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

[Rich Engle]

GHS writes: "Fortunately, this troll is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Teacher, my ass. He couldn't teach a bear to shit in the woods. And he is a coward to boot."

Guess what: bears already know how to shit in the woods. So is this the level of "non-contradiction" we can expect from Smith? No wonder McElroy plagiarized him. He left her no choice.

You must be joking. And you had to edit that? For fuck's sake.

[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.) I was fortunate, however, to have found the Tarcher material a few hours ago, since it is key to one of the controversies with Wendy.

The Tarcher documents are significant for several reasons. One reason -- and the only one I want to deal with now -- is that they refute the claims of Wendy's hubby, Brad. Here is Brad's account from a few days ago:

Not long after Wendy and I moved to Canada, Wendy approached George with the suggestion that they turn the "Fundamentals of Reasoning" course into a book. In 1989 they signed a contract to be co-authors. (I did not witness the signing of the contract, but George himself has confirmed its authenticity.)

The unwritten agreement between them was simple: Wendy would write the book, and George would get it published. At the time, Wendy was relatively unknown, having had written only the Index to Liberty and Freedom, Feminism, and the State; George had a much more prominent name, and an "in" to a likely publisher, Prometheus.

Wendy wrote a first rough draft of the manuscript, and a second finished draft, and sent them to George. George claims not to have received the latter; I know that it was written -- because I proofread it -- and that it was mailed.

Brad argues that Wendy completed our book on reasoning and that he sent it to me. I say that such a book was never written, and that all I had were my FOR transcripts, which I planned to use as the basis for a book.

Wendy and I signed our agreement on Nov. 29, 1989. My submission of material to Tarcher, which included an outline and a sample chapter I had written shortly before, is dated Nov. 7, 1991. This is nearly two years later.

Clearly, as indicated by my letter to Tarcher, I had no book manuscript, much less a finished manuscript, at that time. Rather, I indicated to Tarcher that I had around 160 pages of material, some of it very rough (this was my FOR transcript), and that around 90 pages had not been written at all (i.e., the three chapters by Wendy). In the same letter, I estimated that it would take around six months for Wendy and I to complete our book.

Moreover, if Wendy had indeed completed our planned Psychology of Reasoning book, then where the hell is it? Look at my outline for our proposed book that I sent to Tarcher. Is this the book that Wendy completed and that Brad supposedly sent to me? Wendy would obviously have a copy of this manuscript on her computer, if she had actually written the damned thing, so -- once again -- where the hell is it?

Brad claims that "Wendy wrote a first rough draft of the manuscript, and a second finished draft" of the book mentioned in our contract. So why didn't Wendy attempt to publish that book c. 1989, instead of writing a very similar book, TRW, from scratch in 1994? Will Brad say that he also deleted the files for Wendy's book, along with my FOR files? If so, why would Wendy destroy a book that, according to Brad, she wrote in its entirety? And if Wendy's book was not deleted from her computer, then --and for the last time -- where the hell is it?

This is absolutely nuts. Brad is lying through his teeth to help his beloved, innocent lady. There was no "second finished draft," or even a first draft, of the book that Wendy and I agreed to write in Nov. 1989. The only thing that ever got written was the polished introduction that I wrote and submitted to Tarcher two years later.

I have posted a great deal of documentary evidence to substantiate my charge of plagiarism against Wendy. As Tim Hopkins recently put it, this is the best documented case he has ever seen.

But what about Wendy? She has made all kinds of outlandish claims. She claims to have co-developed FOR, even though I was giving those classes a full year before we met. She claims to have erased all my FOR files from her computer in 1994 and to have written TRW from scratch, even though I have produced many dozens of parallel passages. And, most recently, Brad, speaking on Wendy's behalf, claims that Wendy wrote a book on reasoning long before 1994, a book he claims to have personally seen, but which has disappeared into thin air.

Never has Wendy produced one scrap of evidence to support any of these claims, or any other. Not one iota.

Ghs

[Xray]

I was fortunate, however, to have found the Tarcher material a few hours ago, since it is key to one of the controversies with Wendy.

The Tarcher documents are significant for several reasons. One reason -- and the only one I want to deal with now -- is that they refute the claims of Wendy's hubby, Brad. Here is Brad's account from a few days ago:

Not long after Wendy and I moved to Canada, Wendy approached George with the suggestion that they turn the "Fundamentals of Reasoning" course into a book. In 1989 they signed a contract to be co-authors. (I did not witness the signing of the contract, but George himself has confirmed its authenticity.)

The unwritten agreement between them was simple: Wendy would write the book, and George would get it published. At the time, Wendy was relatively unknown, having had written only the Index to Liberty and Freedom, Feminism, and the State; George had a much more prominent name, and an "in" to a likely publisher, Prometheus.

Wendy wrote a first rough draft of the manuscript, and a second finished draft, and sent them to George. George claims not to have received the latter; I know that it was written -- because I proofread it -- and that it was mailed.

Brad argues that Wendy completed our book on reasoning and that he sent it to me. I say that such a book was never written, and that all I had were my FOR transcripts, which I planned to use as the basis for a book.

