Updates of a Sort

Chefest (Both sides celebrate)
I haven't posted on Che because others have done it better than I could. If you haven't already read Fontova's book, do it. I'm still harassing my library system to get it. With my reading habits, I can't afford to buy.

Anyway, I came across this on the Spanish language BBC Mundo. The interesting point is that, oh mi gosh, they actually had some negativity as they detailed Che, the man. In addition to describing him as arrogant, ill-tempered, and doctrinaire, but the big surprise comes when they quote Felix Rodriguez, former CIA operative and witness to Che's end.

"Hace 20 años una mujer se acercó a mí en Paris y me contó como cuando su hijo de 15 años fue condenado a muerte por escribir en contra del gobierno de Fidel Castro", cuenta Rodríguez.
Ella consiguió una audiencia con el Che y le rogó que lo dejara vivir. Era viernes y la ejecución estaba prevista para el lunes. Cuando el Che le preguntó el nombre del muchacho la madre creyó haber salvado la vida de su hijo. Él giró la cabeza y dirigiéndose a sus soldados gritó: 'Al hijo de esta señora fusílenlo hoy mismo para que su madre no tenga que esperar hasta el lunes', asegura el ex agente de la CIA.

"Twenty years ago, a woman came up to me in Paris and told me how her 15 year old son was condemned to death for writing against the government of Fidel Castro," Rodriguez states.
"She managed to get an audience with Che, and she ple d with him to let her son live. It was a Friday, and the execution was scheduled for Monday. When Che asked her for the name of her son, the mother thought she had saved his life. He turned his head and yelled out to his soldiers, 'This woman's son is to be executed today so that his mother does not have to wait 'til Monday...'"

Uh-huh, revolutionary "hero," uh-huh.

H/T Penultimos Dias

Cuban Health Study
A thought. I've posted about the John Hopkins study, the one with shades of Reich science about it. Well, since I'm in an anecdotal mood, I'd have to say that the study does not account for the perversity of the Cuban character. At least twenty years ago, I met an aunt of my grandmother's in Union City. She had just come from Cuba. She was about 96 and spent her days sitting in a rocking chair, smoking cigars and drinking rum, which habits she was said to have indulged in her whole life. Actually, every one of my relatives of that generation died well into their 80s. It is the American generations that are dropping well before that.

Cuban Food
Speaking of which, is there a more politically incorrect diet than the traditional Cuban one? Fat is one of the food groups, and everything is fried or stewed with a generous layer of oil. My very American daughter, brought up far from Miami by relatively Americanized me and her Cuban only by association father, was surprised that at college, no one fried their meat. Vegetables barely exist, unless it's the yuca you have with pork or the occasional root vegetable. I can honestly say that for the first twenty years of my life, a green bean was never served in my home. Until my teens I though salad consisted of papery iceberg lettuce, a couple of slices of tomatoes, and some foul tasting radishes. You served it as a species of prop when you laid out a big spread, but no one ate it. It's amazing we're all walking around. Good genes, as one commenter on another blog (my apologies, I seem to have developed CRS) pointed out.