The Laura K. Krishna case

For the few of you out there who haven't run across this yet, there is an interesting group of blog posts that tell a story of a man being asked to write a term paper for a lazy student, and promptly scamming her, with intent to at least humiliate, if not cause her punishment.
Here are the posts, in order, be aware that at some point he went through and changed her real last name to Krishna at the student's request. I advise reading all the way through before passing judgement on Nate. Feel free to judge the plagerist all you want.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

It it interesting reading through these comments because there seem to be two primary schools of thought. One is that what the blogger has done is good, and that Laura K. deserves whatever is coming to her. The other is that Nate is a horrible human being who is using her one little mistake as an excuse to flay her.

I have to say that at first I was a little hesitent about Nate's actions. I agree that Laura had what was coming to her but learning a lesson that plagiarism is bad will hardly help her when she gets kicked out of school (as this is what I had always heard the punishment was). As I read more of the comments many people claiming experience in the matter said that expulsion is rarely the punishment for a first time offender. A failing grade and a tarnished record were more likely. This seemed far more appropriate. When it turned out that Nate had never actually notified the college, and only intended to if she did hand in the paper, and didn't agree to confess, I gained more respect for him. Unfortunatly for him, and the incredibly stupid student, the blog was linked from some of the most visited websites. People, for some reason beyond my comprehension, decided it was appropriate to track down what school she went to, and call her and her school. This ruined Nate's plans by notifying the officials that were never supposed to be notified in the first place.

Now I happen to think that both of the fringe arguments about the morality of Nate's actions are wrong (as most fringe philosophies tend to be). The bloodthirsy of Nate's "supporters" (who largely complained when they learned of the mild finale) is proof that they have completely missed the point. What was supposed to happen was that she was supposed to be frightened into think her college career was over and then given her "second chance." It wasn't meant to sadistically ruin her life.

The other side who seem to think that Nate is evil and using the suffering of this "innocent girl" for his own amusement are even farther off. Innocent?! This woman is in her third year in college, she has no excuse to think this is okay. Lets go through the story and examine her so called "innocence."

Nate did not ask to write her paper, he in no way implied he did that for anyone, and he didn't even claim knowledge on the subject. Meanwhile this woman has asked a complete stranger to write a five page paper (FIVE PAGE! I CAN PULL THAT OFF IN TWO HOURS!) on Hinduism because his profile mentions that he "eats Hindu statues" as a hobby. Not just lazy, but stupid as well. Then she lies about paying him for the job she thinks he has done (with every intention of not actually following through)(1 lie). She then takes the paper he has written (purposefully designed to be a joke and get her a failing grade) and hands it in without reading it. But her folly doesn't end there. She lies about her school (2), as well as her name (3) and avoids his preferred payment method. He contacts her later and she pretends to be someone else (4), poorly. Meanwhile a reader has notified her college, and she has talked to the Dean, and lied to him. Apparently she did nothing wrong, this random stranger is out to ruin her (5). He gets in contact with her again and she asks for his help. They get in phone contact and he offers to talk to the dean and try to lower her punishment, she says no thanks. She asks him to remove her real name (done, but pointless as it is now posted all over the internet) and then to lie and say it was all a hoax (6). He doesn't agree to that. He continues to offer to help her case with the Dean, and then learns that she actually lied to the dean. This woman seems to be a compulsive liar but if I didn't already despise her enough, she puts on her mother.

Her mother is what one calls an 'enabler.' Nate is under the impression that she is nice. I get the feeling that she is merely a typical mother who mistakingly believes her children are perfectly good. She was also a more succesful manipulator then her daughter. She got Nate.

She also swore to Laura's diligence as a student, and knew that I was not lying about the plagiarism.

She is convinced that her daughter has never tried anything like this before. I on the other hand, have trouble believing that Laura's first time plaigerizaing was on a small five page paper, and that she would go about it by randomly IMing someone and scamming them. Just a hunch. Mother can convince Nate to trust her by saying she trusts him. This obviously isn't completely true when she follows it up with

She asked whether this was for money or personal reasons, and I told her what I told you blog people, which is that I was legitimately offended on behalf of all the people I know who take their education seriously.

