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Originally Posted by Cardus
What, specifically, did you find to be "complex?"
If this column -- and it is a column, not an article, which has a different purpose (and that is not directed at you) -- has "an unclear purpose," then it is a failed column, isn't it? An effective column has a clear purpose, intelligible to all.
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Whether it's a success or failure as a a column is up to the individual reader... I find it complex because Beyer simultaneously acknowledges a grudging respect for Wolfson's overall career accomplishment while simultaneously insinuating that there just has to be some illegal explanations for his turnaround work with horses coming to him from elsewhere.
It is also complex as it features a curious, possibly inadvertant, attack on the Wolfson family that will alienate Beyer from the vast pool of admirers and friends of Marty's father, the late Louis Wolfson. In the column, Beyer has chosen to give a very one-sided view of the legendary businessman and philanthropist with this line:
His father, Louis Wolfson, was a fabulously successful conglomerate builder and wheeler-dealer until he went to prison for securities fraud.
Beyer knows very well that the story of Affirmed's breeder-owner cannot be summarized, or tinted, as simply as that. It reads as a suggestion that the son should be viewed as summarily guilty
of something by association with some kind of reprobate father. That is grossly unfair and frankly, outrageous. The Louis Wolfson 'securities fraud' story is exceedingly involved, and in hindsight has been widely billed, more appropriately, as a governmental persecution. I would imagine that Marty Wolfson will be more upset by this odd cheap shot at his father's legacy than by anything else Beyer has accused him of circuitously.