My AmazonReview of "The Reasonable Woman," allegedly by Wendy McElroy

[George H. Smith]

Here is a copy of an email that I sent to Prometheus during the 1998 scandal. As you will see, I had no intention of initiating legal action against them. I will find my public pledge to Wendy and post it, hopefully later today.

Steven:

I have located several pages in THE REASONABLE WOMAN that are lifted, almost verbatim, from an article I published on how to argue about values. This article appeared around 1985 in a debate journal for high school students, “LD/Extemp Monthly.” I no longer have a copy of this article, so it will take about a week to track it down. But when I receive it, I plan to post several pages of parallel quotations, as I did with the previous material.

In addition to my unpublished F.O.R. manuscript, that will make three published pieces by me from which has Wendy plagiarized en masse: My “Fundamentals of Reasoning” handout (which you have a copy of), my book, ATHEISM, AYN RAND AND OTHER HERESIES, and the above-mentioned debate article.

I know this is a miserable business, but I have a simple solution. I have no desire to stick Prometheus with legal damages, whatever your liability may be. As I said before, you are an innocent third party in all this; indeed, we have both been victimized by Wendy in this scandal. All I want is a public acknowledgment by Prometheus that I am right in this matter. That’s all. Just a public statement – not even an apology, and no money.

I propose the following: That Prometheus sign the following statement and send it to me: “We hereby acknowledge that George H. Smith wrote a substantial portion of THE REASONABLE WOMAN by Wendy McElroy, for which he did not receive proper credit.” Enclose with this statement a legal release for all my rights and a pledge that I will forgo any legal action against Prometheus Books. I will sign it and return it to you immediately. And that will be the end of this, so far as I am concerned.

I think this is the best resolution for all concerned. You can even continue to distribute the book under Wendy’s name, since I will have transferred all my rights to you. I don’t want a share of the royalties, or anything like that – just a public acknowledgment.

I will post your statement on the internet, along with my statement that I am satisfied with this resolution, and will have nothing further to say on the matter. I will also state that I regard Prometheus Books as an innocent party in this whole affair.

I know this is an unusual resolution, one that a lawyer might never recommend. But, after reviewing the material I sent to you, there is no way that you can possibly doubt that I have been completely truthful in this matter, whatever the legal technicalities might be. I sincerely hope that those in charge at Prometheus will do the right thing and settle this disgraceful matter quickly and equitably.

I think seven days should be sufficient for you to reach a decision. I hope to hear from you by then.

George H. Smith

[Selene]

George:

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I would simply thank Brad for providing a solid fixed point in time and a wonderful piece of "negative evidence," which is evidence that a fact did not exist or that a thing was not done, did not take place, or that a witness did not hear, see, feel, touch, taste, or smell.

In this case, 1) GHS threatened legal action in an e-mail, circa 1998, see exhibit provided by Ms. McElroy's husband; 2) GHS did not initiate legal action in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, etc.; 3) GHS publicly stated on xyz date that he would not pursue legally for philosophical reasons.

Works rather nicely and confirms a sequence of facts and intentions. Also, speaks to your character and ideals about practicing what you teach which I prefer to "preach."

Adam

taking objectivity to its highest level for almost five decades

Edited June 22, 2011 by Selene

[George H. Smith]

This is a private email that I wrote to Andrea Rich during the 1998 scandal. I am posting it here for the first time.

I approached Andrea, then the owner of Laissez-Faire books, to see if she was willing to act as a mediator and negotiate a settlement. Andrea was willing, but Wendy was not.

This letter, which I have not read in many years, is interesting because it shows that, however angry I was (I was really, really pissed), I still did not want to screw Wendy over.

Dear Andrea,

I apologize for the curt tone of my previous letter. This whole business with Wendy just sickens me to the core, and has set me on edge. I wish nothing more than to get it resolved as quickly as possible.

For that, however, I would need Wendy’s cooperation, which she has been unwilling to give up to this point. I am willing to approach her with a negotiated settlement once again, but I fear I will get the same blunt refusal as before.

Wendy has painted herself into a corner, especially with her 1994 argument, and is left with no feasible way out. At some point she is just going to have to face reality, and realize that her situation is hopeless. I have even more incriminating evidence, this time from an article I wrote in a debate journal years ago, and which appears, nearly verbatim, in several pages of her book. This evidence – along with previously posted parallels to my FOR handout and my second book -- renders the technical matter of the unpublished manuscript totally irrelevant. Forget about our conflicting claims about who wrote that manuscript. How is she going to explain away another bunch of plagiarized material from yet another PUBLISHED source of mine? I’d rather not pursue this further, but I will if we cannot reach an agreement. And after my next posting, she will be dead in the water, if she isn’t already.

Would you be willing to suggest to Wendy that we negotiate a settlement between the two of us, and put this matter to rest?. There are at least two reasons reason why this would be in her self-interest.

First, as matters stand now, Prometheus will have little choice but to withdraw her book from circulation or to reissue it with me listed as co-author. I know that Wendy won’t like either of these options, but there is a third, namely, that she provide restitution to me, thereby purchasing the rights to my part of the book. I’m willing to negotiate the amount. My main concern is to get a public acknowledgment that I didn’t launch this miserable crusade without good reason. If I assign my rights to Wendy, the book can stand as is, as far as I am concerned.