Wendy and I signed our agreement on Nov. 29, 1989. My submission of material to Tarcher, which included an outline and a sample chapter I had written shortly before, is dated Nov. 7, 1991. This is nearly two years later.

Clearly, as indicated by my letter to Tarcher, I had no book manuscript, much less a finished manuscript, at that time. Rather, I indicated to Tarcher that I had around 160 pages of material, some of it very rough (this was my FOR transcript), and that around 90 pages had not been written at all (i.e., the three chapters by Wendy). In the same letter, I estimated that it would take around six months for Wendy and I to complete our book.

Here is a link to the original source (which Brad himself provided) - the contract:

http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/contract.gif

It verbatim says in point 3:

"The order of the author's names will first be be Smith, then McElroy."

In case of the death of one co-author (point 5 of the contract), it is stated

"that the entire rights and profits of the book will return and accrue to the other co-author"

Nowhere in that contract does it grant McElroy any right to publish the book under her name alone during Ghs's lifetime.

The unwritten agreement between them was simple: Wendy would write the book, and George would get it published.

Since the written agreement in the contract contradicts this allegation on your part, I'd suggest we stick to written facts.

Also, the contract - since this is of crucial importance in this context, Ghs has pointed it out again in his # 652 post was about a book project which was later rejected by the publisher, Tarcher books.

Book project rejected. Case closed.

Thus wouldn't any previous contract relating to the issue become irrelevant, Brad?

Not long after Wendy and I moved to Canada, Wendy approached George with the suggestion that they turn the "Fundamentals of Reasoning" course into a book. In 1989 they signed a contract to be co-authors. (I did not witness the signing of the contract, but George himself has confirmed its authenticity.)

The unwritten agreement between them was simple: Wendy would write the book, and George would get it published. At the time, Wendy was relatively unknown, having had written only the Index to Liberty and Freedom, Feminism, and the State; George had a much more prominent name, and an "in" to a likely publisher, Prometheus.

Wendy wrote a first rough draft of the manuscript, and a second finished draft, and sent them to George. George claims not to have received the latter; I know that it was written -- because I proofread it -- and that it was mailed.

Again, keep in mind that the written contract contradicts your assertion about George's and Wendy's "unwritten agreement" being that "Wendy would write the book".

Point 2 mentions "necessary alterations or polishing of the book" being the "responsibility of McElroy", but this is something entirely different.

So from whatever angle one looks at it, from this contract, one cannot infer any permission granted to McElroy to publish the book under her name alone.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Xray

[Rich Engle]

I kind of knew you played guitar, George. No problem. Want me to send you one? Acoustic, or Electric?

Fuck that hippie bullshit. I can do it pretty soon. Just contact me privately. Been there, done that. You pay it forward, when you can, and believe me I am signed up for that kind of action. I'm of medium means, but sometimes guitars are healing. That, I can do. Actually, I can do a number of other things; more direct ones.

It is no shame to experience need, as you surely know. I'm a UU, and, believe this when I tell you, I will go to the ground to hook your ass back up. If there were not people around that did that for me, I'd surely be dead, or wishing so. As said, contact me private. Message me.

Moreover, if Wendy had indeed completed our planned Psychology of Reasoning book, then where the hell is it? Look at my outline for our proposed book that I sent to Tarcher. Is this the book that Wendy completed and that Brad supposedly sent to me? Wendy would obviously have a copy of this manuscript on her computer, if she had actually written the damned thing, so -- once again -- where the hell is it?

Brad claims that "Wendy wrote a first rough draft of the manuscript, and a second finished draft" of the book mentioned in our contract. So why didn't Wendy attempt to publish that book c. 1989, instead of writing a very similar book, TRW, from scratch in 1994? Will Brad say that he also deleted the files for Wendy's book, along with my FOR files? If so, why would Wendy destroy a book that, according to Brad, she wrote in its entirety? And if Wendy's book was not deleted from her computer, then --and for the last time -- where the hell is it?

That's pretty much the skinny on all this crap. It was never there, because you make things, she does not. Something along that line.

Wonder where Bertie, er, "Ding Dong" is on all this.

Message me, George. I'm in for some fucking action. For you I would do this because I know who you are and what you do. We can talk on Google phone, or something. I have national long distance.

Fuck this. Let's go. You give, you get. If only the fucqsticks could ever figure that part out.

Here, as a matter of fact, let's make it easier: rdengle@msn.com 239-690-0159

I'm not afraid to show myself--unlike many. Nothing to hide. Have at this shit.

Regards, await your reply,

r

PS By the way, if any of you who are clearly deranged fucqsticks call me, well, don't bother, because I will let loose. This one is for George. The rest, later. I Am Busy.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Rich Engle

[Xray]

Plagiarism is not an exclusively legal concept. On the contrary, here is the complete entry for "plagiarism" in the American Heritage Dictionary.

v. tr.

1. To use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as one's own.

2. To appropriate for use as one's own passages or ideas from (another).

v. intr.

To put forth as original to oneself the ideas or words of another.

