I should have known it the minute Blitzer said the report was coming from Havana. Nothing good, except exiles and maybe cigars, comes from there. Gee, according to the reporter Moore is right. Everyone gets free health care for a fraction of the cost in the United States. Yeah, there are two tiers. Luis Moro on Youtube gets a mention in the context of a mad lunatic, and while conditions for ordinary Cubans are not those that Americans would tolerate....
The subtext is that, heck, it's a third world country, so of course it's okay for Cubans to have this rudimentary a health care. God forbid anyone in the MSM should research what kind of health care Cuba had prerevolution. As to the point of the report- The United States could save just as much money if it had diagnostic technology from the 40's, eliminated CT scans, PET scans, and, oh yeah, medications.
Don't these people realized how remarkably bigoted they are. Time to go email them, yet again. This time I can't decide between disingenuous or cynical. Maybe I'll use both. I encourage everyone to challenge them, to discuss the misconceptions with the people they know. There are over a million of us, a million little ambassadors. I like that.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Why I support BUCL
As a Cuban American I grew up listening and living the evils of Castro. Mine is a story similiar to that of every other Cuban-American family (so I wont go into details). However, while breifly living in Central America in my youth, I fantasized about fomenting my own anti-Castro revolution, 'specially after a few beers and meeting an Columbian ex-paratrooper who was ready to go to Cuba, as well. Truth is, I would have been killed as soon as I got to shore, or maybe sooner. Even if I had made it, who was going to follow a Cuban with a gringo accent? Perhaps good judgment shone through the effect of the beers. Now a fat, 3 cigar a day smoker and wine drinker, my only weapons are these keys. We should all support this effort. Obviously, the military effort and economic efforts have not proven to be succesful. Kudos to Henry, Val, George and all the others at Babalu...
More on sicko
Obviously we are going to hear how great the Cuban health care system is in the near future. However, what the msm and sheep forget reminds me of one Churchill's one liner's (just substitute Castroism for socialism):
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
Wolf Blitzer and the State of the Cuban Healthcare System
I was just watching The Situation Room on CNN, and they are promising a report on the true state of healthcare in Cuba vs. Sicko. But since the report is from Cuba, I'm not expecting much. Still, it was not too long ago when they wouldn't even consider the question. More later.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Trial
In Humberto Fontova's excellent book, Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, Che is said to have included Franz Kafka's The Trial as one of his recommended readings. After reading Kafka's work you have a clearer insight into the mind of the Guevara killing machine.
Kafka's book is a short interesting read about a bank employee who is arrested for a crime that he is unaware he committed and basically tried and convicted of this unknown crime. So, I guess this is where Guevara learned his judicial skills, although many of Che's victims didn't have the luxury of a trial.
Lou
Kafka's book is a short interesting read about a bank employee who is arrested for a crime that he is unaware he committed and basically tried and convicted of this unknown crime. So, I guess this is where Guevara learned his judicial skills, although many of Che's victims didn't have the luxury of a trial.
Lou
BUCL Campaign For The Invisible Ones
They're at it again, and I'm delighted. The Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty is unleashing a campaign to enlist Sting's aid in highlighting the plight of Cuban political prisoners, you know, the ones the Cuban government says don't exist. Kudos to all involved!
It goes without saying that I hope they're successful. I'd hate to think that South Africans and Chileans are somehow more deserving of freedom, that after indicting both governments, Sting would collaborate with the Castro regime. Do I do remember reading that Sting's wife had opened a trendy new nightspot in New York called Socialista?
It goes without saying that I hope they're successful. I'd hate to think that South Africans and Chileans are somehow more deserving of freedom, that after indicting both governments, Sting would collaborate with the Castro regime. Do I do remember reading that Sting's wife had opened a trendy new nightspot in New York called Socialista?
Sick of Sicko
I'm just biding my time here, reading about Egyptian mummies and the like, because I'm already sick of hearing about Moore's new movie. It's just being released, and I know what is to come. We'll all be hearing paens to Fidel's free health care system. I'll watch it on TV and spend countless evenings running to my computer to email CNN or MSNBC, maybe even Fox. I've already hit Time for their review. So before I go from slow simmer to boil, I am conserving my energy.
It seems that Cubans/Cuban Americans are always relegated to a Cassandralike role. We see the truth, but no one wants to know, at least no one who helps shape American public opinion.
Sometimes I feel like giving up, but I think that Cubans, even younger generations, are constitutionally incapable of letting yet another slight go by, so I will continue to be the mad emailer. (Pardon the pun.)
It seems that Cubans/Cuban Americans are always relegated to a Cassandralike role. We see the truth, but no one wants to know, at least no one who helps shape American public opinion.
Sometimes I feel like giving up, but I think that Cubans, even younger generations, are constitutionally incapable of letting yet another slight go by, so I will continue to be the mad emailer. (Pardon the pun.)
Egyptian Mummy Identified.
