Sunday Preps

In the Pink. On the obligatory election front, Star Parker asks why education has not been raised in the current campaign as part of the workers' problems everyone is so concerned about. Well, Star, the current campaign is not about what you can do for yourself but rather what can be done for you. Read it here.

On the Money. Regarding the present political discussion, "media expert" and Hillary supporter cries foul over the coverage bestowed on Obama. And in the TMI department, in the halcyon days of my youth I possessed a very flattering French cut T with "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore" on it. Ah, life. Figure out the connection here.

From the Divine. In the alarmist coverage of natural phenomenon, we have the headline on this press release from the University of Sydney. Yes, folks, the death star could be nigh. Oh, no, gamma rays! Read the whole thing. It's actually quite interesting. And if you want to see the menace, go here.

To the Sublime. Michael McFaul has an incisive analysis of Putin's legacy in Newsweek. And with the added information from news reports that workers were pressured to vote openly in their workplaces, a certain parallel comes to mind.

In the End. Seems Reuters only recently discovered Cuba is no shopper's paradise. I've been holding on to this one for a few weeks. And I'm sure Belka Martinez never said, "we have knickers." I'll bet on it. Read it here.

A Bit of Prose for You

"We live in an unhappy period when the government wants to use its legislative powers to tell us how to lead our live. It wants to tell us what to eat and drink, what to smoke and how we cross the road. Children are not allowed to grow fat and if they do they are snatched from their families and put into a home. If you smoke cigarettes, you won't be treated by the doctor.

'There are plans afoot to turn us into a nation of vegans who drink carrot juice and go on hiking tours to the Lake District. This case is an object lesson in the form of tyranny. It's geared to send a man to prison for eating a slice of pie.

-Horace Rumpole in John Mortimer's latest, Rumpole Misbehaves

There's a Book in There Somewhere

"He brought joy to my mother when he was around," .... "Only my grandmother called him the devil."

-Alina Fernandez on her mother's relationship with Fidel Castro, quoted in an article about her recent visit to a local school by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Reading this brief report reminded me of Havana Dreams: The Story of a Cuban Family written by Wendy Gimbel, who if memory serves is half Cuban herself. It's been nearly ten years since I read it, but I remember its haunting quality. Ostensibly the story of the Revuelta family- Alina, her mother, and her grandmother- it is so much more.

It is a story about Cuba, identity, and the ties that bind. A century or so of Cuban history is intertwined in the lives of these women, placed as they were in the center of the storm. From Doña Natica's immigrant roots to Naty's illicit affair with Castro to the birth of the illegitimate Alina to her defection to her elder sister's decision to repudiate her Cuban heritage, each woman's story revolves around the question of identity. The grandmother sits in the ruins of their once fine house like a Cuban Miss Havisham, a fury continually lashing out at the wayward daughter who brought them so low, the daughter who like many rolled the dice on a dashing young revolutionary and lost. The long suffering Naty is perhaps the most pitiable, having risked all for nothing. The younger generation makes their way to the United States where each chooses a different path. Even the author mulls her own identity.

Yet nothing in the book rings as true as the family dynamics here, as there is nothing more Cuban that the tolerance Naty has for the querulous Natica. One could argue it is an unconscious form of expiation, but whatever the motivation it is more than representative of the iron bonds of the Cuban family. If you missed it when it was first published, read it. There's the added bonus of fifo's love letters at the end.

H/T The Real Cuba

Yes, She Will

Got this in the mail from Human Events. It is witty: it is incisive. Monica Crowley has been on fire lately about the Clintons. How about lesson number 2 from Tuesday's results?

In order to win, she has to club the baby seal to death. And she's willing to do it. Now that she's got a bit of momentum, she must bring him low. She must attack him on every front. She must go negative. Expect more "do you really trust him to answer the red phone at 3am" ads. Expect more "Obama in native dress" photos. Expect to hear more about Tony Rezko -- who just went on trial this week in Chicago for corruption and fraud -- and his association with Obama. Expect to hear more of the fact that he's a Syrian immigrant, who made 26 trips between Damascus and Chicago from 2003 to 2006. Expect to hear additional Arab names associated with Rezko in this web of corruption -- and perhaps in the orbit of Obama.

Crowley keeps this up, and I'm starting a fan club. Read it here.

Who's Been Reading the Cubiches?

I belong to that endangered species, the Bushies. I confess, I like the President. I think he has been misunderestimated and misjudged. He has handled the economy well, shepherding us to a soft landing after the tech bubble. Can we say, Tax Cut? After years of promises, it was President Bush who finally helped seniors with prescriptions. It was the conservative Bush who got "No Child Left Behind" passed. And for all those who complain about "teaching to the test," ask yourselves what is on the tests? Basic skills every American child should have. And Iraq. Iraq was a huge gamble. And it is not lost. Every Al Queda in Iraq member who died is one less in the Western world, plotting. That does not mean that he and his government have not proven incompetent in many ways. That he has left in force wet foot/dry foot.

Now in the twilight of his presidency, he has used his bully pulpit to draw attention to the plight of Cubans, to the injustice with which they live. For this, I will be grateful. I also note that someone on the staff has been reading around the blogosphere. I leave you with this quote from an article about his comments after his meeting today:

The president said the global community has largely remained silent in recent months, even as dozens of young Cubans wearing "change" bracelets were arrested, as Cuban authorities raided a Catholic church to spray parishioners with tear-gas and drag them away. Last weekend, activists distributing copies of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights were pushed and beaten.

"That same week, Cuba signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," Bush said. "The international community applauded Cuba for signing a piece of paper — but on the abuses that same week, much of the world was silent."

Bush has renewed his focus on Cuba since Fidel Castro officially stepped down last month after decades ruling the island. Fidel's brother, Raul, took over as president in the ailing leader's place. He had been provisional president since his brother, who led the nation for nearly a half a century, underwent emergency surgery in July 2006.

But Bush said any speculation that the leadership shift would affect U.S. policy toward Cuba "is exactly backward."
"So far, all Cuba has done is replace one dictator with another," the president said. "This is the same system, the same faces, and the same policies that led Cuba to its miseries in the first place."

An Honorable Man

Nothing is inevitable in America. We are the captains of our fate. We're not a country that prefers nostalgia to optimism; a country that would rather go back than forward. We're the world's leader, and leaders don't pine for the past and dread the future. We make the future better than the past. We don't hide from history. We make history. That, my friends, is the essence of hope in America, hope built on courage, and faith in the values and principles that have made us great. I intend to make my stand on those principles and chart a course for our future greatness, and trust in the judgment of the people I have served all my life. So stand up with me, my friends, stand up and fight for America -- for her strength, her ideals, and her future. The contest begins tonight. It will have its ups and downs. But we will fight every minute of every day to make certain we have a government that is as capable, wise, brave and decent as the great people we serve. That is our responsibility and I will not let you down.

-John McCain in Texas after winning enough delegates to cinch the Republican nomination. Full text at Townhall.com here.

Battered Wife Syndrome

Not too long ago, Humberto Fontova jokingly used this term to describe the press’ relationship to the regime. I was reminded of it when I read this article at the Chicago Tribune website today about the “wait and see” attitude many, inside Cuba and out, are taking to the new face of the same old regime. Despite being pretty wide ranging, there were some golden nuggets, one in particular, hit me: (my boldface)

While some citizens have expressed their displeasure at the slow pace of change, including an exchange between university students and Cuban officials that showed up on YouTube, conversations on the street and U.S. analysts indicate that many suffer from a sort of Castro fatigue, the result of five decades of authoritarian rule that stifles aspirations for change.

So to Battered Wife Syndrome we can now add Castro Fatigue, a real phenomenon. What are the contributing factors? There is the very real physical fear. Even as the ink on those two human rights accords the misgovernment recently signed dried, dissidents were being beaten. Political prisoners convicted of “pre-criminal dangerousness” languished in conditions that make a resort spa of the American prison in Guantanamo. There is also the range of more subtle repercussions, like job loss, loss of rations, the inability of your children to get in certain programs, etc….

