At 01:56 PM 6/2/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Rachel Myr <[log in to unmask]> posted:
>I think the piece supposedly written by this teenager did not originate with
>him.  It all sounds very familiar; I am pretty sure I have read something
>very like it before though I don't remember where.  It is also the line of a
>Dilbert cartoon from several years ago, in which Dilbert's response to a
>woman breastfeeding, is to pee in a flowerpot in the same room.  Isn't that
>hilarious?
>The boy's attitude is regrettable; if he is committing plagiarism to
>communicate his attitude, it is reprehensible.

I wondered about the plagiarism aspect as well and did a web search on
several phrases and sentences. Nothing turned up, but it does sound like a
rehash of various letters to the editor and other short pieces whining
about breastfeeding being immodest and so forth.

I'm guessing that this boy is adopting a sarcastic, cooler-than-thou
persona to impress his classmates with his "wit." If the gods are just,
this piece will haunt him in the future. He will hang his head in
mortification when he realizes that he actually committed his ignorance to
a public forum ... and imagined himself so clever. Oh, the shame of one's
teenage years! :-D

Ar any rate, in making his comparison to public urination, this boy is
missing that feeding the baby is not so much about the mother's need to
breastfeed as the baby's need to eat. He should compare apples to apples.
There are few or no restrictions on people's right to eat in public. Even
if someone's eating in a way we'd rather not see (e.g., pig-at-trough
style), we wouldn't dream of asking them to move to a restroom or anywhere
else. We'd simply look away.

regards,
Julia

Julia R. Barrett
Freelance Science Writer
Madison, Wisconsin
608-238-8409; [log in to unmask]

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