I was reading an article in The Boston Globe today about the latest trend in plagiarism. Apparently, copying is not just for smart Harvard girls getting a $500,000 book deal. Everyday dumb people are doing it, too. Seems the popular thing is to: A) rip off content that isn't your own; B) republish it on the web under a different name; C) don't tell the original creator.

This had me livid and I thought, "Jeez, you must be pretty desperate to rip off someone else's blog posting."

Then I noticed on the inbound links to Manic Mommies.com a web site called The Marraige Bed. There, someone had republished my blog posting "My Husband Does His Own Laundry. Really." Apparently, I had the words married and bed in the same paragraph, giving someone the idea that my post about laundry was somehow relevant to...well...other things.

I don't really want my content on a site called The Marraige Bed. And I don't want cyber freaks taking my words, or Kristin's words, and republishing them. Links are one thing. Republishing is another.

But in the Wild West of Cyberspace, anything can and does happen. We're not looking to get rich or famous (well, Kristin might be). We're really just two moms who happen to (I'm stealing an expression here from this week's People Magazine article about Celine Dion) podcast "a little." Yet we don't make a single cent doing it. So why exactly do we spend so much of our "spare" time blogging and podcasting? Damned if I know.

One day Kristin and I were in my kitchen and our sons, who are both 4, were playing outside. They were sparring over a toy of some sort when my son stopped what he was doing, looked Kristin's son square in the eye and said "If you don't give me back that toy, I am not going to do the podcast with you ever again!"

Classic. That can't be copied.