Then there is the subsistence anxiety. Like the political progeny of Josef Stalin that they are, the regime has figured out that people who spend their lives trying to acquire enough to eat have little time or energy to worry about abstractions like their rights. Remember Maslow’s triangle? To its credit, this preoccupation with the necessities of daily life is one that the report raises, quoting Martha Beatriz Roque:

"The Cuban people are very tired," Roque said. "The Cuban is worried about the problems that fall on him every day: a missing cord for electricity, a missing pipe for the sink. There isn't enough for anything else."

Of course, this could also be a happy accident of the regime’s mismanagement of the economy.

There’s another factor, though, not mentioned in the article. One can only imagine the effect of being bombarded by propaganda that denies your reality. Up is down; down is up. Bad is good; good is bad. Language loses meaning, and the reference posts human beings normally use to measure what is real are upended.

So is Castro fatigue a mass version of battered wife syndrome? It starts slowly; take away rich people’s belongings, the first slap. Close down a few newspapers, the slap that wasn’t going to happen again. Before you know it, you live in a prison. Little by little, you’ve closed door upon door in your mind. You’ve adjusted, learned to resolver. So intent are you just on surviving, you no longer know how the rest of the world lives. Their experience has no bearing on your reality. In the end, you look like Hedda Nussbaum and don’t even know it.

Something about the Internet

Caught a few episodes of “Download: The True Story of the Internet” on the Discovery Science Channel. Last night’s program, ostensibly about the development of its social networking functions, made the point that the advent of YouTube and its ilk have made inroads into the traditional gatekeepers of media. The narrator fairly beamed as he touted the creativity and the vibrancy to be found on the net.

Yeah, I thought, that’s because it hasn’t ossified yet. Soon you’ll have to be related to Bill Gates or someone to put stuff up. ‘Cause it struck me. Think about it. Books used to be hot. Yeah, yeah, TV, video games, etc…. But when was the last time, you read a good book, not a “good” book, the kind you the Times tells you to read? There are maybe twenty authors out there whose work is enjoyable. Of course, those twenty authors have been writing for twenty years, and it shows. Gatekeepers.

Do you realize that some of our greatest writers just sent their work out to publishers? Try doing that today. Oh, no, you need to have an agent. Well, try getting an agent. They won’t read your stuff either. Years ago, in an experiment, the first chapters of some “classics” were sent to publishers. Nada. Gatekeepers.

The other aspect that has depressed book sales is the depression factor. Why is it that so many of the books published today are about the Millicent’s hangnail and its effect on her interpersonal relationships? Forget about books for teens. Just reading the blurbs on the back is enough to send someone into therapy. Aren’t there any happy teens? Doesn’t anyone grow up in a two parent household without alcoholism, violence, and bulimia? But that’s someone’s idea of good young adult lit. Gatekeepers.

I was watching a program on England’s Royals the other night. There was Anne Liebowitz doing a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. I remembered her explanation of how she started in the photo business, hanging around with the guys from Rolling Stone and taking some pictures for them, that is before they became a real magazine and she became a real photographer. And the likes of David Geffen started out hanging around with less than famous musicians. These same musicians could send DJ’s their demos and actually get airtime, if the DJ liked the stuff. Now you only get airtime if you go through a middle man. In the meantime, music sales are down and were on the way down before napster and itunes, etc… Gatekeepers.

I could go on; the same is true of TV, movies, journalism just about all of the arts. You either go the corporate/academic route or the “my father was a big producer” route. Not so on the internet. Yes, there is chaos, and there are regular joes in their underwear, but there is life, there is talent, and there are no gatekeepers.

Academic Freedom

Yup, there goes another field trip to Cuba. When is a foray into the totalitarian state a true academic exercise and when is it an exercise in propaganda? I need to know nothing else about the trip but the bare bones. Let's see... a group of eight students from the Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education...mmm. Oh well, what are they going to study in Cuba? Ah, the health care and educational system, the twin false successes of the regime. You can bet it's not going to be the health care system that lacks the very basics or the educational system which resorts to putting 17 year olds in front of classrooms. Nope.

I'm afraid I'll have to agree with Rep. Vito Fosella from NY:

"This is going to be used as a propaganda tool for Fidel Castro," Rep. Vito Fossella said yesterday in an interview. "If anything is going to be accomplished of significance, the visitors should ask Fidel Castro when he is going to liberalize the economy, release political prisoners and dissidents, and hold fair elections."

For the story, here.

Here's a Thought

Pero existe una lógica histórica inexorable. Un régimen que confiscó ilegítimamente las propiedades norteamericanas en Cuba, y se pasó al bando comunista en la Guerra Fría, y amenazó con misiles nucleares a Estados Unidos, y ejerció de rampa de lanzamiento del imperialismo soviético en el hemisferio, y ha acogido calurosamente a los prófugos de la justicia estadounidense, y ha presidido la retórica antinorteamericana durante medio siglo, no puede pretender que Washington, nada menos que Washington, le dé respiración asistida.

Un régimen que ha obligado a cerca del veinte por ciento de la población cubana a exilarse -calificándola de “mafia”, “escoria”, “vendepatria” y otras lindezas por el estilo-, no debería sorprenderse de que algunos de esos mismos exiliados, convertidos en políticos y funcionarios del gobierno de los Estados Unidos, aboguen por el endurecimiento de las sanciones. Es como clavarse un cuchillo y esperar que no brote la sangre. Se cosecha lo que se siembra. Debería saberlo Pérez Roque.

Translation (rough):
But there is an inexorable historical logic. A regime that illegally confiscated North American properties in Cuba, which enlisted on the Communist side during the Cold War, and threatened with nuclear missiles the United States, which served as a launching ramp for Soviet imperialism in the hemisphere, and has warmly welcomed American fugitives from justice, can not pretend to the assistance of Washington, Washington, no less.

A regime which has forced close to twenty percent of the population into exile- classifying them as "mafia," "scum," "traitors" and others such like- should not be surprised when some of those very same exiles, converted into politicians and functionaries of the government of the United States, advocate for the stiffening of sanctions. It's like stabbing yourself with a knife and not expecting to gush blood. Your reap what you sow. Perez Roque should know that.

- Armando Añel in a column about the parasitic nature of the Castro regime and it's latest anti-embargo campaign. Read the whole thing in Spanish here.

New Voices and the Same Questions

Predictably the "change" that occurred in Cuba over the weekend (which is no change at all because raul has been said to be governing for over a year and a half) has brought the fidelista apologists and anti-embargo blame the U.S. first crowd out of the woodwork.

But something else happened. A bunch of people also spoke out against the regime that don't normally talk about Cuba. The cartoons I posted below are a testament to the latent sentiments about castro that are out there among everyday Americans.

-Henry Gomez from "Am I Wrong" at Babalublog

No, Henry, you're right. Some of the voices emerging in media reports are those of Americans who spent an appreciable amount of time on the island in the preCastro era, cuando Cuba reia, so to speak. Last week I wrote about one woman's memories and impressions of Cuba, having lived there more than a decade. Then yesterday, I came across this one by Bill Gallo of the Daily News. He originally went to Cuba on his honeymoon. His stories of Cuba involving the stories of Jackie Robinson, Ernest Hemingway and others, are pretty interesting. But after the walk down memory lane, he turns to the present where he has a list of suggestions to raul. I have to reprint the whole thing because I got a kick out of some of them, Cuba in need of a paint job, and because of the last one:

I, along with many Cubans living in Florida, are starting to wonder what, if anything, is going to happen to Cuba now that Fidel has gone to milk the cows.

If I could get to see Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, the man who is supposed to run the country, I would sit him down and say this to him:

Raul, take a good look at Cuba and see how it's in dire need of a paint job. Give it back its beauty.

Tear down that veiled anti-American wall which has existed since 1958.

Let Sloppy Joe's reopen.

Polish the tables and chairs of places such as San Suisi and the Tropicana nightclubs.

Open the doors to Major League Baseball again.

Build gyms with all the necessary equipment so boxing can thrive and perhaps discover a hidden talent who can become a champion.

Give us back the Cuba with all its health, happiness and natural beauty. Give it back to us and the world. Give it a shine, Raul, and you can once again be proud of this land that can offer so much to a free people.

Read the whole column here.