I posed the following question to Wendy in one of my 1998 transcripts: Are you claiming that you did in fact plagiarize my FOR transcripts but that you had the legal right to do so, because my transcripts were not copyrighted?

If this was the case, then Wendy was confessing to plagiarism, and there was nothing further for me to argue. Whether she had a legal right to plagiarize didn't interest me in the least. That we might have a legal right to take an action doesn't make that action moral or right.

Ghs

Which means that even if McElroy possessed a memory capable to land her in the Guiness Book of Records for verbatim memorizing the contents of deleted files ), this gives her no green light for omitting to give credit to the author whose thoughts were written down in those files.

This "give credit" rule applies to forums as well. Suppose poster A had the mental capacity to verbatim memorize poster B's detailed elaborations on a subject; in case A then got the idea of passing B's stuff off as his own, what would one think of A's character?

Edited June 20, 2011 by Xray

[Rich Engle]

Plagiarism is not an exclusively legal concept. On the contrary, here is the complete entry for "plagiarism" in the American Heritage Dictionary.

v. tr.

1. To use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as one's own.

2. To appropriate for use as one's own passages or ideas from (another).

v. intr.

To put forth as original to oneself the ideas or words of another.

I posed the following question to Wendy in one of my 1998 transcripts: Are you claiming that you did in fact plagiarize my FOR transcripts but that you had the legal right to do so, because my transcripts were not copyrighted?

If this was the case, then Wendy was confessing to plagiarism, and there was nothing further for me to argue. Whether she had a legal right to plagiarize didn't interest me in the least. That we might have a legal right to take an action doesn't make that action moral or right.

Ghs

Which means that even if McElroy possessed a memory capable to land her in the Guiness Book of Records for verbatim memorizing the contents of deleted files ), this gives her no green light for omitting to give credit to the source.

This "give credit" rule applies to forums as well. Suppose poster A had the mental capacity to verbatim memorize poster B's detailed elaboratons on a subject, in case A then got the idea of passing B's stuff off as his own, what would one think of A's character?

"You can't fix stupid."

Oh, my ding-ding-dong, I am already composing songs in my head about you, but my queue is too full with other, more pressing compositions.

You guys think Berty will run, or fight? Hard on this one; I'm giving it 60/40 Vegas Odds. And that's being conservative. Run. But see, if you throw down odds you queer them. Problematic.

Jesus X, I am kind of torn, because, on one hand, it is Fun To Play With. On the other hand, it pains me deeply to read the work, which smells like a ham and feet fucking sandwich. <--oooh! find the quote, Dickhead!

Normally, I hunker in on Mondays, for a number of reasons, many of which involve the trailer park. They have all kinds of time and being broke to ramp up on shit Mondays. Unfortunately for them, I started a shitstorm, which is deflecting them. For now. Oops, digress.

Morning Break:

Hey, Mr. Russell: Wanna Come Out And Play In The Dog Park?

rde

Busy but plenty of time for hollowheads.

[Xray]

I need to see if I can untie that knot.

The problem with speculating about Wendy's motive is that she is an extraordinarily complex person. I am not exaggerating when I say that she has the most complex psychology of any person, female or male, that I have ever met, bar none.

By no means is this a criticism. On the contrary, I found Wendy's psychology fascinating and very appealing, even if it did sometimes keep me off-balance.

Taking this very complex psychology into account may be crucial for "untying the knot", which may well - given the complexity of Wendy's mind - consist of several 'strands' containing various, possibly conflicting motives.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Xray

[George H. Smith]

I need to see if I can untie that knot.

The problem with speculating about Wendy's motive is that she is an extraordinarily complex person. I am not exaggerating when I say that she has the most complex psychology of any person, female or male, that I have ever met, bar none.

By no means is this a criticism. On the contrary, I found Wendy's psychology fascinating and very appealing, even if it did sometimes keep me off-balance.

Taking this very complex psychology into account may be crucial for "untying the knot", which may well - given the complexity of Wendy's mind - consist of several 'strands' containing various, possibly conflicting motives.

I appreciate your observations, but in the final analysis the only solution is to get as much evidence on the record as possible and as quickly as possible, and then get the hell away from this shit. This is why I have been posting so much. Although this puts me in a frenzy that I would rather avoid, I found that avoiding the topic for 12 years made things even worse.

After I post all the evidence I can find, people can decide this matter for themselves, and I won't need to spend so much time on it. You can easily see how I have been attempting to make things easier with that Master Post. Now, if I or someone else wants to introduce this complex subject on another forum, we need only post the link to my Master Post (and a brief explanation), and the information will spread like wildfire.

The links I posted to OL on the anarchist list LeftLibertarian2 have generated predictable results. Some members are chalking all this up to a personal squabble, and even Roderick Long, a well-known libertarian scholar, said that wants to remain neutral. He mentioned that Wendy and I once lived together, thereby suggest that this is some kind of spat between ex-lovers.

You can lead asses to the evidence, but you can't make the read it.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Taking this very complex psychology into account may be crucial for "untying the knot", which may well - given the complexity of Wendy's mind - consist of several 'strands' containing various, possibly conflicting motives.