She hints at buying him off. She cares more about making sure her daughter goes unpunished, then allowing her daughter to learn her lesson. And if it wasn't clear enough that Mother didn't understand the real problem here...

She expressed her dismay over the thousands of dollars this was costing her every semester for her daughter, and I agreed that that was a shame.

She completely misses his point about how her daughters actions cheapen the educational system. Unfortunatly instead of seeing that said mother is manipulative, and willing to hide the problem, instead of fix it, Nate only sees her as "being nice." I'm willing to bet that she is the same sort of Mother who would call and complain, at the request of her child, when a teacher gives a deserved bad grade. I am certainly making assumption off little information, but what I have seen is infuriating, and shows where Laura gets her morality problems from.

The way I see it, Nate acted with good intention, and his plan ws decent. There was no way he could have predicted that his post would be so popular, and there was no way it would work if he didn't post the story and his written paper online, as he intended that the teacher would search for her paper online and find his blogpost, showing that she had plagiarized. He wanted to urge her to confession, which would lead to her punishment, a possible lesson learned, but a saved school career. Sound logic. Unfortunatly the blog became incredibly popular and the Dean was notified before Laura could be talked to. Laura, not realizing how deep she was in, lied about plagiarizing. I think that Nate was manipulated into being nicer in his conversation then he needed to be, and I believe he misjudged the mothers charecter, but I think that his actions were sound and had the unlikely not happened, thinks may have turned out okay for Laura. I honestly believe that her getting expelled and having a ruined career is preferable to her getting someone else to write a paper for her, and not getting caught.

-Brandon

Misdirected campus politics

I recently got this email from a student group I mistakingly got on the mailing list of.

Kick the military off our campus !!!!

Thurs. Mar. 31
6PM
Michigan State Room (349) IMU

Across the nation, college and university students are shutting down
military recruiting at their schools.
Join us for a discussion about the new student anti-war movement
that's sweeping the country and how you can get involved.

Sponsored by the University of Iowa Anti-War Committee

I am very liberal. I opposed the war in Iraq. I think it's been handled poorly and has now put the country in a perilous and costly position.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why this is a worthy cause. I understand that a stable country needs a stable military and a stable military requires people. Recruitment is a way to get people without a draft. This way those who are willing to fight do and those who don't want to, will only have to in times of crisis. Recruitment is not a bad thing. So this is an anti-war movement? Wars are not the fault of the military. They are the fault of politicians. Should we be sponsoring a "don't participate in politics" rally? Does that make any sense? I wish that the effort that goes into these rediculous movements would be transfered to something more useful.

-Brandon

Apperently artists can contract out their work and still be the artist.

I was reading through this article I grabbed from Fark and this caught my eye.

The new exhibition -- 29 photorealist oil paintings based on photographs of hospital scenes, drug addicts, suicide bombers and his own artwork -- has been fuel for the fire for those who question whether he is an artist or a conman.

The paintings, which have sold for $200,000 to $2 million each, were largely executed by assistants with Hirst stepping in only to add a touch of blood or do the eyes.

"I don't like the idea that it has to be done by the artist, I think it's quite an old fashioned thing," he said.

"Architects don't build their own houses," he said, adding that his assistants are better painters than him anyway. "You'd get an inferior painting if it's done by the artist."

Let me get this straight. You don't actually need to do any work to be an artist. You can pay people to create for you and you can still take the credit. This man is expecting to be praised for work he didn't even do. This is insane. He is using contract workers to do his work for him.

The architect analogy is hardly fair as an architect has an entire building completely planned before construction begins. He has designed everything. When you are paying someone to paint for you you don't have the same complete control that the architect has. Unless the workers are simply doing paint by numbers and every color is prepicked, the actual painters are going to add some amount of personal style to the work. Construction workers building a house don't have that. They are constructing, these painters are creating. There is a difference.