Second: I know that Wendy has already suffered a good deal of damage to her reputation, but I don’t think it is irreparable. Libertarians are generally willing to forgive and forget when someone makes an honest effort to set things right. (I should know.) It might take her a couple of years to reclaim her reputation, but I will do everything in my power to help. For starters, if we can reach an agreement, I will post a statement to the effect that Wendy has done the honorable thing, that I no longer hold a grudge against her, and that I hope others will follow my example.

If I were to write this directly to Wendy, she would not believe me. But it is true, absolutely true. Despite what she may think and tell others, I take no pleasure in ruining her career as a writer. Indeed, I am angry at her primarily because she has left me no other choice. I cared deeply for Wendy for over ten years of my life, and I believe I still know her better than anyone else alive, including her present husband. I cannot bring myself to hate her, despite what she has done. She is an extremely complex person – I once told her that if someone put a mouse in the middle of her brain, it would never find its way out. (She laughed and shook her head in agreement.)

The problem is, that this time she has fucked-up, and fucked-up big time. I honestly consider this affair an aberration, however, and by no means typical of her. I believe I understand at least some of the demons that led her to this present unhappy condition, but all this is very personal, so I’d rather not go into it. I’m not being condescending, just truthful. Wendy has fought her way into the front ranks of female intellectuals – a rare breed – and I think she can eventually get back to where she was before this whole affair started. But, to be blunt, this will never happen so long as she and I remain enemies.

I simply cannot let this matter rest without satisfaction. You cannot imagine what it feels like to read your own writing – word after word, paragraph after paragraph, page after page – under someone else’s name. The time I had to spend going through her book for quotations easily qualifies as among the most painful experiences of my life. I vomited several times during the process. Moreover, I have lost seven years of work thanks to her, and my best possibility of ever publishing a commercially successful book.

Yet, as I said before, I cannot sustain my hatred for her for any significant period of time. This is not a magnanimous gesture on my part, but a fact of reality. Murray Rothbard wore bow ties, bears shit in the woods, and Wendy McElroy does peculiar things from time to time. I am more than willing to extend the same compassion to her that others, such as you and Bob Kephart, have extended to me. It sounds corny, I know, but that’s how I feel.

But, having said all this, Wendy has to work with me in good faith. I have no desire for a pound of her flesh. I just want honesty and sincerity on her part. We all make mistakes, and sometimes gargantuan ones. Wendy is no exception. But I fear that any further replies on her part will only make things worse in the long run, because she has no way out except to lie, and this will force me to post additional evidence that is even more incriminating than before, if that is possible.

Please, Andrea, would you consider acting as a go-between? I know that Wendy likes and respects you. If you can assure her that I honestly want to settle this affair in an equitable manner, perhaps we can put this ugly dispute to rest, once and for all.

The key to understanding Wendy is her extreme sensitivity to what others think of her. This may very well cause her to defend her position, however implausible it may appear to others, until the bitter end. Whereas you or I may think of a dispute in terms of hours, days, or even months, Wendy thinks in terms of years, and plans her strategy accordingly. I have seen her carry on vendettas for seven years or more. As far as the present situation is concerned, if we cannot resolve it fairly soon, I would not be surprised if this continues until one of us dies, and perhaps even longer, if I should be the first.

I don’t have any sage advice on how to overcome this obstacle; I never could, so I will leave it to your judgment.

Best,

George

cc. Bob Kephart

[George H. Smith]

After sending Wendy a few private emails in an effort to negotiate a settlement between us -- all of which she ignored -- I received an email from Kinsella demanding that I stop writing to her. This is how I responded.

Mr. Kinsella,

Yet another imperial edict from the Sun-King Kinsella! By what lunatic logic do you presume to give anyone orders? I will write to whom I please, when I please. If Wendy doesn’t want to read my proposals for arbitration, she can easily delete them. That strikes me as far easier than tattling to her attorney, a supposed libertarian who transforms into a thug upon donning his lawyer’s costume.

Acting on the initiative of two friends, Bob Kephart and Andrea Rich, I wrote a civil and honest letter, which is far more than you are willing to do. So far you have accomplished nothing more than to make a bad situation even worse – and in the process you have managed to antagonize at least four professional writers and cause previously silent third parties to speak out publicly. Coercive threats, even when implemented, can do little to change public opinion. Perhaps you should think less about issuing grandiose threats and more about helping your client out of a very deep hole. Your latest tantrum does not speak well for your judgment or common sense.

If you must act as a messenger boy for Wendy McElroy, so be it. You can forward this email and bill her for your professional services. Then you can forward her reply to me, and bill her again. I will wait for some kind of response until Tuesday, June 23, at which time I will assume that she intends to say nothing, as in the past. I need to know whether Wendy <a> wishes to settle this between the two of us, or <B> wishes to submit this matter to binding arbitration, or <c> none of the above.