I am going to be very candid, even though I will probably regret it.

Do you want to know what hovers in the back of my mind as I press my case against Wendy so relentlessly in public? Well, I will tell you what: I fear that Wendy will eventually kill herself over this.

Wendy repeatedly threatened suicide during our first year together, though she never actually made an attempt. And though this suicidal streak became a thing of the past for her, I fear that that aspect of her personality will emerge once again under the stress of this controversy.

I would feel terrible if this happened, but I wouldn't blame myself, as I might have in 1998. I bent over backwards to provide Wendy with a graceful exit from this mess, but she didn't have the sense to accept. This might be because of bad advice she has been getting from Brad (who truly is clueless).

In any case, there is no doubt in my mind that all this is absolute hell for Wendy. There is no way it could not be.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Taking this very complex psychology into account may be crucial for "untying the knot", which may well - given the complexity of Wendy's mind - consist of several 'strands' containing various, possibly conflicting motives.

I am going to be very candid, even though I will probably regret it.

Do you want to know what hovers in the back of my mind as I press my case against Wendy so relentlessly in public? Well, I will tell you what: I fear that Wendy will eventually kill herself over this.

Wendy repeatedly threatened suicide during our first year together, though she never actually made an attempt. And though this suicidal streak became a thing of the past for her, I fear that that aspect of her personality will emerge once again under the stress of this controversy.

I would feel terrible if this happened, but I wouldn't blame myself, as I might have in 1998. I bent over backwards to provide Wendy with a graceful exit from this mess, but she didn't have the sense to accept. This might be because of bad advice she has been getting from Brad (who truly is clueless).

In any case, there is no doubt in my mind that all this is absolute hell for Wendy. There is no way it could not be.

Ghs

This type of suicide is striking-back revenge type and probably the most common. It doesn't have to be conscious and most likely isn't as it represents a bursting out of repressed anger. But without the prospect of an audience it generally wouldn't happen, not to say an audience real or imagined wouldn't be there. The primary target of such is supposed to be guilt-ridden and contemned by his friends and associates thereafter. The suicide is supposed to be seen as the victim instead as a vicious perpetrator; may or may not be a vicious perpetrator depending on how aware of the motivating factors, but the suicide itself could be characterized as vicious per its results. The bottom-line is the suicide is a victim. There is way too much I-am-a-victim-cannot-do-anything-about-it-for-I-am-powerless crap in this culture.

Since the easy default will be to see the real victim as the actual perpetrator rather than consider the actual evidence, which takes a lot of work, you'll lose a lot of friends and associates, George. And you may be destroyed professionally. This very thread may be taken as evidence you yourself are revenge-seeking as opposed to self therapy and a demand for truth and justice. A case can be made for that and since it can it will by some.

There is a question that needs to be asked, however: after all is said and done, do you expect to be in a significantly better place? It will need to be significantly better to justify the cost.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

You guys think Berty will run, or fight? Hard on this one; I'm giving it 60/40 Vegas Odds. And that's being conservative. Run. But see, if you throw down odds you queer them. Problematic.

It's a long shot, granted, but if I was correct in speculating that Bertie is actually Richard Martin (Michael suggested the same thing, as I recall), then he will flee OL once again before long. Do you recall my recent remark about Richard and Wendy's Hobby? Well, that was my warning shot across the bow -- my version of I have your briefcase.

I know how this dirty game is played, and I can play it a lot better than Richard can.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Do you recall my recent remark about Richard and Wendy's Hobby?

Please note that I said "Richard and Wendy's Hobby" -- not "Richard's and Wendy's Hobby." Maybe I should have said "Wendy's Hobby and Richard," just to be on the safe side.

Ghs

[Rich Engle]

Let me go find my little, tiny, violin. I know I left it somewhere . . .O! There it is! Next to the (deleted).

OK, where's the rosin? . . .right . . .next to the other (deleted).

Slick up. Done.

Now, it is time to play a tiny, tiny little song for them. My, which one? "Fascination?" That is always good on the strolling circuit.

rde

Just be happy I only work with an accordion player, not own one of the beasts.

[Rich Engle]

[George H. Smith]

I am now going to cover something I have not talked about much before -- that notorious contract, its implications, and how it has been used in Wendy's defense. I will quote passages from Stephan Kinsella's 1998 letter to me for the official version. And I will interrupt Kinsella's narrative and comment on his remarks as we proceed.

Kinsella wrote (June 1, 1988):

You and Ms. McElroy worked and lived together for an approximately ten-year period, from 1975 to 1985. During this period, you and Ms. McElroy were intellectual partners in developing material on reasoning....

This is garbage from the first word to the last.

Wendy did not move into my place in Hollywood until 1976, after I had separated from my wife. Diane and I celebrated Christmas together in our home in 1975, and we went to a New Years Eve party with friends a few days later. We also had a large birthday party for me on Feb. 10, 1976. I recall that party vividly because of the present Diane gave after the party was over. After everyone else had left, she and a girlfriend announced they were going to give me a "Roman Massage." They laid a sheet on the living room floor, brought out grapes and wine from the kitchen, got some baby oil, proceeded to remove all my clothes, and told me to lie down.