Serendipity and a Small Surprise

So there I was last night, lounging around in front of the TV, watching my third night and umpteenth hour of "Build it Bigger" or "National Geographic Predators" or whatever the current incarnation of their animal program is called, and this was after my second viewing of the "Blue Planet" episode on coral, when I decided it was over. He's been watching TV with me these past few nights and has decided to assert himself. So it's been construction, carnivores, construction, carnivores, ad infinitum.

Me, I like documentaries, but they've been pretty boring lately. And he's not particularly fond of crime programs. Won't really watch "Sensing Murder" and absolutely hates "Monk." After wrestling the remote control away, I'm surfing when I discover "Cold Case." It's one of those programs I discover when they sell their reruns to the channels I troll. There's nothing as calming or reassuring as hitting one of those marathons of "Monk," "Law and Order: Criminal Intent," or one of the CSIs. This week I discovered "Mystery Woman" in the wee hours of the night.

So "Cold Case" is a fairly new discovery, but it's still on network TV. That is the episode I caught last night. The lead detective on the series is a toothsome young woman, but one of these detectives is a very cute young man. A woman calls a young man cute at two points in her life. When she is young, cute is synonymous with hot. Much later, cute becomes a motherly apellation, denoting a pleasant and sweet look.

You can imagine my surprise when in an episode about a young Amish man run amok (not one of their more riveting), the young detective tells the young man about being Cuban, about how his father came to this country at age 15 and also faced an unknown world, how you never really belong. Then he goes into the "Next year in Cuba" toast. It was pretty stilted as it always is when they try to inject the quasi political into these things. Still, for the first time there was a TV show on the side of the angels.

Turns out the young actor, Danny Pino, is one of those Miami Cuban boys made good. I shoulda known. And if you're an IMDB member- it's free- you can read the message boards where everybody knows his mother, brother, cousin, son. It's a pip. Small world.

Sunday Storylines

The Andromeda Strain. In keeping with all those stories that catch my eye about insidious diseases, there's this one about a man fighting meningoencephalitis brought on by a brain-eating amoeba in California. The amoeba which lives in the soil can become airborne. Scary. The story sent me off to do some research about the Roman baths in Bath, England, which were closed down due to a deadly amoeba. Seems to be a different organism, though.

Soylent Green. Here's an interesting story about the inaguaration of a seed vault in Norway. The vault will eventually house 4.5 million samples as part of a project to protect plant diversity from man made and natural disasters. Let's not forget that increasingly the types of seeds planted are pretty uniform. It joins another vault in England which preserves the seeds of wildflowers.

Deep Rising. Just when you thought the Kraken was a myth, you run into this old story about scientists in England revealing mysterious recordings of a very large biological life form in the deep, picked up in 1997 by US spy sensors. Some think it an immense squid, although scientists have pretty valid reasons not to think so. Don't ask me how I just stumbled upon it. Has anyone out there read anything else in the intervening years? Read the original story here.

National Treasure. And here's a story about Nazi gold. Well, it's about treasures, possibly including the famed Amber Room from Russia, seized by the Nazis and buried somewhere. Two treasure hunters are digging in Southeastern Germany for the lost goodies.

The Story of O. This one is for adults only. The "Today Show" informs us that men fake it, too. I kid you not. You have to read it to figure out the mechanics. You can do it here.

The Dictator Doth Protest Too Much

In his latest reflection, "comrade fidel" complains of a BBC dispatch that has him allegedly locked in a room with Raul, screaming at each other over their differences. The aforementioned dispatch had made barely a ripple, but by denying it, castro only calls attention to his perceived differences with his brother.

And speaking of calling attention, he ends the reflection with the clause "but I have no reason to be ashamed of that." What he's not ashamed of is unclear; the reference is ambiguous. It may be that he is reduced to writing, or it could be the volumes of material he has produced. I just find it interesting that the concept of shame, even if it's in denial of same, is introduced there at the end in a position of power.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave,/When first we practise to deceive!"

I refuse to link, but you might want to read this one if only for the amusement of seeing him seize on the lastest fad, the green movement, as he desperately scrabbles for some legitimacy.

Going Bookish

I have been a bad girl, I confess. I've been reading escapist stuff for the past few weeks. Every once in a while, like a wine taster cleaning his palate, I have to read some pure entertainment and clear my brain. Among the better entries:

Lady in Blue by Javier Serra. This one is deceptive, opening as it does with mystical experiences in the Southwest. I'd probably like to say that the ending is disappointing, but that would not do justice to the book which I enjoyed quite a bit. It's a good read, almost engrossing, beginning as it does with a combination of narratives about different characters in different locales in different eras a la Ludlum. Unusual.

T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton. I never miss an installment in her alphabetical mystery series featuring Kinsey Millhone. As I checked it out, I was told it was a bit different from the others, a bit more complex. It is different in that Grafton gives away much of the ending in the first few chapters. The question is how she's going to get there. And while I enjoy Kinsey's family of choice, landlord Henry and the rest of the crew, they form the central story here. I prefer them more as local color. And where's the boyfriend?

Hand of Evil by JA Jance. This is the third in the Ali Reynolds series. For the unitiated, Jance has at least three mystery series. My absolute favorite are the JP Beaumont novels, set in Seattle. There's also a pretty nifty Joanna Brady series set in the Southwest. Ali is a newer introduction. Burned by life, Ali returns to her hometown where she finds herself embroiled in not one but two mysteries. Any Jance is excellent, fast-paced and enjoyable reading, but I particularly enjoyed the dysfunction aspect in this one. By the way, Ali keeps a blog. Speaking of blogging, Jance has one on Amazon. It appears that there have been rumors she died. She apprises us that she is alive and kicking here on her blog.

Cuba News Round-up

There's been so much going on...

Which Raul? If you read the Babalublog post on the Newsmax article on Raul by Humberto Fontova, you might notice the slight omissions in the AP's bio of same. You know, his role as executioner, perhaps.

Again with the Snacks. I took exception to this one in an earlier incarnation. Fellas, the word snack implies in addition to three squares, a near impossibility in Cuba. To use this terminology creates and propagates a misunderstanding that can have serious ramifications for these same Cubans who haven't had a true snack in decades.

Who Stole the Cookie. For those of you that didn't know it, the US is to blame for Cuba's predicament. The many sins of the US apparently wipe out fifo's thievery, murder, nuclear threat, political oppression and economic mismanagement. Or so DeWayne Wickham seems to suggest, writing in USA Today. I've given up expecting anything factual from that source, but really. Read it. Know the enemy. Wickham also earns a lifetime membership in the tortured metaphor club with that book analogy.

Dear Jose. New York politician Jose Serrano, who was the only one of same who saw fit to issue a paean to a murderous dictator, might benefit from reading this open letter to the United States Congress by Rolando Jiménez Posada, one of those imprisoned in the Black Spring of 2003, particularly the part about asking for congressional support. Of course, he'll probably need a translator.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

The bond Cubans share on and off the island through the generations has been in the fore the past few days. The entreprenurial bent evident in those who fled to the United States is so characteristic of the Cuban spirit that the assumption Raul is going to convert to one currency has led to an outbreak of money exchanges on the island. People are changing money on the speculation that the peso will rise. En el medio de la inopia, they think like Soros. Have to love my people. Unleash them, and we'll see about third world country.

Then there have been the remembrances for the Brothers to the Rescue pilots. This one I find particularly touching. In Cienfuegos, in Santa Clara, in Havana and other places, ceremonies were held to mark the day that the four were murdered in cold blood. Flowers were set adrift in the sea; a condolence book was started; a commemorative banner was displayed; and speeches were made. Of all of the tributes on February 24th, I suspect these would have been the most precious to those who lost their lives.

I suspect that they know that whatever our differences in approach, in the face of their abandonment by the world, the Vatican, that we have remained faithful. We, very nearly alone, have stood up for their dignity and their rights as human beings.

They've Gotta Be Kidding

There's some question as to whether McCain, the son of a military officer born on a military base in Panama, is actually eligible to be President. Is he a natural born citizen? Seems Barry Goldwater had the same problem, having been born when Arizona when it was still a territory. I kid you not. Read it here.

Updated: Rest in Peace

                    William F Buckley (AP Photo)

Just learned via Drudge that one of my heroes has died. The man's mastery of the word was awe-inspiring. The languor of his presentation, a sharp contrast to anyone I knew, was deceptive and cloaked a rapier like keeness of intellect and expression. Rest in Peace.

