Cheating

1. I thought the following article about the story of Adam Wheeler was interesting.  In summary, Adam Wheeler lied and cheated his way to a scholarship at Harvard, and was only caught years later when he sent in a plagiarized essay on his Rhodes Scholar application.  One of my reactions was to wonder how many people like him are out there, only they haven't been caught yet.
2. I recently bought the book Freakonomics from the DI for $3.  One of the chapters deals with cheating.  One point at the end of the chapter was particularly striking.  It dealt with an innovative bagel selling business.  Bagels were delivered daily to various offices for sale to the employees.  A box was left and those in the office were expected to pay on the honor system.  The man who started this business was able to get payment rates around 90%.  It was clear, however, that all businesses were not the same as far as how honestly they paid for the bagels.  The most striking example to me was that of an office with three floors--an executive floor and two lower floors with sales, service, and administrative employees.  The floor that cheated the most was the executive floor, even though executives presumably can more easily spare the cost of a bagel.  The bagel business owner posited that this stemmed from an increased sense of entitlement.  The author of the book, however, suggested that they were executives because they cheated their way there.
3. I recently watched the latest season of Survivor.  The theme of the season was Heroes vs. Villians; past contestants were invited back based on either demonstrating outstanding heroic or outstanding villainous character. My favorite contestant--and clearly if not everyone's favorite, certainly the most entertaining contestant--was Russell, and he was a villain.  It's not really possible to "cheat" on Survivor, but if it were, Russell would have done it.  Through a Machiavellian strategy of lies and intimidation, he was able to avoid being voted out, making the final tribal council.  At this tribal council, the jury, composed of losing contestants, voted between him and two other people to see who would win the game.  Russell's strategy so angered his fellow contestants that he received no votes.  It appears "cheating" came back to bite him.  (Incidentally, America voted him the player of the season, thereby awarding him $100,000.)
4. In the Book of Mormon, it talks about "secret combinations".  Secret combinations are essentially corrupt secret organizations, like a gangs, mobs, etc.  In light of these thoughts about cheating, I see that one of the main characteristics of a secret combination is that its members are trying to cheat--break the rules of honest society in order to gain power and money.  Applying this to smaller scale situations, any time a person is cheating, they are forming their own secret combination.
5. I am currently working as a teaching assistant for an introductory statistics class.  The professor for this class seems a little more diligent about cheating compared with other professors I have worked for.  It is amazing how many people are cheating.  Students consistently try to pull schemes like having a smart friend take their exam in their stead, changing their answers on an exam and then asking for a regrade, etc.  What a sad situation.
6. May we take the high road and avoid cheating in all its forms.