Without going into all the erotic details, suffice it to say that a Roman Massage turned out to be a full-body massage with a happy ending, except during the Roman version the ladies feed you grapes and get you drunk on wine. The thing lasted for nearly two hours, and the dual handjob at the end resulted in one of the strongest orgasms I have ever had. This experience -- my first with two woman -- was one of the high points of my life, and it is not something I would ever forget. Feb. 10, 1976 was a very good day.

Unfortunately, that very good day did not resolve the problems Diane and I were having, so we separated not long after that.

Wendy moved in with me shortly thereafter, but things were very difficult between us. I therefore told Wendy she should get her own apartment for a while, which she did. She didn't live there very along -- maybe a month or two -- until she moved back in with me. It was then that she participated in her first FOR class.

I taught my first FOR class early in 1975, not more than 6 weeks after I had moved back to Hollywood from Tucson. Between my first FOR class and Wendy's first participation in an FOR class, there was a period of at least 14 months. On average, I taught two eight-week classes simultaneously, so I had given around 14 FOR classes by the time Wendy knew much of anything about FOR. As I explained in an earlier post, the only substantial change I ever made in FOR (eliminating the two sessions on logic) occurred after the first few months of teaching. This change was suggested by Diane and Caroline Roper-Deyo, long before Wendy entered the scene.

Moreover, as I have explained before, Wendy had very little interest in philosophy (other than Rand) when I first met her. Her interests were Freudian psychology, Reichian therapy, and literature. She was essentially a babe in the woods when it came to philosophical issues, and the notion that I would form an intellectual partnership with her at that time is absurd beyond belief. But none of this matters, since it was quite impossible for Wendy to "co-develop" FOR classes that I had already been giving for over a year.

In fact, I developed the FOR material before I returned to Hollywood in December, 1974, while I was still living in Tucson. (I developed the details in an office I had leased on the outskirts of Tucson.) This is why I was able to begin the first FOR classes around six weeks of moving into my Hollywood apartment on Van Ness. The theory and most of the techniques were ready to go, so all that was left was advertising. ATCAG had been published not long before, and that book gave me the creds I needed to recruit students, especially among the O'ist community in the LA area.

To be continued.....

[Rich Engle]

How much for the sheet? Ebay?

Did you wake up in the morning and your finger smelt lahk chicken? I hope there was a fucking shower in that hell-hole, George, I really do.

See what happens when you get with zombie chicks? Huh, huh?

r

Wants to buy The Shroud of Lassie, er, I mean Shroud of George<tm>

[Rich Engle]

I saw this one. Apparently you can get this and a set of Sham-Wow!<tm> pads for only 9.95. The thing is, they kill your ass on the shipping.

[George H. Smith]

How much for the sheet? Ebay?

Did you wake up in the morning and your finger smelt lahk chicken? I hope there was a fucking shower in that hell-hole, George, I really do.

See what happens when you get with zombie chicks? Huh, huh?

r

Wants to buy The Shroud of Lassie, er, I mean Shroud of George<tm>

For the record, the ladies remained completely clothed, and there was no touching by me.

As for the sheet, it was truly disgusting, so of course it was later stolen by Richard Martin.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I am now going to cover something I have not talked about much before -- that notorious contract, its implications, and how it has been used in Wendy's defense. I will quote passages from Stephan Kinsella's 1998 letter to me for the official version. And I will interrupt Kinsella's narrative and comment on his remarks as we proceed.

Kinsella wrote (June 1, 1988):

You and Ms. McElroy worked and lived together for an approximately ten-year period, from 1975 to 1985. During this period, you and Ms. McElroy were intellectual partners in developing material on reasoning....

[snip]

To be continued....

Kinsella continued:

During this period, you and Ms. McElroy were intellectual partners in developing material on "reasoning" that were presented in several eight-week courses entitled "Fundamentals of Reasoning."

Several? By the time Wendy began participating in FOR, I had already given around 14 FOR courses, and I gave many more thereafter. (Some of these were FOR II, an advanced version for those who had already taken the original FOR.)

These courses were given in Los Angeles from approximately 1975 to 1987, and Ms. McElroy participated with you in developing the courses and related course materials from 1975 to 1984.

Note the passive construction here. Kinsella says that the courses "were given," rather than saying that "George Smith gave the classes...." Even Kinsella is not enough of a fool or liar to claim that Wendy co-taught FOR (though Wendy said something to this effect in one of her 1998 missives), so he concealed my solitary role in teaching FOR with weasel wording.

It was quite a feat for Ms. McElroy to travel back 18 months in time, so she could participate in developing FOR while I was still in Tucson.

We have seen how Kinsella fabricated a wacko chronology for the purpose of exonerating Wendy from the charge of plagiarism. He continues:

You and Ms. McElroy were thus co-authors of various course-related materials, which were developed for these classes.