Update: Here's a link to Ann Coulter's column. It contains some classic Buckley.

A Study in Contrast

Quienes nunca tuvieron miedo, sin que se lo dijeran el Papa ni el Cardenal, fueron aquellos hermosos jóvenes iluminados por los ideales del amor a la libertad y a nuestro Señor Jesucristo que se enfrentaron a las balas de los pelotones de fusilamiento al grito de “Viva Cristo Rey”.

The Ones who didn't have fear, without being told by the Pope or the Cardinal, were those beautiful young men illuminated by their ideals of love of liberty and our Lord Jesus Christ who confronted the hail of bullets with the calls of "Viva Cristo Rey," or "Long Live Christ the King."

Alfredo Cepero in a article on Misceláneas de Cuba, entitled "With God and the Devil" in which he contrasts the timidity of the Church to those who faced Fidel's firing squads. If you read Spanish, it's worth the visit here.

Martinez's Official Statement

MARTINEZ STATEMENT ON RESIGNATION OF FIDEL CASTRO

February 19, 2008 - WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) today released the following statement regarding the resignation of Fidel Castro.

Martinez said:

“Today I am cautiously optimistic for the people of Cuba and another step is closing on a long, dark chapter in Cuban history. I look forward to the day that Cubans will be able to freely elect their own leaders. Unfortunately, today's news does not facilitate that yet. We must remember that Fidel Castro has resigned from a position he was never elected to in the first place.

“The goal of U.S. policy is clear and remains that we must see the unconditional release of all political prisoners; the respect and recognition of fundamental human rights; and a genuine transition towards political freedom, the rule of law and democracy.

“Cubans are calling for change. The responsibility of the international community is to stand in unequivocal solidarity with those courageous civil society leaders that despite tremendous repression work steadfast for the goal of a common dream: a free, sovereign and democratic Cuba.”

How's This for Presumption?

In the International Herald Tribune, an article about how Raul is going to make changes, although the Cuban people don't yet believe it. Maybe, because like they know who they're dealing with here. Or maybe because all of the changes mentioned in the article are small economic ones, because maybe there is not a word about freedom of speech, freedom of association, elections with more than one candidate for an office. And where are the political prisoners in all of these changes? They're in the gulag, where they're apparently staying.

They did have one particularly good quote:

"Everyone is afraid to talk," said a student sitting on a park bench nearby who identified himself only as Alejandro. "This is the time when the people should go to the street, but they are afraid. My country is like a prison."

The Truth at Last

Here's one for all the condescending bigots out there who seem to think that preCastro Cuba was a third world country. In an article by Joachim Bamrud in the Latin Business Chronicle, we find this telling little detail.

... Cuba today is far worse than it was before the 1959 revolution that swept Castro to power. Adjusted for inflation, the GDP per capita of Cuba is now only five percent of the one enjoyed in 1958, according to calculations by Salazar-Carrillo.

The rest of the article is chock full of facts that might be surprising to some, not, of course, to those whose families lived it. Read the whole thing.

H/T Gusano at Babalublog

A Reason to Believe

A Reason to Believe
A few weeks ago, before the term became common coin, I was running around, thinking that this Obama thing was like the "cult of personality." To my chagrin, the idea struck a number of people. Oh well, pride goeth before the fall. I hadn’t posted right away, because I had the germ of an idea brewing, namely that the Obama mania is just one more indicator of a larger phenomenon.Despite our diverse ethnic and racial makeup, the character of our Puritan forbears has formed a current running through American society for centuries. The advent of the boomer generation brought under attack those institutions which channeled these inclinations. It made of morality and its attendant religious practices an irrelevancy and of governmental authority a subject fit for cynicism and mockery. Deprived of its natural venues in civics and religion, this puritan zeal has manifested in a number of intriguing ways.

We now have civic “sins” like smoking and transfats, the denunciation of which at times rivals the oratory of Jonathan Edwards. The topic of global warming, for instance, has taken on quasi religious overtones with all of the characteristic sanctimoniousness on the part of believers. And then there is Obama. For all I know, he may be a marvelous person and might make a decent president. I don’t think so, but it’s within the realm of possibility. What I fail to see and hear is the cause for all of this devotion.

I must be immune or something. As I see it, all he’s proposed so far involves the disbursements of huge amounts of money, money which has to come from somewhere. And read his counter to McCain’s criticism of his approach to Cuba. I’m starting to form the impression that he’s going to feed us lip service all the way to Havana as he prepares to sit down with the Dons.

So as I watch these mass rallies that have taken on the aura of revival meetings, the messianic overtones with which he is imbued by his followers and see nothing to merit it, I have to find some way to make sense of it all. I’ve come to the conclusion that the faith, its natural course denied, has deviated course into other outlets, because as human beings we need to believe in something greater than ourselves. Therein lies the great mistake of the boomers, and I count myself as one: hubris.

Without Comment

Los obispos de Cuba en reunión ordinaria con el cardenal Tarcisio Bertone, secretario de Estado del Vaticano, dieron hoy "un voto de confianza" al nuevo presidente cubano, Raúl Castro, en sus objetivos de paz y en la aplicación de cambios "en bienestar del pueblo cubano".

The Bishops of Cuba in a meeting with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, today gave "a vote of confidence" to the new Cuban President, Raul Castro, in his objectives of peace and in the application of changes "in the wellbeing of the Cuban people."
from La Nacion.cl.

H/T penúltimos días

The Changing of the Guard

No, not that one. The Times has an article about the declining Cuban population in Union City. Although I never heard it called "Little Little Havana," I did spend quite a bit of time there in my youth. It's where we went to visit relatives, eat sandwiches, and buy those nylon T-shirts to send to Cuba at El Waterloo. So the news that it is losing its Cuban character and becoming more multiethnic is just one more loss to add on top of loss. I'll have to check with Rafael Martel to see how true it all is.

Meantime as Victor Bas, whose father first opened Waterloo, is quoted as saying:

There’s a lot of ‘used to be’ around here.

The Closet of Curiosities

Michelle Obama has made her thesis available online here, ending the mystery. Princeton had refused to release it until after the election. Entitled "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community," it is surprisingly personal for a senior thesis. It seems to have been written under the auspices of one of the social sciences, and as an English major I don't think I'm qualified to critique it. I could comment on the writing, but I won't: that would be petty, wouldn't it?

But all of that aside, I think that her thesis should be irrelevant to her husband's run for the presidency. What are they gonna do next, dig up his daughters' preschool drawings? And I don't even like the guy. I think he's the AntiChrist. But fair play is fair play.

looting in beograd

Here's the video. The link from the article doesn't seem to exist, but this is the footage. According to hubby, who knows these things, the dialogue at the end consists mainly of curses.

Sunday News

Falcons and Filchers. In one of the oddest developments this week, two young female looters in Kosovo have become counterparts to the Obama Girl on YouTube. As one of the perps put it, "We looted because we are poor, not because we are rich." Read about it. If you think the Cuba situation is hard to discern, try the Balkans. Books highly recommended on the topic: Balkan Ghosts By Robert D Kaplan and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, this last if you are a history buff with the patience to read two volumes.
via Drudge

Superbugs and Soldiers. In a frightening twist to military injuries, at least 20% of returning casualties will face a highly resistant bacteria. Doctors are in a quandary as to how to respond. Meanwhile here's another story about antibiotic resistant bacteria wreaking havoc with one woman's life stateside.

Dogs and Divas. News comes that the Dog the Bounty Hunter Show will resume production. Don't watch it myself, but it's nice to see him back. Speaking of nice things, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are the proud parents of a matched set, born on Friday in Long Island. Read it. Bienvenidos, twins!

Nibs and Nips. One of those things you didn't know here. Apparently, there is a myth in England that the queen owns all the swans. One little girl, bitten by one of these beautiful but foul-tempered creatures, wrote to the Queen for an apology. Despite not owning the offending fowl, the Queen complied. Only here.

