Update on Ms. Yanor’s Site
This is pretty shameful. Maybe her blog page features an old column, but there’s no indication of that. Regardless, she shamefully has lifted entire sentences from this New York Times article without attribution. Here’s a chunk of her entry:
Schopenhauer wrote that its presence in a person’s heart was a clear sign of evil. but scientists who study schadenfreude take a more charitable view. however contemptible schadenfreude may seem, they say, we are programmed to feel it. when an event happens, say, in the form of a sudden job loss, the argument goes, people are prone to the same emotions they might experience if that overpaid colleague of theirs got into trouble with the boss. of course, not everyone feels schadenfreude at the same events or to the same degree. research has shown that people with low self-esteem are more susceptible to schadenfreude than those whose self-regard is high. and while some may bask in this glee unapologetically, others might quickly feel ashamed of it, and successfully shut off their schadenfreude valves.
And here’s the original source material that she stole from:
Philosophers through the ages have pondered the nature of schadenfreude. Schopenhauer wrote that its presence in a person’s heart was a clear sign of evil…But scientists who study schadenfreude take a more charitable view. However contemptible schadenfreude may seem, they say, we are programmed to feel it…
When that event comes, say, in the form of a Congressional investigation into possible insider trading, the argument goes, people are prone to the same emotions they might experience if that overpaid colleague of theirs got into trouble with the boss.
Of course, not everyone feels schadenfreude at the same events or to the same degree. Research has shown that people with low self-esteem are more susceptible to schadenfreude than those whose self-regard is high. And while some may bask in this glee unapologetically, others might quickly feel ashamed of it, and successfully shut off their schadenfreude valves.
Inexplicably, she’s dispensed with proper grammar and punctuation in her weblog entry. Is this to conceal her crime or just to personalize the material?
This isn’t the original act of plagiarism that Ms. Yanor was caught for–that was a piece about snowboarding baby-boomers. Given that piece and how freely she steals from the Times here, I wonder just how often she’s ‘borrowed’ her column from another source. You’d think that after this story broke to the national media, she might take this particular theft off her site.
UPDATE: As somebody pointed out in the comments, Ms. Yanor has removed all of the content from her site. I expected this, so I saved a copy of the schadenfreude essay discussed above. You can see it here.
Maggie 
moxee 
morph 
erica 
Allan 
Braddy 
Darryl