this mistake. But that's all it
was, a completely unintentional mistake."[31][32]
Additional accusations
Salman Rushdie
Within days after the story broke, Viswanathan's name became one of
the most searched terms at the blog search engine Technorati, and the
scandal was a popular topic for commentators at web forums from
MetaFilter to Amazon.com and Gawker.com.[10] On May 1, 2006, The New
York Times ran a story giving national prominence to claims on the
Sepia Mutiny blog that Viswanathan may have lifted text from Salman
Rushdie's 1990 novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories.[2][4][10]
Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
page 35: Warning reads, "If from speed you get your thrill / take
precaution—make your will."[2] page 118: Poster reads, "If from drink
you get your thrill, take precaution—write your will."[2]
page 31: Warning reads, "All the dangerous overtakers / end up safe at
undertaker's."[2] page 119: Poster reads, "All the dangerous drug
abusers end up safe as total losers."[2]
Sophie Kinsella
On May 2, 2006, The New York Times alleged "striking similarities"
between passages in Opal Mehta and those in Sophie Kinsella's 2003
"chick-lit" novel Can You Keep a Secret?.[2][4][34][35] Viswanathan
and Little, Brown declined to comment.[34]
Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret? Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
"a full-scale argument about animal rights ... The mink like being
made into coats."[34] "a full-fledged debate over animal rights .. The
foxes want to be made into scarves."[34]
“And we’ll tell everyone you got your Donna Karan coat from a discount
warehouse shop.”
Jemima gasps. “I didn’t!” she says, colour suffusing her cheeks.
“You did! I saw the carrier bag,” I chime in. “And we’ll make it
public that your pearls are cultured, not real...”
Jemima claps a hand over her mouth...
“OK!” says Jemima, practically in tears. “OK! I promise I’ll forget
all about it. I promise! Just please don’t mention the discount
warehouse shop. Please.”[2][34]
“And I’ll tell everyone that in eighth grade you used to wear a ‘My
Little Pony’ sweatshirt to school every day,” I continued.
Priscilla gasped. “I didn’t!” she said, her face purpling again.
“You did! I even have pictures,” I said. “And I’ll make it public that
you named your dog Pythagoras...”
Priscilla opened her mouth and gave a few soundless gulps...
“Okay, fine!” she said in complete consternation. “Fine! I promise
I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll talk to the club manager. Just please
don’t mention the sweatshirt. Please.”[2][34]
Meg Cabot
On May 2, 2006, The Harvard Crimson also alleged that Viswanathan
appeared to have borrowed passages from Meg Cabot's 2000 novel The
Princess Diaries.[2][4][35]
Cabot's The Princess Diaries Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
page 127: "Meanwhile, Paulo was picking up chunks of my hair and
making this face and going, all sadly, It must go. It must all go. And
it went. All of it. Well, almost all of it. I still have some like
bangs and a little fringe in back." page 57: "The whole time, Frederic
(I wondered if anyone dared call him Freddie) kept picking up long
strands of my hair and making sad faces. It must go," he said. It must
all go. And it went. Not all of it, because after four inches
vanished, I started making panicked, whimpering sounds that touched
even Frederic's heart ..."
page 126: "And it is sort of hard when all these beautiful,
fashionable people are telling you how good you'd look in this and how
much that would bring out your cheekbones ... And I kept telling
myself, She's only doing this because she loves you ..." page 58: "In
my defense, it was hard to be uptight and prickly while surrounded by
beautiful, fashionable people all telling me how good I'd look in that
shade and what this color would do to enhance my cheekbones."
page 12: "There isn’t a single inch of me that hasn’t been pinched,
cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. [...]
Because I don’t look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis
never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights.[35]
Mia Thermopolis never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or
Christian Dior bras, which by the way don’t even come in 32A, which is
my size. I don’t even know who I am anymore. It certainly isn't Mia
Thermopolis. She’s turning me into someone else."[2] page 59: "Every
inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished,
painted, or moisturized. I didn’t look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal
Mehta didn’t own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been
traded in for a small sailboat.[35] She didn’t wear makeup or Manolo
Blahniks or Chanel sunglasses or Habitual jeans or La Perla bras. She
never owned enough cashmere to make her concerned for the future of
the Kazakhstani mountain goat population. I was turning into someone
else."[2]
Tanuja Desai Hidier
On April 26, 2006, Viswanathan had told The New York Times, "I've
never read a novel with an Indian-American protagonist ... The plot
points are reflections of my own experience. I'm an Indian-
American."[6][7] Subsequently on May 3, 2006, The Harvard Independent
noted three passages in Opal Mehta similar to Tanuja Desai Hidier's
Born Confused (2002), another young adult novel about an Indian-
American teenager in New Jersey.[33] They cited "uncanny resemblance
in imagery, sentence structure, and paragraph organization" between
the two books.[33] Hidier later stated that she had "ironically" been
alerted to the allegations on the day Viswanathan was quoted in the
The New York Times.[36] Hidier said:
"I was stunned to find two dozen instances of lifting from Born
Confused in the Opal Mehta book ... I also drew largely from
autobiography to tell the story of my 17-year-old Indian American
Jersey girl, Dimple Lala. And I hadn't read any books I could recall
with a South Asian American teen protagonist at that point (I wrote
Born Confused in 2000/2001 and it launched in 2002). To the best of my
knowledge Born Confused was the first book with a US female teen desi
heroine; that was one of the reasons my publisher wanted it, and it is
certainly one of the reasons I wrote it ... And so I was extremely
surprised to find that the majority, though not all, of the passages
in Opal Mehta taken from Born Confused are those dealing with
descriptions of various aspects of South Asian culture (food, dress,
locale, even memories of India, etc.) and the way that culture is
expressed in America; essentially every scene of Opal Mehta that deals
with any aspect of South Asian culture in more than passing detail has
lifted something from Born Confused. One would think that these kinds
of cultural details at least could have been drawn from Ms.
Viswanathan's personal experience, given our similar cultural
backgrounds (and the similar cultural backgrounds and ages of our
protagonists)."[36]
An excerpt of Born Confused had appeared in Seventeen magazine in 2002.
[36] Hadier was subsequently contacted by Viswanathan's future book
packager 17th Street/Alloy, but she declined their offer to
collaborate with her on an "Indian-American teen story."[36] Hidier
noted in 2006 that "several parts of this excerpt – including the
opening and closing – are present and strongly echoed in the Opal
Mehta book."[36] She added that Born Confused contained many specific
details from her own life which had been recycled by Viswanathan:[36]
"It was a surreal experience for me, looking at these and the other
parallel parts side by side. The feeling was almost as if someone had
broken into your home – and in some ways this is what literally had
happened, considering so much of Born Confused is drawn from my life
(and home): The alcohol cabinet in my non-drinking household in small
town Massachusetts was now in Opal's, the details of my family's two
dinnertimes because of all the years of working late into the night by
my father, too; my mother's food, from her mother's recipes,
transplanted to Opal's table, her slinky black outfit too; my ecstatic
and eye-opening discovery of Jackson Heights, Queens during an
enthralled and emotional day there many years ago, suddenly turned to
Edison, New Jersey ... Did [Viswanathan and/or Alloy] think you could
just substitute one kind of Indian for another? A friend brought my
attention to a couple observant bloggers who seemed to have caught on
early to this grand error, commenting on how jarring it was to see a
Gujarati/Marathi meal on a South Indian table ... and that some of the
memories of India hearken back to a much older India in the Opal Mehta
book (which makes sense considering the many years that separate Ms.
Viswanathan and myself) – details that may have escaped a person not
familiar with the culture."[36]
Hidier's Born Confused Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
page 85: "Finally, I tore open the package they made me save for last.
Inside, padded carefully between layers of tissue, was an unbelievably
resounding salvar khamees, one of those Indian outfits consisting of
loose-fitting pants with a long top and scarf, or dupatta. The deep
crimson fabric screamed sanguinely open. A river of nearly neon gold
dye wound noisily through its length. The salvar was ornately
embroidered with gold and silver and garnet beads and little bells
that made a racket even as I lifted it out of the box. All in all it
was, in fact, so loud I could hear it. Heavy, too — funny how all
those little driblets could add up."[33] page 125-126: "I looked at
the multicolored swirl-patterned box hesitantly. In my past
experience, gifts from Edison rarely boded well. And when I tore apart
the layers of carefully packed tissue paper, I found an elaborate
salwar kameez — loose pants, a long tunic-style top, and a trailing
scarf, or dupatta. The salwar was a startling peacock-green, and
embroidered so ornately with gold and silver threads and glittering
beads that it made my eyes hurt. When I lifted it up, the room
resounded to the tinkle of thousands of tiny golden bells. It was
surprisingly heavy — all that jigna really added up — and it was the
last thing in the world I ever wanted to wear."[33]
page 92-93: "All day the house had smelled of spices, and now before
our eyes lay the resulting combustion of all that kitchen chemistry.
The feast my mother had conjured up was extravagant, and I realized
how hungry I was; I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, at least not on a
daily basis, but today the sight of it was pure poetry ... Brown sugar
roti and cloud-puff puris just itching to be popped. Coconut rice
fluffed up over the silver pot like a sweet-smelling pillow. Samosas
transparent, peas bundling just below the surface. Spinach with nymph-
finger cloves of garlic that sank like butter on the tongue. A vat of
cucumber raita, the two-percent yogurt thickened with sour cream
(which my mom added when we had guests, though she denied it when
asked; I’d seen the empty carton, not a kitten lick left). And the
centerpiece: a deep serving dish of lamb curry, the pieces melting
tenderly off the bone."[33] page 130: "This year, fortunately, there
wasn’t an egg in sight. Instead, the house had smelled of spices all
day, and when we sat down at the dining room table, I nearly combusted
at the sight of the extravagant feast my mom had conjured up. Usually
I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, but today I was suddenly starving.
The table creaked with the weight of crisp, brown rotis and feather-
light, puffy puris. A basket of my favorite kheema naan sat beside the
clouds of cashew and sultana-studded coconut rice in an enormous pot.
