It was 26 years ago when the Specials released that kickass song "Free Nelson Mandela". Given that song's success at getting Mandela freed after "twenty-one years in captivity", it's pretty obvious that the road to fame and fortune leads straight through getting somebody or other freed. So why not Adam Wheeler?At any rate, Wheeler is not the most unlikely of posterboys for Generation Y. Of my friends who are now professors, they all have stories of catching dopey students in ham-fisted plagiarism attempts. Given the frequency of professors catching plagiarism, one has to assume that the numbers of students who aren't idiots who engage in plagiarism without getting caught is probably immense.
And then he polished his resume a bit? This is a generation that has been taught that it's only the resume that matters - not the work that goes into it. If you get the grade, what does it matter if you've actually learned anything or, you know, grown as a person through intellectual achievement, or whatever. (And if Adderoll is going to help you get that grade, might as well add it to the mix.) And I'm always shocked at the number of people who have joined a club or organization just to attend one or two meetings and then add their membership to their resumes. So Wheeler may be a little more extreme, but maybe he's really a mirror in which a troubled generation.
So, go ahead, Specials, write your song for Wheeler - I'm sure you'll have plenty of Gen Yers willing to buy it.
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