If your client wishes to communicate through you, that is her business. But I want any proposal to be from her, in her words, and not in yours. I want none of your legalistic crap to interfere with this process. I am willing, as Kephart suggested, to settle this between her and me, period. That, after all, is the point of personal arbitration.

I assume you have my earlier proposal that was mentioned by Kephart as a possible place to begin. I will at least give any proposal by Wendy the courtesy of a reply. So be a good little gofer, forward this letter, and protect your client from the trauma of receiving it from the wrong address.

George H. Smith

Just as I had written my last post on the plagiarism scandal, Brad submitted his post and renewed my determination and energy. Could his timing have been any worse?

My thanks to Clueless Brad!

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

The following, a private email that I sent to Wendy, was my final attempt to negotiate a settlement with her in 1998. No response, as usual -- just a threatening letter from Kinsella demanding that I stop harassing Wendy.

Does this sound like harassment to anyone?

Wendy,

Please read this letter and think carefully about what I am about to say.

I have assembled additional material in my case against you, some of which is even more damaging than what I have hitherto posted. This includes a long article on value debating which I published long ago in the LD/Extemp Monthly, and which is duplicated nearly verbatim in your book. (I incorporated this in the early FOR draft, with plans to revise it later, but you didn’t know – or didn’t remember – this.)

In any case, you surely realize by now that the public relations war is essentially over, and that your position is hopeless. And despite what you may think, I have no desire to damage your professional career even more than it already has been. I am therefore making this one last overture for a negotiated settlement.

Such a settlement between the two of us will benefit you in the following ways:

(1) By purchasing the rights to my material, I will become, in effect, a co-ghost writer of your book. This means that Prometheus will not be forced to withdraw your book from circulation, or reissue it with me listed as co-author. As everything stands now, however, they have little choice but to pursue one of these two options.

(2) I will, upon fulfillment of the terms, post a public statement to the effect that you have provided restitution in exchange for which I have assigned you my rights. I will also state that I now regard the issue as settled between us, and will have no more to say on the matter.

(3) With my public acknowledgment of having received adequate restitution, you then can begin rebuilding your career. I know this might take a couple of years, but I also know that libertarians are willing to forgive and forget when a serious effort has been made to set things right.

I am making this offer in good faith, but for the last time. I sincerely hope we can lay this matter to rest as quickly as possible, so that the process of healing can begin.

If you are willing to consider this offer, let me know within 24 hours, and I will e-mail you the details of my proposal. If we can reach an agreement, the worst of this nightmare will be over for you shortly, and you can go on with your life. I implore you not to let your anger and pain get the better of you, and to consider instead what is in your long-range interest. The past cannot be undone, but at least the future can be made brighter than it appears to you at present. Believe me, I know about these things.

George

[George H. Smith]

For those who understand how to deal with hit and run raids, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Ghs

[Xray]

Btw, although I haven't been in touch with Nathaniel for years, I am co-developing his next book. I can't wait for it to come out so I can tell you what it is about.

We'll stay tuned.

[George H. Smith]

Another one of my 1998 private emails to Prometheus, posted here for the first time.

Note this passage: "By the way, what do you think of her false claim that the book was submitted to Prometheus in 1991? You know it was not."

This is just one of many lies that Wendy fabricated in 1998. This is why Wendy will never allow her original emails to be posted.

Steven,

I hope you have seen Wendy’s reply to me, and the contract that she posted on her web page. That contract was the missing link in my case against her, since I lost my copy years ago and had no way of proving that we ever signed one. I had hoped that this public controversy might scare her bad enough to go public with it, and it did. (I know you wondered why I went public with this. Now you know. I felt that the contract would make my task far easier.)

We now have the following elements::

(1) An extensive manuscript (which you will receive shortly) which is beyond any doubt an early draft for THE REASONABLE WOMAN.

(2) A contract between Wendy and I to co-author that book. (The contract actually refers to an unnamed book on reasoning.)

(3) Wendy’s published admission. that we contributed 50-50 to the book. (This is not actually true; the manuscript as written up to that point was all mine. We never got far enough on the project for Wendy to add her contributions, e.g., some material on women and statistics, but, for the sake of argument, I will settle for her admission of 50-50. By the way, what do you think of her false claim that the book was submitted to Prometheus in 1991? You know it was not.)

When you examine the manuscript, you will clearly see – as I suspect you know already, just from the preliminary passages that I posted – that it constitutes the foundation of THE REASONABLE WOMAN. (Why Wendy would ever claim that she started fresh in 1994 is beyond me, unless she thinks people will believe that she was able to duplicate hundreds of passages from memory.)

Moreover the attached missive – which I hope will be the last public statement I will have to make about this mess – comes to about as close to a slam-dunk in proving my case against her as anyone could possibly hope for. At the very least, given the passages I quoted and many I did not, she plagiarized from MY book that you published, ATHEISM, AYN RAND, AND OTHER HERESIES.

When you or your attorney are convinced that the manuscript I am sending is what I represent it to be, then, given Wendy’s contribution, there can be no question that I am the co-author (and, according to the contract, the first author) of THE REASONABLE. WOMAN.

George H. Smith

[George H. Smith]

After it became apparent to me that Prometheus was going to stonewall in the hope that the plagiarism mess would go away, I sent this email, posted here for the first time. I was running out of patience.

