2006 Parody: Act 2, Song 4: "Write My Notes"

LYRIC SHEET

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
PARODY 2006
"FINDING BLACHMAN CONTRIBUTORILY NEGLIGENT"

Act 2, Song 4

"WRITE MY NOTES"
(THE DOORS' "LIGHT MY FIRE") (MP3)

Setting: Spring 2003, Hauser Hall, Harvard Law School, office of Professor Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz is scrambling to finish up his latest book, "The Case For Israel." He has delegated part of the work to a student ghostwriter, Holly Beth Billington (HLS '04). Inspired by Jim Morrison, to speed up the work on the endnotes to chapters 1 and 2 the musically gifted Dershowitz implores Holly Beth to skip doing independent research and writing and instead simply copy material out of footnotes in a 1984 book on Israel by Joan Peters, "From Time Immemorial."

Jeremy Blachman, narrator:

In the 2005 Parody we made an incredibly lame decision to exempt Professor Alan Dershowitz from scrutiny for his role in the ghostwriting/plagiarism scandals. Early in the year, some bloggers called "AuthorSkeptics" with whom I have a loose association (for example, I came up with their name) summarized quite convincingly based on analysis by Professor Norman Finkelstein and others that nearly half of the endnotes (22 of 52) to the first two chapters of Dershowitz's book were copied straight out of Peters' book, although Dershowitz refused to admit to the copying (he initially claimed he'd read "independently probably 30 or 40 other books" containing the material quoted by Peters) until the uncovering of a "smoking gun" handwritten note from Dershowitz instructing his student ghostwriter to copy some of Peters' footnotes into the manuscript. Dershowitz never denied AuthorSkeptics' summary of the evidence that he'd produced these 22 endnotes by having a student ghostwriter copy them out of Peters' book. Instead he argued there was nothing wrong with what he'd done, and he asserted the ghostwriting on this particular book was limited to the writing of endnotes (he said he'd written the text of the book himself).

I'm not sure why we gave Dershowitz a pass on this, especially with that "smoking gun" handwritten note contradicting his initial denial of the charge. Maybe it was because Dershowitz offered to do a cameo in the show, which is a clever way for a professor to preempt brutal criticism (much more subtle than trying to censor the script directly). Well, the cameo didn't turn out to be very entertaining. Just imagine if we'd said "no thanks" to Dershowitz on that cameo. Just imagine how well a musical skit on Dershowitz based on these facts would have worked in the 2005 Parody . . . .

"WRITE MY NOTES"
(SUNG BY ALAN DERSHOWITZ)



YOU KNOW THAT IT WOULD BE UNTRUE
YOU KNOW THAT I WOULD BE A LIAR
IF I WAS TO SAY TO YOU
GIRL, YOU ARE NOT MY GHOSTWRITER
COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
WHY NOT COPY PETERS' NOTES

THE TIME TO HESITATE IS THROUGH
NO TIME TO RESEARCH ANYTHING
NO ONE KNOWS I COPY TOO
HOPE THE BOOK'S NOT READ BY FINKELSTEIN

COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
WHY NOT COPY PETERS' NOTES

(4 1/2 MINUTE MUSICAL BRIDGE)

THE TIME TO HESITATE IS THROUGH
NO TIME TO RESEARCH ANYTHING
NO ONE KNOWS I COPY TOO
HOPE THE BOOK’S NOT READ BY FINKELSTEIN

COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
WHY NOT COPY PETERS' NOTES

YOU KNOW THAT IT WOULD BE UNTRUE
YOU KNOW THAT I WOULD BE A LIAR
IF I WAS TO SAY TO YOU
GIRL, YOU ARE NOT MY GHOSTWRITER
COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
COME ON HOLLY, WRITE MY NOTES
WHY NOT COPY PETERS' NOTES
WHY NOT COPY PETERS' NOTES
WHY NOT COPY PETERS' NOTES
WHY NOT COPY PETERS' NOTES!