Just read on CNN that the mummy of Hatshepsut has been identified. Apparently they just got around to doing tests and discovered that this was the mummy of the 5th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. (It almost sounds like I know what I'm writing about, huh.) Actually I think it's exciting because Hatshepsut who was co-regent for her nephew and stepson- Don't you love these Ancient Egyptian family trees- decided to keep the throne for herself and became pharaoh. Yup, she was way ahead of her time. I stumbled across her at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where they have some statues. You can find her there with her fake beard. Few representations of her exist, because many of her likenesses were smashed, presumably by the thwarted nephew when he came to power years later.
Just a little tidbit for today.
Just a little tidbit for today.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Reads Notes- Part 1
Where to start? Waiting for Snow in Havana gets the position of honor for evoking a lost time and place. At the same time, much of the childhood experience is universal. Lyrical, nostalgic, and funny at points.
Under the Royal Palms, a much thinner book, is usually classified under the young adult label in libraries. If memory serves, it follows the life of a young girl in precastro Camaguey. I do remember that I enjoyed it much.
Exposing the Real Che Guevara starts a new genre. It's Lou's top pick. So, I'll let him fill in on this one.
After Fidel was written by a CIA Cuban analyst. So with how the CIA mucked up the whole Cuba thing, I have to admit I had my suspicions. I learned a bit about Raul, but I learned a whole lot more about Fidel. It eviscerates the romantic revolutionary myths and exposes Castro for what he is, which apparently much of American society doesn't know. Worth reading just for that.
Shadow Warrior is one of those books I just came across at the library, like the one about the first World Trade Center bombing, which I read before 9/11 and served as a guide for understanding the terrorism situation. This one follows the career of the Cuban exile/ CIA operative who witnessed Che's ignominious end. Worth the time.
Under the Royal Palms, a much thinner book, is usually classified under the young adult label in libraries. If memory serves, it follows the life of a young girl in precastro Camaguey. I do remember that I enjoyed it much.
Exposing the Real Che Guevara starts a new genre. It's Lou's top pick. So, I'll let him fill in on this one.
After Fidel was written by a CIA Cuban analyst. So with how the CIA mucked up the whole Cuba thing, I have to admit I had my suspicions. I learned a bit about Raul, but I learned a whole lot more about Fidel. It eviscerates the romantic revolutionary myths and exposes Castro for what he is, which apparently much of American society doesn't know. Worth reading just for that.
Shadow Warrior is one of those books I just came across at the library, like the one about the first World Trade Center bombing, which I read before 9/11 and served as a guide for understanding the terrorism situation. This one follows the career of the Cuban exile/ CIA operative who witnessed Che's ignominious end. Worth the time.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Reel Notes
I put my favorite one first. If you can disregard Harvey Keitel's affected accent, Cuban Blood is a little gem of a movie, kind of a Cuban Amacord. Of all the Cuban-themed movies I've seen, this is the one that most closely resembles the Cuba of my mother's stories. I'm also fond the Shakespearian fool in the person of the town drunk.
Bitter Sugar, otherwise known as Azucar Amarga, is one I discovered in my library recently. In black and white, it's an artsy, interesting look at post Castro Cuba with the requisite disillusionment. The ending is a bit melodramatic, but definitely worth seeing.
I saw Honey for Oshun a while back. It is a more personal story, but it is a bittersweet story with some glimmers of life on the island.
I hesitate to say much about The Lost City. It is a lush and haunting labor of love.
Bitter Sugar, otherwise known as Azucar Amarga, is one I discovered in my library recently. In black and white, it's an artsy, interesting look at post Castro Cuba with the requisite disillusionment. The ending is a bit melodramatic, but definitely worth seeing.
I saw Honey for Oshun a while back. It is a more personal story, but it is a bittersweet story with some glimmers of life on the island.
I hesitate to say much about The Lost City. It is a lush and haunting labor of love.
Exile
My brother and I have spent most of our lives in neighborhoods and towns where we were the only Cubans. You can imagine how excited we were to discover the wealth of Cuban/CubanAmerican blogs on the Internet. It was the Internet equivalent of a physical community. Despite our differences, we are all united by a common heritage, a legacy of loss, and a burning desire.All of which reminds me of one of those ideas that keeps rattling around my often too busy brain, that of exile. There is obviously the physical separation from the mother country; but at least in my life, there is the sense of being different from those around me, although I lead an ordinary "American" life, whatever that is; and finally there is the sense of alienation. It's as if there are concentric circles of exile in my life, and I suspect those of others.