Steven Mitchell

Paul Kurtz

Gentlemen:

I will open with the same line that I used in my first letter to Wendy McElroy. You had better read this letter, and read it carefully.

This controversy is now over. I now have what I knew I could eventually locate: absolute and incontrovertible proof of McElroy’s plagiarism. We need no longer argue about who supposedly wrote what in that FOR disk I sent recently (dated by Wendy Oct. 2, 1988, over one year before we signed that contract that never went anywhere).

What I have is this: at least 2 (and possibly 3) articles that I published in a debate journal for high-school students around 1986. These articles on definitions have been lifted by McElroy en masse and often line-for-line in pages 195-203 (yes, that’s eight pages) of THE REASONABLE WOMAN. I think I have located another significant chunk similar to this – this one in the logic chapter -- but have not examined it closely enough to commit myself.

I found my articles on an old disk, and they were published without any changes. I now have to locate the published versions, in order to prevent McElroy from claiming that I made all this up. This should take no longer that a week to ten days, however, since they are of fairly easy access. (The name of debate newsletter, as I recall, was “L/D Extemp Monthly.”

I am telling you this now, even before I get the original publications, for the following reasons:

First, these are real articles in a real publication, not self-published so-called “public domain” stuff, like you apparently believe my FOR handout to be. And, yes, they are even copyrighted – as if that has anything to do with the moral issue of plagiarism.

Second, I do not like the way I have been treated by Prometheus. There’s a major storm around me, I send you what you asked for, and I send postings that poke more holes in McElroy’s story than even swiss cheese could tolerate, and what do I get? Silence. No indication of what’s going on, what your plans might be, etc. Just silence, and information that your attorney is looking into things – and this when I specifically said I would rather not get attorneys into this matter, but settle it between ourselves instead. I felt I could trust your judgment and sense of decency, but I’ve been wrong before.

Do you really need a lawyer to locate this massive plagiarism? Can anyone around there READ? Or is your attroney really looking for some legal loophole, which will enable you to argue that, though this early draft was written by me, I somehow forfeited my rights to McElroy, who didn’t write a God-damned-line of it. Why am I suspicious of what was about to come down from your side?

To hear McElroy tell it, on the other hand, you guys have been quite chummy in recent days. She claims to have been assured by you that you aren’t angry, or anything like that, just because she has transformed you into the biggest clowns in the publishing industry.

Well, now all her bullshit is irrelevant – her story about the pristine manuscript of 1994, the recently (and conveniently) discovered diary that is sufficiently big to cover her ass, her claims to have written much of the FOR manuscript, including those on logic and philosophy – when she had never read a single book on logic in her life, and nothing in philosophy other than Ayn Rand – and on and on and on.

It’s all irrelevant now. We are talking about two (maybe three) published articles by me that appeared several years before all this even started to unfold. We are talking about at least 8 pages in TRW that are almost wall-to-wall duplicates of my pieces, and, as I said, I expect to find more.

Now, I will ask you one more time. DO YOU WISH TO SETTLE THIS NOW – AND I MEAN IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS – OR DO YOU WANT TO WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON THOSE NEWSLETTERS?

I am sick to death of having to waste my time by writing replies to McElroy’s idiotic postings. She’s a loon, boys, if you haven’t figured that out yet. Jeeez….

You could put an end to this whole internet garbage by posting a statement tomorrow – a statement that simply states what everyone and his dog already knows to be true, except the people around Prometheus books. That at least would show some good faith on your part.

I have already lost ten days of work on the atheism book, and I have lived without a paycheck for months now, in an effort to get it finished. I cannot even feed my family, but must spend nearly full-time on this lunacy. I strongly suggest that you do all within your power to make sure this doesn’t drag on any longer. If I have to keep writing this garbage for another week or so, until those newsletters arrive, I am going to be in an even worse mood than I am now, if that is possible.

George H. Smith

[caroljane]

I'm very tired, and I'm very frustrated — having spent so much time in recent days dealing with the plagiarism issue on OL instead of attempting to find a writing job. (I sold my guitar on Saturday to buy food; how depressing.) [...]

Please forgive my being blunt — but shouldn't extremities such as these tell you something? About whether your pursuing this obsession is doing YOU any good?

Blunt for blunt: If you'd really been reading this thread you'd know George is wrapping it up.

--Brant

George has said that this outpouring has in fact done him good. I also thought at first - and even in the middle - that reliving this stuff could not be good for him, but I have come to think that it has been therapeutic. He has been stating his case among friends who are, literally, in his corner.Telling the truth can hurt for sure, But!TM being heard and understood is always healing.

Edited June 22, 2011 by daunce lynam

[George H. Smith]

A public email that I wrote in 1998. Given my reference to the "two months" that the scandal had been going on, this was probably one of the last things I wrote. I was obviously very frustrated by the failure of some libertarians to take a stand.

(These missives lack dates because they are from my original MS Word files, which I then sent on Laura Kroutil's computer. This is why I don't have copies of the emails themselves.)

