And Shall the Fishes Have No Vote In Venezuela?

When Fidel Castro increased the number of Cuba's provinces from 6 to 14, I was surprised that he had not created 1444, because such divisions, which have no real jurisdictional or electoral purpose, are mere manifestations of autocracy as cheap at a dozen as at a ten dozen dozen. The purpose of this "reform" was to show that the maximum leader could make a five-sided square, or, in this case, invert a country's regional affiliations and oldest traditions, rendering a man's territorial moorings meaningless as well as the life that he has built around those familiar landmarks. This is worse, far worse, than moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. It is, in fact, moving everything that men are proud of or identify with. When Cuba is free, the six historical provinces will be restored as established in the Constitution of 1940. Those born under the Castroite disposition will then feel dispossessed themselves and will have to reformulate their provincial allegiances. Of course, this is unavoidable: there can be no "Granma Province" in a liberated Cuba; nor, indeed, any monument left standing to the tyrant's caprice. Where Castroism has taken root, it must be uprooted; and where, like a mushroom, it has only left a stain it must wiped clean. The future must be constructed not only with clean hands but on an immaculate canvas.

I said yesterday that Hugo Chávez has never had an original idea, that everything which he has done so far, or will do in the future, shall be in imitation of Castro. The Venezuelan copies his mentor in all things because, over 50 years, there is very little that Castro has not done to destabilize his country and erode its historic foundations. Since he seeks the same things as Castro, and, chiefly, Castro's durability, Chávez would be a fool (which he is not) if he disregarded the Appian road which Castro has laid out for him and all future Latin American despots.

So Chávez has also decided to reconfigure and expand the geographical divisions of his country. No, he has not yet proposed a Fidelia province, although we may be sure he will when Castro finally obliges him by dying. (Castro's shroud is Chávez's mantle and at times it seems, even to Castro, that the disciple is a bit impatient to assume it).

Chávez's improvisation on Castro's idea is no doubt more radical than the inspiration itself. This is another key to understanding Chávez. He is not content merely to copy but wants to leave his own distinctive stamp on every second-hand notion, and there is where he usually trips himself up. The man has no sense of proportion (which is bad because neither does Castro) and blithely turns Castro's enormities into greater enormities.

What has he done, then? Made a hundred provinces? A thousand? No, not quite.

Chávez has proposed creating maritime provinces for Venezuela (yes, dividing the ocean) and according these co-equal status with the country’s more conventional dry provinces, including congressional representation. It is not known whether the congressmen will actually have to live on dinghies to qualify to represent the fishes. It is possible, also, that the fish may just be used for representational purposes; the most densely populated maritime provinces being accorded the largest number of legislators. The question of whether the fishes will be allowed to vote and how their votes would be tabulated, has not yet been considered. It would be highly undemocratic, however, if the piscatory population were excluded from suffrage where they are the majority. It is also possible that new pioneers (humans, that is) may be encouraged to move into these virgin provinces and provided with homesteads, barges perhaps, or other suitable aquatic platforms. Wasn't a bad movie made about this a few years ago? Anyway, this is to date the most radical (read ludicrous) of Chávez's proposals.

And, no, I am not joking. My imagination is a paltry thing compared to the realities of Latin American today.

The Precolombian Rites of the Babalunians

"Five hundred years of exploitation [of Cuba] does not appear to be sufficient for the Spanish government." — Alberto de la Cruz, Babalú, November 30, 2007

To the ancient chant of "¡Cubanacán for the cubanacanos!," Alberto de la Cruz, now to be known as Alberto del Semí, has been inducted into the Order of the Black Legend by Cacique Siboney Val after having received the blessing of High Priest Enriquillo.

Quotable & Reprehensible: Alex of SotP Mourns Freedom for Elenita

"And not to put too fine a point on it, but for those who were too quick to label a Cuban father abusive just for living in Cuba [no, not for living in Cuba, but for wishing to sell his daughter to Castro in exchance for a better life in Cuba], who made up stories about him [the worst stories about Izquierdo were not told in court because the Cuban regime refused to grant visas to villagers from Cabaiguán who were willing impeach his perjurious testimony] and speculated he and his attorneys were in Castro's pockets [can anyone even dispute this?], there's no Brawny absorbent enough to wipe the egg off your faces [because there is no egg on our faces just joy in our hearts]. You will claim a "victory" because he's staying [not because "he's" staying but because she is], as if this was a war [not to those like you who wanted to surrender the child to Castro without a fight], but he's doing it in his terms [no, "his terms" would have entailed immediate return to Cuba] and with the custody of his child which you hoped to deny [it is Castro who denied him custody of his child as he does to every parent in Cuba, and Castro, also, who sent him to the U.S. to reclaim his daughter as property of the state]." — Alex, Stuck on the Palmetto, November 29, 2007

It's a victory because it didn't end with a gun pointed at the girl's face.

It's a victory because she won't be sent back to Castro's hell, which is not a fit place to raise any child, and where you have yourself admitted you wouldn't want your daughter to be raised.

It's a victory because she won't be separated from her brother, who is the only person who's been there for her all her life.

It's a victory because Joe Cubas, as he has done before, saved not one individual but an entire family from Castro's clutches to which you were more than happy to consign them.

We who always championed her cause are certainly as justified in claiming this as a victory as you were when you proclaimed Elián's repatriation at gunpoint a "victory." Our victory ensured freedom for this little girl; your "victory" turned Elián into the most used and abused child in Cuba.

In Elenita's Case, Freedom Wins

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Rafael Izquierdo has desisted in his plans to return Elenita to Cuba. He has been persuaded by Joe Cubas that it is in Elenita's best interests to remain in the U.S. Of course, it is also in his other daughter's best interests; and in his common-law wife's best interests; and, most importantly, in Rafael's Izquierdo's best interests since the most exalted lacquey in Cuba will not make as much as a busboy here. The out of court settlement is also in the best interests of Judge Jeri B. Cohen, whose earlier award of custody to Izquierdo will not now be set aside by the Appellate Court because of judicial misconduct on her part; and, also, it is in the best interests of Kurzban and Montiel-Davis, who are less likely now to be subject to disciplinary proceedings or disbarment springing from their outrageous conduct at the custody trial, which included suborning perjury and fabricating evidence. The Cubas, Elenita's foster parents and the only well-intentioned parties in this case, will continue to have visitation rights on alternate week-ends. Elena Pérez, Elenita's abusive mother, will not (unless Izquierdo wishes to risk losing custody). And Elenita's 13-year old brother, who has been her real father and protector since she was born, will not be separated from her nor she from him.

As the result of this Solomonic compromise, four people are free instead of one. Although we despise Rafael Izquierdo for abandoning his daughter and then reclaiming her for Castro, we are even glad that he has opted for freedom over slavery. Perhaps he'll learn to be a man and a father here. In any case, Elenita will remain in the U.S. and under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Children and Families until May 2010. Then her father will have to decide whether he wants to return to Cuba with his biological daughter or remain here. Nothing that this cretinous man might decide to do would surprise us. But I'm personally betting that the guajiro is not that great a fool since this compromise more than just assuring his daughter's safety for now is a golden parachute for her father.

The entired saga as covered by the RCAB:

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Stopped Dead in Her Tracks By Appellate Court

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Seeks the Spotlight Again

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Awaits Her Report Card

Judge Cohen: The Little Girl Is Lying

Now Judge Cohen Officially Banishes the Truth from Her Courtroom

A Letter to Florida Governor Crist Appealing for Elenita's Life

More Fabricated Evidence Exposed and the "C Word" Banned from Judge Cohen's Courtroom

Elenita's Fairy Tale: Grimm Was Never This Grimm

What Judge Jeri B. Cohen Should Take to Bed Every Night

Judge Jeri B. Cohen's Decision: We Should All Want "Marginal" Fathers

Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles

The Real Parents — Joe and María Cubas

Joe Cubas: Castro's Worst Nightmare (and Henry's)

Ana Menéndez & Robert Molleda: The Hag and the Gelding; Or, Love in the Stable

Notable and Hateful: No Mercy for Children Who Straggle From Castro's Knee

What Creature Do I Despise the Most in the World?

The "Elenitas" Keep Multiplying

Is Oscar Corral In Cabaiguán, Cuba?

The Saga of Babalú's Henry Gómez & Alex of SotP

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"

Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)

The Guajiro Hamlet: Rafael Izquiedo

Elián's Father was "Adopted" Too

El Bitongo

The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom

By Their Scars You Will Know Them: The Ordeal of Elenita and Her Brother

Castro's Lawyers Kurzban & Davis Face Disbarment in Cubas-Izquierdo Custody Battle

Cui Bono: The Unasked Question in Judge Cohen's Courtroom

Elena Pérez: Her Life As a Mother and a Mistress (Or Chasing Cod in Cabaiguan)

Letter to Elena Pérez: Birth Mother of the Cuban Refugee Girl

Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner

The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"

What "American-Cuban" Bloggers Really Think About "Eliana"

¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog

Venezuela to Go on "Castro Time"

Chávez is undoubtedly crazy; there can be no doubt of that. But his original ideas are few. He is the the Great Recycler (of failed ideas). Because we are so far-removed in time from Castro's earliest bizarreries, many of these have been forgotten even by those who were there at the time. Those born, like Alberto de la Cruz, after the Revolution and raised in exile, would have no reason to be acquainted with them. Hence it astonished Cruz that Chávez had devised a unique Time Zone for Venezuela, which would put it a half-hour behind all the other countries of the world. Cruz wittily named this "The Twilight Zone."

Before I say anything else (and I think all of you know where I am headed), let me remark that Cruz's post — the genre, that is — is exactly what Babalú needs to become relevant again. Since Val realized that the well of his own hardly-fecund inspiration was running dangerously dry, he recruited fresh voices with fresh perspectives and they have worked a wonderful transformation at Babalú. Yes, Henry is still shilling for the Republican anti-Hispanic xenophobes, who left no doubt at last night's presidential debate that they had written off the Hispanic vote and were only courting the anti-Hispanic vote; and Val, when he makes a cameo appearance on his blog — which, mercifully, is rarely nowadays — is still as homicidal as ever in his plans for the Cuban people (which can be nicely summarized as "More Blood and No Butter"). Yet, like Reagan, Val has the gift (in his case, almost an imperative) of delegating authority without feeling threatened by others more talented or knowledgeable than himself. He realizes that, in the end, he'll get the credit while they harp about the "honor" of serving him. (Val, incidentally, has had to "crack the whip" — his own expression — because Babalú's new and old contributors, now numbering 15, have lately come down with serious case of "let the other guy do it" which reduces output from a potential minimum of 15 posts per day to just two or three).

But we have strayed too far afield. Alberto de la Cruz is wrong. It is Fidel Castro who first devised a new Time Zone for Cuba which was one-half hour at odds with everybody else's. It was not so children could have one more half-hour of daylight but so the cane cutters (including, of course, children) could start earlier and finish later. What Chávez is actually doing in Venezuela is going on Castro Time; no doubt another step towards the "confederation" of the two countries, that is, the destruction of Cuban sovereignty.

UN Rapporteur Jean Ziegler: On the Art of Not Giving Offense to Castro

Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to Food, whose recent trip to Cuba, the first by a UN rapporteur in 20 years, revealed to the world that Communist Cuba was a horn of plenty, has admitted that he intentionally avoided meeting with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) during his 10-day visit to the island from Oct. 28 to November 6, as the New York-based human rights organization U.N. Watch had charged. Although several European Union ambassadors in Havana had offered to arrange such meetings in their embassies, supposedly beyond the regime's prying eyes and ears, Ziegler declined because "it would have compromised the new spirit of openness signalled by Cuba." Besides, his itinerary had already been approved by the regime and to stray from it would have been "irresponsible on his part" and "an absurdity." Although meeting with NGOs would have been "humanly understandable," Ziegler averred that it would have threatened future visits by rapporteurs as well as a UN pact with Cuba on social, economic and cultural rights and a second pact on civil and political rights.

"Openness" on the part of the Castro regime is contingent upon lack of openness on the part of the rapporteur. The more inoffensive that Ziegler is, the more rapporteurs Cuba will allow to visit the island in the future. With each successive rapporteur competing to be the least offensive, the number of inoffensive rapporteurs could grow exponentially. Therefore, it would have been "irresponsible" and an "absurdity" if Ziegler had by his damnable lack of inoffensiveness provoked the regime to be less welcoming to other inoffensive rapporteurs. Meetings with NGOs, although "humanly understandable," would have offended those whose actions are not humanly understandable, and that would never do. Ziegler's job is to conceal and justify inhumanity, not to expose it, much less condemn it. Under such circumstances it is perhaps more prudent to avoid those who might strike notes of discordance in the perfect symphony of sympathy which has characterized the UN's interactions with Cuba in general and Ziegler's interactions in particular. It is precisely this wonderful meeting of minds that has enabled Ziegler to secure a promise from his Cuban friends, in consideration of so much inoffensiveness on his part, to agree to sign "pacts" with the United Nations regarding "civil and political rights." It is not enough, of course, that Cuba abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which it is a signatory. No, that could be construed as being offensive. Instead, there should be a special "pact" with Cuba wherein Castro decides what constitutes human rights and agrees to abide by his definition.

Of course, the mere fact that Ziegler was sent to Cuba in the first place was a victory for the regime because as a prior condition the UN had to abolish the position of Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Cuba. Although no such rapporteur was ever admitted into Cuba for as long as the office existed, it was nonetheless a symbolic rebuke that one did exist and was thought necessary. Well, in the era of inoffensiveness to Cuba, even an implied rebuke was too explicit. Now there will be no more rebukes, real or implied; only regurgitations of Jean Ziegler's inanities.

What Do Henry Gómez and Fidel Castro Have in Common? The Exploitation of Elián González

This morning Henry Gómez has posted on Babalú blog the Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of Elián González at gunpoint with the caption: "In 49 weeks we'd like you to vote Democrat. For old time's sake." It is not the sentiment that I object to. I should no more like to see a Democratic president than would Henry. But neither, for that matter, am I enthused at the prospect of another Republican president, especially Henry's idol Fred "Cubans Are Suitcase Bombers" Thompson. I don't like either political party and believe that both have royally screwed the Cuban people from the beginning. The Republican Lincoln wanted to annex Cuba and use it, in Martí's words, as the world's "basurero," disgorging into it America's emancipated slaves, convinced as he was that the two races couldn't co-exist in the same country and determined as always to assure white supremacy. Ulysses S. Grant denied belligerancy rights to the Cuban rebels in 1868 and did everything in his power to quell their movement, with half his cabinet in the pay of Spain. The Democrats were just as bad and had been at it longer. They were not always content to let the apple ripen, as Jefferson suggested. On several occasions they tried to pry Cuba from Spain to use as a slave colony. Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, when Secretary of State, had personally betrayed Narciso López to the Spanish. Grover Cleveland had followed Grant's example by imposing a perverse "neutrality" during Cuba's War of Independence (1895-98) which allowed Spain to buy guns with which to kill Cubans while embargoing all arms intended for the rebels, nearly causing Martí's Revolution to fail even before the first shot was fired. His successor, William McKinley, did intervene in Cuba, in order to rob the Army of Liberation of their victory and impose an American protectorate over the island. In the "American Century" Eisenhower's State Department deposed Batista in order to give us Fidel; and John F. Kennedy betrayed the Cuban freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs (betraying Cubans is America's oldest diplomatic tradition) and formerly relinquished U.S. control of Cuba by ceding the island to the Soviet Union in the Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact. In recent times, Bill Clinton introduced the "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" policy which George Bush has implemented longer than Clinton did. The Elián affaire is not an isolated incident in the history of Cuban-American relations but par for the course. Clinton and Reno, of course, bear most of the responsibility; but the Republicans are not without blame either. They controlled both houses of Congress at the time and refused to pass a relief bill that would have bestowed citizenship on the boy because their constituents, ill-served as always by the MSM, had concluded that slavery in Cuba was the best thing for the boy. That attitude, of course, was also fomented by the Republicans' anti-Hispanic xenophobia, which became a party credo under Henry's other great hero, Newt Gingrich.