There was plump okra fried in oil and garlic till it melted like
butter on the tongue, aloo curry studded with peppercorns and
glistening chopped chilis, and a crock of raita, a cool, delicious
mixture of yogurt and sour cream, bursting with finely chopped onions
and cucumbers. The centerpiece was a deep dish of mutton curry, the
meat (my mom only used halal bought from an Arab butcher in Edison)
already falling off the bone."[33]
page 13: "India. I had few memories of the place, but the ones I held
were dream clear: Bathing in a bucket as a little girl. The unnerving
richness of buffalo milk drunk from a pewter cup. My Dadaji pouring
tea into a saucer so it would cool faster, sipping from the edge of
the thin dish, never spilling a drop. A whole host of kitchen gods
(looking so at home in the undishwashed unmicrowaved room). Meera
Maasi crouching on the floor to sift the stones from rice. Cows
huddled in the middle of the vegetable market, sparrows nesting on
their backs. Hibiscus so brilliant they look like they’d caught fire.
Children with red hair living in tires. A perpetual squint against sun
and dust. The most delicious orange soda I’ve ever drunk — the cap-
split hiss, and then the bubbling jetstream down a parched
throat."[33] page 230-231: "I had only a few memories of India; the
last time my family visited was six years ago, when I was in the sixth
grade….Some impressions stood out sharply in my mind, still as clear
as freshly developed Polaroids. I remembered the cold, creamy taste of
fresh buffalo milk, Babaji pouring Ovaltine from one tin cup to
another until froth bubbled thickly on the surface and it was cool
enough to drink. I remembered shooting rockets made of coconut leaves
off the rooftop terrace, and watching the beady-eyed green-and-yellow
lizards that scuttled over the putty-colored walls after a hard rain.
I remembered cold baths from a bucket with a plastic dipper, and
sweet, oily badam halva from the nearby Chola hotel. Sometimes I still
read the old Enid Blyton books, which were only available in countries
of the former British empire. Most of all, I could close my eyes and
return to the smells of sun and dust and refuse, mixed with sharp
chilis, my grandmother’s soft rose talcum powder, and the heady, sweet
scent of blossoming hibiscus."[33]
Continued doubts
In their May 2, 2006 article, The Harvard Crimson noted that "few—if
any—“chick-lit” works have ever received the level of intense scrutiny
that “Opal Mehta” is now enduring, and it is not clear whether the new
allegations suggest further plagiarism, or whether Viswanathan is
simply employing tropes that are widely-used in the genre."[2]
Fallout and reaction
In her initial statement on April 24, 2006, Viswanathan had stated
that she and the publisher would be revising the novel for future
printings "to eliminate any inappropriate similarities."[4][27] The
same day, Michael Pietsch of Little, Brown stated, “Kaavya Viswanathan
is a decent, serious, and incredibly hard-working writer and student,
and I am confident that we will learn that any similarities in
phrasings were unintentional."[11] He subsequently noted that an
acknowledgment to McCafferty would be added to future printings,[3] an
intention echoed by Viswanathan in her April 26, 2006 interview with
Katie Couric on The Today Show.[32] Little, Brown recalled all copies
of Opal Mehta on April 27, 2006.[4][7] The next day, first edition
copies of the novel were priced at $80 on eBay.[10] On May 2, 2006,
after further allegations of plagiarism had come to light, Little,
Brown released a statement from Pietsch saying, "Little, Brown and
Company will not be publishing a revised edition of How Opal Mehta Got
Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life by Kaavya Viswanathan, nor will we
publish the second book under contract."[4] DreamWorks had already
halted development of the film adaptation in late April 2006.[2][37]
Harvard University said soon after controversy broke that it would not
affect her academic standing there.[12] She graduated with honors in
2008.[38]
On May 18, 2006, McCafferty noted, "I had heard so much about her book
and I had planned on reading it [before the allegations surfaced] ...
It was sad and it was a shock that it could happen on such a big
scale ... This was a big book that was getting so much attention and
publicity. It is the most surreal thing that's ever happened to
me."[26] Alerted to the situation two weeks before The Harvard Crimson
picked up the story, she stated that "The media broke it and I was
sick to my stomach ... People don't know how hard it was to have
somebody else take that from me and try and profit. As someone [who
has been] writing my entire life, to build my career, it almost made
me lose faith in the publishing industry."[26] Though Alloy
Entertainment had previously stated that it helped Viswanathan
conceptualize the book but did not help with the actual writing,[13]
[14] McCafferty also raised the issue of their possible culpability in
the scandal.[26] As book packagers sometimes use their own staff or
hire freelance writers to ghostwrite manuscripts for publishers,
McCafferty asked, "Was it the book packagers who really wrote the book
and plagiarized my books or was it her?"[26]
Of Viswanathan being remembered for the scandal, McCafferty also said,
"I wouldn't want to be defined by a mistake made in such a public
way ... I hope she can move on from this. I hope that for both of
us."[26] In addition, she noted that "Books for teens have taken a
huge beating in the media" in the aftermath of the incident.[26]
"These very elitist comments about 'how all books for teens are crap;
so isn't this just crap stealing from crap'. My books are not
crap."[26] McCafferty noted that she was insulted by an opinion letter
published in The New York Times in which one writer wrote that teen
books are "undemanding literature for undemanding readers."[26]
"There's so much good writing for teenagers now," she said. "People
make across the board judgments."[26]
References
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Zhou, David (April 23, 2006). "Student’s
Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy". The Harvard Crimson.
TheCrimson.com. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512948.
Retrieved May 31, 2009.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Zhou, David; Paras D. Bhayani (May 2,
2006). "Opal Similar to More Books". The Harvard Crimson.
TheCrimson.com. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513213.
Retrieved May 31, 2009.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Smith, Dinitia (April 25, 2006). "Harvard
Novelist Says Copying Was Unintentional". The New York Times.
NYTimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/books/25book.html.
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^ a b c d e f g Crimson Staff (May 2, 2006). "Opal Mehta Gone for
Good; Contract Cancelled". The Harvard Crimson. TheCrimson.com.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513231. Retrieved May 31,
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^ a b c d e f g h i j k Smith, Dinitia (April 6, 2006). "A 'How to Get
Into College by Really, Really Trying' Novel". The New York Times.
NYTimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/books/06opal.html.
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^ a b c d e f g h Smith, Dinitia (April 27, 2006). "Novelist Says She
Read Copied Books Several Times". The New York Times (The New York
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^ a b c d e f g h i Rich, Motoko; Dinitia Smith (April 27, 2006).
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^ Maughan, Shannon (June 26, 2008). "Moving On Up: Pretty Little
Liars". PublishersWeekly.com. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6572459.html.
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^ "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life (Hardcover):
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^ a b c d Zeller Jr., Tom (May 1, 2006). "In Internet Age, Writers
Face Frontier Justice". The New York Times (The New York Times
Company). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/business/media/01link.html?_r=1.
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^ a b c d e f Zhou, David (April 26, 2006). "Publisher Rejects Soph's
Apology". The Harvard Crimson (TheCrimson.com).
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513041. Retrieved June 1,
2009.
^ a b c Pais, Arthur J. (April 26, 2006). "More trouble awaits Indian
writer". In.Rediff.com. http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/26ajp.htm.
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^ a b c d Zhou, David (April 27, 2006). "College Looking Into
Plagiarism". The Harvard Crimson (TheCrimson.com).
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513112. Retrieved June 1,
2009.
^ a b c d e f g Mehegan, David (April 26, 2006). "Harvard author's
apology not accepted". The Boston Globe (The New York Times Company).
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2006/04/26/harvard_authors_apology_not_accepted/.
Retrieved June 1, 2009.
^ Rohan, Virginia (April 9, 2006). "Overshooting the mark; her
fictional character is aiming for normal. 'Six-figure' sophomore
Kaavya Viswanathan did her one better". The Record (North Jersey Media
Group): p. F01 (Sunday, Living).
^ Grayson, Margaret (April 9, 2006). "Getting Into Harvard And Getting
A Life". The Roanoke Times (Landmark Communications): p. 6 (Sunday,
Metro Edition, Books).
^ Neyfakh, Leon (April 3, 2006). "Postcolonial Makeover For Harvard-
Bound Girl". The New York Observer: p. 4 (Culture, Books).
^ Pickett, Debra (April 2, 2006). "Smart Girls' Book Club: How Opal
got her groove back". Chicago Sun Times (Sun-Times Media Group): p. B8
(Sunday, Final Edition, Books).
^ Connelly, Sherryl (April 2, 2006). "It's Pure Opal-Essence". Daily
News: p. 21 (Sunday, Sports Final Edition, Sunday Now).
^ McGonigle, Thomas (April 8, 2006). "The Saturday Read; Oh c'mon,
getting into Harvard isn't that easy". Los Angeles Times: p. 8
(Saturday, Calendar; Part E). http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-book8apr08,1,7072249.story.
^ Memmott, Carol (March 29, 2006). "Charming Opal shows smart can be
funny". USA Today (Gannett Company).
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-03-29-how-opal-mehta_x.htm.
Retrieved June 6, 2009.
^ Bailey, Marilyn (April 17, 2006). "HOWMTF: How Opal will make teen
famous". Fort Worth Star-Telegram (The McClatchy Company).
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14350375.htm. Retrieved June 26, 2006.
^ Som, Rituparna (April 10, 2006). "Kaavya's $500,000 baby".
DNAIndia.com. http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1023323.
Retrieved June 26, 2006.
^ Nayar, Mandira (April 11, 2006). "A new name doing India proud
abroad". The Hindu. http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/11/stories/2006041103820200.htm.
Retrieved June 26, 2006.
^ "Charmed Thirds (Hardcover): Reviews and Product Details".
Amazon.com. Release date: April 11, 2006. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400080428/.
Retrieved May 30, 2009.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lutolf, Colleen (May 18, 2006). "Author
McCafferty talks shop with Brick's Lit Chicks". Brick Township
Bulletin. BulletinGMNews.com. http://bulletin.gmnews.com/news/2006/0518/Front_Page/006.html.
Retrieved May 31, 2009.
^ a b Crimson Staff (April 24, 2006). "Kaavya Speaks: 'I Sincerely
Apologize'". The Harvard Crimson. TheCrimson.com.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512999. Retrieved May 31,
2009.
^ a b Reuters (April 26, 2006). "Teen author accused of 'literary
identity theft'". ABC News. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2006/04/26/1623754.htm.