The "Eyes" Have It

Here are some responses to the Great Stepdown from around the web.

from The Beast of Havana , an editorial at NRO online:

Fidel Castro has been one of the cruelest dictators in living memory. He has also been the longest-“serving.” What has Castro served? Repression, torture, and murder. He seized power in January 1959. He is now “retiring,” just short of his 50th year in power. His golden jubilee will surely be marked, regardless; seldom have 50 years been less golden or more awful.

from Elmer Smith: "It's past time: Normalize relations with Cuba now" in Philadelphia Daily News:

Embarrassing is a kind way to describe it. Hypocritical, counter-productive, duplicitous and short-sighted are a few equally apt descriptions.
(Describing US Policy, not the obvious)

from After Fidel, an interview with Brian Latell, author of the tome by the same title, in Newsweek.

On Tuesday, the State Department called Raul "dictator lite." Is that a fair assessment?

Well, Fidel and Raul are dictators. They've never been subjected to a fair, democratic process.

And so it goes...

The Cardinal's Mass for the Pharisees

I was born and raised a Catholic, inculcated in the faith by the old style Sisters of Charity with their bonnets and pendulous rosaries and intransigent adherence to the faith. The result of which has been that I have carried around a load of Catholic guilt most of my life. But throughout it all, the Church stood before me holding up an ideal.

It didn’t matter when they themselves fell short of it. I would tell myself, the institution is human; the faith, divine. Even the sexual scandal could not shake my faith. I felt in part that they got their just desserts and in the other I thought the excessive hype was part of a liberal left agenda to effectively silence the church as a moral force on issues where the Church’s stance was inconvenient.

But the behavior of Cardinal Bertone in Cuba crystallized for me in one instant just how far it has strayed from the faith inspired by a poor Nazarene carpenter. I am indebted to Leonard Doyle for his description of the proceedings. See it was the Mass, the Mass for the invited. Left off the guest list for some reason were the Damas de Blanco, or Ladies in White- the wives, the mothers, the relatives of the political prisoners the regime says do not exist. These women attend Mass weekly. The murderers and thieves that make up Cuba’s Mafia were invited, however; they had front row seats.

The ladies were initially denied entry. Then they were forced to stand in the back, a position the Cardinal’s procession somehow avoided. At a point in the Mass when the Cardinal was asking for Cuban reconciliation, they broke into religious song, causing a near fracas with the security people. Did the Cardinal avail himself of that moment to ask even in the gentlest of terms that the government, those very men sitting in front of him in their Italian suits with their trophy wives/dates/whatever, reconsider their treatment of their fellow man? No, after a moment he continued. Bestowing an embrace and a churchly cloak over one of the worst remaining band of cutthroats running a country. Did he stop and say, “I cannot continue, because this sacrifice would not be acceptable to my Lord in these circumstances?” Or did he come off the altar, walk to the back and extend his hand saying, “Come my children. The Lord said that the last will be first.” Did he seat them before the altar, as Jesus would have done?

He did none of these and in his omission rendered a mockery of the most solemn of Catholic rites. I have never been so ashamed of my church.

Read Leonard Doyle’s article here. It is a seldom seen in the media perspicacious view of Cuba as it truly is.

H/T Gusano at Babalublog

Between the Stirrup and the Ground Revisited

Okay, as I recall Graham Greene's character didn't do too well with the repentance part either. El Comandante Caggado has fired back at the world, particularly the United States. So much for my theory. But maybe not. As I see it there are three options. He is an unrepentant SOB. Since he has been just that for most of his life, this is a pretty good probability. The second is that his "reflections" are being penned for him, also a distinct possibility. The stupid humor of "change in the United States," though, sounds very much like the man of old, so I'm less likely to opt for that one. There is, however, there is a third possibillity. For this one, we need another literary parallel. How about Shakespeare?

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,--
A brother's murder!--Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,--
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this twofold force,--
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!--
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,--
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling;--there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay:
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
All may be well.
Claudius' soliloquy from Hamlet.

Today's Words of Wisdom

He does not retire. Fidel Castro is incapable of retiring, incapable of knowing himself incapable. He was retired a year and a half ago in a palace coup, all of them against the sick animal, just like Stalin retired Lenin, so that he would recover from his illness, very far and very hidden away.

Jaime Leygonier, Independent Journalist, Cuba. Read the rest in Spanish here.

Between the Stirrup and the Ground

Graham Greene used this phrase repeatedly in one of his novels, Brighton Rock, as the promise a perfectly vile character makes to himself to repent at the very last minute of his life, as in between falling off the horse and hitting the dirt.

Speaking of contrition and Catholicism, Killcastro has an interesting post today. Much has been made that Cardinal Bertone, now in Cuba, will not meet with the grave one. Well, he may not meet with him, but the word is that the church has consented to give last rites to the now repentant caudillo. Good thing it's the Cardinal, cuz that boy's gonna need an exorcism.

Perhaps the timing of Pinky Castro's purported change of heart is a tad convenient, but I would not be surprised if there were some truth to the info. Not because I know anything, but because I am blessed with a sometimes too vivid imagination. For a little while now, I have maintained that his present situation, regardless of whatever comforts surround him, is an emotional form of the death of a thousand cuts.

Lo esta pagando. He is paying for it. We may not think it, but remember what a narcissitic, vainglorious, control freak he was. He has got to be suffering mightily at how he has been reduced, even ordinary bodily functions are a humiliation. Why not in those long nights, as he prepares to meet the Almighty, would he not go over his life? And if he has, what would he find? Picture the enormity, the weight of what he has done. If he even acknowledged a part of his guilt..... He may have fooled the world; he may even have fooled himself for a time, although I doubt it, he was always a cynic. He knows.

I do not blame the Church if they provide last rites; that is what they do. "Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord, or something to that effect. But from a layperson's perspective, if the coma andante is truly remorseful, he could demonstrate it by taking responsibility. At this point, even he lacks the power to destroy the monster he has created. Who knows if he even resigned voluntarily? But someone as wily as he has always proven himself can find some way to leave word, to admit it like a man.

Whatever the media may say about leaving on his own terms, leaving as a doddering old man, evacuating from three orifices, you can be sure, was never on his wish list. I could almost find it in my heart to feel sorry for him, almost. My head, however, offers no absolution. I will dance metaphorically over his grave, if the old buzzard doesn't outlast me.

Hepatitis A ? That's not suprising!

Seems our ever trendy fashionistas (about 800 of them)got a taste of real life Fidelism when they picked up Hepatitis A at Stings favorite hot spot, Socialista.

A Lesson on Probabilities

If I wake up one morning and emerge from my bedroom to find the house ransacked, my silver chest (presuming I had one) empty and the back door open, my automatic reaction would be to think my house had been burglarized. Of course, it is within the realm of possibility that the neighbor's pet monkey had escaped, climbed in through my window and was at the moment probably playing spoons in the back yard. But which is more likely?

I offer this little tidbit to illustrate a point. I was reading along in Time, minding my own business, when I came across "The Raul Castro Era Begins." Ah, I thought, grist for the mill. Padgett, the author, sees the much ballyhooed interrogation of Alarcon by Havana students, particularly one Eliecer Avila, as part of some internecine warfare. In a species of Byzantine reasoning, it was a move orchestrated by Raul to weaken hardliners:

What was most surprising about the interrogation was the fact that Avila got away with it. After initial reports that the young man had been detained for his effrontery, he appeared a week later on another video denying that he was jailed and insisting that his confrontation with Alarcon was meant "to build better socialism and not to destroy it." He added: "What needs to be fixed, what needs to be changed and revised, [we want to] do it within the revolution."

All of which indicates that the youthful outburst may not have been the spontaneous Havana Spring it was widely billed as, but rather a part of something quietly sanctioned by Cuba's interim President, Raul Castro. Since being tapped by his older brother, Fidel Castro, as the country's provisional leader in the summer of 2006 after Fidel underwent major intestinal surgery, Raul, 76, has pushed a more pragmatic, even reform-minded agenda that has encouraged limited public debate — and, just as important, worked to undermine hard-line fidelistas like Alarcon. The Avila episode was yet another sign of how firmly Raul seems to have consolidated his position — and why he's most likely to succeed his brother as full President this weekend in a National Assembly vote after Fidel officially resigned from the post today. "It wouldn't surprise me if people in Raul's faction leaked those [Avila] tapes out," says Brian Latell, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami and author of After Fidel.