Madness.

-Brandon

One more addition...

This is an interesting bit of North Korean propaganda. Kim Jong Il has been commissioning flash films as a method of sending propaganda outside of NK for a while now. This is apparently his attempt to put a more human face on North Korea. Very interesting attempt...

I must say that the song kicks ass.

-Brandon

This is so awesome!

A British graf artist by the name of Banksy has smuggled his own works into four major art museums in New York and photographed it. He seems to have a pretty decent sense of humor as his paintings, and statements show. There is an official news post on it. Apparently http://www.woostercollective.com is the only press with contact information for Banksy.

-Brandon

EDIT I was browsing through other works by Banksy. Some are on his website linked above, and more are here. This guys art is awesome. I don't agree with all of his philosophies but I can't deny his talent or creativity.

Spring Break Sun.

First place we went was the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Throughout the culture center were murals painted by local artists. Actually there were murals all over the city, a very pretty practice that I neglected to mention in my last post. There was an exhibit with old photographs, art, and historical information about the various pueblos. There was also an art exhibit featuring pottery and hide paintings. They were all intended to mimic traditional art styles, but they were about modern topics. The one that springs to mind was of a casino spewing gold coins in all directions.

We next went over to the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. This was where I began my list of artists. There was a large contemporary art exhibit. In fact there were a couple. One that I believe was a permanent collection, and one which featured local artists. There were also older art pieces featured (a few of which I listed yesterday). The museum was large (probably the largest one I visited down there) and really focused heavily on modern art (something I felt some of the others didn't focus on enough). Some of the neatest exhibits was a collection of lunchboxes through the century. It was silly, but neat. What was really cool, was an exhibit on Clement, Edith and Thatchur Hurd. Clement Hurd is the artist responsible for illustrations in the classic children's book "Goodnight Moon." I didn't realize until this exhibit that the book "Runaway Bunny" were illustrated and written by the same people. Thatchur Hurd is his son. He wrote and drew his own children's books with some original themes. Art Dog (a book I ended up purchasing) is interesting in that it seems to condone graffiti art. The story is that a guard at the local art museum named "Arthur Dog" becomes a mysterious masked character named Art Dog when the moon is full. He goes around town at night and paints beautiful murals throughout the city. He is framed for stealing the "Mona Woof" and uses his art powers to escape and catch the real thieves. It isn't complicated are trying hard to push a message. It's a children's book. The fact that the hero of the book is a graffiti artists is very interesting though.

We had dinner at a little Italian Restaurant. I had a deliciously spicy Italian Sausage sandwich with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.

After wards we headed back to the house. We rented "I Heart Huckabees" on the way. I'd seen previews for it and they hadn't seemed that interesting, but I had heard good things so I was curious. I'm very glad we did. This movie is hilarious. A lot of the humor is in the fact that it is just absurd but there is also a lot of mockery of philosophical and political views. The far left and right each are portrayed as incredibly ridiculous and existentialism (already a very odd philosophy) is made more absurd by its connection to the characters who support it and what it does to those who embrace it. The cast is great and the soundtrack is by the ever talented Jon Brion. See it.
_____________________________
Diane Marsh does beautiful paintings of people. I really like the paintings cut in half with a person on one side and a landscape on the other. They're beautiful.

I like Robert Ellis abstract landscapes.

While searching for the above Robert Ellis I stumbled across this beautiful photography taken by a different Robert Ellis.

Jane Abrams has pretty abstract, as well as more realistic paintings as well as some interesting sculptures
_____________
In a completely unrelated note. I recently learned that NBC is remaking the Office for American audiences. This is infuriating. Why must it be remade? I can think of a few reasons, none of them I like... Because the original actors have accents? Because they are foreigners? Because the humor of "The Office" isn't perfectly dumbed down to what American audiences "want?" It is completely ridiculous and a perfect example of why business dictating art is not a functional system. In their attempt gain audiences and keep mass appeal NBC is going to fund a complete revamp of the show. They liked the show, the just don't like it enough to show it as is. It isn't American enough. It doesn't appeal to the intellectually deficient masses enough.