Retrieved June 1, 2009.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Zhou, David
(April 28, 2006). "Examples of Similar Passages Between Viswanathan's
Book and McCafferty's Two Novels". The Harvard Crimson.
TheCrimson.com. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512965.
Retrieved June 1, 2009.
^ a b Crimson Staff (April 26, 2006). "Harvard Spokesman Clarifies
Remarks on Viswanathan 'Investigation'". The Harvard Crimson.
TheCrimson.com. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513047.
Retrieved June 1, 2009.
^ a b c d e f g "Video: Kaavya Viswanathan interview (April 26,
2006)". The Today Show. NBC (Segment length 00:03:40). MSNBC.msn.com.
April 26, 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/12494858#12494858.
Retrieved June 1, 2009.
^ a b c d e f g "Partial transcript: Kaavya Viswanathan interview
(April 26, 2006)". The Today Show. NBC. icue.nbcunifiles.com. April
26, 2006. http://icue.nbcunifiles.com/icue/files/icue/site/pdf/2194.pdf.
Retrieved June 1, 2009.
^ a b c d e f g h i Liu, Jon (May 3, 2006). "Yet More Suspicious
Passages Found in Kaavya’s Opal Mehta". The Harvard Independent.
HarvardIndependent.com (Internet Archive).
http://web.archive.org/web/20070809000240/http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9964.
Retrieved August 9, 2007.
^ a b c d e f Smith, Dinitia; Motoko Rich (May 2, 2006). "A Second
Ripple in Plagiarism Scandal". The New York Times. NYTimes.com.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/books/02auth.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1146542400&en=98fa1c6ed2e3db16&ei=5094&partner=homepage.
Retrieved May 31, 2009.
^ a b c d Associated Press (May 5, 2006). "Harvard author faces
further allegations of borrowing". CNN.com (Internet Archive).
http://web.archive.org/web/20060512194550/http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/05/02/youngauthor.ap/index.html.
Retrieved May 12, 2006.
^ a b c d e f g Hidier, Tanuja Desai (2006). "Tanuja Desai Hidier on
Born Confused & Opal Mehta". DesiClub.com.
http://www.desiclub.com/community/culture/culture_article.cfm?id=265.
Retrieved June 2, 2009.
^ Abcarian, Robin (April 29, 2006). "Now Opal won't get a movie". Los
Angeles Times. LATimes.com. http://articles.latimes.com/2006/04/29/calendar/et-ruttenside29.
Retrieved May 31, 2009.
^ Atwan, Greg (December 2008/January 2009). "Kaavya Emptor". The
Harvard. NYFamily-Digital.com (Volume 3, Number 1).
http://www.nyfamily-digital.com/nyfamily/200812/?pg=22. Retrieved
October 14, 2009.
[edit] External links
"Publisher Bets Big on Harvard Freshman", The New York Sun, April 22,
2005.
"Did Opal Author Plagiarize, or her Handlers?" The Harvard
Independent, April 24, 2006.
"Probability Theory and Viswanathan's Plagiarism", Geoffrey K. Pullum,
April 25, 2006.
"In Defense of Kaavya Viswanathan", Bill Poser, April 25, 2006.
Zhou, David; Paras D. Bhayani (April 25, 2006). "Soph Says She's Sorry
for Overlap". The Harvard Crimson. TheCrimson.com.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513015. Retrieved June 1,
2009.
"Viswanathan-gate", New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell.
"Inside 17th Street", The Harvard Independent, April 26, 2006.
"Kaavya Case Not First Plagiarism Controversy for Opal Mehta
Packager", The Harvard Independent, April 27, 2006.
"A Tarnished Opal", The Harvard Crimson, April 27, 2006
"Sophomore Novelist Admits To Borrowing Language From Earlier Books",
The Harvard Crimson, April 28, 2006.
Associated Press (April 28, 2006). "Once-touted novel has uncertain
future". Arizona Republic. AZCentral.com. http://www.azcentral.com/ent/arts/articles/0428novel.html.
Retrieved May 31, 2006.
CBC - Publisher drops Opal Mehta, ends book deal
In Defence of Kaavya Viswanathan at Rediff.com
Generation Xerox. Youth may not be an excuse for plagiarism. But it is
an explanation.
End of Kaavya, The Times of India
Strauss, Gary (May 7, 2006). "How Opal Mehta got shelved". USA Today.
USAToday.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-05-07-opal-scandal_x.htm.
Retrieved May 31, 2009.
Over-reaching grown-ups helped drive her to it., The Providence
Journal, May 9, 2006.
Bride of Frankenstein, LA City Beat, May 11, 2006.
"Teen Author Earned Good Reputation Early", Bonnie Pfister, Associated
Press, May 11, 2006.
"Fingers in the word-till", Mail & Guardian, May 12, 2006.
"Unduly battered Kaavya can still get a better life", YRK Reddy, The
Financial Express,May 13, 2006.
"It could just be the nature of the world in which they live.", Jordan
Bartel, Carroll County Times, May 13, 2006.
"Nowadays publishers are basically business people, whose primary
motive is to make money.", The Tribune, May 13, 2006.
"Kira Cochrane pities the young plagiarist", The New Statesman, May
15, 2006.
"The Formula Book Factory", The Telegraph, May 19, 2006.
From young literary star to accused plagiarist
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
How_Opal_Mehta_Got_Kissed,_Got_Wild,_and_Got_a_Life"
Categories: Chick lit novels | Plagiarism controversies | Young adult
novels
This page was last modified on 14 May 2010 at 03:25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Opal_Mehta_Got_Kissed,_Got_Wild,_and_Got_a_Life
13 May 2010 at 6:10 PM/ Posted in:
Books, Georgetown Law School, Harvard, Sullivan & Cromwell, Summer
Associates
Summer Associate of the Day: Kaavya Viswanathan (Aka the Alleged
Harvard Plagiarist)
By David Lat
45Share.Remember Kaavya Viswanathan? She’s the Harvard graduate who,
while still in high school, landed a two-book deal worth a reported
$500,000. The first book, a young adult / chick-lit novel entitled How
Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, was published in April
2006, during Viswanathan’s sophomore year at Harvard.
And then things fell apart. To quote the blog Sepia Mutiny, “Kaavya
Viswanathan got rich, got caught, and got ruined.” Shortly after the
publication of Opal Mehta, the Harvard Crimson reported that various
passages in the book appeared “strikingly similar” to portions of two
young adult novels by Megan McCafferty.
Viswanathan was widely accused of plagiarizing — not just from
McCafferty, but from Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot and Salman Rushdie.
Her subsequent fall from grace, including the cancellation of her book
and movie deals, made national and even international headlines (due
to coverage back in her native India). She claimed that the
similarities between her book and prior published works were
unintentional, but given the number and extent of the apparently
borrowed passages, some were incredulous. (For samples, see
Wikipedia.)
After graduating from Harvard College in 2008, she went on to
Georgetown Law, where she’s a member of the GULC class of 2011. Her
arrival at Georgetown made Newsweek in February 2009:
Viswanathan is a first-year law student at Georgetown University,
where Stephen Glass earned a J.D. after being fired from The New
Republic for fabricating a series of articles….
How’d she manage to get accepted? Applicants can submit supplemental
essays to explain themselves to the admissions committee, says Dean of
Admissions Andrew Cornblatt. “It’s impossible to get amnesia about
what we may have heard,” he says. “But in all cases we treat them just
like any other applicant.”
It seems Georgetown isn’t the only institution treating Viswanathan
“just like any other applicant.” Despite the tough fall recruiting
season and her controversial past, Viswanathan, who just finished her
2L year, has landed a coveted summer associate position at a top law
firm — one of Biglaw’s biggest and best names, in fact….
Viswanathan will be spending this summer in the New York office of
Sullivan & Cromwell — one of the nation’s most prestigious and
profitable law firms. She’ll be arriving at 125 Broad Street later
this month.
Did S&C know of Viswanthan’s controversial past when they made her an
offer? We can’t imagine they didn’t, given her distinctive name and
the extensive news coverage her scandal received at the time,
including articles in the New York Times and an appearance by
Viswanathan on the Today Show.
That Viswanthan was able to land on her feet — actually, not just land
on her feet, but land a job many law students would (literally) kill
for — is encouraging. It just goes to show that it takes a lot, far
more than most people realize, to sink someone’s career or ruin her
life. People forgive, and people forget.
In the internet age, with its 24-hour news cycle, controversies burn
hot but die out quickly. There are so many scandals today that no one
scandal gets to remain on the newspaper front page, or at the top of
the blog page, for very long; it quickly gets elbowed aside by the
next scandal. And if you’re smart and savvy, which many people who get
embroiled in controversy are, you can just repackage any unfortunate
episode as a “learning experience.” Heck, you might even be able to
get a book deal out of it.
(This is why “Crimson DNA,” the Harvard Law School student whose
provocative email upset many people, still has a bright future ahead
of her — perhaps including a SCOTUS clerkship with Justice Thomas. In
fact, rather than feeling bad for Crimson DNA, you should envy her for
her fame. As Samuel Johnson once said, “I would rather be attacked
than unnoticed.” Or, if you prefer, take Oscar Wilde: “The only thing
worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”)
So, back to Viswanathan and Sullivan & Cromwell. What department will
she work in? Litigation might seem like a natural fit, given her
interest in writing (and how she probably got a taste of litigation in
dealing with the fallout from her scandal). But we suggest that she
look into “general practice,” S&C-speak for transactional work.
Clearly she has an aptitude for cutting and pasting taking an existing
document and updating / adapting it.
Congratulations on making it to Sullivan & Cromwell, Kaavya, and good
luck this summer. If all goes well, maybe you can write a novel about
your experience: How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and (Still) Got
an Offer.
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⇗ Guest douche 5 days ago
1 person liked this.
firsties
⇗ Guest Tits 5 days ago in reply to douche
8 people liked this.
Tits
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⇗ Guest Prestigious Plagiarist 4 days ago in reply to douche
Earliest in order!
⇗ Guest anon 5 days ago
13 people liked this.
Did someone say Character and Fitness issue?
⇗ Guest Anon 5 days ago in reply to anon
My thoughts exactly.
