Plagiarism and Christian Songs

A fairly common technique among the new wave of Christian song writers (Chris Tomlin and others have done this) is to take a familiar old hymn ("Amazing Grace" for example), write a new chorus, add a couple of words to the end of one of the verses, and claim that it's a new song. That's how Tomlin wrote "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)".

The old hymnals were more honest. They would give first credit to the original author of the majority of the song (John Newton, in this case) and secondary credit to the newcomer (chorus by Chris Tomlin).

Now an Australian court has upheld a plagiarism judgment against the group Men At Work because one of their songs lifted two measures of "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree". It's worth millions of dollars in unpaid royalties. Note: It's two bars, not three quarters of the Men At Work song. Just two bars.

It would be nice if Christian morality were strict enough to give credit where credit is due.

Life Catches Up

Being sick, etc., I've fallen behind on my grading. Ashland has been off for "Spring" break this week (we have a pretty good ice storm today), and I finally have to get my act together and grade their papers. It's grueling work. Not that I have that many. There are fewer than two dozen, but they are all identical. The topic was to consider the qualities of their closest friends and discuss their similarities and their differences. Here is what I've learned so far:

1. My friends are always there for me. (One guy said that five times in two pages)
2. My friends are all totally unique. If I have three or four friends, each is totally unique. They are also very different.
3. No, I'm not willing to tell you what makes them unique, nor am I willing to discuss a time when a friend was "there for me." I'll just say it again.

These friendships seem to have absolutely no content whatsoever. When I get together with Joel, we usually discuss food, religion, and opera, though not in that order. I know that when I'm depressed and sad, I can phone him in the middle of the night and he will listen—sometimes even get me off topic. My students don't have any content to their friendships, and "being there for me" never seems to include, well, anything. Joel once put in a good word for me so I could get a summer job. He also helped with the gas money when we were going to that job.

I guess I should feel sorry for my students because they live such repetitive, boring, cliché lives. It's sad. Nothing specific ever happens to them. No great road trip to Colorado (like the one I took with my friend Chip). No writers' club meetings (like the ones with my friend John Paul). No waiting for the State Police after wrecking a car (like the time with my friend Jared). No evenings with a lot of wine, cheese, and laughter (like the ones with Joel). It's all just blah!

Too Spiritual

This set of ideas got started when I was reading the Robert Webber book. I don't quite buy the trichotomy of some writers, that the human being is made up of three entities, body/soul/spirit, but it does sort of explain the three church traditions I've now been part of.

Rational: Presbyterian
There was an incredible amount of logic in a Presbyterian seminary. We studied Systematic Theology. The interesting thing is that we were applying all that logic to some fairly illogical concepts. Here's an example. God does no evil; God predestines some to eternal life; God does not, however, predestine others to eternal damnation—they do that to themselves. OK. That looks really good, and it's what we worked with all the time, but it's pretty deadly stuff for a Sunday school class, and the sharp 12-year-old always asks the fatal question. If God decides to save some, isn't He deciding not to save others? The Calvinist answer is 50 pages long, and never really deals with it. Anyhow, there's little sense of talking to God here—it's all talking about Him.

Spiritual
If you walk into Grace Fellowship on any Sunday morning, it's entirely normal to hear half a dozen people saying that God told them things. It's sometimes very minor, routine things. One lady gave a testimony that God told her to stock up on canned coffee because the price was about to go up. EVERYTHING is spiritualized. You can't have a party without a prayer session. You can't do a barbecue without spending time in worship. Interestingly enough, the physical side of humanity isn't too important there. Ray once told us that we are to kneel "in our spirit" during worship. People show up on Sunday wearing the most shabby clothing they can find because there's no point in looking good for God. Eucharist is almost entirely a matter of silent internal meditation. Yes, there are a few who wave flags or jump about, but nobody is quite sure why they are doing it.

Physical
When I joined a liturgical church, one thing that was rescued for me was the physical. Actions actually have meaning. When I cross myself, it's my body praying along with my mind. There's an actual reason to be kneeling, a reason that the liturgical color of the season is displayed. Adam's fall did not involve a pure spirit acquiring a body; his body was already pretty good. And because we are also worshiping with our bodies, it makes a difference what we do and how we do it. Not just a mind trip. Years ago, a new teenage convert asked me why we close our eyes when we pray. I didn't have a suitable answer. Now I do.

More on Academic Computing

I think I let my brain run away with me. For one thing, I should have remembered such things as the MyCompLab travesty—a piece of software that was supposed to make English teaching much better but which was such a dog that the University of Akron unanimously ditched it after a semester.

Anyhow, I'm not really employed by any college or university. I've got to remember that. In May I will, as usual, be totally unemployed. That's a good reason to set up my stuff to be totally independent of proprietary devices and software. It can be done, and it can be beautiful. I've proven that over and over. So there's just no reason to grieve because some LM suite or sexy piece of hardware simply won't behave. I don't need them and I shouldn't even try to use them. My next place won't have them.

Academic Computing

It happens about once every semester. I get an idea to actually use some of the stuff the University has paid for, put an incredible amount of work into it, and discover (again) that computer products sold to schools usually don't work and are incredibly overpriced.

The culprit this time around is a Smart Podium. The thing apparently costs in excess of $3000, and it's supposed to allow me to work all kinds of magic when I'm doing a presentation in front of class. If I don't like using a mouse, I can use the pen and simply tap the screen to get mouse things to happen. I can write on the screen and it will appear in the projected image. I can draw things. The machine can recognize my handwriting and save it as a file. I can save the whole thing and print it out for students.

It simply doesn't work. The mouse tapping part does, but nothing else. Apparently (also in common with other academic software) there's a secret setting somewhere and everyone assumes that we all know it.

IF the thing worked, I'd like it, though it's sort of an overkill idea. Whiteboard markers cost something like $1.30 each. For the cost of this technological wonder (if it actually worked!) the college could buy 2,307 whiteboard markers. And they would work.

This is getting to be a pattern. The people at Ashland wonder about my hostility toward their computer systems. Ditto (though with less intensity) at Akron. It's because I simply want things that will work, will make my teaching day go more easily, and will not make me look like an idiot in front of my students. But that's not part of the corporate culture of suppliers.