I understand well the temptation to look for the devious underlayment when dealing with the regime, but if the fix was in, someone forgot to tell the young man's mother, who in near hysteria contacted dissidents. Now I ask you, what is more likely that he was hauled in, threatened, and forced to recant on national television or that it was all part of an elaborate Raulian ploy? I know what I think.

Cuban Response: Nothing New Under the Stun

Word of Cuban response to the announcement of castro's resignation is starting to filter in from the island via independent journalists and communiqués from various organizations available on Misceláneas de Cuba.

In his free flowing dispatch, allusively titled "Nothing New Under the Sun," independent journalist, Oswaldo Yáñez who lately prefaces his reports by dating them "in the year of the imminent freedom of all Cubans" remarks that the hullabaloo surrounding the announcement in the world media was in marked contrast to the silence of Cubans themselves. He points out that the evictions in Holguin did not cease, the preparations for the kangaroo court to try a dissident continued, the CDR's maintained their close vigilance, and the prisoners continued languishing in castroite jails. In essence nothing changed.

The same lack of reaction is highlighted by Kallan Poe from La Agencia de Prensa Avileña in a report about response in Morón. Despite mixed reactions to the news, other than a noon time dash to the radio to hear once again the news, the only other response was in the bars at night, where the consensus was "Esto tiene que cambiar" or "This has to change."

The desire for change is a common thread running through the communications. In an editorial, La Agencia de Prensa Avileña, sees it as a moment for pondering, although it calls for a true republic like that envisioned by Marti. Dr. Darsi Ferrer condemns the succession and once more eloquently describes the conditions of ordinary Cubans. Again he calls for anti-regime elements to speak with one voice. He reiterates the need for a united opposition here. Hector Palacios' rhetoric is a bit more conciliatory, but he demands that those in power should work immediately to reform the law to include free speech, free association, and free elections, as well as liberate political prisoners

In sum, most viewed the abdication as a species of farce. Its lack of significance was a common thread running through the communications, as was a cacophony of cries for freedom and surprisingly the open call for democracy.

Reflections on a Resignation

I awoke this morning to the news that fifo had resigned. I reacted the way most Cubans, here and on the island, did, that is it didn't much matter. I can imagine the chagrin of the media types when they got to the Versailles and not much was going on. Sure, the news was on everyone's lips, and a small demonstration had materialized by afternoon, but none of the mass outpouring of crazy Cubans they had counted on. That's because Cubans know that nothing has changed. Cuba remains in chains. Even if Raul's much vaunted gonnabe reforms turn Havana into Beijing au sud, the people will remain enslaved.

Later, though, I couldn't help it. I am Cuban, given to all the passionate excesses in which we are prone to indulge. I felt elated, had a metaphorical bounce in my step. After all, he's in the can at the curb on his way to the dust heap of history. Sure, there would have been a certain satisfaction in seeing him deposed, reviled, tried for crimes against humanity. Heck, I would have settled for drawing and quartering. But the Lord ever works in mysterious ways. If he isn't dead already, resigning probably killed him, narcissist that he has always been- so much so that rather than voluntarily resigning, I can more easily picture his being resigned by those he thought were his faithful minions. In any case, stick a fork in him. He's done, rendered impotent by the one force no dictator, no potentate can defeat. I guess in the end, he couldn't equivocate with the fiend.

My momentary joy was quickly succeeded by fatigue. It has been a long, hard slog: carrying the pain of family and friends, of my people; constantly defending who and what I am; having to instruct everyone I meet because those institutions I should be able to count on to convey truth- the schools, the media- failed me and every Cuban alive and some dead; and in these last years having to witness castroite propaganda bruited as truth by those very entities. And I am one of the fortunate ones, having been born here, never having experienced hunger, misery, or the fear of that knock in the middle of the night.

Whatever the future may hold for Cuba, I find there is a certain satisfaction after all. The handwriting is on the wall for the regime. History will destroy it. As I remember my Macbeth, about another usurper, the night is long that never finds the day.

Quote of the Day

To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.

Fidel Castro in his latest "Reflection" in an essentially meaningless gesture, released in the wee hours of the morning. More later.

H/T Ziva (Blog for Cuba)

Cites and Sounds

As a teacher, it was a yearly rite to have some student miscreant whine in my ear "but I changed the words" when I pointed out that his research paper was rife with plagiarized material. So it shouldn't be surprising to hear a Presidential candidate caught with his hand in someone else's word hoard say "I really don't think this is too big of a deal."

Now plagiarism is sometimes inadvertant. We read or hear something nifty and over time forget the original source and congratulate ourselves on our marvelous turn of phrase. But anyone who sees the side by side video of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama on Babalu would be hard pressed to describe it as anything other than deliberate intellectual piracy. Why describe such a small thing in such dramatic terms? Because it is dishonest. It involves taking someone else's work and presenting it as your own. Because it insults the reader or the audience. The writer or speaker is getting one over on same. Because in a presidential candidate it implies a willingness to cut corners to achieve one's aim, in this case getting to the presidency. Finally it demonstrates an intellectual shoddiness that might not be the best characteristic in a president.

I once saw an acquaintance give his dog a swift kick when he thought no one was looking. It was not a big thing. The dog was not particularly hurt. It didn't even whimper, just made itself scarce. I wasn't about to call the humane society on his owner. But that small gesture spoke volumes about the owner's character. From that day forward, I developed a distaste for this particular acquaintance.

Obama is right about one thing: words do matter, especially when they're not your own.

Literacy and the Future

Howard Gardner had an interesting article in the Washington Post on Sunday about the future of literacy. He argues against the all or nothing view. Books will survive, he posits, but we will wind up with all sorts of what he calls "literacies," including "graphic language." While I'm encouraged that he doesn't see the end of reading, I am also sure that we will never again achieve the ability and depth to appreciate what past generations took for granted. Instead, we are being ushered into a world whose language is increasingly visual and symbolic. Should be interesting.

O My Prophetic Soul!

Recently, I received an email about how Hillary could still finagle her way to the nomination using the superdelegates. I replied that I was thinking about the Florida and Michigan primaries, myself. I could hear the echoes of "every vote counts" in my ears. Well, I ran across this one in the last few days. Harold Ickes, player and advisor to the Hillary campaign, is making noises about how the issue of those two primaries should be revisited. Do we see the beginning of the end game here? Read it.

Sunday Lit

Sense. Of all of the countries of the world, it is the former Eastern bloc countries who seem to "get it" about Cuba. The Czech's and the Poles in particular have proven themselves friends, perhaps because they know what it is to live under the cleverly disguised jackboot. Here's one I missed writing about but which demonstrates the right attitude if you feel you absolutely must vacation in Cuba. "People in Need" is advocating that Czechs going to Cuba bring Spanish language newspapers, magazines, books, etc to combat the information embargo the regime has in place.

Sensibility. If you need any proof that there is an element of mass hysteria to Obama's support, look no further than Drudge, which has a Breitbart about fainting fits at the O man's rallies. Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Obama? More on the hysteria part, later.

Pride. Actually, more like hubris. Why is it that people who don't know what they're talking, or in this case writing, about feel perfectly at home making pronouncements about US foreign policy? Yeah, Cuba, again. This opinion piece from the University of Virginia's daily, The Cavalier, is a prime example. If you don't know why the embargo was originally put in place, your entire argument is rendered fallacious, or is that fellatious? (Couldn't resist)

Prejudice. Here's the mandatory smoking article. Not content with having banned smoking in pubs, a Brit health advisory panel is recommending a "License to Smoke" for the sum of 10 pounds yearly. It's apparently going to make more people give up smoking. Uh-huh.

Persuasion. How about a quirky little tidbit about Mao Tse Tung. Apparently he proposed to offer Chinese women in trade. Kissinger, surprisingly no slouch in the women department himself, managed to keep a straight face and replied that we'd keep it under consideration. Gee, why didn't fifo think of that? Oh, yeah, he did.

Literary Interlude: Ozymandias

In keeping with the evening's theme, here is one by Shelley about Ramses the Great.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Reflexiones of La Cubana de Sarasota: Part 1

Getting older isn't half bad. The worst is probably those late 30's when they start making newspaper print smaller and you can no longer pull out those gray hairs without leaving a bald spot, speaking of bald spots.... Once you make peace with the fact that you ain't never going to look like you once did and thought you always would, there's a lot to say for growing up.