-Brandon

Spring Break Sat./First impressions

I haven't developed my 13 rolls of film yet. I'm curious to see how they turned out but I think over half of them won't as I was often operating at lower then desired light levels and had to keep shutter speed and aperture lower then I desired.

I arrived in Albuquerque after a fairly uneventful flight from Cedar Rapids to Denver to Albuquerque. The flight from Denver gave me a good chance to see how pretty New Mexico and Colorado are. There is so much undeveloped land. It's something you don't see in Iowa except for a few preserves here and there. Everything here is agriculture or architecture. Nature has been pushed out. This isn't the case in New Mexico. It probably has something to do with the fact that without complicated irrigation systems it is difficult to grow crops in the New Mexico environment. That isn't to say that there aren't native plants that don't have trouble. They just don't have much commercial value. In fact, the valleys between mountains were filled with desert plants. Bushes and cactuses and yucca plants were all over.

The city was pretty neat too. The architecture for almost all of the residential buildings mimiced spanish colonial architecture and the native pueblo building designs. Rectangular buildings made from redish brown stone with smooth curving cornors. Sometimes the top of the walls would have wooden beams poking out and evenly spaced along the sides of the buildings.

Many of the commercial buildings were designed similiarly. I was shocked (and kind of disturbed) to see a Wendy's with the same architural styles. It was like they were trying to pretend they weren't the corporate superpower they were and were really just part of the community. Odd... Other commercial buildings were typical modern designs. Nothing interesting or shocking.

What was interesting was the difference in demographics and how that effected the culture. It is hardly surprising that there would be a large hispanic population in a state that has a long history of Spanish and eventually Mexican rule. It wasn't even surprising that the hispanic population appeared to be the majority. What I thought was interesting was how advertisements were different as well. I wasn't shocked to see ads in Spanish. What I was shocked to see were ads only in Spanish and only targeting Spanish speakers. It is interesting that advertisers have decided that there are so many Spanish speakers in Albuquerque that they can afford to ignore those who can't understand their ads. I don't think it is good or bad, I just think it is interesting.

Another interesting ad campaign were numerous billboards with navy blue backgrounds and large white letters that said "Where's Larry?" or "Where's Diane?" That was all. No explanation, nothing. I found an explanation here and realized it wasn't that interesting anyway.

My grandparents picked me up from the airport. I dropped my stuff of at their house and we headed for Old Town. Old Town is a square of buildings that were the original Albuquerque Spanish colony. The buildings were all still in use by various "art" shops that all magically had the same things in stock. There was a church dominating one side of the square facing inwards towards the small park that stood at the center of these buildings. The church is apparently the oldest church in New Mexico that is still in use today. I went in and took some pictures but felt wierd because people were actually in there praying and I was just some disrespectful tourist.

We drove around for a while seeing the city and then went to the biggest restaurant I have ever been in. El Pinto was a large and beautiful Mexican restaurant. It had multiple rooms and each room was decorated differently and provided a different atmosphere then the others. There was also a large beautiful garden outside that you could eat in (weather permitting). I had a delicious chicken enchilada with green chili on top. It was very good.

We went home and I went to sleep early as I was exhausted.
__________________________________________________________
Throughout my trip we went to a lot of art museums. I started writing down the names of artists I really liked on various pieces of scrap paper. By the end of the week I had over 50 different names written down. I've been googling and going through and deciding what I artists I really like more then others.

I'll be posting some of them. I suppose (because it's the order I found them in) I'll post a few older artists before I move into my favorite contemporary.

I enjoyed William Penhallow Henderson's work, although I've only been able to find a few of his pieces online that don't require money to view.

Some of Walter Ufer's stuff is interesting as well.