Of course, Henry can be as partisan as he wishes. What he has no right to do, however, is to use Elián as a political prop because Henry was one of the few Cuban-Americans who supported Elián's return to his father before his kidnapping at Reno's orders. The prospect of sending the boy back to Cuba without the use of guns didn't in the least perturb Henry. What had him in a panic then was the prospect that those loud but peaceful protestors would tarnish by their passion and "Cubanness" the good opinion which Henry's Anglo neighbors had of him and other invisible Cubans.

This kind of shamelessness is not unknown to us. In fact, it reminds us of the modus operandi of someone we all know: it is Fidel Castro's conceit that everybody else is stupid and can be conned at will.

Not me and not here, Henry.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Tweedledum is the fat one.

The worst president since Carter and the only man who could have done worse than Carter.

The two met today for the first time since 2000 at a White House reception for this year's American Nobel Prize winners.

The Castro Regime Exploits a British Woman Disabled in Cuba

Most tourists manage to "do Cuba" without doing themselves much damage. 32-year old Kirsty Offord, from Wollaton, England, was not so lucky. She sustained a life-altering brain injury when she was hit by a car while training for a charity bike ride across Cuba 9 years ago. As a result of her accident, she is now spatially-impaired and has balance problems as well as difficulty concentrating and short-term memory loss. "My brain injury meant I had to let go of many of my dreams," lamented Ms. Offord. Not all, however. One dream she did not "let go of." She returned to Cuba this year to complete her cross-country bicycle tour, aided by 25 other cyclists who were there not just for moral support but to make sure she did not kill herself this time. It must indeed have been quite an ordeal to attempt such a feat on Cuba's dilapidated roads, especially for one who has difficulty walking a straight line. In recognition of her achievement, Ms. Offord has been named as one of three finalists for the title "UK Headway Achiever of the Year," which is awarded by Britain's brain-injury foundation.

A few observations.

They should really change the name of the Award.

Although we are glad that Ms. Offord appears to be recovering, in whatever measure she can, from the devastating injuries she sustained in Cuba, we cannot but observe that she would have been spared 10 years of rehabilitation as well as this no doubt honorable but hardly desirable award if she had limited her cycling ambitions to her native England and the continent. If she had known then (which we doubt she did) that Cubans are prohibited from undertaking such an excursion without government approval, that, indeed, they require internal passports to move within their own country, she would, perhaps, have arrived at the conclusion that it is neither decent nor fraternal to do in Cuba as the Cubans can't, much less to be used as a pawn by a totalitarian regime that wishes to create the false impression that Cuba is an "open island" no different from her native Britain. Open it certainly is to foreigners like Offord who can travel the island in their own movable bubble; but once they step out of the Cubatur bus, say, onto the street, they risk confronting realities for which they are wholly unprepared, such as streetlights that have been decommisioned for years, cars without working brakes or potholes that are more like craters with their own peculiar habitats.

We do not know this for a fact but it seems a fair assumption that Ms. Offord's present difficulties were aggravated by the fact she suffered her accident in Cuba. No doubt much irreversible damage was done while she languished in a Havana hostipal waiting to be stabilized so that she could be transported for treatment to Great Britain. Unlike a Cuban in her situation, she received the best that Cuban medicine could offer; but, as Castro's own recent encounter with Cuba's health care system has shown, Cuba's "best" sometimes means performing a lobotomy through the anus. A tourist to Cuba who is unaware of this fact and actually believes the propaganda may pay a price higher than he imagines for his credulity, that is, he may pay the price ordinary Cubans do.

What I find intriguing and sadly disturbing about this story is that the victim has learned absolutely nothing about her experience in Cuba and has lent herself to be exploited again by the regime. Perhaps the experience itself and its consequences put her beyond profitting from its lesson. Certainly there can be no more contemptible human beings than ones who would avail themselves of another's misery in order to increase misery among men, and here we allude not only to the Castroites themselves but their fellow travellers in Britain and everywhere.

Human Rights Activists Detained in Cuba After House Invasion

The human rights situation in Cuba continues to worsen under the leadership of Raúl Castro. The regime's assault brigades stormed the home of human rights activist Juan Bermúdez Toranzo on Thursday, Nov. 22, where a prayer vigil was being led by Pastor Yordis Ferrer on behalf of Cuba's political prisoners.

The armed troops, who numbered about 30, fell upon the family and its guests with savage fury, beating even the women and children, and then ransacked the house in the Havana municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, destroying the family's furniture and personal belongings.

Bermúdez was dragged to the patrol car with his 2-year old son in his arms, who was wrenched from him so that he could be pushed inside. Nothing is known of the child's whereabouts. Bermúdez's wife, Nery, who was not allowed to follow them, was also beaten by security forces. Pastor Ferrer attempted to come to her defense, whereupon the Pentecostal minister was also arrested. Nery Bermúdez was advised to "look for a lawyer" because formal charges were to be pressed against her husband for engaging in activities contrary to the interests of the State. These might include the holding of a religious service in a private home without a government license as well as defaming the Revolution and other singularly Cuban offenses.

The 30-year old Bermúdez founded an independent labor union for Cubans denied a permit by the government to work for themselves. He is also involved in programs to better the quality of life for the impoverished children of his neighborhood, one of Havana's most marginalized.

In an encouraging development, which is now becoming more common in the wake of such arbitrary arrests, family members and friends of the arrested men protested outside the police station to demand their release, risking, of course, arrest themselves.

News of the detention of the human rights activists was reported by Juan Carlos González Leiva, a blind lawyer who leads the Cuban Human Rights Foundation and the Human Rights Rapporteur Council in Cuba.

Juventud Rebelde Hails Metrosexuality in Cuba

"[A] short walk down the streets in Havana will suffice to be struck by the frequent sight of men with shaven arms and legs, polished nails, plucked eyebrows, earrings and other until very recently female attributes (later extended in the article to include "tight pants, long dyed hair, lipstick, facials, pierced navels," etc.). They are regular customers at beauty parlors, highly selective about their clothes, and fond of jewellery — deemed until a few decades ago by social norms as being exclusively female attributes." — Juventud Rebelde, November 11, 2007


One would think that in a country where women use sugar syrup (almíbar) for hair dressing and lightning fluid for deodorant (both excellent for their purposes if these are to catch bees or fire), the likelihood of men co-opting their "beauty products" for their own personal toilet would be slim. But, if Juventud Rebelde is to be believed, metrosexuality has taken Cuba by storm. Metrosexuality can best be defined as homosexuality without the sex. That is, it copies the habits and fashions of homosexuals as well as a certain female sensitivity. It is even said that certain women are attracted to these denatured men.

Juventud Rebelde sees metrosexuality as conducing to "men's liberation." But from what? Masculinity? If this were indeed its object, then it would certainly resonate with the capos of the regime, for that is one kind of "liberation" which they could support. Anything which emasculates the Cuban male, which deprives him of his standing within the family or society, will be received with gratitude by the Communists. The day is long past when the Revolution tried to turn effeminate males into "real men." That experiment failed for many reasons, not least of which because sexuality is destiny. You can turn a homosexual into a sadist or masochist, and the UMAP concentration camps produced many of those; you cannot, however, reorient him towards heterosexuality.

Metrosexuality is a lot easier to implement because its transformation is not essential or permanent, though its superficialities create a mindset and general attitude which fosters narcissism and a preocuppation with external appearances that masks internal conflicts. By promoting metrosexuality as a means of "social recognition" the regime is shifting the focus from the rights of man to the rites of manhood. And, of course, it is not a means of "social recognition," as Juventud Rebelde contends, but of social control.

The "new man" — Juventud Rebelde uses the term in parentheses — is no longer like "Che," brutish, homophobic and a coward. The "new man" as newly defined is "oblivious to any boundaries set up by a phallocentric culture." Since man is essentially phallocentric himself, biologically and psychologically, a culture that would encourage him to deny that fact or obscure it is depriving him of his bearings.

Juventud Rebelde claims that this trend, which has already played itself out in the West, is a phenomenon that could not have occurred during the Special Period in Cuba. By implication it is saying that this period of involuntary self-denial has been transcended and that Cubans are now living in headonistic times, where excess is, if not the norm, then at least no aberration. It compares the present time to ancient Rome at its most self-indulgent and claims that this is not a new trend but a revival of a very old one.

Now this is very strange indeed. In Cuba, a monthly bar of soap of the cheapest and coarsest type and a razor dull enough to cut but not to shave are the foundation (no pun intended) of Cuban metrosexuality. How far an obsession with one's appearance can be carried within those narrow confines is anybody's guess. Cubans do have a genius for improvisation but this supplies basic needs not extravagances. It is easy enough to look like a male on one bar of soap and one razor per month but quite another to ape a dandy (the 19th century term for metrosexual).

Juventud Rebelde claims that metrosexuality was introduced to Cuba through globalization. Funny how Cuba appears to be immured from its effects in so many areas, indeed, in almost all areas; yet this frivolous trend managed to penetrate its cordon sanitaire. Unless the government sanctioned and promoted it, it would seem highly unlikely that it could make any headway in Cuban society.

As further evidence that this trend did not casually come to moor in the Caribbean backwater there is now an Office of Ibero-America Masculinities, in Cuba, headed by a Dr. Julio César González Pajés, a professor at the University of Havana. Juventud Rebelde does not say if Dr. González Pajés is himself a metrosexual but his cosmology does seem to point in that direction: "Today’s man is much more androgynous and 'feminine' – not effeminate, but feminine from the female standpoint of socialization." And likely to become more so now that Juventud Rebelde has published a 2500-word guide to becoming a metrosexual.

While admitting that "Cubans have a variety of views about their metrosexual countrymen" Juventud Rebelde highlights only the positive ones. The most critical Cubans it surveyed contend that metrosexuality is just an imported fashion trend or manifestation of adolescent rebellion and protest (much preferable, say, to youths wearing wristbands emblazoned "CAMBIO"). The most laudatory applaud it as "a male recipe for self-esteem that men can use to undergo an aesthetic alteration [which] displays the subject’s open-mindedness like a neon sign." Expert González Pajés agrees: "What is beyond question is that Cuba is under the influence of that global movement and our youth are ever more eager to look like their peers overseas." Yes, look like their peers; the government will now gladly accept this compromise if its youth do not demand greater rights than to resemble foreigners in externals while still yoked to a superannuated ideology and denied the civil and human rights that their peers in Western countries take for granted but would not trade for the right to wear navel rings. Cuban males, on the other hand, are advised by designer Guillermo González Lezcano to embrace "aesthetic freedom" and to "preserve the country's beauty values."

So the Revolution which began by stressing, and, indeed, demanding an almost camp machismo of Cuban males ends its days by admonishing them to "tend to their feminine side" and to "preserve the country's beauty values."

http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2007-11-11/aumentan-hombres-que-usan-atributos-femeninos/

Notable & Redundant: Still Beating Old Rocinante

"Spain has the most foreign investment in Cuba and as a result Spanish political leaders are impotent to stand up to their corporations and require Cuba to adhere to international norms of labor practices. Spain's incestuous relationship with [the Cuban] regime makes Spaniards de facto enablers of the regime." — Henry Gómez, Babalú, November 24, 2007

One would have thought that Henry Gómez, having launched a new BUCL campaign after keeping that organization in abeyance for months, in the hope, perhaps, that its epic failures would be forgotten, or that I would die — pretty much the same thing — and having received from me the closest thing to a blessing that I will ever give him for his newest and seemingly innocuous CAMBIO campaign, would, in his own interest, bury and forget forever his "Campaign Against Spanish Explosion" (he meant exploitation). But no. He resurrects again the Black Legend in his latest post about Condé Nast.

Once again he defames all Spaniards for the actions of some Spanish corporations who have become partners with Castro in the exploitation of the Cuban people. He has never named these corporations and I doubt very much whether he even could. It is easier to tar the entire Spanish nation with their misdeeds. I wonder if ordinary Americans should also be blamed for Enron's predations on them, or for the neverending assaults on the dignity of foreign laborers by America's own rapacious multinationals who taught their Spanish counterparts everything they know.

But no. Americans — according to their folklore — are the victims of their corporations, who exploit them at home and discredit them abroad. But Spaniards, according to Henry, are to blame for all the misdeeds of their multinationals in Cuba as well as the silence of its government. Henry has never blamed Americans for the "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" policy or even the U.S. government. In his heart of hearts he himself approves of the policy: it's part of his master plan to stop Cubans from fleeing to the U.S., which serves the double purpose of protecting the unbarnished name of Cuban exiles already here as well as raising the temperature on that pressure cooker which Henry and Val keep brewing in hopes it will blow up and take the whole Cuban people with it.

Still, it is Spaniards who are wanting in morality. Even when Spain's King and Socialist president, for once, find the gumption to stand-up to Castro's overlord and strike a blow for civilization amid a gathering of the worst and dumbest in the region, Henry remains unimpressed and hostile as ever. The Spanish government, ignoring the interests of its multinationals but upholding the honor of its people, did confront Chávez and in public, threatening their corporations' incestuous relationship not only with Venezuela but Cuba as well. The Spanish people responded by overwhelmingly supporting (82%) the severing of diplomatic relations with Venezuela, which would be the death knell of Spanish corporations there (and probably in Cuba as well). Monkey see, monkey do.

Still, Henry is not satisfied.

I assure you that if 82 percent of Canadians were in favor of breaking ties with Communist Cuba, I should be singing "O, Canada" right now.


POSTSCRIPT:

Killcastro has left a very important comment which I urge you all to read.

Notable & Suicidal: RCAB Makes Him Want to Kill Himself

"I went to his blog site... Who is this Manny and what turns his crank? Well... after reading a few of his blogs [i.e. posts] I wanted to kill myself. Whew, man, oh man, does that guy ever froth at the mouth... like a rabid dog. Betcha he's a regular blast at a party." — "Saborami," Cubamania Canadian Forum, November 22, 2007

Yes, I am.

Read more:

http://www.cubamania.com/cuba/showthread.php?t=20300

The Canadian "Herbert Matthews" Returns to Cuba 47 Years Later

Evil is something which is ingrained in people's characters and cannot be uprooted any more than goodness can. Repentance is possible but always unlikely since self-justification is of more importance to most people than self-correction. In modern times there is no more remarkable an example of this than Herbert Matthews, who knew Cuba at its apex and helped it to reach its nadir. Matthews, more concerned about his feeble place in history than the great harm which he had done to generations of Cubans, died in Australia defending his Frankenstein's monster to the last. I did not know but should have supposed that there had to be a Canadian Matthews. There is always a Canadian equivalent of anyone who is odious and grotesque in the U.S. Being derivative is their identity (mark that sentence; it is the entire history of the Canadian people). Much as they try to differentiate themselves from their Southern neighbor, Canadians always manage to be more of the same, only blander, in that supernumerary, surplus kind of way.