Denial
Sometime after the Today Show fiasco, I had a moment of not so marvelous insight. Cubans of both the Exile and American variety face a common enemy. Here are two articles, both of which I spotted on Babalu. They make for great reading, but more than that each in it own way highlights the big problem:
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.aspidarticle=9895
and
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2871
I looked around for a historical parallel, but couldn’t think of one. The only parallel I could think of came from dysfunctional human behavior. I was reminded of a family party, where one of the children came crying that the host’s dog, one of those prissy little creatures, had bitten her. The host went over to shush the child, telling her the dog hadn’t bitten her. It struck me at the time, that you know when a dog bites you. It is pretty hard to mistake, no matter what age. I can think of other parallels I’d rather not get into, but what is important is the denial of someone else’s experience. Face it, most of the MSM media is denying the experience of millions of Cubans in this country. You need only look at one fact- balseros. If Cuba is such a socialist paradise, why would untold numbers take the one in four chance of survival and take their rickety rafts, converted trucks, etc… to the water?My intial reaction to this mini-epiphany was that of despair. They just don’t want to know, I reasoned. What’s the use? Better to suffer the outrageous lies and whitewash ladled on by the MSM cynically, than to be reduced to a spluttering wreck, running to the computer to protest yet another abominably false claim about the island, past and present.But then I was at lunch one day bemoaning the Moore movie to a group of American friends, who reacted with a “duh?” These were intelligent people, who having been failed by the media, were just uninformed. So it came to me. “Tell the truth,” whatever part of it we know, not to power- they already know or don’t care- but to the people we know at any opportunity we get. Keep hollering. That dog bit us and we’re not gonna let anyone else tell us otherwise.
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.aspidarticle=9895
and
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2871
I looked around for a historical parallel, but couldn’t think of one. The only parallel I could think of came from dysfunctional human behavior. I was reminded of a family party, where one of the children came crying that the host’s dog, one of those prissy little creatures, had bitten her. The host went over to shush the child, telling her the dog hadn’t bitten her. It struck me at the time, that you know when a dog bites you. It is pretty hard to mistake, no matter what age. I can think of other parallels I’d rather not get into, but what is important is the denial of someone else’s experience. Face it, most of the MSM media is denying the experience of millions of Cubans in this country. You need only look at one fact- balseros. If Cuba is such a socialist paradise, why would untold numbers take the one in four chance of survival and take their rickety rafts, converted trucks, etc… to the water?My intial reaction to this mini-epiphany was that of despair. They just don’t want to know, I reasoned. What’s the use? Better to suffer the outrageous lies and whitewash ladled on by the MSM cynically, than to be reduced to a spluttering wreck, running to the computer to protest yet another abominably false claim about the island, past and present.But then I was at lunch one day bemoaning the Moore movie to a group of American friends, who reacted with a “duh?” These were intelligent people, who having been failed by the media, were just uninformed. So it came to me. “Tell the truth,” whatever part of it we know, not to power- they already know or don’t care- but to the people we know at any opportunity we get. Keep hollering. That dog bit us and we’re not gonna let anyone else tell us otherwise.
Azucar
Recently I was in my local library, where you can find me once a week, and spotted yet another children's book about Celia. A few days later, I was trolling the blogs and found a couple of interesting posts devoted to her. It struck a chord with me. Almost four years since her death, Celia is still strong in our imagination. She's transcended her musical fame, and I'd like to propose has become an icon of who we are. At least, that's my experience.
Loss
In thinking of Celia Cruz, I share something I wrote when I watched the funeral mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral.
The familiar marble columns of St Patick’s frame a coffin, draped with a large red, white and blue flag. It is not an American Flag. Today, New York mourns Celia Cruz. I am surprised by the tears welling in my eyes. Although I had always appreciated her as an icon and loved her indomitable spirit, I had never been particularly fond of her music. My music was Clapton and Led Zepplin and, I confess, Gordon Lightfoot and Tom Rush. I was too American for Celia. It’s that flag, that last gesture of defiance against the regime that banned her music, made it impossible for her to ever return to her homeland. In death Celia is as defiant as Hatuey, a native chieftain from the dim past.
The story goes that the Spaniards had condemned the warrior to death. A Priest went to see him to try to save his immortal soul. “Heaven is a wonderful place where there is no hunger, no strife, no suffering.” The condemned appeared unmoved. “Son,” the priest tried again, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?”
“Father,” Hatuey replied. “When Spaniards die, do they also go to heaven?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then, I’d rather not go.”
As the casket makes its way down the aisle, tears flow down my middle-aged face. I realize I cry for the dead, for my own father, for all of his friends, for a long line of relatives gone before, for a generation, the children of the lost world. I cry for myself and who I might have been.
The familiar marble columns of St Patick’s frame a coffin, draped with a large red, white and blue flag. It is not an American Flag. Today, New York mourns Celia Cruz. I am surprised by the tears welling in my eyes. Although I had always appreciated her as an icon and loved her indomitable spirit, I had never been particularly fond of her music. My music was Clapton and Led Zepplin and, I confess, Gordon Lightfoot and Tom Rush. I was too American for Celia. It’s that flag, that last gesture of defiance against the regime that banned her music, made it impossible for her to ever return to her homeland. In death Celia is as defiant as Hatuey, a native chieftain from the dim past.
The story goes that the Spaniards had condemned the warrior to death. A Priest went to see him to try to save his immortal soul. “Heaven is a wonderful place where there is no hunger, no strife, no suffering.” The condemned appeared unmoved. “Son,” the priest tried again, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?”
“Father,” Hatuey replied. “When Spaniards die, do they also go to heaven?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then, I’d rather not go.”
As the casket makes its way down the aisle, tears flow down my middle-aged face. I realize I cry for the dead, for my own father, for all of his friends, for a long line of relatives gone before, for a generation, the children of the lost world. I cry for myself and who I might have been.
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