⇗ Guest guest 5 days ago in reply to Anon
6 people liked this.
you guys must be 1Ls. just wait till you take professional
responsibility - it's amazing what you can get away with for C&F. if
you disclose and repent, you're home free.
Flag Like ReplyReply
Expand ⇗ Guest guest 5 days ago in reply to guest
8 people liked this.
It's like being a Catholic - say five Hail Marys and you can go ahead
and molest the next kid...
Flag Like
Expand ⇗ Guest Uh huh 4 days ago in reply to guest
RACE is more important than anything to the liberals who administer
the admissions board. She filled a quota and she was welcomed with
open arms. If her admissions packet included photos of her microwaving
a baby, the boards would still admit her.
Racial worship. Practiced by Hitler and modern liberals.
Flag Like
Expand ⇗ Guest Did you know 4 days ago in reply to guest
1 person liked this.
This is basically true, but we all know that the bar is concerned
above all with protecting its members. If she was apparently willing
to cheat a fellow author, that might raise concerns that she's willing
to cheat a fellow lawyer. Fair or not, C&F will find something like
that more troubling than DUIs, violent crimes, abuse of power, etc.
Flag Like
Expand ⇗ Guest Asian American 4 days ago in reply to guest
5 people liked this.
"Uh Huh" you must be deluded. Kaavya is a member of a minority group
that is insanely overrepresented in higher education's elite
institutions. As a consequence, Indian Americans (along with other
Asian Americans like Chinese and Korean Americans) face a bar that is
often HIGHER than that which White applicants face. You should check
your facts before posting something like this. Latinos and African
Americans certainly benefit from racial preference policies, but I can
assure you that Asian Americans overwhelmingly do not. Indeed, they're
often more hurt by these policies than Whites are.
⇗ Registered scumbag 5 days ago
34 people liked this.
Insane gunnerish desperation + questionable moral compass = S&C WIN
⇗ Guest Guest 5 days ago
3 people liked this.
Georgetown is so big, I'm a 2L here and have never seen this girl.
⇗ Guest AnotherGULCER 5 days ago in reply to Guest
5 people liked this.
She's really quiet. I was in her section last year and she didn't
raise her hand in class even once all year. I think she likes to lay
low. Incidentally she's a very nice girl and all who know her think
well of her.
⇗ Guest Size Queen 5 days ago in reply to AnotherGULCER
12 people liked this.
You know what they say about those quiet ones. As Confucius say,
"Those who lay low, lay most."
⇗ Guest Uh huh 4 days ago in reply to AnotherGULCER
22 people liked this.
Maybe the plagiarist is just waiting for someone else to make a good
comment so that she can raise her hand and say the exact same thing.
⇗ Guest lol 3 days ago in reply to Uh huh
2 people liked this.
lol
⇗ Guest Guest 1 day ago in reply to AnotherGULCER
1 person liked this.
maybe she is just really stupid and doesn't want anyone to know it
when she opens her mouth in class?
⇗ Guest GUEST 1 day ago in reply to Guest
1 person liked this.
This is why I don't talk in class
⇗ Guest Did you know 4 days ago in reply to Guest
1 person liked this.
So large is GULC, that never have I, a 2L, perceived this woman.
⇗ Guest Guest 4 days ago in reply to Did you know
Are you trying to talk like Yoda?
⇗ Registered nomadyank 5 days ago
6 people liked this.
Eh, give the girl a break. I did far worse things when I was 20ish and
they managed to let me become an attorney.
⇗ Guest affirmative action secure 5 days ago in reply to nomadyank
4 people liked this.
That's true. So how come Elie Mystal never got admitted to the NY Bar?
Check you https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/attorney/Attor...
⇗ Guest UVA Dood 5 days ago in reply to affirmative action secure
9 people liked this.
I'm not a huge fan of Elie's writing or commentary, but this is just
ridiculous tolling. The guy's name was on the NY Bar website a few
months ago....
⇗ Guest Daddy 5 days ago in reply to UVA Dood
4 people liked this.
My thoughts exactly. Fuck off, affirmativeactionsecure. No one gives a
shit but you. And we really don't wanna hear you bitch and moan about
it.
Your friend,
Daddy
⇗ Guest Weird 4 days ago in reply to UVA Dood
1 person liked this.
I'm not saying anything about AA, but it's true that Elie Mystal isn't
on the New York state bar association attorney directory. Which is
weird because I think that site lists everyone who was ever a member
of the bar, even if they are now inactive (or even dead). Maybe Elie
changed his name since, or maybe "Elie Mystal" is a pseudonym. But
it's weird nonetheless.
⇗ Guest toller 4 days ago in reply to UVA Dood
3 people liked this.
By "tolling" I can only assume you mean that the statute of
limitations has not yet begun to run on the Restatement Section 90
claims that readers may have against ATL.
⇗ Guest toller 4 days ago in reply to UVA Dood
By "tolling: I can only assume you mean that the statute of
limitations has not yet begun to run on my Restatement Section 90
claim...
⇗ Guest affirmative action secure 4 days ago in reply to UVA Dood
2 people liked this.
Dear UVA Dood aka Elie's Mom,
Once you're admitted to the bar, you remain on the website. Look up
random names like "R Smith" and see the people who are now deceased,
inactive, suspended, etc. Check out Marc Dreier (disbarred). So where
is Elie Mystal?
⇗ Guest affirmative action secure 5 days ago
nice picture. think she wore a men's shirt to the interview, too?
⇗ Guest Prestigious Plagiarist 4 days ago in reply to affirmative
action secure
4 people liked this.
Decent image. Do you feel that she also donned male attire to
employment-related meetings?
⇗ Guest Jane 5 days ago
11 people liked this.
Obviously, this girl has MAJOR connections. She could probably kill
someone and still land a spot in BigLaw or wherever her little heart
desired.
⇗ Guest Uh huh 4 days ago in reply to Jane
Race overcomes all.
⇗ Guest Plaintiff's Lawyer 5 days ago
15 people liked this.
Pretty bangable for an Indian chick
⇗ Guest GiantCrab 4 days ago in reply to Plaintiff's Lawyer
2 people liked this.
You're not hot until a white guy says so.
⇗ Guest GiantCrab 4 days ago in reply to Plaintiff's Lawyer
You're not hot until a white guy says so.
⇗ Guest Joe 4 days ago in reply to GiantCrab
she's hot; now it's settled
⇗ Guest Citibank Elie 5 days ago
10 people liked this.
Serious question: was she allowed to complete any take home exams
during her 1L?
Also, love the G'town admissions quote: “But in all cases we treat
them just like any other applicant.” Which is code for we're happy to
look the other way to entreat the H.
⇗ Guest Prestigious Plagiarist 4 days ago in reply to Citibank
Elie
Sincere query: Was she permitted to conduct off-campus assignments
during her first year of law school?
⇗ Guest lolz 5 days ago
9 people liked this.
original, page 68: “‘Omigod!’ shrieked Sara, taking a pink tube top
emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny out of her shopping bag.”
plagiarized, page 51: “...I was sick of listening to her hum along to
Alicia Keys, and worn out from resisting her efforts to buy me a pink
tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny.”
⇗ Registered cartmansmom 5 days ago
11 people liked this.
The chick from the office is in law school?
⇗ Registered uchicagolaw 5 days ago
16 people liked this.
If today's stories are any indication, it's truly amazing what gets
past editorial review at ATL. To review: we learned of one fortunate,
debt-free 3L's housing options, the scatological current affairs at
two T15 law schools, and now -- to complete the trifecta of non-
stories masquerading as journalism -- we learn of a Harvard grad (with
some c&f baggage) who got a SA at a white-shoe firm. *wow*
And to what end? To potentially jeopardize her standing at S&C? To
inform would-be plagiarizers that ATL can and will haunt them years
later by recycling the past and presenting it as compelling news? To
give publicity to her book? what a joke.
(Edited by author 5 days ago)
⇗ Guest Citibank Elie 5 days ago in reply to uchicagolaw
2 people liked this.
"I'm more than a little sickened by the fact that ATL stooped to this
level."
LOL that you think *THIS* post is da stooping-est...
⇗ Guest guest 5 days ago in reply to uchicagolaw
7 people liked this.
it's only fair that ATL keeps an eye on people who thrust themselves
into the public eye. if there's a chilling effect on plagiarizers,
scat emailers and 3Ls who want to brag about their wealth on real
estate blogs, I can live with that.
⇗ Registered uchicagolaw 5 days ago in reply to guest
3 people liked this.
Re: the assertion that these individuals "thrust" themselves into the
public:
1. Kaavya did something in 2006 which made its way to the public. That
she (I assume) privately and ethically cleaned up during her 1L and
landed a sweet summer gig is cause for further newsworthiness? Or is
it only that the ATL community chooses not to accept that people who
have erred can ultimately redeem themselves?
2. A Michigan Law student emailing on behalf of the Federalist Society
has thrusted him or herself into the public eye because they felt it
necessary to apologize to those similarly affected? And, apparently
private listserv = public domain?
I don't buy it.
(Edited by author 5 days ago)
⇗ Guest whatever 5 days ago in reply to uchicagolaw
4 people liked this.
pretty weak analysis here for a chicago person - i'm starting to
wonder about ulterior motives/crush on kaviya.
⇗ Registered whiteprd 5 days ago in reply to uchicagolaw
2 people liked this.
r u turdskin?
⇗ Guest freddie handcock 4 days ago in reply to whiteprd
did her' skin to skin baby
⇗ Guest haha 5 days ago in reply to uchicagolaw
2 people liked this.
and yet you keep clicking/reading/commenting. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
⇗ Guest Franklin Diddy 5 days ago
25 people liked this.
The most embarrassing part of this story: that S&C hired a Georgetown
2L.
⇗ Guest Figuratively Speaking 5 days ago
13 people liked this.
"That Viswanthan was able to land on her feet — actually, not just
land on her feet, but land a job many law students would (literally)
kill for — is encouraging."
You meant "would (figuratively) kill for." No one would truly kill
someone in order to become a summer associate.
⇗ Guest guest 5 days ago in reply to Figuratively Speaking
5 people liked this.
the word "literally" is among the most abused in the english
language.
⇗ Guest murderous rage 5 days ago in reply to guest
13 people liked this.