The Canadian Herbert Matthews is called Michael Maclear. He was born in London and you can't get more Canadian than that. He was a tv correspondent in Cuba at the time of the triumph of the Revolution and his reportage from there "launched a hugely successful career as a foreign correspondent and documentary filmmaker," according to the Montreal Gazette, which interviewed him. So Maclear has good cause to say "Gracias, Fidel" and he still does. At 77, he returned to Cuba to survey the cost of his "hugely successful career." He even filmed, wrote and narrated a documentary about his return trip, which will premiere tonight on Canadian television. Cuba is still grist for his mill.

His hatred for the U.S., which is as ingrained in the Canadian MSM as in its American counterpart, enables him to still see Castro as a "hero," although having been there at the beginning he knows that being a revolutionary "hero" has nothing to do with heroism and everything to do with propaganda (i.e. using tools like Matthews and Maclear himself). He acknowledges that Castro used him and others more notable than him during his ascent to power to foster the myth of "Fidel Castro as poet/warrior." Castro is no more a poet than he is a warrior, but it is the warrior part that Maclear rejects: "Really, it wasn't like there were any great battles then. Batista's army basically laid down their arms, and Batista fled the country." That's good. There was no revolution; only random terrorist acts. This is the only myth about the Cuban Revolution that Maclear is, well, mac-clear about, much clearer in fact than Matthews, who saw mighty legions in the Sierra Maestra where there were only a handful of campers in camouflage. In the 1950s, Maclear was young and cynical and could see through such ruses, while the besotted Matthews, who shilled for Franco in the Spanish Civil War, was too invested in siding with the "angels" this time to realize that Lucifer was an angel too. Also, Castro and his henchmen were Maclear's contemporaries, and this also gave him an advantage over the sexagenerian Matthews.

But let us not give more credit to Maclear than he deserves. With the passage of time, he has become Herbert Matthews and now sees Cuba as dimly. He claims to still have a "fondness for the Cuban people" and "empathy" for their situation. He shows it by dismissing the 48-year tyranny that Castro has exercised over them as the cause of their woes, preferring, instead, to see them as victims of the "the world's longest-lasting David and Goliath confrontation." In Cuba's case, however, David has been aiming his slingshot at his own people rather than at the giant. Although he claims to have interviewed Cubans critical of the regime for his documentary, Maclear does not deny his bias, which is all the more shocking because he doesn't pretend that Cuba is something it is not. Elections there, he effortlessly concedes, are no exercise in democracy. Still, they are all the Cuban people deserve or want: "Cubans well know theirs is not a democracy, but it is theirs, no longer some colony for sale. It is a nation, hard won." Well, not so "hard won," as Maclear earlier admitted; more like ceded to them. Maclear does not say who "won the nation." The answer, of course, is the Castroite oligarchy. It is they who took Cuba, all of Cuba, 48 years ago as booty and have never relinquished "their" prize. If Cuba was an "American colony" before the Revolution, it was not by Cuba's doing. The fact that Cuba was made into a Soviet colony for 30 years and now into a Venezuelan province is entirely Fidel Castro's doing. When colonialism is imposed by a stronger state on a weaker one, it is a tragedy. But when it is agreed to by small clique in order to control a majority of the population, then it is treason.

In the documentary, Maclear uses archival footage of an interview which he conducted with Fidel Castro in 1959. In it he is told by Castro that "Cuba would have free elections, a multi-party system and not nationalize foreign companies." He does not blame Castro for lying to him or the Cuban people. He blames the U.S., instead, for not "reaching out to Castro when he was eminently reachable," that is, for not bribing him out of his Communist convictions and anti-American fanaticism. Maclear believes that Cuba was auctioned in 1959 and the Soviet Union was the top bidder. If so, it is Castro who closed the bidding.

Still, things have not turned out so badly for the Cubans, who are now the happy subjects of their homegrown tyrants, which Maclear confuses with the triumph of nationalism. He doesn't want Cuba to be judged by "First World standards" though he should know that Cuba was once a First World country like his own. He is transfixed by the fact that Cubans supposedly pay no taxes, though their blood and sinew bankroll the regime. Rents in Cuba are a nominal $1 per month, or so he claims. He fails to mention that although Cuba's population has doubled since 1959 its housing stock has decreased by one third and much of what remains is in a state of near-collapse. University is "free" he also claims, but fails to note that it was free before the Revolution for poor students and that no political test was ever applied for admission there before Castro. And, of course, universal [bad] health care is the Revolution's greatest achievement.

Most horrific of all, Maclear purports that Cuba is not a police state, or not so bad a police state. He rejects "the usual stereotypes of police being on every corner, of everybody being oppressed and downtrodden and in revolt. Cuba may be far from perfect, but it's just not like that, either." Of course, it is exactly like that and worse. He blames "the U.S. media" and the "anti-Castro faction in Florida" for perpetrating this image of Cuba on innocent Canadians like himself. "Westerners," he explains, "tend to look at Cuba through the standards of a first-world nation, but we have to accept the fact this is a very poor country trying to survive."

Though he lives very comfortably in the First World and would never approve of a Cuban solution to Canada's congenital colonialism, which is no less a national obsession for being largely illusory, Mr. Maclear is quite content that Cuba be governed by Third World standards, which requires it to forgo democracy and the Rule of Law in exchange for plutocracy and the rule of tourists.

Maclear's documentary, After Fidel, which should have been entitled "After Fidel, Raúl," airs this Friday in Canada on History Television at 8:00 PM. No doubt it shall find its way to some PBS channel soon.

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/preview/story.html?id=e792c3e3-f939-4746-a2b6-cad461343acd&p=1

Barack Obama Admits to Drug Use: "Kids, You Can Be Me Too"

He only failed to mention crack, but admitted to having abused cocaine, marihuana and alcohol in his "youth." Which is when? 5 years ago? 10 years ago? Anyway, it happened when Barak was "Barry" Obama.

Substance abuse was a means by which he could "push questions of who I was out of my mind." What questions? That he was a cokehead and a pothead? No. Obama means the agony of being what was once known as a tragic mulatto, born between two worlds but belonging to none. They made a movie about it once called El derecho de nacer. Of course, the word "mulatto" is now considered politically incorrect, although the angst about being one is apparently still acceptable. In Obama's case, however, the elements which usually go into making one a tragic mulatto are wholly missing.

Obama is not a descendent of slaves since his father is an African-African, born there and living there. In fact, if "reparations" were ever distributed to the descendents of slaves, he wouldn't be on the receiving end of the line. His ancestors were the slavetrappers who sold blacks from other tribes to the slavers. On his white mother's side, Obama is descended from the family of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America. He better be careful or the Sons of the Confederacy may elect him their president.

Obama's own life seems to have been wonderfully free of discrimination. Obama admits that he was a poor student — and, we may add, he's done nothing noteworthy since — and yet this did not stop him from becoming the Senate's youngest member and a viable presidential candidate. Discrimination should be made of sterner stuff.

Obama unbosomed himself before an audience of high school students, no doubt to stress the fact that he too was (and is) young. The message that his listeners are likely to draw from this personal admission is that you can abuse drugs, put sex and sports before academics, nearly flunk out of Columbia and still end up in the While House. Well, that lesson has already been taught by the incumbant. Religion saved Bush and the race card will probably save Obama.

Fidel Castro's Heritage

"I agree with what [Chávez] said, that I am a strange blend of races. I have Taino, Canary Island, Celtic and who knows what other bloods in me." — Fidel Castro Ruz, "Reflections of the Comandante," Granma, November 18, 2007

No you don't, Fidel. Your father's people are from Galicia, in Spain, and your mother's are Sephardic Jews from Syria who immigrated to Cuba in the early 20th century. You are descended from a long line of rabbis on your mother's side and illiterate cave-dwelling peasants on your father's.

Your half-brother, Raúl, is the one who has a variegated heritage. He is a descendent of Tainos and Afro-Cubans on his father's side, though he does not advertise that fact. Standing side by side, the two of you look like anything but brothers.

The RCAB Responds to the Rebirth of BUCL

Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty (BUCL) is back. After disappearing for a respectable period and fanning everybody's hopes (especially those of its impressed members) that BUCL was no more, it has been brought back from unspeakable disgrace. Its founder Henry Gómez proudly proclaimed its re-birth on Babalu, or, perhaps, we should say reincarnation, because its coming back in a different form, with a revised history and new objectives. The calamitous campaign which launched it, the now-legendary "Crusade Against Spanish Explosion" (they meant "exploitation") has been re-baptized posthumously as "The Campaign Against Spanish Investments," thereby lifting the anathema that BUCL had placed on the entire nation of Spain. Its hagiographic and hopelessly starstruck second campaign, which sought to recruit Sting and the Police in the fight against human rights abuses in Cuba, and which memorably culminated in a BUCL streamer being flown at the Sting concert in Miami, with all the BUCLers in attendance, and, apparently, expecting to be called on stage at any moment, that deluded exercise which plumbed the depths of sycophancy in the belief that Sting could incite a youth revolution in Cuba, is now to be officially known as "The Campaign to Point Out the Hypocrisy of Would-be Human Rights Champion Sting and his band The Police." Exposing Sting's hypocrisy was an (undesired) by-product of the Campaign, not its objective.

After two such spectacular failures, the Third Campaign seeks to be more conventional than those which preceeded it. This is not going to be hard. They are looking for a campaign which everyone can rally around, one which won't offend the 90 percent of Cubans who are descendents of Spaniards and which won't puzzle the 90 percent of Cubans who have never heard of Sting and the Police. The final criterion is to choose a campaign that I won't object to.

Well, they have done it.

BUCL's new initiative is to be called "The Campaign for CAMBIO en Cuba." I hope that this involves support for the CAMBIO wristband movement there. Hopefully, the BUCLers won't launch another CAMBIO of their own to rival theirs. It would really be shameless if they were piggybacking on the campaign of civil disobedience initiated in Cuba by people risking their lives.


Past posts on BUCL at RCAB:

Does Henry Want to Resurrect the Undead BUCL?

BUCKLE

The BUCL Belt: Henry's Imagination Strikes Again

Henry Gómez Accuses Spaniards of "Exploding Cubans"

Is There Anything At All in Henry's Mind On Any Day?

BUCKLE But Don't Tighten Your Belts

BUCL's Siren Song

BUCL's Last Hurrah

BUCL Again

"BUCL Up, It's Gonna be a Bumpy Ride"

BUCL Is Killing Babalú

Dissent Comes At Long Last to Babalú

And From the Peanut Gallery...

Insanity, Homoeroticism and Xenophobia on "The Babalú [Faux] Radio Hour"

Val Praises Fidel's "Charisma" and Moneo Calls Him "One of the Smartest Politicians Who Ever Lived"

BUCL's Bizarreries to End at Versailles Restaurant

BUCL (2007-2007)

BUCL and The Black Legend: Using Racism to "Liberate" Cuba

Babaloo's Waterloos: Spain "Forced Religion" on Cubans

La Raza

"Am I Not a Man and a Brother?"

http://killkasstro.blogspot.com/2007/11/oro-negro.html

http://penultimosdias.com/2007/11/19/la-foto-del-dia-un-negro-en-cueros-en-linea-y-2/

Díaz-Balart vs. McGovern: The Lincoln-Douglas Debate It Wasn't

Henry Gómez's critique of the C-Span debate on the trade embargo is actually rather good. The Lincoln-Douglas debate it certainly wasn't. Díaz-Balart was an ineffectual advocate for the trade embargo and Cuban freedom. Not exactly outfranked by his dim partner, Díaz-Balart did not manage to do what McGovern did — get his talking points across. Lincoln Diaz-Balart simply cannot think on his feet. I don't know whether this is because of a paucity of brain matter, tired feet, or both. Henry's riposte was 100 percent on target. If Henry had debated McGovern and limited himself to this statement, he would have won easily. Henry, who suffers from a painful lack of gravitas and decomposes when exasperated, would not have done better on stage than did Díaz-Balart. But it is a fact and I will not deny it that not in a million years, working like the proverbial monkey at the typewriter, could Díaz-Balart produce Henry's eloquent and reasoned brief for the trade embargo.


Postscript:

Leftist bloggers are not satisfied with Congressman McGovern's performance either. Left I On the News (how cute!) had this to say about it:

"McGovern, the liberal? Not one word of rebuttal! All he had to say was, the blockade (they called it an "embargo" of course) is a "failed policy" ("failed" because it hasn't overthrown the government), and if we really want to "change things" in Cuba, the best way to do that is to drop the blockade and let American college students on spring break "invade" Cuba. [L]iberals like McGovern are so frightened about being "tarred" by association with Cuba that the thought of saying one word in Cuba's defense is simply too much for them to deal with, even on a subject like the end of apartheid. Instead, he retreats to the "safer" area of "Americans' Constitutional right to travel" and the "best way to change things in Cuba. Feh."

A New Poll of Cubans Shows Their Rejection of the Castro Regime

In what has been described rightly or wrongly as "the first authoritative poll of the aspirations and attitudes of the Cuban people," it was found that the overwhelming majority of the Cuban people (75 percent) want to be given the opportunity to elect Fidel Castro's successor. At least that's how the pollsters from the non-partisan International Republican Institute (IRI) have presented the data. It would have been simpler and truer to say that Cubans want a return to democracy, which necessarily entails dismantling the present system. Nor is the implication correct that they are content to see Fidel Castro become the first Cuban dictator to die in his own bed. That may be inevitable by now, but it is not so by the will of the Cuban people. The poll also found that a corresponding number (79 percent) believe that the present regime is incapable of solving the country's problems and that only a market-based economy could improve their daily lives (83 percent). Since it created the problems and declined to solve them by the only expedient that could — namely, disappearing from the national life — it is certainly no stretch of the imagination to suppose even in the absence of a poll that Cubans are fed up with 48 years of unrelieved economic failure supported by an unprecedented apparatus of repression, whose maintanance aggravates that failure. At best, this poll confirms what should be taken for granted by everyone since surely no people on earth wear chains as a talisman for one much less 48 years. That even the presumption should exist that this is still an open question shows the extent of the world's delusion about Communist Cuba.

600 Cubans in "14 of the 15 provinces" were polled by IRI, which I interpret to mean (since for me there are only six provinces) that 94% of the national territory was covered. What is different about this poll from, say, the recent Gallup poll which also claimed to be the most extensive and authoritative to date, is that the pollsters were in cognito when they sounded out their subjects on these various questions. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this modality. For one thing, as an official pollster — or an official anything — you are unlikely to elicit honest answers, since most Cubans would assume that you were either working on behalf of the regime or that it was monitoring your activities and would somehow gain access to your data. Gallup pointed out that engaging subjects in exploratory conversations might skew the results because the questioner must also reveal to some extent his own opinions in order to expect equal frankness from those he engages in conversation. If the pollster were to present a series of questions, one after the other, without commentary or feedback, his subject would presume, at the very least, that he was a pollster. And that would certainly never do. Just how must better are IRI's protocals than Gallup's may be be judged from the response which each received to the question, "Do you disapprove of Cuba's leadership?" 39% of those polled by Gallup answered in the affirmative. 79% of those surveyed by IRI did.

