Josh Daniel and Nurith Aizenman
Lame Duck Longings for Jack Van Impe
By Josh Daniel
Posted Thursday, March 30, 2000, at 7:59 PM ETAren't these final B-Table messages odd? Rushing to get through a last batch of proposals and notions before our term ends. So this is what it feels like to be a lame duck.
As a matter of public policy, I'll frankly admit I don't know what to do about tobacco. I do find it distressing that as a nation we don't have the will to outlaw the stuff but are content to allow our state officials to sue the pants off the companies that make it.
Personally, I try not to be a Smoking Nazi. This is partly by inclination but also because there are, in my experience, few smokers in Seattle. This is the only place I've ever seen bars actually feel the need to advertise: "Smoking!" (OK, I've only seen one bar do that, but that's one more than in Austin or Houston, where I've also lived.)
Through the magic of digital cable, I now get approximately 47,000 channels on my television, but not one of them carries the Jack Van Impe Ministry show. Thanks to you, though, I can now walk next door to my publisher's office and suggest Slate's new marketing slogan. "Slate: A Fantastically Loopy Apocalyptic Take on the Week's News." I hope you won't mind.
Tomorrow I'll be in the office early-ish as we finish up Slate
on Paper, the weekly document that comprises most of what was in the magazine for the previous week. It's a bit of a relic, but a few readers still like it. Then we'll have a story meeting in the late morning, I'll work on the 100+ e-mails still in my inbox, and if all goes well, hope to knock off a bit early in the afternoon to pull on my jackboots and find some smokers to beat up.
It's been a blast. I'm even more anxious than usual to get my next TNR. Do keep in touch.
Josh
P.S. Cholesterol? Won't know for a couple days, actually. But when the nurse drew my blood this morning, he made some crack about my veins looking like a "butter churn." Does that sound bad?
Lame Duck Longings for Jack Van Impe
By Josh Daniel
Posted Thursday, March 30, 2000, at 7:59 PM ETNurith Aizenman is exective editor at the New Republic Josh Daniel is managing editor at Slate.
Reader Response from The Fray:
As a lawyer, I instinctively recoiled from Nurith Aizenman's implication that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Op-Ed piece in the Times should be taken with a grain of salt because he's pals with Fidel. The reason such information would not be admissible in court is that it's irrelevant. And even if it were somehow relevant to the issue of whether the United States should tacitly participate in a kidnapping, the nexus between this particular policy debate and the opinions of a Colombian novelist is too attenuated to overcome the tendency of such information to push the buttons of those already predisposed to react viscerally to anything or anyone even casually associated with the Castro phenomenon.
Frankly, the story baffles me. As a legal question it's a no-brainer. Neither the laws of the United States nor the laws of Cuba nor the laws of Florida nor International law (such as it is) allows kidnapping. What really fascinates me about this story is the collective hand-wringing at the Justice Department over the weird (and plausibly dangerous) fanaticism of the Miami partisans who are protecting the kidnappers. Marquez's piece is important in the details it provides that traditional news outlets either didn't know or didn't care to report.
--Stephen McLeod
(To reply, click
here.)
(3/29)
Pity the piece on Oscar acceptance speeches couldn't be pulled together in time [see Wednesday's entry]. I imagine that there were so many angles to play that the writer couldn't settle into an approach. He or she could have:
Offered a rewrite of some of the more banal or self-important speeches.
Decoded some of the tropes used in speeches.
Wondered why actors couldn't deliver a better speech performance (they've just been honored for being the best performer of the year in their category).
Wondered why writers--of all people--seem to make some of the lamest speeches. You'd think they'd be souls of brevity and wit.
Called for the elimination of long lists of names to thank. It can't be that every year, every winning film got made because every producer had the courage and the vision to support this project when no one else would.
Organized a Slate contest: let readers write acceptance speeches for nominees--the worst speech possible or the most truthful speech that no-one dare give.
But what the heck, the awards season will be back. With a vengeance. Your writer can even do the piece now, save it, and then fine tune it in time for the next show. It's not like things are going to change next time around; only the names, alas, will change.
--Nick Carbone
(To reply, click
here.)
[Thank you Mr Carbone. Naturally we re-wrote your post, shortened it and took out all the thank-yous.]
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Reader Response from The Fray:
As a lawyer, I instinctively recoiled from Nurith Aizenman's implication that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Op-Ed piece in the Times should be taken with a grain of salt because he's pals with Fidel. The reason such information would not be admissible in court is that it's irrelevant. And even if it were somehow relevant to the issue of whether the United States should tacitly participate in a kidnapping, the nexus between this particular policy debate and the opinions of a Colombian novelist is too attenuated to overcome the tendency of such information to push the buttons of those already predisposed to react viscerally to anything or anyone even casually associated with the Castro phenomenon.
Frankly, the story baffles me. As a legal question it's a no-brainer. Neither the laws of the United States nor the laws of Cuba nor the laws of Florida nor International law (such as it is) allows kidnapping. What really fascinates me about this story is the collective hand-wringing at the Justice Department over the weird (and plausibly dangerous) fanaticism of the Miami partisans who are protecting the kidnappers. Marquez's piece is important in the details it provides that traditional news outlets either didn't know or didn't care to report.
--Stephen McLeod
(To reply, click here.)
(3/29)
Pity the piece on Oscar acceptance speeches couldn't be pulled together in time [see Wednesday's entry]. I imagine that there were so many angles to play that the writer couldn't settle into an approach. He or she could have:
Offered a rewrite of some of the more banal or self-important speeches.
Decoded some of the tropes used in speeches.
Wondered why actors couldn't deliver a better speech performance (they've just been honored for being the best performer of the year in their category).
Wondered why writers--of all people--seem to make some of the lamest speeches. You'd think they'd be souls of brevity and wit.
Called for the elimination of long lists of names to thank. It can't be that every year, every winning film got made because every producer had the courage and the vision to support this project when no one else would.
Organized a Slate contest: let readers write acceptance speeches for nominees--the worst speech possible or the most truthful speech that no-one dare give.
But what the heck, the awards season will be back. With a vengeance. Your writer can even do the piece now, save it, and then fine tune it in time for the next show. It's not like things are going to change next time around; only the names, alas, will change.
--Nick Carbone
(To reply, click here.)
[Thank you Mr Carbone. Naturally we re-wrote your post, shortened it and took out all the thank-yous.]