Notice how vague Kinsella is here. Nowhere does he say what Wendy's contributions supposedly were. Nor does he say anything about Wendy's background in philosophy (she had no more than most of my students) that would have caused me to solicit her help in developing my material.

The philosophy that appears in my FOR transcript is very basic and was intended for people with little or no background in the subject. I usually took no more than 30 minutes at the beginning of each class to explain the basic philosophical principles that we would be using for that class.

Why would I need Wendy's help with this stuff? Did I need her to help me learn basic logic and the rules of definition? I had taken several courses on logic at the University of Arizona (1968-70), and in the final exam of my first semester, I got a perfect score on a 100 question multiple-choice test. I was the only student out of several hundred to do this, and I even tutored a friend, Greg Morris, for several weeks before that exam. Greg, who had been failing the class, passed the final with flying colors, and this earned him a C for the semester.

There was nothing special about the other philosophical material I presented for the first 30 minutes of each class. I had already presented a good deal of it (e.g., the stuff on contextualism, based on Rand)in ATCAG, and much of it was included in the many lectures I gave for the UA Students of Objectivism during my college years. This material was second nature to me by the time I started teaching FOR. The suggestion that I would need Wendy, a novice in philosophy, to help me with any of this rudimentary material is absurd on its face, and an insult.

Aside from my 30 minute presentations, there were no other structured presentations of philosophy in my FOR courses. The remaining 90 minutes were devoted to discussions and a few exercises. In presenting those exercises in TRW, Wendy once again managed to shoot herself in the foot. Whenever possible, Wendy cites another source (such as Albert Ellis) rather than me; and Brad, in his OL post, states that during her research for TRW in 1994, Wendy discovered that my exercises were not in fact original, but were applied or adapted from other sources.

This is not entirely true. A few of my exercises were original, but let's suppose for the sake of argument that Wendy and Brad are right. In that case, how is it that Wendy didn't already know the sources of my exercises, but first discovered them in 1994 -- nearly 20 years after I began teaching FOR? How could a supposed co-developer of FOR not be intimately familiar with the various sources I drew upon? Why did the various sources that Wendy discovered in 1994 come as such a surprise to her? Again, Wendy's co-developer story is absurd on its face.

Lastly, if the sources for my exercises were so common, then why would I need Wendy to help me to develop those exercises? If I could get them from Ellis, Branden, or some other source that I had been familiar with for years, then what role did Wendy play? What role could she have possibly played? Another blank out.

By standing mute for nearly 13 years, Wendy has conveniently avoided being questioned about these and many other details. She told huge lies to Kinsella, who then transmitted those lies in his letter to me. But there are no details, and there has been no opportunity to ask Wendy specific questions about her supposed role in developing FOR.

That I began teaching FOR at least a year before Wendy moved in with me is indisputable. Dennis Hardin has even posted an unsolicited comment on this thread, stating that he took FOR during the first year while I was still living with Diane Hunter (my wife). Dennis also stated that Wendy was nowhere to be seen, nor was she ever mentioned. This is because I had not met Wendy at that time.

This hard fact puts Wendy in a terrible bind. Since she obviously didn't have anything to do with FOR for at least the first year, what role did she play in developing FOR? Will she say that I changed FOR substantially after I met her, and that she somehow co-developed the changes? But what changes? I didn't change anything in FOR after I met Wendy. If Wendy claims she helped to make changes in FOR, then let her state specifically what those changes were and what role she played in them. She will not do this, of course, because her claim is one Big Lie, and there is no way she can defend it.

To be continued....

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

[snip]

To be continued....

Ghs

I will now jump ahead a few lines in Kinsella's letter. First, however, I want to mention an error I made in some of my previous posts. I have said that Wendy only mentions my name once in TRW, whereas she actually mentions it twice. I made this mistake because the TRW index gives only one reference to "Smith, George," on p. 142.

Okay, folks, hold on to your hats! Kinsella quotes both lines in which my name appears, but he is such a dimwit that he didn't realize that those selfsame lines destroy his entire case. Kinsella writes:

As explicitly acknowledged in TRW's text, TRW was based, in part, on ideas developed by Ms. McElroy in collaboration with you, which ideas were also the subject of FOR. (For example, in the "Acknowledgments" section on page 9 of TRW, Ms. McElroy explicitly states: "The philosopher George Smith created the intellectual therapy groups discussed in TRW and, over the ten years of our close association, we discussed many of the ideas expanded upon within [TRW]." And on page 142 of TRW, Ms. McElroy states: "The next two chapters are devoted to examining a unique intellectual therapy group created by the philosopher George Smith, in which I was fortunate enough to participate.) (My emphasis)

It astonishes me that Kinsella would have been dumb enough to quote these passages from TRW, because they flatly contradict the claim that Wendy co-developed FOR. In both passages Wendy explicitly says that I created FOR, and in the second she notes that she was fortunate enough to participate in some of my classes.