Cubanologists on the left, who are mostly concerned with justifying the Castro regime, do not believe the findings of the IRI poll to be any kind of indicator of Cubans' real feelings about the regime or Cuba's future. Phillip Peters, of the Lexington Institute and Cuban Triangle, regards the poll as a godsend — for Raúl. All he has to do now, according to Peters, is fix Cuba's economy to earn the support of the Cuban masses. This presupposes that Raúl cares about the support of the Cuban people. Having ruled 48 years without it, why should he be concerned about it now? It also assumes without any basis that if Raúl Castro were able to raise the living standard by implementing some reforms (such as allowing Cubans to own airplanes?) they wouldn't care about human rights or anything else. In this Peters is echoing Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise, which deferred civil rights for a place at the common table (or, rather, under it).

Vicki Huddleston, a fellow at the Brookings Institute and former chief of the American Interests Section in Havana, following in Wayne Smith's footsteps, as have most of his successors regardless of party, opined that the poll shows that Cubans want to reform the system in order to "preserve some things, such as free education and health care." There is more to life than going to school or getting sick. Very little of life, in fact, is spent at school or in hospital. But even if that were all there was to life the Cuban people would not be any less miserable for it, because Cuban schools are anything but free and Cuban health care both inadequate and dangerous. Still, Ms. Huddleston believes that Cubans "do like some of the things they've been given [by the Revolution] and might not be willing to give up stability for democracy." So the present situation, the greatest convulsion in Cuba's history, represents "stability" to Ms. Huddleston, while democracy, which would certainly disrupt the status quo, conduces to disorder and chaos. And what about the things that Cubans have not been "given" by the Revolution? Such as democracy, the Rule of Law, economic, civil and human rights? No, those are of no importance to the Cuban people; there both Peters and Huddleston agree. What they fear and reject — the restoration of democracy in Cuba — even the Cuban people, locked in a box for nearly 50 years, recognize intuitively as the only hope for their country. Why must Cubans choose between "stability" and democracy? Why can't they have both? Or, more to the point, why can't they be presumed to want both?


POSTSCRIPT:

Phil Peters said...

Mr. Tellechea, I think you got a little carried away with a single sentence where I was quoted in the USA Today article.

Regarding the poll, it seems to me to be a good effort in an environment where accurate polling, as we understand it, is not really feasible.

This is certainly not the “first authoritative poll” done in Cuba. It bears noting that the poll itself has not been released. A link to the selected results that IRI released is on my blog, here.

I believe the poll is probably accurate in its finding that when Cubans are asked to identify the biggest problem they face, they predominantly cite economic issues. That doesn’t mean that they don’t want political freedom too, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t think they deserve it.

But if the poll is accurate, and if Raul Castro delivers effective economic reforms – two significant “ifs” – then he stands to benefit politically. That seems obvious, doesn’t it?
11/19/2007 10:06 PM

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

Mr. Peters:

You do seem rather fixated on the idea of Raúl as an agent of change. This he never has been. What change could he possibly implement that would place him in a better position than he is right now? The only positive change that can be expected of Raúl is for him to die. If he should do so before his brother, it would be the best thing that could happen to Cuba.

For the First Time, Hispanic Surnames Among the Top Ten in the U.S.

Well, we have arrived; or, rather, the consequences of our arrival are becoming patent. As The New York Times reported today, the "Garcias Are Catching Up to The Joneses." Of course, the Cuban Garcías surpassed the Joneses, white or black, many decades ago. However, The Times does not mean economically but demographically. For the first time ever, two Hispanic surnames are now among the 10 most common in the nation. García is now the 8th most common last name and Rodríguez is 9th. Martínez almost made it to the Top Ten, but was edged out by Wilson. The rankings are based on the 2000 census. It is remarkable that it was taken the Census Bureau nearly eight years to make these calculations. By now, it is likely that Martínez is already among the Top Ten and possibly one or more Spanish surnames have cracked the name parade. As of 2000, 6 Hispanic names were among the top 25. One-fourth of the total, though Hispanics account for just 13 percent of the population (that figure is also grossly underestimated).

Well, the United States would certainly be an adornment to the other Hispanic nations. Since 1990, the U.S. Hispanic population has grown by 58 percent. A few more decades like that, while non-Hispanic whites obligingly plan, control and abort themselves into demographic extinction, and America will revert to its original inhabitants and colonists.

I see it. And so do all the Anglo bigots in this country who, if being themselves is not bad enough, must now contend with the additional humiliation that they are being unmanned in their own corral, to use a delicate phrase. They had better take a lesson from the mules or the inhabitants of Utah and stop this foolishness about building a Great Wall on the Mexican border when the Trojan horse is already intra muros.

If you know a García or a Rodríguez (and we all do), congratulate them.

Look for your surname:

http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/freqnames2k.html

Should We Cheer for Cuban Athletes At International Competitions? Only If We Revel in their Degradation

An actual discussion, sans obcenities, threats or anathemas (so far), is taking place at Babalu blog in response to Alberto de la Cruz's observation that "they must be eating out their livers in Havana right now" because the Americans beat the Cubans to win the Baseball World Cup in Taiwan. A commenter, Espirituano, observed correctly that Cubans on the island do root for their players (we might add, whether playing in Cuba or the U.S.). Cruz, and, especially, abajofidel (fantomas), forcefully brought home the point that a victory for Fidel Castro is a victory for no one except Castro, certainly not for the Cuban people or even the Cuban athletes themselves.

Do Cuban athletes represent the Cuban people? The Cuban people believe they do and they are closer to them than Americans are to their athletes. For one thing, though they receive perks which ordinary Cubans do not, these afford Cuban athletes, even at the highest levels, a lifestyle which is far, far closer to that of ordinary Cubans than the salaries of their American counterparts place them in relation to their own countrymen. A professional athlete in the U.S. can aspire to earn as much or more than a CEO of a Fortune 500 company; no athlete in Cuba earns more than a major in the army. Cuban players are obviously exploited by the regime and denied the opportunity to employ their talents to their fullest potential. All Cubans can empathize with their plight because all Cubans share it. Excluding the parasites of the regime, all other Cubans would be doing better today, whatever their positions, if the state released them from the yoke which it imposes on all Cuban workers, that is, if serfdom were abolished in Cuba. Of course, athletes are the most exploited of all Cubans; their real value, as confirmed by those who have escaped their involuntary indenture, is sometimes in the hundreds of millions of dollars; yet they are forced to squander their talents and their futures in the stables of their decrepit master at whose pleasure and for whose glory they compete — or not; for, in many cases, they are denied the opportunity even to exhibit their talents because they are deemed unworthy of the privilege of serving him.

Of course, it would be unjust to ask these young men and women to renounce their dreams of athletic glory, circumscribed as those dreams are. The ultimate dream — that of escaping and realizing their potential elsewhere — is contingent on their participation in Cuba's sports programme. No one would want them otherwise because they would be unknown quantities. That is the one advantage which accrues to them from being showcased by the regime: they get noticed. To go beyond that they must risk their lives on the high seas just as all Cuban refugees must do who want to realize their potential, or attempt the even riskier feat of defecting abroad and running the same fate as the Cuban boxers who were deported by Castro's slave catchers in Brazil.

It is correct to see Cuban athletes as victims of the regime, because they are; it is quite another thing to root for them at international competitions because that is just to applaud their status and prolong their servitude. Applause in their ears rings as hollow as that bestowed on gladiators by spectators to, and participants in, their degradation. It is well to remember that almost all Roman gladiators weren't Roman. Foreigners were sacrificed in the arena while Romans cheered. If freemen cheer the exploits of Cuban athletes they are in fact condoning their exploitation.

In Happier Times the Seeds of Discord Were Sown

Hugo Chávez amuses Chilean president Bachelet to no end; but observe the exquisite smirk on the King's face. His eyes appear to be closed; it is not as easy to turn off the audio. The King's entire demeanor seems to be saying: "Why don't you just shut up!" Hours later he would say precisely that.

Notable & Ominous: "I Don't Want the King to Kneel Before Me"

"If the Spaniards don't want this incident to become a problem for them, they have to rectify their conduct. I am not going to ask the King to get on his knees before me, but to recognize in some way that he exceeded his limits, that he did something that was improper because he's not the king of Latin American presidents. Speaking for myself, I did nothing 'improper,' as Zapatero has suggested. I simply made an historical observation. Moratinos, for his part, has sent conciliatory messages while throwing oil on the fire by asserting that we precipitated this incident. I don't understand Moratinos. He claims that they don't want this situation to escalate but declares in Chile that Daniel [Ortega] and I crashed with Zapatero because we were defending our Old Left, which means that the Spanish government does not understand that there have been great changes in Latin America." — Hugo Chávez, speaking on Venezuelan television, November 15, 2007

Oh, I think the Spanish government understands it a lot better now.

When Chávez attacks Moratinos, who is the very personification of the left-wing fellow traveller and has always been a cheerleader for both Castro and Chávez, there is more at play than a bruised ego. What Chávez sees is an opportunity to embark on the final phase of Venezuela's transformation into a Communist state by promoting a second "Bolivarian War of Independence" against Spain.

On the positive side, we may be witnessing the implosion of Spain's Socialist Party courtesy of their fraternal ally in the Socialist International.

Notable & Inevitable: Fidel Calls Zapatero a "Coward"

"All hell broke loose at the Ibero-American Summit. Zapatero’s cowardly and untimely remarks, his defense of Aznar, the King of Spain's abrupt interjection, and the dignified response of the President of Venezuela who, because of technical problems, was unable to hear precisely what the King had said, were an unambiguous display of the genocidal ways and methods of the empire and its accomplices exercised over the anesthetized victims of the Third World." — Fidel Castro Ruz, Granma, November 15, 2007.

Zapatero has now been labelled a coward by Castro, who is, undoubtedly, the greatest coward in Cuban history and should know whereof he speaks in this area, at least. Whatever the benefits that might accrue to the Cuban regime from maintaining cordial relations with a spineless Spanish ally adept at softening the hard stances of other European nations is nothing compared to the material assistance which it receives on a daily basis from Castro's chief idolator and heir presumptive. Zapatero is expendable; Chávez is indispensable. A sucker like that is not born every minute. If panegyrics are the currency in which Communist Cuba repays its debts to Venezuela, then Castro's wagging tongue is a printing press that will never stop spewing the specie of the realm.

In his last days Fidel Castro reminds me more of Hitler than at any other time of his life. In this latest "reflection" he is mimicking the Hitler of the bunker days, fulminating about the German people having let him down and proving unworthy of the great mission which history had entrusted to them. Fidel Castro also feels that "the anesthetized victims of the Third World" have fallen short of the grace of Marx and he cannot but be perturbed to see that the lessons of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe did not entirely escape them as they did him.

Barry Bonds: Reviving the Salem Witch Trials or Castro's Purges

Anabolic steroids were criminalized in the U.S. in 1990. The American Medical Association (AMA), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) all opposed the classification of anabolic steroids as controlled subtances at the time because "use of these hormones does not lead to the physical or psychological dependence required for such scheduling under the Controlled Substance Act." Nevertheless, Congress ignored all scientific evidence in favor of a bizarre kind of morality which proscribes certain natural or synthesized substances as avatars of evil. Alcohol was such a subtance once. In 1919, its manufacture and consumption was outlawed by Constitutional amendment, which was subsequently repealed in 1933 when it was realized that it would take a great deal of alcohol to get through the Depression and the government could use all tax revenue that its sale would generate. Still, alcohol, unlike anabolic steroids, is certainly physically and psychologically addictive and could be listed as a controlled substance tomorrow if the government so decreed it.

When alcohol was an illegal subtance in the U.S., the government did not go after athletes who used it. The period of its proscription coincided almost exactly with Babe Ruth's baseball career. Was the country's most famous alcoholic ever indicted for consuming alcohol or denying that he consumed alcohol? Were his records challenged because he was almost always drunk or nearly-drunk when he came to bat, or indeed, drunk or nearly-drunk all the time? Alcohol, of course, can be a performance enhancer or not, depending on the individual. Clearly, it worked wonders for the Bambino. (General Grant is another example).

If Barry Bonds or any baseball player used anabolic steroids before 1990, they were guilty of no crime. After anabolic steroids were made illegal in 1990, athletes were tested periodically for the use of performance-enhancement drugs. Bonds never failed any drug test administered by Major League Baseball. Yet he has just been indicted on a spate of felony charges which could send him away for 30 years for allegedly lying to a grand jury about his alleged use of anabolic steroids, ten times as long as if he had been convicted of actually using them. This tactic, incidentally, was used to convict mobsters and traitors like Alger Hiss when the statute of limitations had expired or other recourses failed. For the offense of perjury Hiss received 3 years. Obviously, it's not as great a crime to betray your country — that is, to endanger the lives of millions — as it is to endanger one's own life (allegedly). Not only does the punishment not fit the "crime" but it is tantamount to what the Victorians used to do to failed suicides — hang them.

Does anyone besides me see a grievous miscarriage of justice here? Is this not an attempt to destroy the life and reputation of a man that many see as "unworthy" to wear Hank Aaron's mantle or Babe Ruth's? This kind of historical revisionism goes far beyond attaching an "*" to his records. It is the recourse of a judiciary turned star chamber, which is not enforcing the laws but creating new "moralities" to persecute. This is always the recourse of tyranny. If there is no evidence to convict someone of a crime (even one which was invented ex post facto to entrap him), then simply declare the defendant's refusal to admit to the crime as evidence of his guilt. It worked at the Salem witch trials. It's also what enabled Fidel Castro to murder 15,000 Cubans in the first year of the Revolution. In another parallel to Castro's Cuba, a judge in California has imprisoned Bond's personal trainer, Greg Anderson, for nearly a year for refusing to testify against Bonds. Since when is testimony compulsory in this country? That's another resourse of tyranny.

Well, let Americans take care of their own house (or not). A country that implements the "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" policy is not beyond sending Barry Bonds to jail for 30 years for denying he used steroids. Para Cuba que llora, la primera palabra.

"Dignidad Ante Dinero": 82% of Spaniards In Favor of Severing Relations with Chávez's Venezuela

In a poll conducted by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, 82 percent of Spaniards were in favor of severing diplomatic relations with Venezuela over Chávez's continued insults and threats to their country.

This is the real Spain, not the caricature advanced by her enemies, whether the Castro clique or the BUCLers of unpleasant memory. The people of Spain feel no love or loyalty to Spanish conglomerates or political parties and appear to have no difficulty repudiating them. Spaniards do care about their Cuban cousins and all Spanish families are related in some degree or other to the children of the emigrantes, whose descendents constitute the majority population of the island.


POSTSCRIPT:

Anonymous said...

Yes, Manuel, Spaniards love Cubans — especially las mulaticas. Millions of them vote with their ... every year.

Problem is that 83% vote is not in support of the Venezuelan people, it's nothing more than a predictable nationalist reaction.

No brownie points from me today.
11/16/2007 1:40 AM


Manuel A.Tellechea said...

Anonymous:

Millions of Spaniards do not visit Cuba every year. The millions stay home; the thousands visit Cuba. And who are these Spanish tourists? Fellow travellers and admirers of the gallego's son, loathesome fidelini without an island of their own to ravish. These pathetic degenerates should be attacked as I have always attacked them; but they no more represent the Spanish people than do the Spanish conglomerates.

The Spaniards' opposition to this tyrant — whether as a nationalist reaction or any other kind of reaction — will rebound to the benefit of both the Venezuelan and Cuban people. It certainly rebounds to the credit of Spaniards.