One positive is that you start thinking about things. Death, for instance, used to be something that lurked in the dim, faraway future. Now, it becomes a distinct possibility, as you remember every one you ever knew who died prematurely and calculate that at best you are midway through life. Faced with the prospect of your own mortality and armed with the experience of decades of living, you tend to become philosophical.

All of this is prelude. I've always had difficulty reconciling the notion of a loving God with one who would consign the errant to eternal damnation a la Dante. What I have seen is that we in essence punish ourselves in life. Makes sense, if "the kingdom of God" is within us, why might not its counterpart also reside within the human bosom? Time and time again, I have seen people made miserable by their own failings, their own refusal or inability to see truth, their senseless repetition of strategies that have never worked. Eternal punishment, like that of Sisyphus, in Greek mythology often consists of just this sort of repetitive, fruitless action.

I was reminded of this as I read today's installment of the reflections. The American electoral process seems to have energized the blogger in chief, perhaps because it is a living repudiation of his life's work. I admit that when I first heard of his grave condition, I was elated. I, too, wanted to dance in the streets. But I also felt cheated. He would never pay for his many crimes. Over the months, however, I have come to see him as Hitler in his bunker, shortly before the end, the ruins of Berlin, unseen, around him.

Somewhere in an undisclosed location in Havana, there sits a frail old man, whose body has betrayed him. Reduced to irrelevancy, this wouldbe colossus, he sits and writes, surrounded by utter failure. His overweening pride, doubtless, leads him into all sorts of rationalizations, but he knows. Take the latest rumination. It demonstrates that he delves into the very sources of information he denies his people. Picture him, desperately trolling for some sort of vindication. Today, he finds it in material about the mismanagement of the American economy, even citing Alan Greenspan's book. Even as he goes through this exercise, he has to know that were the American economy to implode tomorrow, it has provided a decent life for the vast majority of its people for centuries, a feat that with all his imagined economic acumen and bullshit theory he was unable to approach, let alone equal, for a space of a single year. He has, in fact, presided over the descent of Cuba into the third world.

There is something pathetic in the way he seizes upon the criticism of the US, criticism which would be illegal if the situation were reversed. Here at the end of his life, his obsession with the US has become a monomania, perhaps because he senses that, except for the Missile Crisis, he has never been anything but an irritant to the Americans who have prospered, even as he has led his people to economic and spiritual ruin. It is no surprise then that the gypsy curse is "May you live a hundred years."

Exhibit A

I was amazed," Chelsea says, "at how happy the people are, even though they are poor."

There in the words of one 16 year old American teenager is the reason for restricting travel to Cuba. I pointed it out in the post about the Brown semester abroad. It’s the “Happy Brown Native Syndrome.” The quote is from an article about a church (Methodist) trip to Cuba over the holidays, putatively one that “opens young minds,” to which I might add “to shameless propaganda.” There is nothing that peeves me as much as when adults use the innate credulity of young people to further their own causes. Note in the article that all their trips seem to have been to commie countries.

I leave you with a question I’ve asked before which is why “do-gooders” invariably fall in line with the agendas of oppressive, totalitarian dictatorships.

Mean Communication

A nicely turned post on Generacion Y on the studentgate video. Yoani starts out explaining that it was 11 years before she saw the video of the young man facing down the tanks at Tianamen Square, a historic amount of time before she saw the Berlin Wall being torn down. The video of the young people putting the precisa or making Alarcon squirm, however, has been making the rounds, clandestinely of course. Her point is that advances in communication have helped Cubans cobble together pictures of what is going on in their own country and the larger world. Her conclusion:

While the official media maintains its bucolic lethargy, we are finding out. The young man at the UCI has a face, we know his voice, we heard the stuttering of his interlocutor. This is not an enormous plaza in China with a young man who defies tanks and the image is delayed a decade in reaching us.

Amen, sister.

While I Was Away

What can you say about an editorial that starts with a reference to "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" and includes the following lines in reference to Cuba:

The toothpaste is oozing out of the tube.

and my favorite for obvious reasons:

The pen — and by extension, the word — is not only mightier than the sword; but is mightier than Cuba's cigar chomping swordsman.

except that it's misreading the situation. There has been no loosening. Ask the students who dared to question Alarcon.

***

Here's another deconstruction special. An article on a Javier Machado photography exhibit devotes more type to dissing US policy and lack of freedom in America than to the truth in the photographs. Try this one on for size:

Machado grew up in Cuba and left not for political reasons, but for love. His plan to marry his girlfriend and live between the two countries was foiled shortly after he got here in 2003, when the U.S. government limited the number and duration of trips Cuban-Americans may make to the island.

While the writer's agenda is clear:

This series is what Americans who dare visit Cuba see: Smiling, inviting faces secure after decades in their lots, no matter how insecure those lots are. Machado captures Cuban sincerity and lust for life's simplest pleasures.

Ah, "Happy, Brown Native Syndrome" strikes again. Machado's pictures tell a different tale. Hence the deconstruction. Read the article.

***

In the cultural diffusion department, it appears that Cuba has influenced Venezuela in more ways than one. Santeria has spread to Venezuela. Read all about it here.

Coming Home

Yes! Home at last, sitting in front of my clunky computer, the one that doesn't have thirty two adolescent passwords just to use Windows. Memo to myself: never get an Apple notebook, especially one that uses Mozilla like the one I've been reduced to while away.

So I flew home today, an exercise in frustration. It all started when I got to the two plane airport and realized I had forgotten to bring my suitcase. That shouldn't have surprised me because I had also neglected to take a coat on the trip with me. Anyway, I make it on the plane and land in Charlotte, NC, which reminds me of the email I was mentally composing to the authority...something along the lines of...

Dear Sirs, while you are obviously pleased, based on the gleeful tones of your announcements every fifteen minutes, with yourselves on your newly-minted status as a "smoke-free" airport, I'd like to point out that you forgot one incovenient fact, which is that at least a quarter of your passengers are addicted to nicotine...

Yup, there I was after four moving sidewalks, one escalator, and two buildings, standing out on the "courtesy" smoking area without the aforementioned forgotten coat, puffing away with the assorted multitude and trying to control the violent shaking. It was a 3 hour layover and now involved calculating the length of the TSA security line, the purported boarding time, and the time it would take to traverse the two buildings, one escalator, and four moving sidewalks.

This time I flunk the second security screening. With great gravity, they go through my pocket-book, and I have, oh, no, two lighters. Perhaps they feared I would engage in an act of self-immolation on board, since I obviously had nothing else to burn. There went my brand new emergency lighter. Not to fear. By the way, sweetie, I had three lighters, not to two. You missed one!

I settle into the gate an hour ahead of time when whispers of "oversold" reach my ears. When they ask everyone to check in again, I rush to the line. I'm not staying at this God-forsaken airport one minute more than I have to. Oh, no, the woman at the counter in front of me leaves, but the guy at the other line is still processing his people. They're going to get on, and I'm gonna get bumped. I dash to guy's line. As I make it to the front, the woman who has returned to her hastily abandoned post brings him scads to passes to do. I'm fighting to the death on this one. Eventually I obtain that most prized of possessions a new boarding pass, only they changed my seat and now I'm the last to board, which turns out to mean I'm in the back of the airplane.

So when we finally land an hour late, I say good-bye to the woman next to me, advising her that if I have to trample three people along the way, I'm getting out of this plane first. Unfortunately, I run into jerk a few rows down, who proceeds to take down his carry on and repack it while blocking the aisle. I guess he must have resented my breathing down his neck, because he then stood in my path and waited for the entire front half of the plane to get out of their seats, get their walkers, and finish their conversations. He obviously wasn't a smoker.

The moral of the story, other than that I should quit smoking: airports suck.

Semester Abroad or Re-Education Camp?

That's my problem with this Brown University program. I know I'm supposed to think that it's wonderful that students will be studying in Cuba, getting to know the culture, yada, yada, yada. As one of the professors indicates, the political has gotten in the way of the academic.