2006 HLS Parody, Act 2, Song 3: "Hire Some Ghostwriters"

LYRIC SHEET

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
PARODY 2006
"FINDING BLACHMAN CONTRIBUTORILY NEGLIGENT"

Act 2, Song 3

"HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS"
(SURVIVOR'S "EYE OF THE TIGER") (MP3)

Setting: Fall, 2003, Hauser Hall, Harvard Law School, office of Professor Charles Ogletree. Ogletree has just returned from one of his frequent out-of-town trips to spend a few days at the Law School. He realizes he has only a few months left to finish his book about Brown v. Board of Education in time for the 50th anniversary of the decision, May 17, 2004. This deadline has caught Ogletree by surprise, as he only learned of the deadline recently (49 years ago), and he has barely begun work on the book. After some thinking, he hits on a solution to the problem. As former Harvard president Derek Bok would later summarize Ogletree's solution, given the “very tight deadline” faced by him: "He marshaled his assistants and parceled out the work . . . .” Not that he did nothing on the book: as Ogletree would later clarify, he was "closely involved in most of the drafting of the book . . . ." Listen as Professor Ogletree, in his mellifluous singing voice, provides this soliloquy in the fall of 2003 about his chosen course of action . . . .

Jeremy Blachman, narrator:

Probably my most egregious error in writing songs for the 2005 Parody was in the treatment of Professor Charles Ogletree, who of course started the 2004-05 school year for us with quite a bang: with his puzzling announcement about his “corrections” of “mistakes” made during the final "production process" on a book he published in the spring of 2004 timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. This statement was quickly ripped apart by journalists and bloggers who established to pretty much everyone’s satisfaction that the “mistakes” involved blatant plagiarism of a book published by a Yale law professor, which resulted from Ogletree hiring law students to ghostwrite at least parts of the book for him -- something Ogletree did not deny when the ghostwriting charge was specifically made by the dean of another law school in the fall of 2004, and again in the spring of 2005.

As pointed out on the Harvard Law School Drama Society’s unofficial website, our treatment of Professor Ogletree in the 2005 Parody quite possibly violated the Law School’s stringent regulations on parodies designed to avoid even a hint of racial or gender bias. For example, we devoted an entire musical skit to Professor Tribe, most of which lauded his many amazing abilities and achievements, but we did no musical skit at all on Ogletree. Worse, in our only musical reference to Ogletree, we had Tribe denigrate him, singing of “stupid Ogletree.” Whereas we depicted Tribe as “the smartest man alive” for copying material straight out of a book by a historian, we depicted Ogletree as “stupid” for hiring ghostwriters who then plagiarized from a Yale law professor which, in turn, because of Tribe's decision to comment on the resulting Weekly Standard article on Ogletree, ultimately led to a tip to the Weekly Standard about Tribe's own plagiarism, and thus Tribe's own downfall.

What we should have done was leave Ogletree out of the parody about Tribe. Rather than making a token, insulting reference to him in that parody, we should have crafted a separate musical skit to cover the entire Ogletree ghostwriting affair, something along the lines of the following musical skit based on Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, the awesome theme song from the so-so movie "Rocky III." The song sure works better for this parody than the last time we used it! Imagine how well a musical skit on Professor Ogletree like this would have worked in the 2005 Parody . . . .

"HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS"
(SUNG BY CHARLES OGLETREE)



FLYING UP -- BACK TO BOSTON
GOT NO TIME TO WRITE MY BOOK
WENT TO D.C., NOW I'M BACK AT HARVARD
JUST A MAN AND HIS BOOK TO PRODUCE

SO MANY TIMES, IT HAPPENS TOO FAST
YOU TRADE YOUR ETHICS FOR GLORY
I GOT A BOOK DEADLINE COMING ON FAST
IT'S BEEN YEARS SINCE I LAST TRIED TO WRITE

I'LL JUST HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS
FIND THE CREAM OF THE CROP
RISIN' UP TO THE CHALLENGE OF THEIR RIVALS
LET THE LAST TWO SURVIVORS
WRITE MY BOOK IN THE NIGHT
SO IT'S NO WORK AT ALL
I'LL JUST HIRE . . . SOME GHOSTWRITERS

FACE TO FACE -- THEY'LL COPY FAST
HANGIN' TOUGH, STAYIN' HUNGRY
THEY'LL CUT THE CORNERS 'TIL THEY GET IT DONE
IF I CAN I WILL READ WHAT THEY WRITE

I'LL JUST HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS
FIND THE CREAM OF THE CROP
RISIN' UP TO THE CHALLENGE OF THEIR RIVALS
LET THE LAST TWO SURVIVORS
WRITE MY BOOK IN THE NIGHT
SO IT'S NO WORK AT ALL
I'LL JUST HIRE . . . SOME GHOSTWRITERS