Ghs

On Moral Cowardice and Double Standards

An Indictment of the Libertarian Community

Over the past two months, as the plagiarism controversy between myself and Wendy McElroy has continued to rage, I have become increasingly disillusioned by the response, or lack thereof, of many libertarians, including many prominent ones. This disillusionment has now turned to disgust.

This is not – I repeat, NOT – because some of you may not be fully convinced by my arguments as yet. I am referring to what can only be described, regrettably, as cowardice, willful blindness, and an egregious use of double standards.

Over and over again, I hear something to this effect: “Well, there is that contract between Smith and McElroy, and McElroy does claim that she co-developed the Fundamentals of Reasoning course, and that she co-authored the earlier FOR manuscript from which Smith has drawn many of his parallel passages.”

Yes, Wendy McElroy has made many such claims. But I ask each and every one of you: Do you believe McElroy’s key claim. which she stated in her first defense and repeated later, that she started writing THE REASONABLE WOMAN “from scratch”: in 1994, having erased all previous drafts from her hard drive, etc?. Do you believe, given the eight pages of parallel passages I distributed earlier – many of them verbatim -- along with others from my FOR handout, from my book, ATHEISM, AYN RAND, AND OTHER HERESIES, and from my previously published articles in the LD/Extemp Monthy, that McElroy somehow managed to duplicate dozens upon dozens of paragraphs from memory or by coincidence?

I have not encountered one person, or even heard of one, that gives any credence whatever to this absurd and outlandish claim by McElroy. Virtually all of you agree, therefore, that McElroy deliberately fabricated this story in an effort to deceive her friends, supporters, and the libertarian community. She flat-out lied, to each and every one of you, about an extremely important issue. I defy anyone familiar with this controversy to somehow explain-away or justify this behavior on her part. There was no misunderstanding or complex circumstances. This was a premeditated, calculated and flagrant lie by McElroy, as each and every one of you very well knows.

Fine – so I put the question to you: Why on earth do you give even the least credibility to anything else that McElroy has said about contested issues? Why do you grant plausibility to her other claims, such as supposedly having co-developed my FOR classes (even though I was teaching them a year before we had even met), or having co-authored my FOR manuscript (even though it is written in first person throughout – I, me, etc.) Ah, you will say, but she explained this last point. When co-writing FOR, she used “I,” “me,” etc. for the sake of convenience. Never mind that it would have been far more convenient to use “we” and “us” in order to avoid changing hundreds of pronouns later on.

No, never mind these and other commsensical points. McElroy has spoken -- so I must disprove everything she says, point by point, providing documentation or other evidence, or I am not to be believed. Even though no one has identified any falsehoods in my claims, major or minor, even though my account has been consistent, coherent, and believable throughout, even though I have provided collaboration, such as the testimony of Jeff Riggenbach – it seems I have the burden of proof, and McElroy has none.

Even though all of you know that McElroy has obviously lied about a major point – a lie that is flatly inconsistent with her other claims – she is off the hook. Why? Because she claims to have previously disposed of all relevant evidence – except, of course, for a mysterious “diary” that later popped up to fill in some credibility gaps. Who among you has written to McElroy and asked to see some xeroxed pages of this diary? Who among who has publicly criticized her for her ridiculous 1994 story? Who among you has dared to suggest that, if McElroy has been caught red-handed in a previous and significant attempt to deceive, that her credibility is shot, and the presumption is squarely against her in other disputed matters?

This is the double-standard of which I speak. I am frankly disgusted by the excuse offered by some, that the 1989 contract – which nowhere refers to FOR, and which was signed over a year after my 1988 manuscript – somehow makes this a murky issue. It is no such thing, as I have fully explained in previous postings. The FOR manuscript, which was entirely and exclusively my material, developed entirely and exclusively by me over a seven year period, was to be the foundation for the unnamed co-authored book mentioned in the 1989 contract. As explained in detail in previous postings, McElroy never delivered the two or three chapters she had agreed to do.

So here we have it: I write ten chapters a year before the contract was signed, with no intention at that point of co-authoring anything. Later, having signed a contract, McElroy says she will contribute a few more chapters (one on women, one on statistics), which she never delivers, and is contractually obligated to produce a polished final draft, which she never does. Our projected book never gets off the ground, and I am left with what I started with over a year earlier: a rough draft of my FOR manuscript.

Yet McElroy claims there was such a final manuscript, and she suggests that I am suppressing it. Of course, she has no burden to produce or prove anything, because she destroyed everything prior to starting her pristine version in 1994. Of course, all this makes perfect sense, at least to some you. We all know that writers, having slaved to complete a polished manuscript, just love to destroy it, apparently because they cherish the prospect of duplicating years of intensive labor. The first endeavor was so much fun, it is natural that, having completed it, McElroy would want to do it all over again.

If you bother to read McElroy’s two posted statements, you will find many such absurdities, inconsistencies, implausibilities, and the like. Nonetheless, she has proclaimed herself a co-developer and co-author of FOR – and so, once again, she needn’t provide proof and I must somehow refute her claims.