In the first acknowledgment, Wendy states that we discussed many of the ideas in FOR. Of course we did. When two people live together for nearly a decade, they will frequently discuss their work. But the fact that I discussed my FOR ideas with Wendy does not make her a co-developer of FOR. Quite the contrary. In both acknowledgments, Wendy makes it clear that FOR was my baby. Nowhere in TRW does Wendy claim the status of co-developer.

In TRW, Wendy frankly admits that she was a participant in FOR; indeed, at one point, she say that she participated in five classes (which may be true). Okay, so over a period of around six years, Wendy sat in on five of my FOR classes, out of the dozens that I gave. Whoop-de-do! That scarcely makes Wendy a co-developer, whatever that is supposed to mean.

As I have pointed out before, Wendy first fabricated the co-developer story in 1998. She made up this lie as a last resort, because I had demolished all of her previous excuses, e.g., the I have an excellent memory excuse, which was supposed to explain the parallel passages; and the I kept detailed notes of FOR in a personal journal excuse.

This latter explanation is curious, for two reasons: Even if Wendy did use some FOR notes for TRW, to copy her own verbatim record for inclusion in TRW would still constitute plagiarism. Second, if Wendy did in fact use personal FOR notes while writing TRW, then her (and Brad's) claim that she destroyed all FOR material in 1994 is clearly a lie.

To be continued....

Ghs

[Rich Engle]

For the record, the ladies remained completely clothed, and there was no touching by me.

As for the sheet, it was truly disgusting, so of course it was later stolen by Richard Martin.

Ghs

I can only imagine what he does with it now. You have to wonder, once he got past the sniffing stage.

Finest Kind,

rde

[George H. Smith]

I have deleted a duplicate post.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

[snip]

To be continued....

Ghs

We now come to the crux and sole foundation of Wendy's claim to have co-developed FOR. Kinsella writes:

You and Ms. McElroy were thus co-authors of various course-related materials, which were developed for these [FOR] classes.

How could this be, given that I had been teaching FOR for at least 14 months before Wendy took her first class as a participant?

You then converted materials and ideas developed by both of you related to the courses, into a co-authored manuscript on reasoning.

I didn't "convert" anything. The FOR transcripts are exactly that -- transcripts. They are verbatim reports of what I (and others) said during my FOR classes, exactly as I said them. The first-person singular pronoun "I" appears throughout, because I was speaking.

The first-person plural pronoun "we" never appears in the FOR transcripts, yet this is what we would expect to find in a co-authored book manuscript. For example, in the polished Introduction that I wrote and sent to Tarcher in 1991, I wrote "we" throughout, even though Wendy had no hand in the writing of that chapter. Why did I do this? Because the book (with the working title The Psychology of Reasoning) was to be a co-authored book, and when you co-author a book with someone, you write "we" instead of "I."

Moreover, the FOR transcripts include verbatim accounts of some conversations that I had with students, including their responses. The transcript also includes awkward and informal sentences of the sort that frequently appear in offhand verbal comments, bad grammar from time to time, etc.

In short, Wendy simply wrote down what she heard on my FOR tapes, while adding a bunch of quotations before sections. Wendy had gone wild with a book of quotations; and though she meant well, I told her that I didn't want to include them when I got around to transforming the FOR transcript into a book. There were far too many quotations, and some didn't even fit the subject matter; rather, they gave the appearance of having been inserted for their own sake.

Lastly, some parts of the FOR transcripts contain huge numbers of obvious typos and similar errors -- not just one here and there, but sometimes two or more in the same sentence. This is because Wendy was typing very quickly while transcribing my tapes --as we would expect, given how fast I talk. Wendy was not using a Dictaphone that could be slowed down. She was listening to a cassette tape recorder.

No semi-competent writer would leave so many flagrant errors, even in a first draft.

Btw, how does one "co-author" the extemporaneous remarks of another person?

To be continued....

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

[snip]

To be continued....

A few comments before proceeding with Kinsella's letter...

In the passages I have quoted so far, Kinsella, parroting his client, claims that Wendy and I "co-authored" the FOR transcripts. Yet this is not what Brad R, Wendy's husband, said recently on this thread. Here is Brad's account:

Wendy wrote a first rough draft of the manuscript, and a second finished draft, and sent them to George. George claims not to have received the latter; I know that it was written -- because I proofread it -- and that it was mailed. [My emphasis.]

Here we have a completely different story. According to Brad, I had no hand in writing the FOR transcripts at all; they were wholly Wendy's work. This conflicts with Kinsella's claim that Wendy and I co-authored the FOR transcripts.

In addition, Brad claims that Wendy also wrote a "second finished draft" that he personally proofread and mailed to me.

I have commented on this mysterious "finished draft" before, so I won't go into much detail here. But consider: What does "finished draft" mean? Well, it means a final draft, a draft suitable to submit to a publisher.

Thus, according to Brad, Wendy had written, all by her lonesome, a book on reasoning. Okay, so why didn't Wendy submit her book to a publisher?

Most importantly, where is this mysterious final draft of Wendy's book on reasoning, one that was supposedly completed several years before she began work on TRW in 1994? What did Wendy do with her "finished" book manuscript? Does she still have it on her computer? Or did she erase her own book from her hard drive, along with all my FOR material? Are we to believe that Wendy would destroy a "finished draft" of a book that she, and she alone, had written?