My favorite out of these three would have to be Gene Kloss. She has some beautiful prints here.

-Brandon

Short Post

I've been in New Mexico the past week, so there have been no updates (plus an unplanned night in denver thanks to idiotic airline policy). I plan on talking about what I did later. Just not now. I wanna get photos developed first.

This is a cool article about teaching binary to elementary school kids via the socratic method. They seemed to get it faster then most of my classmates when I learned it in high school. The method is a great way to teach, but it must be a bitch planning each lesson.

-Brandon

Uncle Todd never wanted to talk about the war. I'd ask him all the time to tell me about it, but he wouldn't ever talk about it. So I started leaving little notes all over his house saying, "Talk about the war". Also, I'd call him up late at night and just say, "the war", and hang up. I think he cracked up and had to go away someplace. He should have talked about the war.

-Jack Handey

-Brandon

Mindless entertainment!

This is so much fun. I'd seen it before, but hadn't really played around with it.

I know Steven had an entertaining one involving the bloody death of his roommate. Unfortunatly I don't know if it is still there, or have a link if it is.
Keep in mind when looking at these that I have no artistic talent, plus I'm drawing these on a touchpad mouse.

My first attempt fell somewhat flat. But I like using a paint bucket for blood splatters

But here I made a move into abstract surrealism with a piece entitled "Fuck if I know."

And my awesome big star of terrible thoughts and ideas. I like that I seem to think that respecting U2 or the Rolling Stones is as bad as killing your parents.

-Brandon

Once again Violet sent me comedy gold by showing me sexisforfags.com.

I understand that abstaining from sex protects me from:

The regret and guilt caused by the disgusting, squishy act of stupid sex, which is basically like going to the toilet from the front side.

Making retard babies out of wedlock, then having to blow my whole allowance on diapers and a stroller instead of XBox games and Snickers.

Catching a brain-rotting STD like "Finger Herpes" from "feeling up" any nasty dirty girlie holes.

Brilliant. What would I do without the internet?

-Brandon

I went and saw a play written by a Cedar Rapids local today at Theatre Cedar Rapids. It was Revolution:1963-1973. The first act was awesome. It focused on the politics and historic highlights of the era. It was typical stuff the media focuses on when they look at that time frame: Kennedy's assassination, Vietnam, Civil Rights. They covered it in a series of little sketches accompanied by three screens with images and photography of the time. It was very well acted and well written. Throughout was various music from the time played by a band sitting behind the screen. The second act, was not so good. The band moved to the front and played covers of popular music while the cast sang. There were some short sketches between the songs that served to glorify the increase of drug abuse and decrease of intelligence in the counterculture movement, rather then condemn it for the travesty that led to the conservative 80's. Essentially, it was a coverband playing late 60's early 70's music interspersed with some sketches containing bad drug jokes and pop culture reference.

violet sent me here. What a wonderful representation why people don't take protests seriously. I honestly agree with everything this commentator says. I especially like his commentary on the Che Guevara backpack alongside the "War is Murder" pin.

It's sad but I don't think there can really be a successful liberal (or is it progressive now?) movement until something drastically inconveniences the masses. Like a draft for an unpopular war (like Vietnam) or massive civil rights violations that negatively effect a large percentage of the populous.

-Brandon

Thank goodness we're safe!

http://www.lex18.com/Global/story.asp?S=2989614&nav=EQlpWjof
This highschooler was arrested for posting a fiction story online about zombies taking over a high school. Apparently his Grandfather found it and thought it was some sort of plans for a high school massacre. The kid is now in jail with 5000 dollar bail for posting a harmless fiction story on the internet. Thank goodness those anti-terror laws are affective, or else we might have had a real life zombie invasion on our hands.

"It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing,"

Judging by his grammar, I have trouble believing the stories were worth reading, and perhaps they are so terribly written that he neglects to mention that his story is about the walking dead, but I have trouble believing this could be in any way seen as a threat.

-Brandon