Notable & Risible: Castro Excoriates Spanish Colonialism and Warns Chávez to Beware the Ides of November

"Time, distance and space were reduced to zero. It seemed unreal. There has never been a dialogue like that between heads of state and government, representing, almost in their totality, countries sacked for centuries by colonialism and imperialism. No other incident could have been more enlightning. Saturday, November 12, 2007 will go down in the history of Our America as the day of truth. This ideological Waterloo occurred when the King of Spain asked Chávez abruptly, "Why don't you shut up?" In that instant the hearts of all Latin Americans quivered. The Venezuelan people, who on December 2 will answer "yes" or "no" [to Chávez's constitutional reforms that would allow him to remain in power indefinitely], was profoundly moved to realize that they were living anew the glorious days of Bolívar. The betrayals and low blows which our bosom friend receives on a daily basis will not change the feelings of his Bolivarian people towards him.

On his return to the airport in Caracas, from Chile, having been told from his very lips of his plans to mix freely with his people, as he has done so many times before, I understood with absolute clarity that, given the present circumstances and the far-reaching ideological victory obtained by him [at the Ibero-American Summit], a paid assassin of the Empire, a debased oligarch influenced by the Empire's propaganda machinery, or a mentally disturbed person, might try to put an end to Chavez's life. It is impossible to dismiss the impression that the Empire and the oligarchy have led Chávez up a blind alley putting him well within the reach of a bullet.

In Venezuela's case, victory will not be turned into a terrible setback but into an even greater victory, in order to prevent imperialism from leading us to the suicide of our species. We must continue fighting and running risks but not playing Russian roulette every day nor heads or tails. No one can escape mathematical calculations [of probability].

Under such circumstances it would have been preferable to use modern means of communications to transmit to the world live and direct the debates of the Summit." — Fidel Castro Ruz, "Reflections" of the Comandante," November 12, 2007

I am willing to bet my last dime that Fidel Castro actually wrote this "reflection." Either that or they have finally found a ghostwriter who can mimic him to perfection. What is more remarkable, however, is that this imitation, if in fact it is one, is not of the addled Fidel, which would be easy enough to parody, but of Fidel at the height of his powers of deception, bombast and Machiavellianism. There are so many concealed barbs in these few paragraphs, the points of which are barely visible to the eye, so much concentrated hypocrisy and dissimulation, that never was the maxim "the style is the man" more applicable.

Castro is concerned, foremost, in turning his ally's monumental embarrassment at the Ibero-American Summit into a victory. But, of course, that is not enough for Fidel. It must be a transcendental victory of the most transcendental kind; one that, literally, causes the world to pause in its revolutions, or, as Castro puts it, "reduces time, distance and space to zero." It is, moreover, the most instructive political exchange in history; an ideological Waterloo or ultimate defeat for the forces of imperialism; and it revives the glorious days of Bolivar's triumphs against colonialism. And here we thought that all that had happened of note at the Ibero-America Summit was the well-deserved desplante which the impolitic and impolite Chávez received from King Juan Carlos. It is obvious that Chávez was profoundly humiliated at the summit and he has gone from trying to dismiss the incident as irrelevant, to making fun of it, to exploiting it for political gain, to fuming at the arrogance of kings, to demanding an apology from Spain, and, finally, to threatening to nationalize Spanish banks in Venezuela. Fidel assures Chavez, however, that this was his finest hour and "the hour of truth" for all Latin America. More interesting still, Castro predicts that this may possibly be Chávez's final hour. This epoch-making victory has made him the Empire's "Public Enemy #1." Yes, he has displaced Castro himself as a target for assassination. That mantle, too, Castro is graciously ceding to his Venezuelan counterpart even before the first bullet has been fired.

Here is where the concealed barbs to which I previously alluded become more conspicuous to the trained eye. Fidel's praise is mockery. He knows his subject well enough to assume that the last person in the world who could ever see through his cynicism would be Chávez himself. And not only mockery, but payback.

Since Castro fell ill and even before, the heir presumptive has been predicting Castro's imminent demise. First, it was in the form of funereal praise: Castro could never die, Chávez said, because he is part of the earth, the air, the water, in short, elemental and eternal. To many that sounded like a eulogy in the absence of a corpse: Castro will live forever but only allegorically. Lately, Chávez has become less poetical. While transmitting his tv program "Alo Presidente" from Santa Clara, Cuba for the 40th anniversary of "Che" Guevara's death, Chávez spoke of his lastest meeting with Castro as possibly his last. The Cuban ministers of state in attendance at the live show turned redder than the red tee-shirts they were all wearing in homage to Chávez. Castro himself called the show to castigate his overeager disciple for his pessimism (optimism?). Still, one can't blame Chávez for being a little impatient. He's been paying the bills for a long time and expects some kind of return for his investment. Fidel's mantle is not good enough anymore. Hugo wants him in a shroud and soon. He certainly doesn't have the patience of Prince Charles, nor is Fidel his mother.

In these few paragraphs Castro warns Chávez against unduly exposing his life by mixing freely with the populace, which he compares to playing Russian roulette. The odds, he says, are definitely against Chávez and one can beat anything except the odds. Implicit in this is the admonition that one has to be Fidel Castro to beat the odds as he did, and that Hugo Chávez is no Fidel Castro. In fact, it is certainly possible that Fidel could outlive his replacement if that "imperialist bullet" finds Hugo Chávez and this "reflection" is Castro's way of reminding him.

Castro may be dying and senile. But his personality, at least, is unaffected.

Aznar as Chávez Sees Him (Can You See This Picture Now?)

Chávez Threatens to Nationalize Spanish Banks In Venezuela: Sounds Familiar?

Hugo Chávez is threatening to nationalize Spanish holdings in Venezuela in retaliation for King Juan Carlos' verbal rebuke at the Ibero-American Summit. Zapatero and Moratinos are ready to do any penance themselves to satisfy him, afraid that they will be blamed, as already they are being blamed, for cultivating such "friends" for Spain and endangering national interests for the sake of international grandstanding. The summit was a much-needed wake-up all for the Spanish Socialists. It was not just Hugo Chávez who was castigating Spain for the very "abuses" which are always charged against the U.S. at international forums. Since this was a meeting of the leaders of "La Raza," it was the original hagemon which was the target of their resentments and envy. The most adamant denouncer among them, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, railed for an hour about his country's Spanish-owned electric company. Public utilities were always a popular target in Latin America. In pre-Castro Cuba, the U.S.-owned Cuban Telephone Company was perhaps the only foreign monopoly which everybody hated. When Cuba was Cuba, Spain was poorer than Cuba so there were no great Spanish-owned conglomerates in Cuba other than those which belonged to Spanish emigrants whose roots were no longer in the motherland. By contrast, in Venezuela today, Spanish investments are held by Spanish capitalists who have no roots in their host country. It is even easier, then, to foment popular resentment again them and use that as a pretext to tighten the government's stranglehold on the economy.

All foreigners must be evicted in order for Venezuela to become the Socialist (read robber) state which Hugo Chávez says he wants it to be. The first page in the manual of economic ruin, which Castro graciously lent his Venezuelan protege and benefactor, is to privatize, nationalize, and, preferably, confiscate without compensation, all foreign capital. This is always the preclude to the theft of all national wealth regardless of whether it is in foreign or native hands.
After Chávez has confiscated Spanish investments in Venezuela — say a decade or two later — he will offer to settle all Spanish claims, now deemed irrecuperable and already written off, for a fraction of a cent on the dollar. The duped will rejoice that they were able to recover even that much, and calculating that bigger investments will offset past losses, grandiose plans will again be drawn for Spanish capitalization. Now, of course, it will be a different kind of investment. The state (Chávez) will be a majority holder in all new enterprises and the salaries of Venezuelan nationals will be paid directly to him, who in turn will allocate some pittance to his hapless subjects, negligible except when compared to the even smaller pittance which the state pays its unindentured servants. Of course, being partners and mindful of each other's interests, Chávez will never again raise the specter of the Black Legend in Venezuela. Once the Spanish firms are in effect working for him there will be no need to decry them as exploiters when it is in his interest to have them refine and expand their exploitation.

In order to reap this double-fortune Chávez must lay the groundwork with a concerted campaign of vilification against Spain and Spaniards. Or perhaps just demand an apology from a Spanish king intent on upholding the honor of his people and his country. All would work as Chávez had hoped and Castro assured him except for his own Socialist allies in Spain who are intent on ruining a good thing for Chávez by kow-towing ten meters into the ground if necessary to placate him and forestall the inevitable piñata until their conservative opponents are in office again, when they will be free to blame the confiscations on their "intransigence" while simultaneously applauding Chávez's "purification of national interests" or "dignification of his people."

Notable & Pedantic: Cubans Are Now "Cubands"

"Cubands is an elastic and all-inclusive term I developed in order to simultaneously take account of the layered presences that constitute Cuban cultural and national identity (such as those of Spain, Africa, Ireland, France, the United States and the former Soviet Union, etc.) as well as allow room for the hybrid identities that are continuously transforming in an ever-changing diasporic context, which is at once global and transnational... Added to the mix are the experiences and expressions of Cubands, either born or raised outside the island, who claim to possess a Cuban consciousness that has been shaped as a result of what I term a second-hand experience of exile... The diversity that exists within the Cuban diasporic population, coupled with the permutations and transformations that have occurred outside the island, thus speaks directly to the need to relinquish and move beyond a monolithic idea of nation or cultural identity, or the misleading binary of island and diaspora, aquí y allí. The emphasis then is not so much on locating 'home,' but on the fluid process of voyaging between identities and worlds; in other words, the journey is 'home.' In this sense we as Cubands — on and off the island — are at once post- and trans-national. " — Andrea O'Reilly Herrera, author of Cuba: Idea of a Nation Displaced, quoted in The Miami Herald, November 14, 2007

Professor O'Reilly is the very proud of herself. Proud of her Irish extraction. Proud of being the chairman of the department of "Ethnic Studies" at Colorado University. Proud of her theory that there is no such thing as a static Cuban nationality. But proud, above all else, of having invented the word cuband. You don't understand this professor's "cutesiness?" Well, let me parse it for you: Cuba + and = nothing. This formula may be too easy for the professor to understand and she would certainly disavow it if she could. But, in a nutshell, that is her philosophy. We are nothing because we are nothing in particular, just hybrids. Second-generation exiles are the biggest nothings of all, because they received their national and cultural consciousness at second hand. In fact, according to Professor O'Reilly, they even experienced exile at second hand. O'Reilly Herrera believes that our "journey" (read exile) is home and that we had better resign ourselves to this fact. On the other hand, "Cubands" are in the vanguard of the post-national world. For her, statelessness is the promised land and perfection of human existence. And we happy, happy Cubans and "Cubands" got there first.

Of course, Professor O'Reilly Herrera is herself a cuband. Which is to say, a specter, an illusion, nothing. Yet this "nothing" is very vocal about her ideas of what constitutes a Cuban nationality and what does not. Shouldn't "nothing" be more circumspect? Shouldn't "nothing" know her place or her "non-place?" Nothing certainly should.

http://www.miamiherald.com/540/story/306917.html

Oscar Corral: The Return of The Prodigal

The prodigal has returned but not in triumph. Oscar Corral's byline is again featured in The Miami Herald. The Cuban-American community having closed its doors to him, and the crime beat also being off limits to him, the disgraced reporter has become The Herald's resource of last resort and least importance, doing the kind of "man-on-the-street" interviews and obituaries on which most beginners cut their teeth. He reemerged last week with a brief article on the reaction of Miami's Pakistani community to President Pervez Musharaff's declaration of a state of emergency. He wrote an almost identical "follow-up" this week. Both articles consist chiefly of quotes from various local Pakistani personalities, and both introduce in the first paragraph Farzana Farooq, sister of a former justice on Pakistan's Supreme Court (one of 17). Since Corral's expertise on Pakistani affairs appears to be nil, he cannot do otherwise than relate what others say without attempting to place their comments in a broader context; and having managed to offend no one in the first article, he essentially followed the same formula in the second, producing a nearly identical article. Had he been as circumspect in his coverage of Miami's Cuban-American community — about which he knows just about as much as he does about Miami's Pakistanis — Corral might not have sidetracked his career, at least, though his meretricious proclivities would certainly have derailed it, as eventually they did.

His other story this week was an obituary of George Stead, 52, the Edison High School footbal player who was paralyzed at age 15 when he dove for a tackle in a football game against Norland at the Orange Bowl in 1971. We can't help but wonder whether this obituary was assigned intentionally to Corral to cure him of depression and self-pity, which required a 5-month sabbatical to treat, longer than it did for Stead to return to school after his catastrophic injury. Stead's courage in the face of adversity and refusal to consider himself a victim hold valuable lessons for Corral, though moral greatness usually requires some sense of morality.

Can anything be more humiliating for a seasoned reporter, at one time The Herald's point man on Cuba and improvised "expert" on journalistic ethics, than to return to work in the capacity of an obituary writer and man-on-the-street reporter? Lois Lane, even Jimmy Olsen, got more important stories. What's next for Corral? Quinceañera parties? No, he would be persona non grata there. Too scandalous a figure and not to be trusted around teenagers. Speaking of which, Corral's troubles from soliciting the sexual services of one, continue for the indefinite future, as he has decided not to plead out and will pursue this matter through continuances, motions and appeals for as long as it takes for him to be vindicated or for the principals in the case (the prostitute and pimp) to disappear, which is much the same thing. Then it will be just his word against the arresting policewoman, and if his attorney selects carefully the members of the jury, the erstwhile golden boy turned enfant terrible might walk and be "promoted" to the Broward bureau just in time to do one of those "man-on-the-street" interviews there about Fidel Castro's death.


***
Included here are all the posts, from the newest to the oldest, which we have devoted to Oscar Corral on the RCAB, the most comprehensive archive on the net of the disgraced ace reporter's antics:

Alfonso Chardy is the New Oscar Corral

First Anniversary of Oscar Corral's "Miamí Moonlighters" Story

From the Tellechea Digital Archives: Carl Hiaasen and Jesús Díaz Battle Over Martí Moonlighters Story and Díaz Blinks

From the Tellechea Digital Archives: Oscar Corral's "Martí Moonlighters" Story Revisited

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Oscar Corral But Didn't Know Where To Ask

The Sun-Post's Rebecca Wakefield Polishes Oscar Corral's Apple Again

Deserving of the Pulitzer for Best Cartoonist

The Miami Media's Reaction to the Oscar Corral Affaire

Ah, Poor Henry Misses Me at Herald WatchRCAB News: Cornering the Market on Oscar Corral

El Nuevo Herald Buckles to The Miami Herald While Granma Comes to Oscar Corral's Defense

Discussion of Oscar Corral Affaire Banned at Babalú Blog

Corgiguy Protests RCAB's Treatment of Oscar Corral

Oscar Corral: Rescuer of Lost Souls

Schadenfreude: Oscar Corral Gloats About Arthur Teele Jr.'s Downfall

Yamilet López: The Girl Whom Oscar Corral Propositioned

Oscar Corral's Alleged Homosexuality: Slander or Libel?

Oscar Corral Deletes Comments Critical of Him at "Miami's Cuban Connection"

Re Oscar Corral: Is Prostitution a "Victimless Crime?"

Oscar Corral and the Divine Finger"

"In Miami's Fair City/Where the Girls Are So Pretty..."

