Josh Daniel and Nurith Aizenman

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

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(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

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[Thank you Mr Carbone. Naturally we re-wrote your post, shortened it and took out all the thank-yous.]