It's pretty clear that a number of law students in this market would
actually kill someone for this opportunity. Let's not let the abuse of
the term get in the way of meaning, here.
⇗ Guest ... 5 days ago in reply to murderous rage
2 people liked this.
No. Actually it's not. When anyone says something is "pretty clear"
it's a dead give away they have no authority for the proposition.
Unless you have further explanation, you're wrong. You too, Lat. It's
bad enough. There's no need to suggest that "many" law students are
cold-blooded murderers.
⇗ Guest Captain Obvious 5 days ago in reply to murderous rage
2 people liked this.
"Unless you have further explanation, you're wrong."
Fail.
⇗ Guest guest2 5 days ago in reply to Figuratively Speaking
1 person liked this.
Says the employed attorney. You are very naive.
⇗ Verified Andrew Dhuey 5 days ago
1 person liked this.
She should be very comfortable with litigation, in a common law system
where showing that your client's position is identical or similar to
what has been done before (with the imprimatur of an appellate court),
many times. The other side is being creative, and that's a bad thing.
⇗ Guest guy who wants a dislike button 5 days ago in reply to Andrew
Dhuey
14 people liked this.
i dislike this post.
⇗ Guest Jawldimmer 5 days ago in reply to Andrew Dhuey
1 person liked this.
This post makes no sense.
⇗ Guest Guest 5 days ago
1 person liked this.
Thomas doesn't hire from Kozinski
⇗ Guest J3L 5 days ago
1 person liked this.
In exchange for 15 minutes of public embarrassment, she made money,
got into Gtown, and now has a great summer job. Good for her.
⇗ Guest Prestigious plagiarist 4 days ago in reply to J3L
5 people liked this.
Good for her. She now has a great summer job, got into Gtown, and she
made money, in exchange for 15 minutes of public embarrassment.
⇗ Guest Elle Woods 5 days ago
2 people liked this.
I sure hope jurors don't do Google searches. Can't trust a word that
comes out of her plagiarizin' mouth.
⇗ Guest Guest 4 days ago in reply to Elle Woods
1 person liked this.
If she stays at S&C or continues employment in biglaw, then she
probably won't see the inside of a courtroom for at least 5 years. And
if she happens to be assigned to a case that actually goes to a jury
trial, she will be relegated to the break-out/trial prep room while
the senior and junior partners litigate the case before the jury. By
the time she even goes before the jury on her own (in mid-thirties
probably), her plagarism as a 20 year old will be long forgotten.
⇗ Guest Guest 4 days ago in reply to Elle Woods
If she stays in biglaw, then she probably won't see the inside of a
courtroom for at least 3 years. And if she happens to get assigned to
a case that goes to trial, she most likely will be relegated to the
break-out room while the junior and senior partners actually try the
case before the jury. By the time she is permitted to sit in the
courtroom and speak in a jury trial, she will be in her mid-thirties.
Her plagarism from her college days will be long forgotten.
⇗ Guest RNA -> DNA 5 days ago
She looks pretty in that picture. Is she attractive in real life?
⇗ Guest Guest 5 days ago in reply to RNA -> DNA
1 person liked this.
Hey, even someone thinks Kagan's "attractive."
⇗ Guest nunya 5 days ago in reply to RNA -> DNA
NO ... i go to school with her her at GULC ...
⇗ Guest guest 5 days ago
8 people liked this.
Clearly she has family connections. Otherwise she would have never had
the book deal in the first place, not to mention GULC admission and
the S&C gig.
⇗ Verified Benny Stulwitz 4 days ago in reply to guest
2 people liked this.
You need connections to be admitted to GULC?
⇗ Guest GULC OCS Blows 5 days ago
3 people liked this.
A more interesting post would be on how badly GULC's OCS is screwing
the pooch for a large number of students. The complaints coming out of
there are endless.
⇗ Guest Joey 5 days ago
3 people liked this.
Has there been an instance where someone "literally" killed to get a
V10 summer associate gig? I'm confused.
⇗ Guest yawn 5 days ago
4 people liked this.
Honestly, she made a mistake, was pilloried, suffered pretty serious
consequences ... I don't understand why this needs to be dragged up
years later, other than to ensure that virtually *everyone* at S&C
will now be thinking "Plagiarist!" when they meet her. That may have
been okay in 2006 right after the story broke, but I think in 2010,
this story is below the belt. After all, she hasn't done ANYTHING new
that is newsworthy, other than to move on with her life after a
humiliating, deserved scandal. Shock, horror - she didn't fall down
dead after being accused of plagiarism, but managed to graduate with
honors and get into law school.
"It just goes to show that it takes a lot, far more than most people
realize, to sink someone’s career or ruin her life. People forgive,
and people forget."
So you're going to help her out "a lot" by seeing what you can do to
remind the legal world that had (probably) forgotten this, to see
whether you can revive a four year old scandal to increase your page
views. (Yes, I realize Newsweek did this too. That doesn't seem much
better. Though honestly, her future biglaw colleagues may be more
likely to read ATL than Newsweek.)
⇗ Guest rot in hell 4 days ago in reply to yawn
1 person liked this.
Completely agree. I don't mind scandalizing someone at the time, but
damn guys, let her move on. Because I can't write explitives on this
site, let me just say you guys suck and I hope very bad things happen
to you. That's all.
⇗ Guest Did you know 4 days ago in reply to yawn
3 people liked this.
Sorry, but dishonesty is not a "mistake."
⇗ Guest Snook 5 days ago
3 people liked this.
ATL posts some good stuff, but recently too much of the blog is
focused on garbage about small players like law students, solo
practitioners, and secretaries. How about shedding more light on how
law firms treat associates, how law schools (don't) train law
students, and what interesting stuff is going on with the judiciary?
⇗ Guest Did you know 4 days ago in reply to Snook
1 person liked this.
Because those sources wised up and quit talking.
⇗ Guest Snook 4 days ago in reply to Did you know
Try harder then, dig up some dirt, not just whatever random tipster
emails to you. There is a ton of dirt about law firms and law schools
out there if you listen to disaffected associates and the law
professors ranting about how screwed up law schools are. ATL reports
maybe 1% of what is said. For example, ATL often talks about the
information asymmetry in the law schools admissions game, but has not
even done so much as to indicate the existence of the 2,500 pages that
law professors have written since 2006 (ATL's launch date) that
explains in extreme detail how law schools are dysfunctional. Posting
any of this would do a lot to clear up the law school information
asymmetry ATL loves to whine of so much; there's so much out there
that the average tenured law professor would learn a lot from looking
at this.
ATL at least says it feels very strongly about legal education being
broken, and law firms giving associates the stiff, but then takes
every opportunity to make a massive issue out of whenever students or
associates raise their voices to challenge the very practices ATL
criticizes on its blog. But as the above posts indicates, though most
anybody would find informaton about schools and firms very interesting
(due to the huge information asymmetry in legal), nobody really gives
a hot damn, even Sullivan and Cromwell, about which law students or
junior associates ATL is shitting on at the moment. There is a great
myth on the internet that ATL has the power to ruin careers with its
postings, but firms frankly do not care.
⇗ Guest Did you know 4 days ago in reply to Snook
Nice idea, but that's not really the kind of blog this is. Lat is
pretty open about preferring to run corrections as opposed to picking
up the phone.
⇗ Guest gtfo 4 days ago
Um, this is a gossip blog.
⇗ Registered joeito 5 days ago
2 people liked this.
I say she should work in the IP department, specializing in copyright
law to further extend the irony of it all! Her first client can be
Fortune Magazine and she can advise them on how to spell copy right
(not copy write) and also advise them not sue the companies they
contracted with to promote their works where they've given express
permission to use their copyrighted works!
⇗ Guest Jose Seispaque 5 days ago
24 people liked this.
Maybe it was another Kaavya Viswanathan.
⇗ Guest Prestigious Plagiarist 4 days ago in reply to Jose
Seispaque
2 people liked this.
It's possible it was another person using the same name: Kaavya
Viswanathan
⇗ Guest anon 5 days ago
1 person liked this.
It's disappointing that this article mentions "native india" when she
was more than likely born in America. But hey ATL isn't supposed to be
politically correct.
⇗ Guest Jackass 5 days ago in reply to anon
6 people liked this.
She was born in India. Why is it "more than likely" that she was born
in America? On what did you base that ridiculous statement?
She was born in Chennai, spent her early years in the UK, and then
moved to the US. Do some research.
Flag Like ReplyReply
Expand ⇗ Guest Guest 5 days ago
3 people liked this.
She's in good company...from Jack Cashill:
"In 2004, Tribe and Ogletree both made the news in ways they might
wish they had not. In 2010, that news has come back to haunt their Law
School dean at that time, Elena Kagan...."
"In September 2004, as Obama was cruising to victory in the U.S.
Senate race, Tribe was publicly apologizing for plagiarizing—though,
of course, he would not use that term-- Henry J. Abraham’s 1974 book,
Justices and Presidents, to write his own 1985 book, God Save This
Honorable Court."
"Tribe’s transgression had come to light only after he had publicly
defended his colleague Ogletree, who just three weeks earlier had
publicly apologized for the unauthorized heist of verbiage from Yale
scholar Jack Balkin’s book, What Brown v. Board of Education Should
Have Said, and the stashing of it, nearly word-for-word, in his own
book, All Deliberate Speed."
"Appalled by Tribe’s hypocrisy, an anonymous tipster alerted
conservative scholar Joseph Bottum, who penned a damning 5,000 word
article for The Weekly Standard, which revealed the extent of Tribe’s
theft and resulted in Tribe’s half-hearted mea culpa."
⇗ Verified David Saint Hubbins 5 days ago
2 people liked this.
That reminds me of my life before law school. I was in a band called
the Originals, but it turned out there was a band on the East End that
had already called themselves the Originals. So we changed our name to
the New Originals. But then the Originals changed their name to the
Regulars, and we were about to change our name back to the Originals,
but then we just thought, "what's the point?"
⇗ Guest X-ray 5 days ago
6 people liked this.
Did anyone else look at the Wikipedia comparisons? If anything should
have kept her from getting a gig at S&C it wasn't the plagiarism but
her abysmal writing. It takes real effort to plagiarize something and
somehow make it so much worse.
⇗ Verified jonathandean 5 days ago
Yet another case of schadenfreude against this woman. Will the bullies
ever leave her alone?