New Times Names Oscar Corral "Best Commie Spy" in "Best of 2007" Issue

The Wrong Reporter For the Posada Story

Oscar Corral: The Man Without Principles

Notable & Deranged: Venezuelans, It's Already Too Late for You

"The king got very mad, like a bull. But I'm a great bullfighter - ole!" — Hugo Chávez, quoted by El Mundo, November 10, 2007

Notable & Expendable: The Veep and The Creep Opine

"Mr. Juan Carlos can treat his subjects in that fashion if they permit him to do so. But we Venezuelans are a free and sovereign people constructing our own future. No one can speak vulgar words to deny Venezuela's chief of state the right to speak. Nothing and no one will ever silence him [Chávez]." — Venezuelan vice-president Jorge Rodríguez, November 11, 2007


"Chávez's criticism of Europe was devastating. The same Europe which presumed to give him lessons in rectoría at the Ibero-American Summit." Fidel Castro, "Impressions on the XVII Ibero-American Summit," published in Juventud Rebelde, November 11, 2007

[In Spanish, rectoría means either "rectory" or "rectorship." We think that Castro must have invented a new word from recto, which means "honest" or "upright." Either that or he has confused "rectoría" with "retórica" (rhetoric)].

Notable & Unmanned: Hugo Chávez Reponds to Royal Rebuke

"He [King Juan Carlos] is as much a head of state as I am, with the difference that I've been elected three times with 63% of the vote; the Indian Evo Morales is also as much a head of state as King Juan Carlos de Borbón. No chief of state can tell another one to shut up. I've been told that they had to restrain the king because he was rising from his chair, although I didn't notice it. I was only telling the truth I believe, therefore I have nothing to answer for to the king. That's his problem." — Hugo Chávez, responding to King Juan Carlos' injunction that he "shut up" after repeatedly interrupting President Rodríguez Zapatero's speech at the Ibero-American Summit, held at Santiago, Chile.

Well, this adds an interesting dimension to this story. According to those near to the king, who were obliged to "restrain" him, or so Hugo has been told, His Catholic Majestry was ready to fall upon the red cacique. What a historic moment that would have been! The symbolism alone would have sufficed to make me pass out. For once, a Spain king would be vindicating the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Americas by thrashing one of their own! There are a few pages still to be written in the history of Spanish colonialism in Latin America. That would have been one.

Chávez neglected to mention that besides being a head of state like King Juan Carlos, he also aspires to be a king himself. The upcoming Venezuelan elections will make him "president for life," the first in the Americas since "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Before Chávez is through he may well crown himself, you know, so that old kings won't pick on him anymore since he'll be their "cousin."

BTW, I guess there's not going to be any Grand Cross of Isabel the Catholic in Hugo's future.

Chávez Is Given the Raspberry at Ibero-American Summit by Spain's King and President (While Castro Is Wildly Cheered)

The Babalunians are rejoicing, albeit cynically, because King Juan Carlos of Spain and Socialist President José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero stood up to Hugo Chávez at the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile. Well, even if they are doing so for the wrong reasons, they are still right to rejoice. All freedom-loving Cubans should rejoice when the chief of state and head of government of a kindred people give a public demonstration of dignity in the face of bullying and provocation, completely unexpected from either party but highly satisfactory in both cases. The king's rebuke, "¡Por qué no te callas!" [Why don't you shut up!], was addressed in the familiar "tú," which in Spanish is reserved for close friends, children and menials. We know that Juan Carlos is not Chávez's "friend." Chávez certainly is the Spanish president's, but even Zapatero felt compelled to give his Venezuelan counterpart a much-needed lesson in manners and diplomatic etiquette, which is sure to go unheeded.

In 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery, Castro condemned Spain as the artifex of all of Latin America's woes (prior to the founding of the United States) and declared himself a spiritual Indian. No one in Spain remonstrated against Castro. Perhaps they were actually happy that Castro had picked up the banner of the Black Legend because no one was less fit to carry it than a gallego turned "spiritual Indian" who had re-colonized Cuba as his own private fiefdom.

It was quite another thing for Chávez to start singling out Spanish "fascists" in the presence of Juan Carlos and Zapatero: the one a felicitious creation of Franco's (the "son" that Franco never had and for whom he displaced Juan Carlos' first-cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, father of Franco's great-grandsons, as heir to the Spanish throne) and the other the beneficiary of Franco's decision to bequeath democracy to his country. Zapatero is no less a creature of Franco's (one of the the "demon children" of reason's sleep, as another gallego put it), even if, unlike Aznar, he disclaims the connection. In fact, in his revanchist policies and exploitation of national divisions for his own benefit, Zapatero is more of a "fascist" than Franco ever was and certainly more than Aznar. (As a historical footnote, if Castro had attended the Summit, he would have been the only other leader there besides Juan Carlos who decreed national mourning when Generalissimo Franco died).

The King and Zapatero's indignation at Chávez's continuous and calculated allusions to former prime minister Aznar as a "fascist" shows, also, that they are not amused by the more apish caricature of the original simian, and that whatever it was that made Castro personally immune to such desplantes (literally, knocking someone off his feet unexpectedly), Chávez, much as he tries to emulate him, has not quite hit on the right formula of arrogance and braggadocio, and Castro, who holds the patent, has either forgotten the right formula or is reluctant to share it with his overanxious disciple, who can do nothing lately but allude to Castro's imminent demise and is reciting eulogies over him while his body is still tepid. If Chávez weren't a generous tipper, Castro would surely take these maledictions as maledictions.

Would it be an exaggeration to say that this public slap — which must surely be only a slight indication of what has been said privately — was administered to the "heir apparent" in order that it should be passed around until it reaches his mentor? It is Castro, after all, whose work of hemispheric conflict and disunion Chávez is advancing, and Castro, too, whose involuntary absence at the summit put Chávez in command of the "progressive forces" there. Yes, it probably is a bit of an exaggeration. But we can be sure that if Castro had been there the King and Spanish prime minister would have been more circumspect if only from the fear that Castro would have tried to top Chávez, and Castro, of course, knows where all the dirty laundry is buried in Spain's history of the last 50 years.

Although he could not make it to the summit, Fidel would not have been Fidel if he had let this opportunity go by without at least trying to upstage everybody there. So, to everybody's surprise, except Carlos Lage's and Chávez's, Castro placed a cellphone call to Chávez while he was in the middle of his speech, which Chávez interrupted to take the call and relay a message of solidarity from Castro to the Chilean people. The Chileans present responded with sustained applause and cheers, finally breaking out, at Chávez's prodding, into a chant of "Fidel, Fidel, qué tiene Fidel, que los imperialistas no puden con él." ["Fidel, Fidel, what has he got, that has the imperialists in a knot"]. When he resumed his speech, Chávez, besides attacking Aznar as a "fascist," focused on the "abuses and crimes" of Spanish corporations in Latin America. He was echoed by Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. Having had enough of this, King Juan Carlos retired from the conference table; but the host of the summit, Chilean President Bachelet, persuaded him to return for the closing ceremony.

Like Castro, Val and Henry condemn the Spanish people for the sins of their rulers, unconscious, of course, that others might use that as a pretext to condemn the Cuban people for Castro's doings. No, "unconscious" is not the right word; the Babalunians themselves lead the pack in blaming the Cuban people for things outside their control, including Castro's perpetuation in power. It would be better to say that the Babalunians condemn Spaniards for the sins of their leaders but do not give them credit when their leaders do the right thing. In that sense, they have picked up the banner of the Black Legend which Castro relinquished to Chávez and Ortega.

Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

Is everybody of Fidel Castro's generation destined to die before he does? Sometimes it seems that way. The latest celebrity to predecease him, at least, does not cause us any grief. Norman Mailer is dead at 84.

It would be honoring Norman Mailer's memory if I wrote one word about him as a writer, and so I won't. I am concerned strictly with Norman Mailer the mountebank, the poseur, the radical by proxy and fool by choice; and, specifically, how all these facets of his execrable personality reacted to Fidel Castro, whom Mailer called "the first and greatest hero to appear in the world since the Second War." Mailer was himself a veteran of World War II which makes his praise even more odious. A tinpot dictator and psychopath as the heir and continuator of "The Greatest Generation?" Well, Mailer never ceased to shock to no effect.

Fidel Castro has always been a magnet for [p]sycophants, but rarely has any stuck so tenaciously to him as did Norman Mailer. Eminently ridiculous in everything that he ever did or said, Mailer's praise of Fidel sounds laughable today because it was laughable then. Did Mailer really think when he compared Fidel Castro to an "erect penis" in an extended metaphor that the passage of time, let alone Castro's conduct, would redeem such an "extravagance?" Or this other conceit: "[With Fidel Castro] it was as if the ghost of Cortez had appeared in our century riding Zapata's white horse." I will not try to parse that sentence but will let our Mexican friends make of it what they will. Surely it is the first time that Hernán Cortés was ever confounded with Emiliano Zapata (the scourge of the indigenous population with its champion). The choice of historical personages, however, does show that Mailer could no more tell a Cuban from a Mexican than he could Cortés from Zapata.

Now Norman Mailer and Fidel's other great American literary admirer, Allen Ginsburg, can wait for their idol to join them in the nether regions, where each may satisfy, individually or together, their fascination with him.

Notable & Quotable: Cuba is Exporting the Best and Consuming the Worst (As Usual)

"Yes, [my wife] did take pictures [of her recent trip to Cuba], but mostly inside her mom's house as the authorities called her to task when she was filming the streets in Guantánamo and the sad state of disrepair of the houses in the town. But she filmed the road from Guantánamo to Holguín and that road was a disaster. Her stories about life in Cuba are enough to fill a big book of horrors. But here is one of them [that stands out].

One of her relatives works in a hospital in that city, and she injured herself and had sought medical help to see an orthopedician and to have her arm X-rayed. She was told there were no specialists to look at her problem and she was told to wait for 4 months for an appointment to see the doctor. Meanwhile her own husband was in Venezuela as a medical doctor earning $9,900 for the Cuban regime while being paid $50 dollars a month. Also my wife was told by the same relative that the Cuban doctors inflate the medical bills presented to the Venezuelan Govt. for the patients they attended with X-rays, electrocardiograms etc. even though they sought help for a minor ailment such as a ingrown nail. The doctors themselves feel very bad about this but they are told they have to fulfill a certain quota of tests and check-ups to pad the bill and enlarge it for Chávez. So while in Cuba the people cannot find a specialist doctor and are being attended by last-year medical students or recent graduates from the School of Medicine, the Venezuelan patients are being treated by all sorts of doctors and specialists sent from Cuba to bill the Clown Chávez for these services. She searched for over 3 days to find toilet paper to purchase with dollars at a shopping! Finally, after 3 days she went to another city and found 4 small rolls for 1.80 CUC the quality of which, according to her, was not even near the worst paper we find here. All of this of course at a price so far out of reach for the average Cuban to make it impossible for them to buy it. She found the situation so bad she was ready to leave after only 5 days into her visit. Naturally, if one was to place this comment on the Cuban Triangle, for example, the likes of commenters like Leftside would say that all of these are lies and made-up stories. — Agustín Fariñas, comment on "Fred Thompson" thread, RCAB, November 9, 2007

Around the time that beef became unavailable in Cuba and its unauthorized possession a criminal offense, a friend related to me that supermarkets in Spain were stocked with imported Cuban beef, which sold at a lower price than did the local product. The Cuban beef, he reported, was of excellent quality and much preferred by Spaniards of limited means who could not otherwise afford beef. This was in the 1960s when Spain was on the road to becoming a developed country and Cuba had embraced underdevelopment as its future. My friend never ceased to be astonishment at the fact that he re-discovered Cuban beef in Spain. He was also reintroduced to Cuban coffee, guava paste and other foodstuffs which had long ago disappeared from the ration card or been offered sporadically and in miniscule amounts which reminded one of the taste but could not satisfy the craving for them.

In the late 1970s, when eggs, coincidentally, no doubt, suddenly became available "por la libre" for the first time in 20 years and the last time since, Cuba was able to corner the international blood plasma market. This was accomplished by harvesting its slaves, who were expected to donate blood in solidarity with their internationalist brethren who were bleeding for the Revolution in Angola and everywhere else in the Third World. Except that the blood that Cubans donated was sold on the international plasma market, where Cuba became the "superpower." It was better to donate a pint of blood than a pound of flesh. For prisoners there was not even a choice; the country's most underfed and least healthy population were the "front line" in this campaign, pumped for hundreds of thousands of pints every week. The advent of AIDS killed this market, although by quaranteening patients with HIV the regime attempted, unsuccessfully, to retain its hold on it.

It was then that it occurred to the Castroites that they didn't have to harvest the blood drop by drop but could rent its surfeit of doctors to the Third World, thereby putting a resource to use that realized no profit in Cuba while at the same time representing itself to the world as philanthropic and humanitarian. The Castro regime had to conceal its participation in the plasma business; but there was no need to hide the Cuban doctors. After all, the Revolution had made them them doctors, right? Who would dare suggest that it could possibly be exploiting them? And, to tell the truth, most newly-minted doctors were anxious to get the hell out of Cuba since they figured that their lives could not possibly get worse anywhere else. This also afforded them with the possibility of travelling and even of escape (not as great as they had imagined). The pittance they were given as allowances they could use to buy items abroad that were not available at home at any prize — simple things, like an electric razor or a thermos.

As Agustín points out, it is no longer the "surfeit" of doctors which is being exported to Venezuela and elswewhere by Cuba. What happened to buses a long time ago in Cuba is now happening to its medical personnel: they are being salvaged for pieces. Hospitals in Cuba, such as they are, are literally being disbanded and the heads of departments and other specialists shipped abroad on "internationalist missions" while the desperate needs of the populace are ignored so that the Smith Brothers of tyranny can attend to the health of their Venezuelan patron's own slaves — to the great consternation, we may add, of Venezuela's doctors, who have been displaced by socialized medicine and their professional careers effectively ended. This is not just a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Paul is as much a casualty of the "largesse" imposed on him as Peter is of the misery.

Blog Review: El Güicho Crónico

I am gifted with a "genius radar." It is the ability to process as little as one paragraph of prose through an unpatented internal mechanism too complex to explain and not altogether understood by me, which, in a matter of seconds, provides me with the writer's IQ. Of course, we should never confuse IQ with utility. Hyperintelligent people are rarely useful to society. The smartest man who ever lived collected trolley car transfers and wrote the authoritative text on them, the greatest monument to misplaced scholarship since St. Thomas Aquinas calculated the number of angels that could fit on the head of a pin. That much said, I believe I have discovered the greatest intellect in the Cuban-American blogosphere. No, it is not Val Prieto. A joke like that would make me an imbecile.

As it happens, the genius to whom I refer doesn't take himself too seriously, which is a good thing. In a country where someone who reads books is considered a little odd and one who writes books the oddest of the odd, it would hardly do to parade one's intellectual endowments without at least buttressing same with a considerable layer of regular guy bravado. This our genius does a little to excess, but then again he has a lot of genius to cover. In the autobiographical sketch appended to his blog, he reproduces the grateful exhalations of various women in flagrante delicto, a broad slice of humanity — German, Peruvian, French, Argentine, Brazilian, etc. — attesting to the universitality of his libido if not his genius. Do not be fooled: the genius lurks behind the jerk, who exists only to enable the genius to exist. This genius calls himself a "precocious retard," which, socially speaking, most geniuses are; but we believe he is just undercompensating.