FLYING UP -- STRAIGHT TO THE TOP
HIRE THE GRUNTS, GET THE GLORY
WENT TO D.C., NOW I'M BACK AT HARVARD
JUST A MAN AND HIS BOOK TO PRODUCE

I'LL JUST HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS
FIND THE CREAM OF THE CROP
RISIN' UP TO THE CHALLENGE OF THEIR RIVALS
LET THE LAST TWO SURVIVORS
WRITE MY BOOK IN THE NIGHT
SO IT'S NO WORK AT ALL
I'LL JUST HIRE . . . SOME GHOSTWRITERS

JUST HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS
JUST HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS
JUST HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS
JUST HIRE SOME GHOSTWRITERS

2006 HLS Parody, Act 2, Song 2: "I'm a Compiler"

LYRIC SHEET

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
PARODY 2006
"FINDING BLACHMAN CONTRIBUTORILY NEGLIGENT"

Act 2, Song 2

"I'M A COMPILER"
(THE MONKEES' "I'M A BELIEVER") (MP3)

Setting: U.S. Supreme Court, April 15, 1985, the chambers of retired Justice Potter Stewart, shortly after Professor Laurence Tribe finished arguing a case before the Court. During an informal meeting, Justice Stewart casually inquires of Professor Tribe how his work is going.

Jeremy Blachman, narrator:

"This was another missed opportunity. Had we researched the plagiarism story involving Professor Tribe more thoroughly, we would have realized Professor Tribe is such an important legal scholar that U.S. Supreme Court justices routinely inquire how his work is going. If so, we might have learned that back in 1985, when Professor Tribe's former boss, Justice Potter Stewart, asked him about his ongoing scholarly work, Professor Tribe confessed to using student ghostwriters. Specifically, he confessed that a book about to be published under his name, "God Save This Honorable Court," had been ghostwritten for him by Ronald A. Klain (HLS '87). This is the book which which would eventually land Professor Tribe in hot water, in 2004, when it first became publicly perceived that Profesor Tribe may be merely a compiler of material ghostwritten for him by others. If I had been more thorough, last year's Parody might have included this excellent scene, in which Professor Tribe answers Justice Potter's inquiry by singing of his delight with his new method for producing books ...."

"I'M A COMPILER"
(SUNG BY LAURENCE TRIBE)

I THOUGHT GHOSTS WERE ONLY USED BY SOME 3LS
MEANT FOR STUDENTS YES, BUT NOT FOR ME
WORK WAS OUT TO GET ME
THAT'S THE WAY IT SEEMED
WRITER'S BURNOUT HAUNTED ALL MY DREAMS

THEN I SAW RON'S DRAFT, NOW I'M A COMPILER
NOT A TRACE OF PRIDE IN MY MIND
I'M A SLUG, I'M A COMPILER!
I COULDN'T WRITE NOW IF I TRIED

I THOUGHT BOOKS WERE MORE OR LESS A WRITING THING
SEEMS THE MORE I TOKED THE LESS I WROTE
WHAT’S THE USE IN WRITIN'?
ALL YOU GET IS PAIN
I DON’T NEED TO WRITE 'CAUSE I GOT KLAIN

YEAH I SAW RON'S DRAFT, NOW I'M A COMPILER
NOT A TRACE OF PRIDE IN MY MIND
I'M A SLUG, I'M A COMPILER!
I COULDN’T WRITE NOW IF I TRIED

WORK WAS OUT TO GET ME
THAT'S THE WAY IT SEEMED
WRITER'S BURNOUT HAUNTED ALL MY DREAMS

THEN I SAW RON'S DRAFT, NOW I'M A COMPILER
NOT A TRACE OF PRIDE IN MY MIND
I'M A SLUG, I'M A COMPILER!
I COULDN'T WRITE NOW IF I TRIED

YES I SAW RON'S DRAFT
NOW I'M A COMPILER
NOT A TRACE OF PRIDE IN MY MIND
YEAH I'M A COMPILER, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH
(I'M A COMPILER)
YEAH I'M A COMPILER, YEAH
(I'M A COMPILER)
YEAH I'M A COMPILER, YEAH

2006 HLS Parody, Act 2, Song 1: "Book of Tribe"

LYRIC SHEET

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
PARODY 2006
"FINDING BLACHMAN CONTRIBUTORILY NEGLIGENT"

