Region Watches Custody Drama Near Climax

Mohawk Valley residents tuned in Thursday as the drama surrounding the Elian Gonzalez case appeared to be moving toward a movie-like-climax... What brought this custody case to its current level of attention is the United States' "abnormal relationship with Cuba," said Dennis Gilbert chairman of the Latin American Studies Committee and a sociology professor at Hamilton College. And "what is a terrible family-level tragedy gets transformed into something a lot worse because of this abnormal relationship," Gilbert said... Ultimately, however, "there's only one thing driving this, and that's domestic politics," Gilbert said.