⇗ Guest Did you know 4 days ago in reply to jonathandean
5 people liked this.
Sorry your favorite book was a sham.
⇗ Guest Prestigious Plagiarist 4 days ago in reply to jonathandean
1 person liked this.
Will the ruffians ever let her be?
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⇗ Guest UA Alum 07 5 days ago
5 people liked this.
Are you fucking kidding me? I was a five year Congressional staffer
who couldn't get into GULC, much less land a Biglaw job. Fucking
criminals...hiring criminals.
Fuck you Biglaw.
⇗ Guest Atoms Alum 4 days ago in reply to UA Alum 07
6 people liked this.
Why should anybody give a schit if you were a dime-a-dozen coffee
fetching hill staffer? Is GULC supposed to want you because you
operate a mean letter opener. Or maybe it was the way masterfully
responded to those daily gadfly rantings. The only thing worse than
your sense of entitlement is your shameless jealousy.
⇗ Guest Did you know 4 days ago
5 people liked this.
I just feel bad for the seminar professors who have to spend all that
extra time checking her papers for academic honesty issues.
⇗ Guest Guest 4 days ago
1 person liked this.
I went to law school with a student who started a blog about being a
law student and posted numerous highly inappropriate photos of herself
and her friends. By the time, CSO got wind of the blog and strongly
suggested its removal, most law students had seen the blog (and if you
do a complete search, cached versions of the blog can be found) and
told friends and alum who were already placed at numerous firms in New
York City. No, she did not get the government job that she had coveted
for years. She probably will never get those jobs because of her blog.
However, she landed nicely on her feet at a very respected and
recognzed mid-sized firm and soon will be heading out to California
with her fiance (yes, she passed the California bar the first time
around).
And let's not forget the Cleary Gottlieb summer associate, who got so
wasted during a firm event, that she stripped down to almost nothing
and jumped in the Hudson River (aka Aquagirl). She ended up getting an
offer from Arnold & Porter just months after the incident. Not too
shabby. Such is our legal industry.
⇗ Guest Wow 4 days ago in reply to Guest
1 person liked this.
Stephen Glass also went to Georgetown Law and became a lawyer in New
York. It must be a well-trodden career path for shameless, spectacular
plagiarists and fabulists. Does anyone know if Jayson Blair went to
law school too?
⇗ Guest Guest 4 days ago
1 person liked this.
See, at UVA, she would have been expelled for plagiarism - school
related or not - and then someone more deserving would have her spot
this summer.
⇗ Guest elise 4 days ago
This makes me want to cry. I tried so hard in law school all for
naught.
⇗ Guest Prestigious Plagiarist 4 days ago in reply to elise
3 people liked this.
Because of this, I have a desire to sob. I attempted vigorously in law
school, for no apparent reward.
⇗ Registered International_Mariuca 4 days ago
http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2010/05/kaavya-v...
⇗ Guest Harvard grad 4 days ago
1 person liked this.
This is completely unfair and in very poor taste. Anyone who knows
Kaavya knows that she is brilliant and she has earned everything she's
got. Girl works her ass off and does not deserve to have old charges
brought back to light.....and I think it bears repeating that those
plagiarism allegations remain just that....never proven.
⇗ Guest Dispassionate observer 4 days ago in reply to Harvard grad
3 people liked this.
They're pretty damn proven, bro.
⇗ Guest Captain Obvious 4 days ago in reply to Harvard grad
5 people liked this.
Ok, you asked for it.
McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings Viswanathan's Opal
Mehta
Sloppy Firsts, page 7: "Bridget is my age and lives across the street.
For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I
needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget's braces came off
and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh
grade Honors classes."[29] page 14: "Priscilla was my age and lived
two blocks away. For the first fifteen years of my life, those were
the only qualifications I needed in a best friend. We had bonded over
our mutual fascination with the abacus in a playgroup for gifted kids.
But that was before freshman year, when Priscilla's glasses came off,
and the first in a long string of boyfriends got on."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 6: “Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another
example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart.
Guess which one I got. You’ll see where it’s gotten me.”[1][29] page
39: “Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example
of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty. I had
long resigned myself to category one, and as long as it got me to
Harvard, I was happy. Except, it hadn’t gotten me to Harvard. Clearly,
it was time to switch to category two.”[1][29]
Second Helpings, page 67: “... but in a truly sadomasochistic dieting
gesture, they chose to buy their Diet Cokes at Cinnabon.”[1][29] page
46: “In a truly masochistic gesture, they had decided to buy Diet
Cokes from Mrs. Fields ...”[1][29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 23: "He’s got dusty reddish dreads that a girl
could never run her hands through. His eyes are always half-shut. His
lips are usually curled in a semi-smile, like he’s in on a big joke
that’s being played on you but you don’t know it yet."[29] page 48:
"He had too-long shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes, which were
always half shut. His mouth was always curled into a half smile, like
he knew about some big joke that was about to be played on you."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 68: "Tanning was the closest that Sara came to
having a hobby, other than gossiping, that is. Even the webbing
between her fingers was the color of coffee without cream. Even for
someone with her Italian heritage and dark coloring, it was unnatural
and alienlike." page 48: "It was obvious that next to casual hookups,
tanning was her extracurricular activity of choice. Every visible inch
of skin matched the color and texture of her Louis Vuitton backpack.
Even combined with her dark hair and Italian heritage, she looked deep-
fried."
Second Helpings, page 69: "Throughout this conversation, Manda acted
like she couldn’t have been more bored. She lazily skimmed her new
paperback copy of Reviving Ophelia—she must have read the old one down
to shreds. She just stood there, popping another piece of Doublemint,
or reapplying her lip gloss, or slapping her ever-present pack of
Virginia Slims against her palm. (Insert oral fixation jokes, here,
here and here.) Her hair—usually dishwater brown and wavy—had been
straightened and bleached the color of sweet corn since the last time
I saw her...Just when I thought she had maxed out on hooter hugeness,
it seemed that whatever poundage Sara had lost over the summer had
turned up in Manda’s bra."[29] page 48: "The other HBz acted like they
couldn’t be more bored. They sat down at a table, lazily skimmed heavy
copies of Italian Vogue, popped pieces of Orbit, and reapplied layers
of lip gloss. Jennifer, who used to be a bit on the heavy side, had
dramatically slimmed down, no doubt through some combination of
starvation and cosmetic surgery. Her lost pounds hadn’t completely
disappeared, though; whatever extra pounds she’d shed from her hips
had ended up in her bra. Jennifer’s hair, which I remembered as
dishwater brown and riotously curly, had been bleached Clairol 252:
Never Seen in Nature Blonde. It was also so straight it looked washed,
pressed and starched."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 23: "Though I used to see him sometimes at Hope's
house, Marcus and I had never, ever acknowledged each other's
existence before. So I froze, not knowing whether I should (a) laugh
(b) say something (c) ignore him and keep on walking ... 'Uh, yeah.
Ha. Ha. Ha.' ... I turned around and saw that Marcus was smiling at
me."[3] page 49: "Though I had been to school with him for the last
three years, Sean Whalen and I had never acknowledged each other's
existence before. I froze, unsure of (a) what he was talking about and
(b) what I was supposed to do about it ... 'Ha, yeah. Uh, ha. Ha.' ...
I looked up and saw that Sean was grinning."[3]
Second Helpings, page 68: “‘Omigod!’ shrieked Sara, taking a pink tube
top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny out of her shopping
bag.”[29] page 51: “...I was sick of listening to her hum along to
Alicia Keys, and worn out from resisting her efforts to buy me a pink
tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 237: "Finally, four major department stores and
170 specialty shops later, we were done."[1][29] page 51: "Five
department stores, and 170 specialty shops later, I was sick of
listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys..."[1][29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 217: “But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and
said something so random that I was afraid he was back on the
junk.”[29] page 142: “...he tapped me on the shoulder and said
something so random I worried that he needed more expert counseling
than I could provide.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 46: “He smelled sweet and woodsy, like cedar
shavings.”[29] page 147: “...I had even begun to recognize his cologne
(sweet and woodsy and spicy, like the sandalwood key chains sold as
souvenirs in India.)”[29]
Second Helpings, page 88: “By the way, Marcus wore a T-shirt that said
THURSDAY yesterday, and FRIDAY today.”[29] page 170: “He was wearing
an old, faded gray sweatshirt that said ‘Tuesday’ on it. Except that
today was Thursday.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 209:“Pause.
‘So I don’t need a ride...’
Another pause.
‘But do you want one?’ he asked.
God, did I want one.
He knew it, too. He leaned over the front seat and popped open the
passenger-side door. ‘Come on, I want to talk to you,’ he said."[29]
page 172:“Pause.
‘So I can’t really stay...’
Another pause.
‘But you want to?’ he asked.
Did I? Yes...
He knew it, too. He patted the chair again. ‘Come on, I want to talk
to you,’ he said.”[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 213: "He was invading my personal space, as I had
learned in Psych. class, and I instinctively sunk back into the seat.
That just made him move in closer. I was practically one with the
leather at this point, and unless I hopped into the backseat, there
was nowhere else for me to go."[29] page 175: "He was definitely
invading my personal space, as I had learned in Human Evolution class
last summer, and I instinctively backed up till my legs hit the chair
I had been sitting in. That just made him move in closer, until the
grommets in the leather embossed the backs of my knees, and he finally
tilted the book toward me."[29]
Sloppy Firsts, page 223: “Marcus finds me completely nonsexual. No
tension to complicate our whatever relationship. I should be
relieved.”[29] page 175-176: “Sean only wanted me as a friend. A
nonsexual female friend. That was a good thing. There would be no
tension to complicate our relationship and my soon-to-be relationship
with Jeff Akel. I was relieved.”[29]
Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
page 35: Warning reads, "If from speed you get your thrill / take
precaution—make your will."[2] page 118: Poster reads, "If from drink
you get your thrill, take precaution—write your will."[2]
page 31: Warning reads, "All the dangerous overtakers / end up safe at
undertaker's."[2] page 119: Poster reads, "All the dangerous drug
abusers end up safe as total losers."[2]
Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret? Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
"a full-scale argument about animal rights ... The mink like being
made into coats."[34] "a full-fledged debate over animal rights .. The
foxes want to be made into scarves."[34]
“And we’ll tell everyone you got your Donna Karan coat from a discount
warehouse shop.”