Sooner or later, you fence-sitters out there will have to engage in some serious introspection, and determine why you are willing to grant credence to anything McElroy has to say in this controversy, given her dismal track record that is obvious to you all. I have quoted four different sources written by me and provided the nearly verbatim passages in TRW. Page after page of the stuff. I have repeatedly pointed out her flagrant 1994 lie, which no one disputes, and others to boot. Jeff Riggenbach has provided eyewitness testimony from his teaching days at my Forum for Philosophical Studies which flatly contradicts, again and again, the claims of McElroy.

And after all this, what do hear? “Well, maybe McElroy had a legal right to publish the FOR manuscript under her own name, given the contract. Does it matter that she wrote not a single word of the FOR manuscript? Does it matter that the contract nowhere refers to an FOR book? And, supposing it did, does it matter that I was to be listed as the first author of the projected book, or that I was to receive half of the money from it?

George H. Smith

[George H. Smith]

I have more stuff, but I will wait for Clueless Brad to make another panty raid before posting any of it.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I'm very tired, and I'm very frustrated — having spent so much time in recent days dealing with the plagiarism issue on OL instead of attempting to find a writing job. (I sold my guitar on Saturday to buy food; how depressing.) [...]

Please forgive my being blunt — but shouldn't extremities such as these tell you something? About whether your pursuing this obsession is doing YOU any good?

Blunt for blunt: If you'd really been reading this thread you'd know George is wrapping it up.

--Brant

George has said that this outpouring has in fact done him good. I also thought at first - and even in the middle - that reliving this stuff could not be good for him, but I have come to think that it has been therapeutic. He has been stating his case among friends who are, literally, in his corner.Telling the truth can hurt for sure, But!TM being heard and understood is always healing.

I don't know if I have a literal corner. But! Many thanks for your support.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

It's not quite clear to me how Wendy survived this 13 years ago. With all these posts on this thread there might be something I forgot about.

The political-philosophical issue of patents and copyrights is an interesting one, along with the nature of private property in the context of individual rights and state involvement. There is also the big, honking issue of the business corporation.

In regards to minarchy, I have no idea how the seemingly inevitable decline of a government and society can be stopped or reversed from its peak of freedom, aside from the repeal of the corn laws and the brutal ending of slavery. Edith Efron had an interesting idea with her "Petr Principle" in the late 1970s, named after Petr Beckmann--namely have a real area of expertise and speak for freedom out of that context.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I have more stuff, but I will wait for Clueless Brad to make another panty raid before posting any of it.

Ghs

Waiting for Godot?

--Brant

he needs to find some more material--I'd say up to three weeks--and WTF is Bertrand?

[Dennis Hardin]

With Diane you had to expect the unexpected. She could handle awkward situations like no one I have ever met. Here is a true story.

We were anxious to see "Jaws" when it was released in 1975, but the the lines were horrendous, and I hated standing in line. At that time there were a couple "all night" theaters on Hollywood Blvd, so we decided to go to a screening that began at 2 a.m. (The theater was still over half full.) Around an hour into the film, we heard an odd sound behind us. Diane turned around and then poked me with her elbow, indicating that she wanted me to look. Seated directly behind us was a man with his pants pulled down to his knees. He was holding a jar of Vaseline in one hand and masturbating with the other.

I whispered to Diane, "Let's move," but she said, "No, I'll take care of it." Diane proceeded to hum "Hurray for Hollywood!" in a voice so loud that the entire audience could hear her. Many in the audience, those you knew what was going on, laughed, and some even hummed along. The guy pulled up his pants and left immediately.

As we were leaving the theater, Diane said: "Jaws? Jaws? Deep Throat I could understand, but Jaws?

Classic Diane.

Ghs

I have to wonder, George: Did Diane not realize that the jerk-off was sitting behind her for a reason? I’m quite sure he had exactly zero interest in the movie. The horny fool must have been trying to get her attention. The way she reacted was exactly what I might have expected from her—laughing and making light of it instead of becoming offended and upset.

Her comment afterwards suggests she was like most women in that she had no real grasp of the sexual power she had over men. The innocence of women never ceases to amaze me. So many women have no clue about the responses they elicit by their mere physical presence.

As terrific and fun as she was in so many ways, Diane never did impress me as the monogamous type. I know how excruciatingly painful yet simultaneously exciting that sort of relationship can be.

Didn’t she work as an exotic dancer at one time? She certainly had the body for it. I had some involvements of a similar nature I would not care to repeat.

“Look but don’t touch” should be the ironclad rule when it comes to such alluring creatures. So beautiful and appealing—but you are absolutely guaranteed to get burned if you get too close. . . Sometimes, of course, and this may well have been the case with Diane--it's worth it.

Edited June 22, 2011 by Dennis Hardin

[George H. Smith]

I have more stuff, but I will wait for Clueless Brad to make another panty raid before posting any of it.

Ghs

Waiting for Godot?

--Brant

he needs to find some more material--I'd say up to three weeks--and WTF is Bertrand?

I put a lot more thought into tactics than some people might think. If I have learned anything since 1998, it is the value of holding some things back until I have goaded someone in the Wendy camp into posting a statement. Such statements, such as Brad's first post, are bound to tighten the noose around Wendy's neck even more. Why? Because Wendy's 1998 stories were so convoluted and contradictory that for Brad to say almost anything now will highlight those problems even more.