This is all blatant nonsense, but it does illustrate something: It shows why Wendy has remained mute all these years. Her 1998 stories are so improbable and inconsistent that they are impossible to defend as a whole, so keeping her mouth shut about details was the only sensible recourse for Wendy.

But Brad could not keep his mouth shut. Perhaps out of frustration, he finally came out of the shadows and posted accounts of things he supposedly witnessed first hand. But in the process of defending poor innocent Wendy, Brad fucked up big time. He told a story about a first draft that conflicts with Kinsella's story (as told to him by Wendy in 1998), and he dredged up a mysterious finished draft that Kinsella never mentions.

Oh what a web we weave.... Sir Walter Scott must be grinning from ear to ear.

To be continued....

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

[clip]

To be continued....

Ghs

I know that my recent posts have repeated a number of points that I have made before on OL. I did this because those points are scattered throughout dozens of my posts in a thread that is rapidly approaching a total of 700 posts. I therefore wanted to write a continuous, coherent, and self-contained narrative that readers can consult for a condensed version of events. I plan to use my narrative rather like I used my Master Post of documentation; that is to say, I will collect the links to the installments of my narrative and insert them in their own Master Post.

I have given this explanation because I didn't want OLers to think that I had gone off the deep end and become completely obsessed with the plagiarism scandal. As before, there is a method to my madness.

I should be able to cover everything else in this and one additional post. Then I can take a break, having covered virtually every nook and cranny of this scandal.

I will now continue with Kinsella's letter. His next comments are extremely important, for they contain his appeal to the only scrap of hard evidence that Wendy has ever presented, viz., the contract that we signed on Nov. 29, 1989. And, as we shall see, everything hinges on a just a few words.

FOR is therefore a joint work which you and Ms. McElroy co-authored. Incontrovertible proof of this conclusion is shown by the "Contract on Reasoning Book/Untitled" executed by both you and Ms. McElroy on November 29, 1989....This contract, executed four years after your separation, explicitly provides that you and Ms. McElroy had "co-authored" a book on reasoning." Despite your false assertions to the contrary, therefore Ms. McElroy was a full co-author of FOR, or not a "mere typist" or transcriber.

Later in his letter, Kinsella explains the significance of this assertion. There was a primary defense and a secondary defense. Kinsella states the primary defense as follows:

...Ms. McElroy did not copy any portion of FOR in the preparation of TRW and, indeed, had disposed of all of her copies of FOR before beginning writing TRW in 1994. Any similarity in wording is easily explained, given Ms. McElroy's co-authorship of FOR and her intimate familiarity with the course material, having participated in the course five times to help improve and develop the course material, and having drawn in TRW from some of the same primary sources as used in preparing material for FOR and the associated courses....Ms. McElroy did not plagiarize your work -- i.e., she did not publish "your" writing as if they were her own. The simple fact of the matter is that Ms. McElroy authored a new work, TRW, based in limited part on previous ideas co-developed by you and her and which were also the subject of her very own co-authored work, FOR. Therefore, you accusations of plagiarism are completely groundless and libelous. (My bolding.)

I have already commented on this pack of lies, but here are a few points:

First: Kinsella claims that Wendy "participated in the course five times to help improve and develop the course material." Yeah, right. And I participated in more than five of Nathaniel Branden's group therapy sessions during the early 1970s in order to help improve and develop his psychological techniques. I therefore claim co-authorship of everything Nathaniel has written about psychotherapy since that time.

I will say it again: Wendy and I lived together for nearly a decade (something she does not mention in TRW), so if there was extra space available in an FOR class, she was more than welcome to sit in as a participant. And, as one would expect, I would sometimes ask her how she thought the class went. But to participate in five classes out of dozens over a span of six years scarcely makes one a "co-developer."

Second: Note once again how no details are given. What suggestions did Wendy supposedly make? How did I change FOR as a result? Were the suggestions sufficiently important to qualify her as a "co-developer?" Wendy has never been specific about any of this. All she has done is to make make general claims with no details and nothing to back them up. In fact, as I have stated repeatedly, I made no changes in FOR after the time that Wendy took her first class.

Third: The assertion that any similarities between FOR and TRW are "easily explained" by Wendy's "intimate familiarity with the course material" is laughable, given the hundreds of duplicated passages. The same is true of Kinsella's comment about sources.

Much more could be said, of course, but let's cut to the chase, specifically, let's turn to Wendy's secondary defense, as articulated by Kinsella.

Moreover, even if Ms. McElroy had copied portions of FOR in writing TRW, your claims would be equally groundless and libelous. As noted, the 1989 contract provides unassailable proof that Ms. McElroy was a co-author of FOR. She was also a co-owner of the copyright thereto, and is therefore entitled to use this material in any way she sees fit, without your permission or approval.

Translation: Even if Ms. McElroy told a bit fat lie, and did in fact copy wholesale from the FOR transcripts, she still had the right to do what she did.

To be continued....

Ghs