Jemima gasps. “I didn’t!” she says, colour suffusing her cheeks.
“You did! I saw the carrier bag,” I chime in. “And we’ll make it
public that your pearls are cultured, not real...”
Jemima claps a hand over her mouth...
“OK!” says Jemima, practically in tears. “OK! I promise I’ll forget
all about it. I promise! Just please don’t mention the discount
warehouse shop. Please.”[2][34]
“And I’ll tell everyone that in eighth grade you used to wear a ‘My
Little Pony’ sweatshirt to school every day,” I continued.
Priscilla gasped. “I didn’t!” she said, her face purpling again.
“You did! I even have pictures,” I said. “And I’ll make it public that
you named your dog Pythagoras...”
Priscilla opened her mouth and gave a few soundless gulps...
“Okay, fine!” she said in complete consternation. “Fine! I promise
I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll talk to the club manager. Just please
don’t mention the sweatshirt. Please.”[2][34]
Cabot's The Princess Diaries Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
page 127: "Meanwhile, Paulo was picking up chunks of my hair and
making this face and going, all sadly, It must go. It must all go. And
it went. All of it. Well, almost all of it. I still have some like
bangs and a little fringe in back." page 57: "The whole time, Frederic
(I wondered if anyone dared call him Freddie) kept picking up long
strands of my hair and making sad faces. It must go," he said. It must
all go. And it went. Not all of it, because after four inches
vanished, I started making panicked, whimpering sounds that touched
even Frederic's heart ..."
page 126: "And it is sort of hard when all these beautiful,
fashionable people are telling you how good you'd look in this and how
much that would bring out your cheekbones ... And I kept telling
myself, She's only doing this because she loves you ..." page 58: "In
my defense, it was hard to be uptight and prickly while surrounded by
beautiful, fashionable people all telling me how good I'd look in that
shade and what this color would do to enhance my cheekbones."
page 12: "There isn’t a single inch of me that hasn’t been pinched,
cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. [...]
Because I don’t look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis
never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights.[35]
Mia Thermopolis never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or
Christian Dior bras, which by the way don’t even come in 32A, which is
my size. I don’t even know who I am anymore. It certainly isn't Mia
Thermopolis. She’s turning me into someone else."[2] page 59: "Every
inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished,
painted, or moisturized. I didn’t look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal
Mehta didn’t own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been
traded in for a small sailboat.[35] She didn’t wear makeup or Manolo
Blahniks or Chanel sunglasses or Habitual jeans or La Perla bras. She
never owned enough cashmere to make her concerned for the future of
the Kazakhstani mountain goat population. I was turning into someone
else."[2]
Hidier's Born Confused Viswanathan's Opal Mehta
page 85: "Finally, I tore open the package they made me save for last.
Inside, padded carefully between layers of tissue, was an unbelievably
resounding salvar khamees, one of those Indian outfits consisting of
loose-fitting pants with a long top and scarf, or dupatta. The deep
crimson fabric screamed sanguinely open. A river of nearly neon gold
dye wound noisily through its length. The salvar was ornately
embroidered with gold and silver and garnet beads and little bells
that made a racket even as I lifted it out of the box. All in all it
was, in fact, so loud I could hear it. Heavy, too — funny how all
those little driblets could add up."[33] page 125-126: "I looked at
the multicolored swirl-patterned box hesitantly. In my past
experience, gifts from Edison rarely boded well. And when I tore apart
the layers of carefully packed tissue paper, I found an elaborate
salwar kameez — loose pants, a long tunic-style top, and a trailing
scarf, or dupatta. The salwar was a startling peacock-green, and
embroidered so ornately with gold and silver threads and glittering
beads that it made my eyes hurt. When I lifted it up, the room
resounded to the tinkle of thousands of tiny golden bells. It was
surprisingly heavy — all that jigna really added up — and it was the
last thing in the world I ever wanted to wear."[33]
page 92-93: "All day the house had smelled of spices, and now before
our eyes lay the resulting combustion of all that kitchen chemistry.
The feast my mother had conjured up was extravagant, and I realized
how hungry I was; I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, at least not on a
daily basis, but today the sight of it was pure poetry ... Brown sugar
roti and cloud-puff puris just itching to be popped. Coconut rice
fluffed up over the silver pot like a sweet-smelling pillow. Samosas
transparent, peas bundling just below the surface. Spinach with nymph-
finger cloves of garlic that sank like butter on the tongue. A vat of
cucumber raita, the two-percent yogurt thickened with sour cream
(which my mom added when we had guests, though she denied it when
asked; I’d seen the empty carton, not a kitten lick left). And the
centerpiece: a deep serving dish of lamb curry, the pieces melting
tenderly off the bone."[33] page 130: "This year, fortunately, there
wasn’t an egg in sight. Instead, the house had smelled of spices all
day, and when we sat down at the dining room table, I nearly combusted
at the sight of the extravagant feast my mom had conjured up. Usually
I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, but today I was suddenly starving.
The table creaked with the weight of crisp, brown rotis and feather-
light, puffy puris. A basket of my favorite kheema naan sat beside the
clouds of cashew and sultana-studded coconut rice in an enormous pot.
There was plump okra fried in oil and garlic till it melted like
butter on the tongue, aloo curry studded with peppercorns and
glistening chopped chilis, and a crock of raita, a cool, delicious
mixture of yogurt and sour cream, bursting with finely chopped onions
and cucumbers. The centerpiece was a deep dish of mutton curry, the
meat (my mom only used halal bought from an Arab butcher in Edison)
already falling off the bone."[33]
page 13: "India. I had few memories of the place, but the ones I held
were dream clear: Bathing in a bucket as a little girl. The unnerving
richness of buffalo milk drunk from a pewter cup. My Dadaji pouring
tea into a saucer so it would cool faster, sipping from the edge of
the thin dish, never spilling a drop. A whole host of kitchen gods
(looking so at home in the undishwashed unmicrowaved room). Meera
Maasi crouching on the floor to sift the stones from rice. Cows
huddled in the middle of the vegetable market, sparrows nesting on
their backs. Hibiscus so brilliant they look like they’d caught fire.
Children with red hair living in tires. A perpetual squint against sun
and dust. The most delicious orange soda I’ve ever drunk — the cap-
split hiss, and then the bubbling jetstream down a parched
throat."[33] page 230-231: "I had only a few memories of India; the
last time my family visited was six years ago, when I was in the sixth
grade….Some impressions stood out sharply in my mind, still as clear
as freshly developed Polaroids. I remembered the cold, creamy taste of
fresh buffalo milk, Babaji pouring Ovaltine from one tin cup to
another until froth bubbled thickly on the surface and it was cool
enough to drink. I remembered shooting rockets made of coconut leaves
off the rooftop terrace, and watching the beady-eyed green-and-yellow
lizards that scuttled over the putty-colored walls after a hard rain.
I remembered cold baths from a bucket with a plastic dipper, and
sweet, oily badam halva from the nearby Chola hotel. Sometimes I still
read the old Enid Blyton books, which were only available in countries
of the former British empire. Most of all, I could close my eyes and
return to the smells of sun and dust and refuse, mixed with sharp
chilis, my grandmother’s soft rose talcum powder, and the heady, sweet
scent of blossoming hibiscus."[33]
⇗ Guest Pay What You Owe Bitch! 4 days ago
Look what I found out about what's her name...
http://mydebtorsprison.com/2010/05/14/kaavya-vi...
⇗ Guest elise 4 days ago
11 people liked this.
Hey Prestigious Plagiarist:
Thank you for kindly replying about my colloquial post and rephrasing
it in more the understandable Queen's English!
Maybe you could kindly edit the following...
Dear Sullivan & Cromwell:
It has been noted that an incoming summer intern at your New York
offices is guilty of plagiarism. This information was on the website
abovethelaw.com,. Her name is Kaavya Viswanathan (Georgetown Law
-2011).
Inevitably, you will have to worry about your own intellectual
property being compromised.
Here is the wikipedia.org link to allegations made against her -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaavya_Viswanathan. I think you will
notice that any similarities can be construed as outright theft of
intellectual property.
I hope you will inquire into this matter further.
regards, elise
----Oh, by the way, I sent the above email to several partners in the
firm. You can you never be too sure about these darn emails getting
through! Hopefully one of them will be able to grasp the content of
the message overlooking any grammatical errors.
Have a Great Day!
⇗ Verified jonathandean 4 days ago in reply to elise
Nasty. Very nasty, Elise. Did you know that jealousy can arise as a
result of some psychological problem or wrong standard of judging
oneself? Dig deep try and understand why you have done this. I'm
certain the partners in that law firm will merely ignore your unkind
action.
⇗ Guest mas 3 days ago in reply to jonathandean
1 person liked this.
I don't know. Maybe next time plagiarist will consider her actions
before being condescending to others. You get enough of that working
at law firms.
⇗ Guest elise 3 days ago in reply to jonathandean
3 people liked this.
Oh, well! I guess we'll have to wait'n see.
(errr..sorry...I meant "The consequences of my actions are yet to be
determined."
Have a Great Weekend, Jon!
Expand ⇗ Guest elise 3 days ago in reply to elise
I forgot to thank you for reminding me to take my meds. So, THANKS!
⇗ Verified jonathandean 2 days ago in reply to elise
Newsweek published a similar article to this one in February 2009 and
the partners within this law firm obviously ignored it. Therefore why
should they react any differently to an email from you? Who was it who
said: "The people we judge and hate in life are in fact reflections of
our disowned selves."
⇗ Guest go girl 4 days ago
The girl landed two huge book deals while in high school? She's got a
lot of potential. I'm pretty sure working in a big law firm is not
"landing on her feet."
⇗ Guest guiest 5000 4 days ago
3 people liked this.
Someone has to be able to oversee all the contract attorneys in
Bangalore. Here is the winner of that opportunity.
⇗ Guest Screenwriter 4 days ago in reply to guiest 5000
Honey, why don't you just do a thing about, Hollywood Madame (pre-
Spitzer) a la, forgive me, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and give up on the whole
law thing...
Trash is trash is trash.
Just like talent is talent is talent.