Act 2, Song 1

"BOOK OF TRIBE"
(THE MONOTONES' "BOOK OF LOVE") (MP3)

Setting: Austin Hall, October 5, 2004, Dean’s Forum on the Supreme Court term, featuring among others Professor Laurence Tribe, and held shortly after the publication of a Weekly Standard article suggesting much of Tribe’s 1985 book on the Supreme Court was ghostwritten by a first-year law student, Ronald A. Klain. During the question-and-answer period, one of Tribe’s current research assistants, 3L Dan Richenthal (who is in the process of writing a letter to the Harvard Crimson defending Tribe, with help from six others on a letter which will ultimately span 12 sentences) steps up to the microphone. Despite his great admiration for Tribe, which is widely known throughout the school, Richenthal cannot help but wonder about the Weekly Standard’s charge. He asks his hero to address it. The audience, just as interested as Richenthal in an answer, provides the backup singing.

Jeremy Blachman, narrator:

"A second main reason last year's Parody was so disappointing, of course, was our underplaying of the Dershowitz-Ogletree-Tribe plagiarism scandals which had been a main topic of conversation at the Law School for months prior to our staging of the Parody. That's chiefly why I've been sentenced to narrate this entire 2006 Parody, and why we're devoting the entire second act to the subject. For example, I sure wish I'd thought of including this scene inspired by Professor Tribe's first public appearance at the Law School (he was not teaching that semester) after the plagiarism story on him broke on the Weekly Standard's website on September 24, 2004. This failure of imagination does tend to suggest contributory negligence on my part in the writing of the 2005 Parody. Imagine how totally excellent that scene could have been ...."

"BOOK OF TRIBE"
(SUNG BY DAN RICHENTHAL)

I WONDER, WONDER WHO
(WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE)

TELL ME, TELL ME, TELL ME
OH, WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE
I'VE GOT TO KNOW THE ANSWER
WAS IT REALLY A 1L

(OH I WONDER, WONDER WHO, MMBADOO-OOH, WHO)
(WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE)

I LOVE YOU, LARRY
LARRY, YOU KNOW I DO
BUT I'VE GOT TO SEE YOUR MANUSCRIPT
AND FIND OUT IF YOU'RE TRUE

(OH I WONDER, WONDER WHO, MMBADOO-OOH, WHO)
(WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE)

(CHAPTER ONE HAS AN INTRO)
(YOU SAY WHAT YOU’RE GONNA SAY)

(CHAPTER TWO, YOU TELL THEM)
(WHAT'S REALLY REALLY REALLY

REALLY CLOSE TO YOUR HEART)

(IN CHAPTER THREE YOU COPY)
(FROM ABRAHAM, ALL RIGHT)

(IN CHAPTER FOUR YOU FORGET)
(TO GIVE HIM JUST ONE LITTLE CITE)

(OH I WONDER, WONDER WHO, MMBADOO-OOH, WHO)
(WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE)

LARRY, LARRY, LARRY
I LOVE YOU, YES I DO
WELL I'LL SAY SO IN THE CRIMSON, YEAH
MINE IS A LOVE THAT'S TRUE

(OH I WONDER, WONDER WHO, MMBADOO-OOH, WHO)
(WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE)

(CHAPTER ONE HAS AN INTRO)
(YOU SAY WHAT YOU'RE GONNA SAY)

(CHAPTER TWO, YOU TELL THEM)
(WHAT'S REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY CLOSE TO YOUR HEART)

(IN CHAPTER THREE YOU COPY)
(FROM ABRAHAM, ALL RIGHT)

(IN CHAPTER FOUR YOU FORGET)
(TO GIVE HIM JUST ONE LITTLE CITE)

(OH I WONDER, WONDER WHO, MMBADOO-OOH, WHO)
(WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE)

LARRY, LARRY, LARRY
I LOVE YOU, YES I DO
WELL I'LL SAY SO IN THE CRIMSON, YEAH
MINE IS A LOVE THAT'S TRUE

(OH I WONDER, WONDER WHO, MMBADOO-OOH, WHO)
(WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE)
I WONDER WHO (YEAH)
WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF TRIBE

"Harvard Plagiarist Heaven": Our Substitute Song

Future residents of

"Harvard Plagiarist Heaven"