This genius is not very prolific. He started his blog in September 2007 and has produced some 25 posts to date. Of course, the biggest fools in blogdom are the most prolix. Quantity can never supply the place of quality, though it is often mistaken for it by even bigger fools.

The name which this newest Cuban blogger goes by is El Güicho Crónico. I am going to refer you to my favorite post from El Güicho which provides the key to who we are as a people and what the future holds for us. Having read it, you will never see our country the same way again. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I will leave to your discretion.

http://guicho-cronico.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-post.html

Fred Thompson Shoots Himself in the Foot (And Cuban "Suitcase Terrorists" Have Nothing to Do With It This Time)

When William F. Buckley was running on a lark for mayor of New York City in 1965 on the Conservative Party ticket, he was asked what he would do if he won the election. "Demand a recount!" he famously replied. Fred Thompson has taken a page from Buckley's old playbook; but unlike Buckley, who could afford to be flippant because he had no chance of winning and probably improved his showing with his candor, Fred Thompson did not do himself a favor and certainly did not amuse his fanatical followers when he admitted that he was unelectable. That he did so on camera and before an audience only made matters worse.

Thompson was waiting to be interviewed on the air by FOX News, which should have been an easy venue: these MSM folks, at least, wanted to make him look good but Thompson would not collaborate. It had taken longer than expected for the interview to get underway and reporter Carl Cameron quibbed to his producers: "The next president of the United States has a schedule to keep." Without missing a beat, Thompson interjected: "And so do I." Apparently, Fred Thompson must have thought that he was still on Saturday Night Live. His "people" cringed in disbelief and forced themselves to smile for the cameras, which is a trick they have learned to perfection. The host chided Thompson, "You can't do that kind of stuff!"

Thompson's followers always believed that their man actually had a chance even if Thompson himself never seemed particularly energized for the race. If he didn't get the nomination, Thompson at least had a good chance of being asked to share the ticket with Guiliani as a sop to conservative Republicans. Now, however, his chances of being on the Republican ticket, in any capacity, have plummetted from slim chance to fat chance.

For my part, it was the first time that I ever found Thompson likable or that he reminded of Ronald Reagan. Indeed, in some ways it seemed a re-play of Reagan's faux pas, when, during a rehearsal for a speech, the Gipper, unscripted, gave mock orders to nuke the Soviet Union which went over a live feed. What a holiday the MSM had at the old cold war warrior's expense! The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists even set the "Doomsday Clock" to 3 minutes before midnight because of Reagan's remark, which supposedly revealed his heart's "black secret." In a few years, of course, the Soviet Union would be no more and the nuclear clock would be put in mothballs even if the nukes themselves were not.

This political gaffe is not going to end Thompson's candidacy or even create a national sensation, because, let's face it, the gravitas level in this election campaign is not exactly set on high. He'll continue to prod his way on the road to Also-Ran, which is not a town in Mongolia, though it might as well be.

Personally, I don't mind that Fred Thompson is Reagan-Lite. What worries me is that he is also Tancredo-Lite and Newt Gingrich-Lite. If he were elected president, it would be greatest calamity that could befall Hispanics short of Tancredo or Gingrich themselves being elected. Thankfully, those "shining lights" are pretty much extinguished and Thompson's own bulb is flickering.

I guess that with Newt Gingrich out of the race and Fred Thompson hoisted on his own petard, Henry Gómez and the other Babalunians will have no choice but to support Tom Tancredo.


POSTSCRIPT:

The "Doomsday Clock" is still ticking, after all. In fact, on January 17, 2007, the Board of Directors of the University of Chicago even moved the clock forward two minutes to just 5 minutes before midnight. This change had nothing to do with the nuclear threat, however. For the first time since it was created in 1947, the clock was advanced because "the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons." Yes, now the world is threatened by so-called global warming, not thermonuclear warming. I think we can all breath a sigh of relief, even it that's not what these nuclear "Seventh-Day Adventists" intended.

Also see:

Henry Explains Fred Thompson to Us

Fred Thompson: Cuban "Immigrants" Are Suitcase Bombers

Another Satisfied (Foreign) Customer of Cuba's Health Care System

Here's a follow-up on Diane Paul, the 520 lb. Canadian who went to Cuba in October for knee replacement surgery because local doctors refused to operate on her unless she lost half her body weight. We advised her at the time to forget about the operation and get on the "Cuban diet" which was certain to succeed where all other diets had failed. On the "Cuban diet" you don't need to rely on your own willpower to resist food, which is the chief obstacle to losing weight in countries where food is actually available. In Cuba, the State supplements your willpower with its willpower. It not only tells you what to eat, when and how much, but requires everybody else to follow the same regimen whether they need to lose weight or not. No need to fear being tempted with goodies in your own house, or your neighbor's house, or, indeed, anywhere that ordinary Cubans may frequent in the course of the day; and all the exercise that you could possibly need will expended in a year-round, decades-old "Easter egg hunt" which, of course, encompasses all foods, not just eggs. In fact, the quest for food will pretty much consume your life to such an extent that the actual consumption of food will be the briefest episode in that quest. Of course, for the "Cuban Diet" to work Diane would actually have to consent to eating as Cubans do. Even healthy individuals like Anita Snow have found that a bit of a challenge. The New York Times reporter, who went on the "Cuban Diet" as a lark, had a penchant for green leafy stuff and was content if she could get her daily requirement of chlorophyl. We suspect that Mrs. Paul has other cravings which may be more challenging to satisfy in Cuba. That is, though she may look like a cow, we doubt that she eats like one. Still, since the Cuban regime — well, actually the Cuban people — are picking up the tab for her operation in exchange for the publicity, the least she could do in Cuba is eat as the Cubans do. But no, she went to Cuba so she could be ambulatory and 520 lbs.

Diane Paul didn't get new knees in Cuba, which didn't surprise us either. She's lucky she wasn't the recipient of the world's first knee transplant surgery. Real knees can be had readily enough in Cuba, though perhaps a little worn from all that kneeling; but titanium knees are rather hard to come by. As we noted when Mrs. Paul first announced her quest for new knees in Cuba, she should ask to see them before they were implanted. Improvisation is the great resourse of Cuban medicine. A patient with bone cancer recently had a section of his legbone replaced with a broomstick. The operation was successful. New bone actually grew over the broomstick. No doubt the news of this revolutionary achievement would not have been made public if the operation had failed. Maybe it failed many times before this success. Still, we warned Mrs. Paul to be wary or she could end up with wooden clogs for knees.

Well, she seems to have taken our advice. There was no double-knee replacement in Cuba. The Cuban doctors determined that their Canadian and American colleagues were wrong. Mrs. Paul did not need to have her knees replaced, after all. As reported in a publicity release, they "instead treated her legs with massage therapy, drained water from her knees and realigned her leg, including surgery to attach small bolts to her knees." Perhaps the Cuban doctors should have attached big bolts to her jaw. Those bolts would have made the other bolts unnecessary. I am going to take it for granted that my reader can detect for himself the insanity of attaching bolts, even small ones, to knees that have essentially turned to jelly, which is why they needed to be replaced in the first place.

There is a strange twist to this story (well, another one, anyway). Mrs. Paul's husband Vern, who accompanied her to Cuba for "moral support," was so impressed by "the high quality of care" which his wife was afforded that he decided to have surgery, too. Mr. Paul underwent an elective blepharoplasty. No, it's not what you are thinking, although a man with a 520-pound wife should seriously consider having surgery to enable him to bring the mountain to Mohammed or at least get under it. But no — a blepharoplasty is a cosmetic surgery to remove the bags from under one's eyes.

The Pauls are reportedly satisfied with the treatment they were accorded in Cuba. "Everything is wonderful. My God, it is absolutely amazing the outstanding care that I am receiving. The only pain that I have now is a slight pain in my kneecap, but my doctors tell me that they will go away soon. I felt good enough that I went out to see Old Havana yesterday," Diane enthused. Her husband is equally pleased. "Our treatment has gone beautifully, absolutely beautifully," Vern said.

And so, without the knee-replacement surgery that she desperately needed but with a younger looking spouse (which she didn't need), Diane Paul returns to Canada to sing the praises of Cuban medicine in her new position as spokeswoman for Winnipeg-based Choice Medical Services, which "helps Canadian and U.S. patients to access Cuban healthcare." For anybody who might be interested, their toll-free number is: 866-672-8284 [their press release requested the plug].

Cuban Shorts
Anita Snow the Hunger Artist, or The New York Times' "Snow Job"

What is the Answer?

fantomas said...

We are fucked, Manny... What is your recommendation then?

Or are we doomed... another 50 years of a one-party controlled state?

Dime.
11/05/2007 11:24 PM


Manuel A.Tellechea said...

fantomas:

A very acute observation: we are royally "fucked-up." The last Cubans to have voted in an indisputably democratic election in Cuba are now 80 years old. The Cubans who left at age 20 in 1959 are now almost 70. Most who left who were older than 30 are already dead. We have in fact buried more Cubans over the last 48 years than lived on the island in 1959. For the first generation of exiles it's practically over already. The second generation are in their 60s. The average age of Cuban exiles is 45, or twice that of other Hispanics in this country. 45 may still entertain some hope of seeing a free Cuba — as old men, perhaps.

So, yes, fantomas, most of our lives have been sunk in waiting for that precious "Cambio" which children now sport on wristbands in Cuba to their great detriment.

There is no reason to hope except that hope is all that we have left. Fidel and Raúl will die and we will not have to wait another 50 years for them to die. Then we will see if the plutocracy they have created in Cuba can survive them or not.

The best hope — practically the only hope — is that the system will implode as it did in the Soviet Union. There were a few White Russians who lived to see the fall of Communism. There will no doubt be a few of us left who will also see that day in our country. "No hay mal que dure mil años..." as we have told ourselves for 48 years as if we had 1000 years to spare.

Notable & Demonic: A Disagreement at Babalú on Whether Cubans Should Commit Collective Suicide

"It’s frustrating to sit on this side of the puddle and wonder why the Cubans living on the other side just don’t do something. Anything! Ok, so some kids wore some “cambio” bracelets and got arrested. Quietly. Big deal! Have you seen the protests in Venezuela? The hell with bracelets. We need protests like those. Thousands screaming with signs, tear gas, rubber bullets, brutality, beatings, blood." — Gusano, "Cuban Philosophizing," Babalú, November 5, 2007

Babalú newbie Gusano is actually being sarcastic; he does not endorse this point of view but is merely illustrating its cynicism and cruelty. As he later comments, "The best swimmer is the one that isn't in the water."

Ironically, Gusano's boss, Val Prieto, also suggested last week that Cubans commit collective suicide but he wasn't ridiculing this position; on the contrary, he was advocating in deadly earnest that Cubans on the island submit themselves to "bullets, brutality, beatings and blood," to use Gusano's nice stretch of alliteration. Or, in Val's own inimitable words, which I compared then to an oration of Patrick Henry's slightly modified ("Give me Liberty and Give Them Death"), this is what Val wants Cubans on the island to do:

"Freedom isn't going to knock on [the Cubans'] doors and ask to come in. It isn't going to arrive in a package from Hialeah or in the suitcase of a family member coming from abroad. Freedom is going to hide behind hunger. It's going to hide behind pain, it's going to hide behind sacrifice. It's going to hide behind bruises and in a pool of blood. And it's only going to be found when it is painstaking[ly] sought after, sought after with extreme hunger and empty bellies, with broken bones and bloody hands and with sheer desperation. There are 11 million people in Cuba, yet you see merely a handful standing firm in their convictions and against their government. Until that handful exponentially increases, not a damned thing will change." — Val Prieto, judging the Cuban people and passing sentence on them, Babalu blog, October 25, 2007

I suppose that Val is still not pleased. The Cuban people have yet again failed to live up to his lofty expectations. Last week he was excoriating them for not producing "torrents of blood" to sweep away Castro, or, more likely, to increase the number of his victims exponentially. Either outcome would be acceptable to Val: whether freedom for Val or fewer "cowardly" Cubans. Instead of the requisite "torrents of blood," Val got 70 Cuban young people wearing plastic wristbands emblazoned "CAMBIO." Castro's uniformed goons fell on them like Batista's soldiers on the terrorists who attacked the infirmary of the Moncada barracks in the first action of the Revolution.

Cambio: such an innocuous little word and subject to so many interpretations! Yet for the regime it has only one: its elimination, and so it reacted as it always does to all challenges great or small to its authority, swiftly, relentlessly and disproportionately. It requires an open and basically free society — as was Batista's Cuba — for a revolution to be launched and succeed. In a police state such as Communist Cuba, the option of revolution, at least from within, doesn't exist. Communism in Cuba must implode as it did in the Soviet Union, or it must be defeated from without. To expect hostages to free themselves, when their captors control every phase of their lives, and, of course, the means of repression (which is also the means of rebellion), is the ne plus ultra of cynicism and conduces to nothing but martyrdom, and more martys is the one thing that Cubans don't need.

Read more here:

Notable & More Delusional Still: "Patrick Henry" Prieto Rides Again

The 1936 Berlin Olympics Redux: Or When In China Do As the Chinese Tell You to Do

Those of us who still find it incredible that the Olympics were once held in Berlin with Hitler as host and the whole world in attendance now have proof (as if proof were needed) that the world is still myopic when it comes to evil and can only appreciate it in its real dimensions when it is too late to do anything about it. What difference is there between holding the Olympics in China in 2008 and holding them in Berlin in 1936? Morally there is no difference. If we parse evil, however, there is a great difference: In 1936 Hitler had not yet embarked on his campaign of extermination nor yet provoked World War II. An objective observer could have seen what was coming, and many in fact did; but most of the world was still in denial about Hitler in 1936. Denial then meant refusing to take Hitler at his word, because he was nothing if not candid about his plans. In China's case, however, the evil is completely consummated. Holding the Olympics there next year is more closely analogous to holding them in Berlin in 1944, not 1936. And yet the whole world is now preparing to do precisely that with great enthusiasm and no moral scrupples. Not one nation has refused to participate in protest and no one has even attempted to organize a boycott.

Many presume that capitalism has mitigated the worst excesses in China, when, in fact, it has only perpetuated them and solidified the Communist system of repression, as no doubt the introduction of the free-market into Cuba would extend the shelf life of Castroism indefinitely while not altering its basic ingredients.

If anyone requires proof that the Red Chinese are still the Red Chinese, they should follow closely the preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The organizers have just published a list of "prohibited objects" in the Olympic Village where the athletes will be staying. Yes, of course, video cameras have been prohibited: they sell them to us but won't allow them to be used in their "controlled environment." But that is not the worst. Bibles are also on the list of prohibited items and the athletes themselves are forbidden from wearing any religious insignia including crosses at the Olympic Village. No word yet whether they will be prohibited from praying or holding religious services there, though for Christians the latter would be difficult to do in the absence of Bibles and crosses. Difficult but not impossible: the 15 Catholic bishops and religious imprisoned by China still manage to say mass in their cells.

Is this what the Olympic spirit has devolved into — Peace and unity through enforced atheism? Well, China is still a Communist state and one can hardly expect it to cease to be a Communist state for the duration of the Olympics. Yet that is precisely what the International Olympic Committee thought would happen if it awarded the games to Beijing. Guess what? China outlawed extraterritoriality a long time ago. When in Red China, you must do as the Red Chinese tell you to do whether "white devil" or no.