And a star is a star is a star. You're the sad Rockette mother of the
sad Lindsay Lohan daughter (and I'll avoid Kimberly from Different
Strokes references here).... well you know where I'm going here.
⇗ Guest mariss 4 days ago
2 people liked this.
do you think she'll pass the ethics test? i hope not...
⇗ Registered barristersyyediqbalgeoffrey 3 days ago
I think that Kaavya was unnecessarily harassed and grossly mistreated.
In art (including good writing) nothing can be totally new, unless one
has no sense, no wisdom. I read her HOW OPAL MEHTA GOT KISSED.. its
well-written. I am pleased she has risen above the twitter and the
trivia that often surrounds truth.
BARRISTER SYYED IQBAL GEOFFREY OF SLARPORE, MA LLM PhD HonLLD SAC PC
ONE MOZANG ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN
⇗ Guest Captain Obvious 1 day ago in reply to
barristersyyediqbalgeoffrey
2 people liked this.
Idiot.
⇗ Guest Jabberwoky 3 days ago
3 people liked this.
Barristersyyedi.
Copying someone else's work in pieces and regroup them as one's own
work is not good writing: it is reflective of deceit, fraud, laziness
and opportunistic behavior. Of course that's not saying much since the
legal industry is full of people with such characteristics. She'll fit
right in.
⇗ Guest lexius 3 days ago
3 people liked this.
to barristtereegeorferry,
thanks dad!
.Tags: Books, Crimson DNA, Georgetown Law School, Harvard, Sullivan &
Cromwell, Summer Associates
CLOSURE
The Chick-Lit Culprit
In the mass-media age, new stories captivate us, then vanish. We
revisit those stories to bring you the next chapter.
By Tina Peng | NEWSWEEK
Published Feb 21, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Mar 2, 2009
In April 2006, The Harvard Crimson reports that passages in sophomore
Kaavya Viswanathan's chick-lit novel, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got
Wild, and Got a Life," are strikingly similar to those in two Megan
McCafferty books.
Fever pitch
The book is found to have borrowed more than 40 passages from
McCafferty, Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot and Salman Rushdie. Publisher
Little, Brown pulls "Opal Mehta" from bookshelves and abandons plans
for the second book in Viswanathan's contract, reportedly worth
$500,000. DreamWorks SKG, which had bought movie rights, drops the
project.
Present day
Viswanathan is a first-year law student at Georgetown University,
where Stephen Glass earned a J.D. after being fired from The New
Republic for fabricating a series of articles. (She declined
NEWSWEEK'S request for comment.) How'd she manage to get accepted?
Applicants can submit supplemental essays to explain themselves to the
admissions committee, says Dean of Admissions Andrew Cornblatt. "It's
impossible to get amnesia about what we may have heard," he says. "But
in all cases we treat them just like any other applicant."
© 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/185846
Georgetown Law: Give me your poor, your tired, your plagiarists
Posted by: Molly Redden in News, Vox Populi, tags: Georgetown Law,
Journalism, Kaavya Viswanathan
Kaavya Viswanathan
Why didn’t anybody tell me? Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard grad whose
debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life,
allegedly plagiarized several passages from two books by Megan
McCafferty now attends Georgetown Law, Newsweek reports.
NBD, really, except the article pointed out that she’s not the first
reknowned printed-word miscreant to gain entry into Georgetown Law.
Stephen Glass, who The New Republic booted after they discovered he
had fabricated quotes, sources, and even events for articles he wrote
between 1995-1998, graduated LAW `00.
Newsweek found that Georgetown Law’s acceptance policy is lenient when
it comes to sinners of the print:
Applicants can submit supplemental essays to explain themselves to the
admissions committee, says Dean of Admissions Andrew Cornblatt. “It’s
impossible to get amnesia about what we may have heard,” he says. “But
in all cases we treat them just like any other applicant.”
I guess James Frey knows where to go if he ever feels like getting his
JD.
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 3:37 pm and
is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this
entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback
from your own site.
7 Responses to “Georgetown Law: Give me your poor, your tired, your
plagiarists”
Will Sommer says:
February 28th, 2009 at 3:57 pm This is just an opportunity to say:
everyone should read McCafferty’s excellent plagiarized books, Sloppy
Firsts and Second Helpings. They’re great, although that red-haired
love interest is a bit much for me.
Bailey says:
February 28th, 2009 at 9:51 pm Just like Steve Glass, this girl will
have a terrible time trying to pass the bar. Glass is still waiting,
or has given up.
does this need a name? says:
February 28th, 2009 at 10:01 pm I guess she fits right in with the
ethically and morally sound alumni and student base of Georgetown:
Bill Clinton, Gloria Arroyo, Jim McGreevey, Charles Prince, Pat
Buchanan, Anwar Ibrahim, Lincoln assassination conspirators. Prolific
company, to say the least.
Eric says:
March 1st, 2009 at 12:45 am Anwar Ibrahim isn’t an alumni, and the
commenter above forgot King Abdullah II
Will Sommer says:
March 1st, 2009 at 7:35 am What’s the beef with Anwar Ibrahim? He’s so
fly.
Nuff says:
April 5th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
’nuff said
Marc J. Randazza says:
May 15th, 2010 at 1:57 am One of many reasons why I will never donate
a dime to the alumni fund. This fucking school has zero ethics. As
long as you are of the right political stripe, your ethics don’t
matter. If you carry the right amount of melanin, that goes double.
http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2009/02/28/georgetown-law-give-me-your-poor-your-tired-your-plagiarists/
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/05/summer-associate-of-the-day-kaavya-viswanathanaka-the-alleged-harvard-plagiarist/
Multiculturalism - a source of new world literature
April 8th, 2010 - 4:47 pm ICT by IANS -
New Delhi, April 8 (IANS) The morphing of the world into a sprawling
global village and free passage of people across terrains are changing
the tenor of contemporary literature.
New groups of non-majority cultures are acquiring a voice to express
their artistic visions in innovative literary formats while the
contours of identities are sharpening to narrate stories about lost
sub-cultures, the regional winners of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
said at a literary session on “Multi-Cultural Identities: Artistic
Expression” in the capital Wednesday.
The 12 regional winners of the Commonwealth Writers’s Prize and the
panel of judges are in the capital for the final round of the
Commonwealth Writers’ Award April 12. The prize will be given away by
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, the winner of
the Commonwealth writers’ prize in 1991.
“India unlike Australia, America or Britain does not have a rainbow
population; hence the impact of multiculturalism in contemporary
Indian literature has been slow to seep in. It is just beginning to
make its presence felt. Writers have started to trade in their
identities to package it better in their literary pursuits so as to
give their own places broader images,” capital-based novelist Rana
Dasgupta said.
Dasgupta’s book “Solo” won the prize for the best book in Europe-South
Asia region.
He said: “The last decade was reflective of this phenomenon when
culture, its loss and revival through story telling became big
literary themes.
“The decade was marked by the growth of new literary genres like the
Chetan Bhagat phenomenon and chick lit. Such stories had to be told
because the literary culture of India is broadening and changing.
Writers are no longer trying to communicate what being an Indian is,
but about India as a social and political entity.”
The writer, whose book “Solo” is described as an “epic tale of 20th
and the 21st centuries told from the perspective of a 100-year-old
Bulgarian man”, felt that if “nations were the stage on which modern
life and feeling unfolded; novels were the form in which these things
were recounted, understood and turned, finally, into lore”.
Canadian writer Shandi Mitchell, whose book “Under This Unbroken Sky”
won the best first book award in the Caribbean and Canadian region,
said “in her country, multicultural experiment was two-pronged — one
distinctly Canadian and the other an assimilation of all that was
Canadian by the culturally diverse communities”.
“But each culture speaks to one another,” Mitchell said.
The writer, whose book has been inspired by a family photograph and is
woven around the struggles of Teodor Mykolayenko, a victim of
repression in Stalin’s Russia, “tried to explain the phenomenon of
multiculturalism through her own upbringing”.
Nigeria-based Abaobi Tricia Nwaubeni, whose book, “I Do Not Come To
You By Chance”, won the best first book award in the Africa region,
sees notorious the “e-mail scams of Nigeria as an artistic expression
of the multi-cultural society of the Nigerian people”.
Her book is a comic tale of the culture of email scams in Nigeria and
a university graduate, who is forced to become a scammer for
livelihood.
“I wanted to probe how writers, doctors, intellectuals and
professionals become successful scammers. I also wanted to show my
audience, the people of Nigeria, the funny side of the victim. It is a
part of our history and we cannot sweep it under the carpet,” Adaobi
said.
Writer Mridula Koshy, who moderated the session, summed the essence of
multiculturalism saying, “plurality of cultures was all about being
human and expressing humanity without recourse”.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/books/multiculturalism-a-source-of-new-world-literature_100344962.html
Google Editions Hits The Shelves In July
May 5th, 2010 - 8:12 pm ICT by GD -
By Ranjan Bhaduri
New York, May 5, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Kindle made it big and Apple hopes
to outshine it. So what made the Internet Giant Google join the EBook
bandwagon this late? Innovation which is one thing that makes Goggle
stand out from all its competitors in the market. Spurring up the
fervor of E book readers, the company is all set to launch “Google
Editions” only to offer the much needed grace which also holds the
potential to change the realm of E Book Readers.
A New York event witnessed Goggle’s senior executive Chris Palma
taking about Goggle Editions which is all destined to make its
appearance somewhere in the month of July. Goggle Editions shall be a
boon to all book worms that shall be able to search their favorite
books via Goggle book search option. Not only that they shall be also
able to download or buy digital copies of their favorite books through
Goggle editions.
As speculated Goggle has already decided to offer a chance to all book
publishers who shall be deciding the price of the device. In other
words, the Internet Giant is playing it real smooth so as to procure a
high sales quota from the initial sales which is in accordance to the
price which Goggle had offered in the very first instant.
Apple’s iPad has already reached a landmark sale of 1 million units
even with a price tag that is higher than that of Amazon’s Kindle.
With Google’s device hitting the shelves, both Kindle as well as
Apples newbie ipad is all destined to witness the chutzpah of the
Internet Giant which has never failed to impress people.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/tech-news/google-editions-hits-the-shelves-in-july_100358973.html
...and I am Sid Harth