Alas, in Cuba everything is political. And to say that ten students going down and attending classes taught by Cuban professors is not is disingenuous at best. Those same professors can not offer an opinion, a point of analysis, or even a fact not in keeping with the official party line. Therefore, let's dispense with the free and open exchange of ideas. It is a myth. There can be no free and open anything in a society that is enslaved.

Too often, well-intentioned Americans go to Cuba on one high-minded program or another; get treated to the socialist theme park that is the face Cuba presents to the world, particularly high-minded intellectuals; accept blindly falsehoods and pretenses they would not dream of swallowing without question in this country; and return parroting regime propaganda, attempting to influence American policy, convinced that they know Cuban reality.

The only true learning the Brown students will be doing will be what they, like everyone else in Cuba, read between the lines. And that's an awful slim hope on which to pin foreign policy.

Read the article here:
http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2008/02/12/
CampusNews/U.Starts.Cuba.Abroad.Program-3203286.shtml

Too Funny

"His accusations against internationalist Cuban revolutionaries...are completely unethical..."
Fidel Castro about John McCain in one of his latest screeds.

Road Trip: It's a Dying Thing

So there I am on the 95 heading north, veering off onto the 17 up along the coast and onto even more roads whose numbers are known only to the few who live along their bounds, hour after hour, the lonely landscape of the South outside the windows. More than a few times, I want desperately to stop and take pictures. I feel I have to document the decaying tobacco barns, the sagging pediments of the early gas stations, the decay seemingly everywhere, but twenty-first century traffic barreling down behind me gives me no pause to find a way.

It is a fitting metaphor for this trip, the passing. I think to myself that this is not something I will be able to do much longer, this meandering on the road to somewhere. Dwindling supplies of oil and sky rocketing gasoline prices will ring the death knell of one of my favorite undertakings. The person sitting beside me, my faithful motoring companion over the years, is also dying, like the scenery and the gas, the question is what morning will I wake to find all gone.

There are also lots of laughs on this road and some comic moments, too, like when I stop at a Country Market Restaurant, part of a buffet chain on the downleg of the roadside popularity curve. Others have gone before. I remember the Howard Johnson's, not the hotels, the little restaurants with their orange roofs, fifties decor, and lots of yummy ice cream. And Bob's Big Boy seems to have been a flash in the pan. The past few years, I've been stopping at the buffet. As seems to be true of most restaurants at truck stops, the food has always been good, filling, and cheap, This visit is disappointing, the buffet bar seems to be shrinking before my eyes. If numbers tell the story, Steak 'n Shake is the one on the ascendancy. Not the same thing.

As I walk in, there's an early middle-aged man self-consciously having a cell phone conversation and simultaneously blocking my way. As I make my way around him, I catch the accents. Oh, no, even here there is no escape. Those are Cuban accents. Now I give him the once over. It's no wonder I was surprised. It's the get-up, and I mean get-up. Some innocuous t-shirt or other over neither pants nor shorts, but v-shaped legs ending at the knee, the bare legs tapering to glaring powder blue imitation crocs worn over ankle sweats. I begin to have my suspicions, when his young friend, identically attired comes up to him. I look at their faces burned to the color of a cooked frankfurter, and I have to wonder whose idea of sartorial splendor this is. I laugh inwardly, remembering a post from a new blog Calm Bobby in Miami which details his adventures in dressing his newly arrived cousin at Abercrombie. Read it.

And me, I'm happy. As Siddhartha learns, it all goes into the river, the good and the bad, the endlessly rushing stream whose sound is the symphony of life.

I'm using a borrowed macbook, and I give up here's the URL
http://calmbobby.blogspot.com/2008/01/abercrombie-and-cuba.html

Priceless

Code Pink came to town (Miami, that is) again yesterday. Again they were met by counterprotestors, again they took to their heels, and again they whined that their rights were being trampled. I'm not sure what the ladies had in mind, other than gathering publicity, since Posada Carriles, the "terrorist" they want sent back to face Castroite brand of justice (that's the one where they shoot first and never ask questions) has been tried twice in Venezuela for the crime of which they accuse him.

***

To my mind, this picture from Abajo Fidel says it all. The young man waves the legs he lost in his dogged and relentless quest for freedom from a terrorist state in a visual denunciation of the pink spandex performance art. Now that's a protest, or as my mother would say, "una galleta sin mano."

Some Sunday Goodies

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Remember a few years ago when a group of states won incredible amounts of money in a lawsuit against the cigarette manufacturers. The premise of the whole thing was that smoker's cost their health systems more. Turns out that in this Dutch study smokers and the obese (they're next) actually cost less. Unfortunately, smokers die young and don't hang around long enough to get Alzheimers and the like.

I'm Too Sexy for my Town. 19 year old Christopher Holder was arrested in Florida for disorderly conduct after a mother complained that he was singing profanities in front of her two young children. Seems he was singing the words to a song by Lil' Boosie. Before you think intolerance, read it and see if you want your 5 year old hearing this on a public street. Think he'll beat the rap?

I Heard it Through the Grapevine. That's what parts of the world may be reduced to for communications. Four undersea internet and phone cables have been cut in one week in the Mediterranean, raising the specter of possible sabotage. Explanations have ranged from a rogue freighter to a wayward anchor. So far the Middle East has been hardest hit. Read it here.

Black Water. Spurned by the courts and spurred on by the declining levels of their reservoirs, Georgia legislators have just remembered that the surveyor who marked their state boundary in 1818 made a boo boo and stopped short of the Tennessee River, an error they'd like remedied like now. The response from the governor of Tennessee, something to the effect of "Good joke, fellas." Read all about it.

Notes: I apologize for missing the weekly poem, but a few things didn't come to fruition. Be back next week. Speaking of next week, I'll be on the road. I'll try to post.

Reality Check

If you would like to know why Cuban Americans often come across as too strident, too passionate and sometimes crazed, it is because of articles like this:

Cuba is showing "unprecedented positive engagement" with the United Nations in the field of human rights, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Friday.

in contrast to the reality of these headlines for the past 3 days smuggled out by independent journalists in Cuba:

Opposition Members in Holguin Beaten

Opposition Youth Threatened with Jail

Human Rights Activists Arrested and Processed for Dangerousness

President of FLAMUR [The Association of Rural Women] Arrested and Threatened

Political Police Organize an Act of Repudiation

Opposition Members House Pelted with Eggs

Independent Librarian Intimidated

I only wish that someday Ms Arbour live in a country making just as much "progress" as she ascribes to Cuba.

Deconstruction

Every time I hear of a “Cuban art exhibit” somewhere, I cringe because almost invariably it brings out the misguided, the impervious, and the apologists. Jim Lowe of the Barre Montpelier Argus Times probably falls in one of these categories. In this article about “¡Cuba!: Art and History from 1868 to Today” at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, it’s apparent that he may or may not know his art, but he certainly doesn’t know his history.

For a writer, he certainly plays fast and loose with his words. Did you know that Cuba is “anathema” to the United States? As far as I know the Cuban government is a sworn enemy of the United States but has never risen to the level of anathema. However, its obliteration of individual freedoms and the oppression of its people might be anathema to all that Americans hold dear. And then there’s the question of subjugation. According to Lowe, Cuba went from fighting for its independence from Spain to “subjugation” by the US. Again the wording is questionable. You might maintain that the United States interfered in Cuban affairs and wielded undue influence, and was a tad colonialist. But as far as I know the United States never enslaved Cuba. Subjugation is what the people have been living under for the past half century.

But why quibble? The exhibit is divided into five time periods. He discusses all five. Do read it and see what he has to say about the “violence” and “squalor.” More importantly try this:

“Cubanness: Affirming a Cuban Style 1938-1959” is the most artistically exciting period represented in the exhibit. Here are myriad styles, expertly executed – all with unique Cuban flavor.

Contrast that with

The title “Within the Revolution Everything; Against the Revolution, Nothing 1959-1979” is taken from the words of President Fidel Castro, describing his feelings on the legal limitations of art. This segment of the exhibit is more interesting historically than artistically. Excellent photojournalism illustrates the beginning of the Castro years.

and

The Revolution is represented by a large poster collection, with many of them familiar to Americans. Again, they seem more of historic than artistic interest.

Need I say more?