(in order of appearance in song):

Alan M. Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School



Doris Kearns Goodwin
Ph.D, Harvard University, 1968
Former Professor of Government, Harvard University
Former member of the Harvard Board of Overseers

Charles J. Ogletree
Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard Law School



Laurence H. Tribe
Harvard College, A.B., 1962
Harvard Law School, J.D., 1966
Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School



Ronald A. Klain, Esq.
Harvard Law School, J.D., 1987

"Harvard Plagiarist Heaven"

(Source lyrics and music here)

Chorus:

If you believe in forever
Then life is just a one-night stand
In Harvard plagiarist heaven
Well you know they’ll have a hell of a book– book– stand

Alan copied footnotes
And Doris ripped off some books in part
And Charles, taught us all how to write a new way
Sing this song to Larry Tribe
Remember him that way
More than just a plagiarist

A hero, so he says

(Repeat chorus)

Remember bad, bad Ogletree
His students messed up with that book
Well time didn't change the 'Tree we hoped would grow
Ron Klain copied Abraham
Well "God Save" Tribe anyway
They'll all be there together, copying forevermore

(Repeat chorus)

Bridge:

There's a spotlight waiting
For Larry Tribe, the star
'Cause Ron Klain copied Henry Abraham

Larry Tribe’s the star

(Larry Tribe has got to be the star!)

Final chorus:

If you believe in forever,
Then life is just a one-night stand
In Harvard plagiarist heaven
Well you know they’ll have a hell of a ‘stand

(Repeat x 2)

Our Retraction of the "I'm Larry Tribe" Song

The Harvard Law School Drama Society has today issued its first retraction of a Parody segment in its history. We are doing this to correct the record in response to an e-mail written last week by Laurence H. Tribe, one of the professors parodied in our recent production.

In our musical segment, "I'm Larry Tribe" (using the music from "I Will Survive"), we depicted the circumstances surrounding Professor Tribe's so-called "borrowing" of material from a 1974 book by Professor Henry Abraham, in the production of his 1985 book, God Save This Honorable Court: How the Choice of Justices Shapes Our History. We depicted the borrowing as a personal act of Professor Tribe, who we dramatized as having momentarily given into temptation while afflicted by writer's block. The segment began with Professor Tribe confessing to an idolatrous student that while working on the book back in 1985, afraid his "muse had died," he copied down excerpts from Professor Abraham's book. However, the segment did not dwell on Professor Tribe's plagiarism. To the contrary, after at most a minute spent on the plagiarism, we quickly put it into perspective by devoting the rest of the musical segment to a sampling of Professor Tribe's many amazing abilities and achievements.

When we wrote and performed the Parody, we fully believed it was accurate in its depiction of the mechanics of Professor Tribe's plagiarism. The main sources on which we drew for the facts were this article by Joseph Bottum in The Weekly Standard, and Professor Tribe's statement issued shortly after that article appeared apologizing for the scholarly lapse and taking "full responsibility" for it.

After the Parody's run was finished, Professor Tribe broke the silence he has observed on this matter since September. In an e-mail, he clarified he had never admitted to personally copying from Professor Abraham without using quotes or footnotes to indicate the passages which had been copied. Professor Tribe wrote he had heard there was "some pretty funny stuff" about him in the Parody, and he simply did not understand "the business of my supposedly copying some passages from somebody's work without sufficiently crediting the original author." See here and here.

So it appears Joseph Bottum was correct in his somewhat oblique suggestion it was actually Ronald Klain (HLS '87), Professor Tribe's research assistant back in 1984-85 whose friends and former colleagues say drafted large sections of the book, who as Professor Tribe's ghostwriter and a first-year law student apparently made the rookie mistake of simply copying, with only minimal rewording, various chunks of Professor Abraham's book (as described in detail in Bottum's article) into the manuscript of Professor Tribe's book, without footnotes or any other specification of the material that had been copied.

We at the Harvard Law School Drama Society pride ourselves on staging each year a fair and balanced Parody, and we regret having used an inaccurate factual premise in working up our musical segment on Professor Tribe's plagiarism. To correct the record, we therefore have taken the unusual step of issuing this Parody retraction, one whose factual premise is that Professor Tribe did not personally do the copying of material from Professor Abraham's book. We herewith substitute a new song, "Harvard Plagiarist Heaven," in place of the "I'm Larry Tribe" musical segment in the official record of the 2005 Parody.

