Sunday, September 2, 2012

Scandal at the Daily Brass: Plagiarism Exposed


by Al Butterman

Following in the sordid tradition of Jayson Blair, Jonah Leher, and Fareed Zakaria, today Purvis McGrew, the Open Letters Editor for the Daily Brass, was exposed (right here in this article by me, Al Butterman) as a blatant plagiarist.  In another blow to the book blog widely considered (again by me, Al Butterman) to be a bastion of liberal propaganda, the Daily Brass found itself in the strange position of having a member of its editorial staff accused of this serious journalistic infraction by a former member of its editorial staff in the blog’s own front page headline.  That’s what they get for forgetting to freeze my login information!

Mr. McGrew, a fiftyish Grizzly Adams type with a history of strange behavior, has more than once been accused of taking credit for other people’s work.  As recently as two week’s ago, in his staff bio (found here) Mr. McGrew claimed to have contributed to Christamar Varicella’s disturbing science fiction novel, Dinosaur Ghost(Chapter 1), although Mr. Varicella, consistently, albeit privately, denied such rumors. ( Interview with Christamar Varicella)  Mr. Varicella could not be reached for comment.

Had he responded to my emails, Varicella might have learned of an even more egregious case of malfeasance committed by one of his star journalists.  That’s right (here comes the big one), Purvis McGrew (it is now going to come to light) committed outright plagiarism in his August 26 letter to Ayn Rand (found here) in which he claimed to have invented the philosophy of Insectivism.  As part of his philosophy, Mr. McGrew states, “man cannot exist independently of insects, and that the central purpose of life is to strive toward the happiness, not of the individual, but of the individual insect.” 

Compare this to the philosophy of Insectivism created by one Professor Ellington Sinclair (Boom!), whose philosophy was espoused in a review by the Daily Brass’s own Sally Putterman (Boom! Boom!), who wrote her July article, Review: A Bug Story, “Most importantly, the Professor developed the philosophy of Insectivism, whereby he established that a) reality does not exist independently of insects,  b) human beings can not escape direct contact with insects, and c) that the central moral purpose of life is the pursuit not of your own happiness, but of the happiness of insects.”

That’s right!  Not only did Mr. McGrew, take credit for a philosophy that was not his, he plagiarized one of his own co-workers, and his co-worker covered it up! Boom!  Boom!  Boom!  You feel that, Sally?  That’s bombs dropping!  Eat it, Daily Brass!  Eat it Sally Putterman!  Eat it Christamar Varicella and all your other little minions!  You have been Butterized!  You can’t fire me!  I’ll take all you Bitches down!  The Butterman can cause he thinks it feels good to make you all eat shit!  I did it, Ma!  I got ‘em!  I’m champion of the world!

Al Butterman is a former book reviewer for the Daily Brass. 
See also:Review:The Mucus Stain, Review of Sally Putterman's Review of Al Butterman's Novel, New Details Emerge in Plagiarism Scandal

8 comments:

  1. You had your chance! I tried to warn you, but would you listen to good old Al? Nooooooo

    ReplyDelete
  2. You emailed 4000 times, mostly rambling messages begging for your job back, which by the way, I probably would have given you, had you not continued on like a crazy person

    ReplyDelete
  3. You were going to give me my job back?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Can I have it back now?

    ReplyDelete