Town Election Day, 2006

For those of you not living in Brookline, Massachusetts, today is our town election day. Brookline voters will go to the polls today to choose Selectmen, Library Trustees, School Committee members, our Moderator, our Town Clerk, a member of the Housing Authority, and precinct-by-precinct Town Meeting Members. I myself am up for reelection to Town Meeting for a third term, but as there are five incumbents running for the five slots, my campaigning was minimal.

On the other hand, in the Selectmen race, there are five people running for two positions on the Board. I've endorsed Jesse Mermell for one of those slots, and if by chance anyone reading this plans to vote in the Brookline town election today, feel free to take that into consideration.

That Plagiarism Scandal

I haven't been following the Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism scandal too closely because I've had friends doing it for me. However, I do want to note one speculative point that I made yesterday that appears to be correct.

Yesterday, writer Stephen Leigh (sleigh) noted in this post that the book was put together by a book packager. I suggested in one of my replies that it was entirely possible that the packager was the one who really committed the plagiarism. (Still, Viswanathan would have to take full responsibility, since it is her name on the book.)

Well, there are two articles I found today that would appear to substantiate my theory.

First, today's New York Times article "A Second Ripple in Plagiarism Scandal" points out that some passages in the Viswanathan novel were lifted from yet another book, implying that the plagiarism was deliberate.

Secondly, the Harvard Independent article "Kaavya Case Not First Plagiarism Controversy for Opal Mehta Packager" points out that the packager had been found guilty of committing plagiarism before.

Methinks the packager is mostly at fault, but as I said before, Viswanathan has to take responsibility as well.