January 17, 2005
In a rather interesting turn of events, the Fernando and Nate Blog has been deleted. All that’s left on the site is a message that indicates the blogger was asked to remove the blog. Since he or she directs people to Oprah.com for further information, and since Oprah is notoriously succesful at retaining exclusive rights to people’s stories, it seems likely that the request is Oprah or Harpo legal-team related.
January 17, 2005 at 6:09 pm
No doubt! Amazing how Oprah capitilizes on every opportunity! No wonder she’s a billionaire and we aren’t! It’s all about the ratings for her. Business as usual.
January 17, 2005 at 9:00 pm
OMG i have been visiting that site since the Tsunami to keep track on what’s happening to Nate and Fernando and now it’s gone. And i agreed with you that it’s probably Oprah’s doing for business. She wants her site to have more hits etc. because she knows that many people are visiting that blog instead.
How about this Nick, you continue where she or he left up, and see if Oprah does something about your site….but i doubt it..And we still have no idea who’s the writer of that blog.
January 18, 2005 at 2:12 am
Wow! She’s powerful. I’ve been an active visitor to that site too. It was so healing. Removing that site was very selfish. Her site is no replacement to the blogspot. I will miss all the friends I made there.
Stephanie
January 18, 2005 at 2:13 am
I don’t necessarily think it was Oprah’s doing. She’s not losing viewers to a somewhat obscure weblog. I don’t know who would’ve asked that the site be taken down, but the story’s been told and if by some miracle Fernando is found alive, it will be front page news everywhere.
But then again, it did seem to disappear the day Nate was on Oprah (making me weep). Maybe you’re right.
January 18, 2005 at 2:44 am
I stumbled across this website today after seeing Nate on Oprah.
I never saw the blog before it was taken down. Sometimes Oprah irritates me, but I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt on this as I think (hope) she genuinely cares about him. Is it possible that something in the blog could have been considered bad taste?? (again, I never saw it)
Going back a bit, I personally wouldn’t fault Oprah for using whatever term they heard coming from Nate. I also can’t blame Nate for having a public and private face either–that isn’t a reflection of his love for Fernando, it just is a reflection of society and the desire to survive.
Speaking of which, it amazes me how many people I’ve talked to about Nate, who think ‘partner’ is referring to a business relationship. So maybe friend is a better term afterall.
January 18, 2005 at 4:45 am
Do you see the making of another “golden calf”? Celebrity worship is scary to me. Watching one being created out of the ashes of such sorrow and loss is making me feel sick. I truly don’t think Nate is aware and I pray he doesn’t get caught in the $$$$and fame machine.
January 18, 2005 at 5:53 am
To see how they turned & used this story for ratings makes me mad! ‘crisis, crisis, crisis’ her producer screamed! I bet they were worried about Nate’s sexuality being 100%publicised at that hour so they implemented that ‘friend’ strategy that totally failed! Looks like this pity seeking show might have done it. They are out to get viewers, thats what its about.
January 18, 2005 at 6:01 am
That show had a hidden agenda. Manipulation at its best!
January 18, 2005 at 9:42 am
Freedom thru Knowledge:
go here and see the orginal web log …..
http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:_UJeaIB07MwJ:fernandoandnate.blogspot.com/+fernandoandnate+blog&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
please download this so they can’t eliminate it.
They can try to erase the mind but they can’t eliminate SPIRIT~!!
Go Forth in LOVE!!!
January 18, 2005 at 9:43 am
That’s too bad. I was looking forward to reading everyone’s posts today. It’s Nate’s story…not Oprah’s. What a disappointment.
January 18, 2005 at 12:04 pm
Good grace…you can still access some pages via google’s cache method…
http://www.google.ca/search?q=+site:fernandoandnate.blogspot.com+fernandoandnate&hl=en&lr=&start=0&sa=N&filter=0
January 18, 2005 at 1:29 pm
I still don’t get it. What’s wrong with a few people discussing what happened? And passing on information to each other? I don’t see the harm. btw, never heard one word on the show yesterday about the elite ex-marines. And a very touching picture with Fernando and his nieces and nephews.
January 18, 2005 at 3:37 pm
They did on the after show,
watch it. Ellen mobilised that team.
January 18, 2005 at 9:10 pm
where does the after show usually come on? I think it comes on Oxygen, which Dish network sadly does not get, so I missed it, sadly.
January 19, 2005 at 8:32 am
I don’t get why that site was removed. The person that managed that blog was pretty good about eliminating any posts in bad taste and even edited out some of Emma’s letter.
This site received news prior to the Oprah site such as Emma’s letter, maybe they want to control the information released to the public.
January 19, 2005 at 9:27 am
Did anyone else happen to catch Anderson Cooper “360″ (it really ought to be called 345, at best) last night? I rolled my eyes through the entire hour, waiting ohso patiently for the Nate segment, which they were previewing every five minutes(!), to finally air. Instead, I got an excessive (too many angles, thanks) report on a rather washed up subject, the sexual abuse of children in cults… which, though it would have made a very poor segue into Nate’s story, was infinitely worse as a rushed intro to Paula Zahn. Frustrating! Is this bait and drop thing an oft-emplyed tactic at the Cooper show?
Also frustrating is the deleted blog thing. I could have trusted it to keep me in the know about whatever coverage he was getting, but now to whom do I turn? We all want to know how Nate is doing: the media made us feel this way, and now they’re going to abandon us? Probably.
January 19, 2005 at 1:31 pm
M:
I, too, was going to rely on the blog to keep me informed. I guess we’ll all just have to keep each other informed!
January 19, 2005 at 2:26 pm
As you may have already noticed, y’all are welcome to use this as a place to stay informed. As long as someone posts new information, that is.
You can also email me with new info and I’ll post it on the front page so more people see it without having to click through all the old comments.
I promise I won’t be going away anytime soon.
January 19, 2005 at 4:16 pm
First of all, thanks Nick for letting us continue to congregate…
I know Fernando is not a lost child, but this made my heart skip a beat…if stories like this continue maybe there is still hope…
http://tinyurl.com/5o2l5
January 20, 2005 at 3:56 pm
I wonder if you’ll regret having opened your website up to us, Nick, if, months from now, dozens of us are still e-tapping on your shoulder saying, “hey, Nick, I just read on someone’s post at http://www.blahblahyadda.com that said they know someone who met the cousin of Nate’s dog-sitter, and he said…”. Thanks for being our outlet!
Following celebrity is so foreign to me. It feels incredibly strange. However, as long as there are Oprah Magazines for me to thumb through while I’m in the grocery line, and as long as the tsunami is still in the public consciousness, I will continue to be reminded of Nate on a daily basis. I can’t help it, and I don’t want to help it.
I think, maybe, Anderson Cooper will play his interview in the next couple of days. Surely CNN wouldn’t just altogether scrap a perfectly pertinent and moving story.