It is cowardly to post a document and then head for the hills before anyone has a chance to ask you questions about it. I never had Brad pegged for a coward until recently, but that's what he is. If he truly wants to defend Wendy, then let him engage in some exchanges on this thread.

In my pile of papers from 1998, I have printouts of what I assume were chatroom exchanges between Brad and some of my defenders. I've only glanced at them, but it will be interesting, when I get the time, to examine Brad's defense. So far as I can tell, he was willing to go into more detail in 1998 than he is now.

Will I post any of Brad's arguments from 1998? Well, maybe I will...and maybe I won't. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

With Diane you had to expect the unexpected. She could handle awkward situations like no one I have ever met. Here is a true story.

We were anxious to see "Jaws" when it was released in 1975, but the the lines were horrendous, and I hated standing in line. At that time there were a couple "all night" theaters on Hollywood Blvd, so we decided to go to a screening that began at 2 a.m. (The theater was still over half full.) Around an hour into the film, we heard an odd sound behind us. Diane turned around and then poked me with her elbow, indicating that she wanted me to look. Seated directly behind us was a man with his pants pulled down to his knees. He was holding a jar of Vaseline in one hand and masturbating with the other.

I whispered to Diane, "Let's move," but she said, "No, I'll take care of it." Diane proceeded to hum "Hurray for Hollywood!" in a voice so loud that the entire audience could hear her. Many in the audience, those you knew what was going on, laughed, and some even hummed along. The guy pulled up his pants and left immediately.

As we were leaving the theater, Diane said: "Jaws? Jaws? Deep Throat I could understand, but Jaws?

Classic Diane.

Ghs

I have to wonder, George: Did Diane not realize that the jerk-off was sitting behind her for a reason? I’m quite sure he had exactly zero interest in the movie. The horny fool must have been trying to get her attention. The way she reacted was exactly what I might have expected from her—laughing and making light of it instead of becoming offended and upset.

Her comment afterwards suggests she was like most women in that she had no real grasp of the sexual power she had over men. The innocence of women never ceases to amaze me. So many women have no clue about the responses they elicit by their mere physical presence.

As terrific and fun as she was in so many ways, Diane never did impress me as the monogamous type. I know how excruciatingly painful yet simultaneously exciting that sort of relationship can be.

Didn’t she work as an exotic dancer at one time? She certainly had the body for it. I had some involvements of a similar nature I would not care to repeat.

“Look but don’t touch” should be the ironclad rule when it comes to such alluring creatures. So beautiful and appealing—but you are absolutely guaranteed to get burned if you get too close. . . Sometimes, of course, and this may well have been the case with Diane--it's worth it.

Diane was very aware of the power she had over men.

Diane worked for years as a nude dancer, but she never did the crude stuff. She had been trained in NY in modern and jazz dancing, and she was one of the most incredible dancers I have ever seen. She was so good -- and I am not exaggerating here -- that I finally became reluctant ever to go dancing with her.

Why? Because every single time I had gone out with her before -- and she had dragged me to many dance clubs -- the rest of the dancers would do what you see in movies but may think never happens in real life: Within five minute everyone else stopped dancing and formed a ring around us to watch. That was great for Diane, but embarrassing for me. The most I could manage was a white man's version of the Twist, as Diane was doing moves that you might see in a first-rate Broadway production. When I complained to Diane about my embarrassment, she replied, "George, no one is watching you anyway, so why do you care?"

Diane was working in a nude bar in Tucson when I first met her. Our first date got off to a stimulating start, to say the least. I was paying my way through college by working 38 hours a week as the manager of Jay's Auto Supply on Speedway. Diane was working less than a mile away. I got off work at nine, and she got off work an hour later. So on that Friday night of our first date, Diane suggested that I come over to the club, hang around for a while, and then we would go from there.

The girls in these clubs worked in sets. After a ten minute routine, they served drinks for 50 minutes until their next set. Diane told me that her last set would be over by the time I got to the club, but guess what? As I walked in the club, there was Diane, naked a jaybird, dancing. She saw me immediately and waved. Then she laughed.

Yes, Diane was very aware of the power she had over men.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Jay's Auto is still there, George, maybe they'd give you your old job back. It's not a supply place now, they do detailing and tint.

What was the name of that club?

My college buddy and I went to Nogalas, Sonora in 1964 for what you got in Tucson later, but what was funny was when the dancing started the establishmernt doubled the price of the beer. Today we Tucsonans go down there for the dental work. Before the Interstate the road to Nogalas was unofficially caled The Highway of Death (de muerte). People would go there for the cheap liquor, bar hop and head for home and the accidents could be horrific. In the 1950s my brother and I would count the little white crosses. There were usually about 110. For some reason the number seemed to stay about the same.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

For those who might be interested, Wendy has updated her page at http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/libel.htm to include her 1998 correspondence with George. I am taking the liberty of posting here, in full, his original email to her, in which his threat of legal action against Wendy and/or Prometheus is quite clear.

