Deep Thoughts

I've just been sick over all this racial tension lately. One cannot hold all individual members of any group (police, blacks, whites, males, females, Muslims, Catholics, vegetarians ;) , or anyone else) accountable for the actions of a few, unless that entire group has declared that whatever is done/said is that group's policy/belief (Westboro Baptists, terrorist groups, etc.).

I'm so disappointed and saddened to hear racist hate speech from a loud few- on both sides. To simply distill incredibly complicated issues down to "cops vs. blacks" or "black vs. white" leaves many issues that need improvement to be ignored.

Relieved to see the majority of people expressing their thoughts peacefully and avoiding further violence. I see people reaching out to each other in day-to-day life as well.

Switching to another topic du jour... Melania Trump's speech. Obviously several sentences were lifted from Michelle Obama's speech. Also obvious- it couldn't have been done intentionally, unless there's a traitor in the campaign, with a plan to make them all look foolish. The source wasn't some obscure book they figured no one would ever realize had been plagiarized. It was a very public speech, so well liked that someone simply remembered it from years ago and immediately pointed out the error.

Important speeches like Mrs. Trump's are written by a team and analyzed over and over for accuracy, grammar and also specifically for unintentional copying from other speeches/text. My high school journalism teacher posted a link on Facebook to this TIME article that explains this very point.

How Melania Trump's Plagiarism Happened

They keep saying no one will be fired, but that person should absolutely be out today. If an epic blunder like this isn't punishable by firing, what is? If your job is speech writer, this should be the biggest learning moment of your speech writing life.

Bright side- maybe you'll get a funny nickname out of it for the rest of your career. In insurance sales.