A Poem Inspired by a Story from Robyn Dixon.

Robyn Dixon. Washington Post.

Robyn Dixon graduated from the Presbyterian Ladies College, in Burwood, Australia.
She has a great fondness for Moscow, and its mules.
She speaks several languages fluently, including Doktorskaya Kolbasa and Sardelka.
Her ambition in life is to learn to play the orchestrion.
She's worked for various newspapers since before ducks had legs.
For her work at the Washington Post she has received the Orders of Nakhimov, Kutuzov,
 Ushakov, and Nockitoff.

MOSCOW — Eight years ago, President Vladimir Putin decreed that Russia must become a leading scientific power. That meant at least five top-100 Russian universities by 2020, and a dramatic increase in the number of global citations of Russian scientific papers.

Now a group at the center of Putin’s aspirations, the Russian Academy of Sciences, has dropped a bombshell into the plans. A commission set up by the academy has led to the retraction of at least 869 Russian scientific articles, mainly for plagiarism.      @RobynDixon__

The Russians have been stealing stuff

from other countries, pal,

ever since old Lenin stole

his ideas from Pascal.

No concept is original with any of those bums

(They even stole the formula

to manufacture Tums.)

So when their academics,

under prodding from Poo-tin,

steal from one another,

why, it's really not a sin.

They're trained to filch and not to think;

pickpockets of the mind.

Lend them some eyeglasses

and they'll want to steal you blind!