I decided to go behind enemy lines to check out Wendy's "updated page." Those nincompoops are something else! It will take a while for me to check everything out, but here are a few hints of things to come.

Consider this link on Wendy's page:

Smith's email to Prometheus Books, reiterating his threat to take legal action unless his terms were met.

This links to an email that I posted on this thread earlier today, a letter in which I said that "I have no desire to stick Prometheus with legal damages, whatever your liability may be"; and "All I want is a public acknowledgment by Prometheus that I am right in this matter. That's all. Just a public statement -not even an apology,and no money."

There is no threat of any kind in my email, much less a threat to take legal action against Prometheus. None. Zilch. Nada. Yet it is characterized on Wendy's site as "Smith's email to Prometheus Books, reiterating his threat to take legal action unless his terms were met."

I spotted this deception within a minute, so I decided to check out the other links, and I quickly learned that foul deeds are common in the Land of Brendy. It so happens I have some printouts that were originally posted on Wendy's site in 1998 (they are dated 5/27/98), and the versions now posted, which are represesnted as being from that period, have been altered, and in at least one case, an entire section has been deleted. This of course is a section that would make Wendy look very foolish if she had kept it on her website.

I will be comparing the originals to Wendy's "updated" versions as I get the time. For now, I strongly urge interested parties to go immediately to the site and make copies of everything you find there. I say this because, having alerted Brendy of my plan, I wouldn't be surprised if the material is quickly removed or the links rendered inoperative.

Wendy has indeed "updated" her page!

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Jay's Auto is still there, George, maybe they'd give you your old job back. It's not a supply place now, they do detailing and tint.

--Brant

Gee, thanks, Brant. That's just what I wanted to hear, given that I will probably need to move next month to I know not where.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Jay's Auto is still there, George, maybe they'd give you your old job back. It's not a supply place now, they do detailing and tint.

--Brant

Gee, thanks, Brant. That's just what I wanted to hear, given that I will probably need to move next month to I know not where.

Ghs

It was a 110 degrees today, George. Not quite the record. Fortunately it's Tucson's famous "dry" heat.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

The heat index put it well over a hundred for the last several days. Then a small, but hanging tropical storm hit us. Right on the way to play a pagan summer solstice ceremony, of all things. My Florida room flooded and I had to pull all the amps and such.

All OK now.

You'll find something, George. And maybe just in time.

rde

This is where the faith part comes in.

[George H. Smith]

I don't know if the following is new or not, but it is choice. From Wendy's website:

McElroy's defence against the libelous claim that she was a typist and not a co-author of the 1989 manuscript "Fundamentals of Reasoning"...

First, I would ask every reader of this email to proceed to <http://www.zetetics.com/mac/reason/contract.gif> to access the contract between Smith and McElroy covering the *co-authored* work that George H. Smith claims is his sole property. Note that, by its terms and by my efforts, I supplied to him a finished manuscript on reasoning for his review, which manuscript now is under question as the source of plagiarism for The Reasonable Woman. I have a full 50% ownership claim and right to the work that he is using to support the accusation of plagiarism. This means that -- according to my lawyer, Prometheus' lawyer, and my moral conscience -- I have the right to quote the book in its entirety, should I wish to do so....

I have covered all these claims in detail, but this is too good not to slice and dice once again.

Wendy and I supposedly co-wrote a book 50-50. Then she did a finished draft, which means our book was ready to be submitted to a publisher. But that finished manuscript is nowhere to be found. Why? Because, as she indicates elsewhere, Wendy inexplicably but oh-so-conveniently deleted that "finished manuscript" from her hard drive in 1994.

Ah, but it gets better, much better. According to Wendy's "moral conscience," the fact that she supposedly wrote half of a book gave her the right to "quote the book in its entirety, should I wish to do so...." (This is a funny use of "quote," is it not? Quotes are put in quotation marks.)

Since we know beyond doubt that Wendy did in fact "quote" extensively from the FOR transcript. she has openly confessed that I wrote at least 50 percent of "our" book. But Wendy's "moral conscience" told her that, having written half of this alleged book, she was morally free to represent the entire book as her book, and her book alone.

So why do I need to prove my charge of plagiarism, which means representing the writing of another person as one's own, when Wendy freely admits it? She has a "moral conscience," after all.

Lastly, not only did Wendy delete a book she had supposedly co-authored, she also deleted a book that, according to her "moral conscience," she had the right to publish in its entirety under her name alone. So why didn't she publish the damned thing, instead of destroying it and rewriting virtually the same book from scratch in 1994?

Welcome to Wendy's rabbit hole!

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Does anyone on OL know much about copyright law?

I ask this because Wendy's legal argument, which I first heard about in 1998, boils down to this;

Suppose Jack and Jill agree to co-author a book 50-50, and they sign a contract to that effect. Then, after they have completed the book, either author can take the entire book and publish it his or her name alone.

This argument sounded absolutely bonkers to me when I first heard about it in 1998. But Andrea Rich, after consulting a copyright attorney, told me there was something to it.

This has nothing to do with my charge of plagiarism, of course, but can anyone fill me in on the details? I know American law is really screwed up in some ways, but this is beyond the pale.

Ghs