The lyrics of the song, along with some photographs to help you visualize "Harvard Plagiarist Heaven," are set out in the next post on this blog.

The song is a parody of “Rock and Roll Heaven," a hit song from 1974 written by Alan O’Day and Johnny Stevenson, and sung by the Righteous Brothers. For an Internet shrine to that song, including the lyrics, visit here.

Note that at various places in the lyrics, we have included hyperlinks to relevant information, to ensure Professor Tribe and everyone else will be able to understand the factual underpinnings of this parody, and appreciate its fair and balanced nature. We sincerely hope that in contrast to Professor Tribe’s negative reaction to the joking about his Internet homepage (which fortunately someone preserved for posterity, here), Professor Tribe will be able to laugh along with everyone else on this one.

This musical segment has been specifically crafted to be in compliance with Harvard Law School's stringent regulations on parodies, under which parodies must avoid offending anyone in any way related to gender, or they will be deemed "sexual harassment." These strict regulations, according to prominent civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate (HLS '67), may explain why "there has not been a truly biting parody on hot-button issues related to gender politics at the law school since" the regulations were imposed back in 1995.

Accordingly, the pantheon of plagiarists featured in "Harvard Plagiarist Heaven" has been filled out to include Doris Kearns Goodwin (who actually was the first Harvard-affiliated scholar to be unmasked as a plagiarist, see here), so as to avoid any suggestion males are being singled out for gender-stereotyping as plagiarists. Our original musical segment violated these regulations because it included only Professors Tribe and Ogletree as Harvard plagiarists.

Also, our original musical segment on Professor Tribe carried at least the appearance of racial bias because whereas the minority professor, Charles Ogletree, was depicted as “stupid” for hiring students to ghostwrite his book, Professor Tribe was depicted as “the smartest man alive” even though he copied material straight out of another scholar’s book and did so without any meaningful attribution, only mentioning Professor Abraham's book at the very back of his book, and then merely as one of 15 very helpful additional books (including two of Professor Tribe's books) an interested reader might wish to consult.

We sincerely apologize to Professor Tribe for our unintentionally inaccurate portrayal of the circumstances leading to his plagiarism of Professor Abraham's book. We honestly did not realize Amber Taylor was correct in her scenario of how Professor Abraham's 1974 words got into Professor Tribe's 1985 book. Our impression had been that Professor Tribe, unlike Professor Ogletree, actually wrote his own books.

As part of Harvard Law School's speech code calculated to ensure that in dialogue within our community, no one feels disrespected and no one's feelings are ever hurt in any other way – which is what forced us to drop that foul-mouthed clown from the Parody, to help convey "a sense of humor rather than a spirit of vindictiveness" -- under Harvard Law School's "parody fairness doctrine," we are required to run on this blog any other parody treatments of the plagiarism issue at Harvard Law School readers may wish to submit which defend the plagiarism involved, which offer alternate interpretations of how the plagiarism occurred, or which bear some other relation to this year's Parody. Submissions should be sent to revengeoftheclown@hotmail.com.

This blog will only feature parodies on the subject of plagiarism by Harvard-affiliated scholars and on the related subject of why free speech has become so repressed at the Law School that the writers of this year's Parody felt obliged to write a musical segment on a professor-plagiarist which was so timid they actually ended up lionizing the subject, and why their fear of upsetting the professor with even this timid treatment was so great they shared the script with the professor in advance, thereby permitting the very subject being parodied to be in a position to censor the parody.

Please do not e-mail Harvard-related parodies on any other subject. Instead, send them to The Record, at HLSLawker@yahoo.com, or to The Harvard Crimson, at news@thecrimson.com.

We eagerly look forward to issuing a retraction and substitute parody on "Ben-d-the-truth Berkowitz" if Mr. Berkowitz wishes to continue complaining about how he was depicted in the Parody.

Just remember all you professors out there: according to Frumpy the HLS Clown (unless of course he plagiarized it from someone), you are not immune from being called an asshole.

(This blog brought to you courtesy of Frumpy the HLS Clown, that nasty clown with a filthy mouth who lives in the tunnels under the Law School -- because especially in an age of political correctness, sometimes having only one anonymous and candidly mean-spirited character to kick people around, especially a wimpy one, is just not enough for a place as mean-spirited as Harvard Law School.)