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idonojacs
Joined: 07 Jun 2007
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 Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:45 am Post subject: Yanks win forgery sweepstakes again! Take that, Korea! |
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The Koreans may be world leaders in the art of plagiarism.
But nobody beats the Americans when it comes to outright fabrications. We're talking the art of making stuff up out of whole cloth.
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March 4, 2008
Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction
By MOTOKO RICH
In �Love and Consequences,� a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods.
The problem is that none of it is true.
Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed....
Holocaust memoir, �Misha: A M�moire of the Holocaust Years� by Misha Defonseca, was a fake, and perhaps more notoriously, two years ago James Frey, the author of a best-selling memoir, �A Million Little Pieces,� admitted that he had made up or exaggerated details in his account of his drug addiction and recovery.
Ms. Seltzer�s story started unraveling last Thursday after she was profiled in the House & Home section of The New York Times. The article appeared alongside a photograph of Ms. Seltzer and her 8-year-old daughter, Rya. Ms. Seltzer�s older sister, Cyndi Hoffman, saw the article and called Riverhead to tell editors that Ms. Seltzer�s story was untrue.
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more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/books/04fake.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
I don't get it. If she is such a good writer, why doesn't she just write a novel?
And then there is that world class faker, Dr. Frederick Cook, who lied about being the first to reach the North Pole and being the first to climb Mt. McKinley.
Why quit when you are ahead? Dr. F. Cook, first explorer on the moon; Dr. Fred Cook, first man to swim the Atlantic Ocean; Dr. Frederick Cook, first American to teach English in Korea!
http://www.pearyhenson.org/dr_frederick_cook/bradleyland3.html
http://www.pearyhenson.org/polarcontroversy/lostboxploy.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Cook
The National Geographic Society, last I heard, still backed the veracity of Dr. Cook!
The Brits deserve mention, too. Who can ever forget that immortal hoax, Piltdown Man?
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The recent focus on Charles Dawson as the sole forger is supported by the gradual accumulation of evidence regarding other archaeological hoaxes he perpetrated in the decade or two prior to the Piltdown discovery. Beginning in 1895, he appears to have made dozens of minor 'discoveries' including the first evidence of cast-iron figure-casting in Roman Britain, a medieval clockface, a flint arrowhead and shaft, and a number of other remarkable finds that were later, long after his early death, proven to be forgeries. On one occasion, as an example, a collection of flints he exchanged with another collector, Hugh Morris, turned out to have been aged with chemicals, a point Morris noted down at the time and which was later unearthed. There were also numerous individuals in the Surrey area well-acquainted with Dawson who long held doubts about Piltdown and of Dawson's role in the matter, but given the sheer weight of scholarly affirmation regarding the find few if any were willing to publicly speak out for fear of being ridiculed for their trouble.
Sometimes he may have appropriated the finds usually made by workmen by reporting them to scientific journals as if they were his own discoveries. Most of his written works proved to be uncredited collations of the work of others, material that but for the period would have drawn outright accusations of gross plagiarism. His History of Hastings castle is a prime example. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_man
Way to go, England!
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Editor's note:
I hear Margaret B. Jones is looking for a job teaching English in Korea, and would welcome any offers from recruiters. |
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Czarjorge
Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:57 am Post subject: |
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| The fast and easy answer is that currently memoir sells better than fiction. Culturally we're still in a phase where reality is en vogue. It'll pass, just be patient. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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| This just in: people sometime lie to make their lives seem more interesting. |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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| flakfizer wrote: |
| This just in: people sometime lie to make their lives seem more interesting. |
I met people like that when I was a junkie male prostitute working for the CIA during the Japanese occupation of Burma. Still my SAS training helped me climb out of that hole. Oh, and Oprah's my best friend. |
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nicholas_chiasson
Joined: 14 Jun 2007
Location: Samcheok
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| A certain amount of dishonesty makes a tall tale better. But trying to make a buck is the mark of the con man. |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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| ED209 wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| This just in: people sometime lie to make their lives seem more interesting. |
I met people like that when I was a junkie male prostitute working for the CIA during the Japanese occupation of Burma. Still my SAS training helped me climb out of that hole. Oh, and Oprah's my best friend. |
I'd buy that book. |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Pligganease wrote: |
| ED209 wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| This just in: people sometime lie to make their lives seem more interesting. |
I met people like that when I was a junkie male prostitute working for the CIA during the Japanese occupation of Burma. Still my SAS training helped me climb out of that hole. Oh, and Oprah's my best friend. |
I'd buy that book. |
I would but I signed the official secret services act. Plus I know they are watching me. I've written 10 books already including one on how I built a car that runs on air and another about my surfing holidays with the Saudi Royal family. |
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