Irony and Wine

Imagine my horror. Twice betrayed. Not only by sweet Celia, the moon-faced student who cannot for the life of her pass the exit exam, but whose writing has steadily been improving, or so I thought, while we struggled through semester after semester of Basic English so she didn't have to return to the ESL track. But also by my beloved Blogger.

Imagine: a whole series of blogs, just so that people don't have to write their own papers, and don't have to stoop to using something so transparent as e-cheat.com. (here's a hint: if it uses the word "cheat" in the URL, it's cheating. And another one, just for good measure: if its slogan has to justify itself by proclaiming, "It's not cheating, it's collaborating!"....it's cheating.) And imagine: you cite the sources from which you received these papers you've provided for students to pluck and plagiarize from, so legally Blogger is caught in the strands of your duplicitous ethical web. You didn't plagiarize. Your content is clear. It's only your intent that reeks like black rot.

And you, Celia, what will become of you? If I turn you in to the dean, you will be devoured in the gaping maw of academic justice, but what kind of justice will there be, once you are ground up and spat out to the sidewalk? You'll end up working at a bodega, losing hope in the system, in the dream, and then what?

My. I do believe this is a dilemma. It's pointy on these horns, I'd like to get down now, please.

But the thing that I find most bitterly ironic of all? The very well-thought out, well-written, and thought-provoking essay this blog has on the nasty little subject of cheating.

Ain't that a motherfucker.