Jimmy Carter Filler: His Biggest Secret and Greatest Claim to Fame

What shall our "Jimmy Carter Filler" be today? We have several items to choose from:

* Jimmy Carter is a lifelong bottle collector. He digs for them in old dumps and abandoned outhouses.

* Jimmy Carter did not allow his daughter Amy to have a pet dog at the White House. Instead, Amy had a pet tree.

* In his first day in office, Jimmy Carter pardoned all Vietnam War evaders.

* While a midshipman at Annapolis, Jimmy Carter was hazed for refusing to sing "Marching Through Georgia," Sherman's storied war song.

All those are all good choices, though perhaps not quite as good as his UFO sighting or his execrable poetry.

No, something better is required and I have it:

The greatest service that Jimmy Carter could do for this country would be to admit something which he and his entire family have concealed for generations, but which is clearly visible and unmistakable. It would have been much better if he had acknowledged it before, certainly there was no reason to conceal it after he became president; nevertheless, he did conceal it and continues to conceal it to this day. All the good works that are attributed to him with hammer and nails, the peace treaty which he secured by bribing Israel and Egypt, anything else of value which he may have done for his country or humanity, however exaggerated, would pale in comparison to the monumental impact which he could have had on the social evolution of this country and the consolidation of its people, had he admitted the truth in season.

The one real opportunity which Carter had to change this country for the better and assure himself an honorable place in its history rather than in the annals of political opportunism, he disregarded and squandered; still, no further documentation is required than what Nature imprinted on his face, his mother's face and his daughter's face. The emperor's clothes (or lack thereof) were never so evident as Carter's African-American origins. In Cuba, he would have been known as a jabao; here, the comparable term is "high yellow" or "blue-veined" (that is, the blue veins are still visible through the skin). This heritage should be a source of pride to him and any of his race who would acclaim the worst president in U.S. history as the first black president. That alone would immediately increase his stature and perhaps even overtake the Iran hostage crisis as the best known event of his presidency (even if it was a non-event).

Bill Clinton may have been America's first temperamentally-black president, as many African-American pundits have asserted; but the first genetically black president, at least in the modern era, was Jimmy Carter, who made a journey unheralded that others are still trying to undertake under the apprehension that they will be the first to break the presidential color barrier.

Come out of the racial closet, Mr. President, it's safe for you and your family now. 83 years is long enough to hide.

A Prayer to Blessed Fray José López Piteira

Blessed Fray José López Piteira, imprisoned and martyred at the hands of the Communists for the Holy Faith, we who are your countrymen and brothers in Jesus Christ, beseech you in His name to intercede for us before God the Father. To you, Blessed Martyr, who refused to plead your Cuban nationality to save your life because you desired to die alongside your brothers in Christ, we humbly invoke our own to ask you to save our brothers and deliver our country and church from the scourge of Communism, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is a prayer for the faithful of Cuba which will never be sanctioned in Cuba or heard in any Catholic church there while Jaime Cardinal Ortega is archbishop of Havana and primate of Cuba. In Cuban churches today only prayers for the health and recovery of Fidel Castro are permitted and none allowed for the deliverance of the Cuban people from Communism and of the Cuban church from its shameful silence of 5 decades.

The disgraceful prelate has gone so far as to say that he doesn't consider Blessed Fray José López Piteira to be a real Cuban ("cubano cubano") because his parents took him back to Spain at age 5. Ortega is apparently unaware that Martí's parents also took him to Spain at age 5. If Blessed Fray José, who was only 23 at the time of his martyrdom, had lived to be ordained as a priest, he would have returned to his native Cuba with hundreds of Spanish priests whom Ortega's master deported in 1962. What really irks Cardinal Ortega, of course, is that the first Cuban to be beatified and the first Cuban likely to be canonized died heroically at the hands of the Communists. Ortega, on the other hand, has lived handsomely and after his manner by never standing up to them, not even when they sent him to an UMAP re-education camp in the 60s. So abject is he in his submission to the State that he declined to attend Fray José's beatification ceremony in Rome, placing himself, as he has always, at the side of the verdugos (henchmen); or, perhaps, the archbishop feared that he might miss the opportunity to give last rites to Fidel or even eulogize him.

A church that does not defend its people and a people who do not rely on it to defend them is yet another legacy of Fidel Castro's rule; but Castro, personally, is not responsible for the moral cowardice of the Cuban hierarchy and clergy. The heroic virtue of the Spanish clergy in the Civil War (1936-39), 8000 of whom died as martyrs for the faith in 3 years, among them the Cuban Blessed Fray José López Piteira, is a living reproach to the passivity, complicity and collaboration of the Cuban church over the last 50 years (and, indeed, throughout its history). Penance after the fact can be expected of it; courage before that fact cannot. We sincerely hope that Blessed Fray Jose's first miracle will be to deliver our country from Communism; but even if he were only to redeem the Cuban church from its sins of commission and omission and transform it into a church militant, it would be enough.

POSTSCRIPT:

[The Latest News] Blessed Fray José López Piteira's canonization is imminent. As a martyr he requires only one miracle to be declared a saint. Such a miracle has already been attributed to him. In May 2006, the Papal Medical Consultative Committee determined that the cure of 6-year-old Daniela Cabrera Ramos from stage 4 of Burkitt's Disease, which is always terminal, could not be explained scientifically or attributed to human agency. The child's parents had prayed to Fray José for a cure. All that remains now is for the Theological Committee to confirm the findings of the Medical Committee and certify the cure as a miracle. The Theological Committee has been waiting for the beatification to make its formal announcement, which is now expected soon. Then the pope will issue a decree authorizing the canonization and we shall have the first native-born Cuban saint.

http://www.conexioncubana.net/index.php?st=content&sk=view&id=6474

Stuck on the Palmetto's Rick is Deleting Posts and Cannibalizing His Readers

Those who are most obsessed with their own privacy are usually the least respectful of the privacy of others. Such is the case with Stuck on the Palmetto's Rick, one half of that blog's anonymous duo. On October 31, Rick aimed his vitriol at a faithful commenter named "El Chino" whose offense appears to have been that he spends too much time on SotP, up to 12 hours per day, even visiting in the wee-morning hours to see if anyone has responded to his comments. Whereas other bloggers would cherish such misplaced loyalty and waste of time, Rick lashed out against the poor man as if he were a circus owner and El Chino was trying to sneak under the tent for the fifth time without paying admission. Rick even copied the actual reports from his stats counter to prove that El Chino spends almost all his waking hours nesting on SotP. As another commenter observed this smacks too much of Big Brother. To me it indicates two things: first, Rick, like El Chino, has a great deal of time to waste on minutiae; and second, Rick is at least as obsessed with El Chino as El Chino is with SotP. This is known clinically as co-dependency, and it is not at all unusual for one of two parties in this abnormal relationship to lash out irrationally against the other because he finds the attention stiffling, completely unaware that he is also enabling it. The implication in Rick's sarcastic recognition of El Chino as SotP's "Model Reader" is that El Chino has no life besides SotP, and must be some kind of wastrel. Well, if El Chino is a wastrel, then what is it that he is wasting his time on? Rick and Alex. And what does that make them: a waste of time.

These thoughts, prodded by his readers' comments and El Chino's own pleas, caused Rick to delete the offensive post and offer an apology: "It was a mistake because it was mean-spirited on a level that I'm personally uncomfortable with and that I regret" (this is noteworthy because no one ever suspected such a level existed). Of course, being Rick, he credits no one for his decision but his own innate compassion and elevated humanity. Rick has on more than one occasion chided Babalú, and rightly so, for deleting or altering posts at will without explanation. Rick is only partially guilty of Babalu's offence as he did announce that he had deleted the post and offered an explanation for doing so. He did not, however, explain why he had posted "Our First SotP Model Reader Award" in the first place. Anyone who is aware of Rick's animus towards Cubans will need no explanation. In fact, he provides the clue in the post itself when he says that he "has been engaged in an extended back and forth" with El Chino regarding Ron Paul's recent comments about Cuba, which Rick quoted with approbation: "Let's stop the hysterics about the freedom of Cubans – which is not our government's responsibility – and consider freedom of the American people, which is. Americans want the freedom to travel and trade with their Cuban neighbors, as they are free to travel and trade with Vietnam and China." El Chino demolishes Ron Paul and Rick on that thread with great finesse and persistence and Rick is reduced to defending himself and Ron Paul by asserting that Osama Bin Laden is worse than Fidel Castro (which besides being irrelevant is also untrue: 3000 vs. 104,000 killings). Of course, in Rick's reckoning, 3000 American lives are worth more than 104,000 Cuban ones:

el chino said...
Sure, the people should decide [for themselves if they should travel to Cuba], not the government, so if an American wants to sell weapons to Al Qaeda he should be free to do so, right? Sheesh, what a moron.

Rick said...
Yes, el chino, because we all know that Fidel Castro is the equivalent of OBL. Just like him. Nice to see you made a stop at SotP on the way to babalu, EC. Thanks.

Rick's apology for his attack on El Chino is not much of one. As we have already observed, it is simply an opportunity for him to pat himself on the back on how fair he is. El Chino, who was quick to forgive Rick — remember, it's a co-dependent relationship — also requested that Rick delete the apology as well, since Rick repeats in the so-called "apology" all that was offensive in the first post and even suggests that readers unacquainted with the first post search for it in Google's cache, where it can still easily be found. I should not be surprised if Rick deletes the second post as well with its even more intrusive allusion to El Chino as "supposedly disabled and unemployed." But, really, what would be the use? El Chino should quit while he's behind: a second "apology" from Rick is sure to finish him off for good.

In another post that day Rick invited his readers to ask personal questions about him and Alex, in order to balance, I suppose, his personal inferences about El Chino. Of course, the questions would be asked of two anonymous people who would, naturally, reply as anonymous people. Very enlightening, to be sure. Rick agreed to answer one of the questions from those submitted by his readers. If nothing else Rick has proved that one can be anonymous and a megalomaniac at the same time. Rick also revealed that he and Alex had gone incognito to bloggers' conventions and turned down "numerous" interviews from "varied media" because the reporters insisted on using their full names and they "needed" to retain their anonymity. Of course, I could have answered all the questions that were asked of Rick and Alex for them. But it would not have been gentlemanly to pull off their masks, and I am nothing if not a gentleman even when dealing with a scoundrel like Rick. If Rick were one too (a gentleman, that is), he would not have used his position as blogmaster to ambush an innocent reader or been obliged to apologize for it.

From the Tellechea Newspaper Archives: Alicia in Wonderland (1987)

Morley Safer Tiptoes Around a Mercenary Ballet Star

By: Manuel A. Tellechea
The New York Tribune
Commentary Section, p. 9
March 28, 1987

Ballet was danced for the first time in Cuba in the 18th century; the same European troupe that introduced it to Philadelphia brought it to Cuba. Moreover, Cuba was the first Latin American country to have its own ballet company (at the time there were no more than a dozen in the world). Alicia Alonso was reared and nurtured in that milieu, some 70 [now 85] years ago; she did not, as the Sixty Minutes puff that aired on March 22 [1987] asserted, "give birth to ballet in Cuba." Whatever Alonso's achievements in that sphere may have been (and I will not belittle the artist because the woman is a creature of Communism, though not one formed by it), she owes her success in no small way to the pre-revolutionary society that she now belittles and condemns. She was introduced to ballet in Cuba, where she studied with the Russian master Yavorski at the ballet school of the Fine Arts League of Havana. The education she received there was good enough to make her one of the greatest ballerinas of her day, which says as much for the education as it does for Alonso. Significantly, Alicia Alonso as a teacher has not been able to produce a comparable artist for Cuba. Maybe she hasn't wanted to. Still, she is the most famous cultural icon of whose allegiance the Revolution can boast.

Alonso was a name before 1959 and her decline may be dated from that year; not a whit of fame has attached to her since except as a curiosity: a dancer at 70 who is partially blind and rheumatic. She should have retired 30 [50] years ago, and, indeed, she did — after a long and distinguished career that saw her hailed as the definitive "Giselle." For a brief period in the 1950s she at least recognized that her age and failing vision had deprived her technique of the excruciating exactness that once defined it.

Unfortunately, Alonso's retirement was short-lived; she found a new patron who valued her for something other than her dancing, and returned to the stage in 1959, and has remained there ever since, unforgiving decade after unforgiving decade, having discovered that the masses (her "new audience") couldn't tell between the exactness of perfection and the exactness of impairment, and, frankly, didn't care.

As one of the handful of Cubans to have achieved international celebrity, Alonso's return to the stage was hailed from all quarters, and since it coincided with the coming to power of Castro, many chose to regard it as a political statement on her part rather than as a statement of opportunism. Needless to say, she encouraged the political interpretation. Whether by design or personal good furtune, she had returned to the ballet not merely as a dancer but as a symbol of nationalism at the historic moment when nationalism was at its apex in Cuba. Castro found time in that first year of the Revolution between the signing of execution orders and the wrecking of Cuba's economy to award by decree official status to the Ballet Nacional founded by Alonso in 1947.

Alonso was introduced by Morley Safer on Sixty Minutes as "the one unsevered link between the U.S. and Cuba (because she's allowed to dance here on occasion), as if 1.5 million Cuban exiles counted for nothing, nor the ties of history and mutual affinity that existed between our two peoples before that ill-omened year of 1959.

To become Castro's roving ambassador of culture, Alonso had to alter completely her vita curriculum. Her father had been a major in Cuba's pre-revolutionary Army; she disowned him. The film of Alonso's performance at Batista's inaugural ball in 1955 vanished from both the national archives and the collective memory of the nation, as did also the diamond collar from her neck that Batista had presented her on that occasion. Her fortuitous retirement in 1957 was transformed belatedly into a "protest against the Batista tyranny."

Alicia's checkered past has never been thrown at her face by any correspondent. Morley Safer was no exception. He might confront his own mother but not the "one unsevered link between the U.S. and Cuba." Not that the subject of Alonso's apocryphal "boycott" didn't come up. The fairy tale of the courageous dancer that refused to tip her toes to Batista while her countrymen were waging their revolution was submitted for our consideration and applause.

"Why didn't you dance," asked Safer. "Because killing is intolerable to me," replied Alonso. For one moment, I hoped Safer would counter, "Why do you find killing more acceptable now than you did before 1959." In truth, Alonso has always found killing tolerable — before and after the Revolution.

She retired from the stage from 1956 to 1958 precisely because she approved of killing but not of being killed herself. During those years the rebel underground achieved its greatests success bombing theatres and nightclubs. Alonso could have condemned these killings, as did almost all Cuban entertainers; instead, she retired from the stage and let Castro and his terrorists bomb away. Although sympathetic to the rebels, in the back of Alonso's mind must have lurked the thought that they might score their greatest coup by blowing her to smithereens.

When Castro came to power, she naturally had no objection to the continuation and escalation of the killing, now with her society friends as the victims. Nor did she even object when her own troupe became the focus of Castro's insecurity and bloodlust. Throughout the 1960s, Castro's persecution of homosexuals usually began with the National Ballet. Alonso never spoke out on behalf of her "spirit children," many of whom she had rescued from orphanages and raise to be her dance partners. In 1965, the whole male ensemble of her ballet, or what was left of it, defected while on a tour of France. This, some may recall, was the opening scene of Improper Conduct, the acclaimed documentary that exposed the homophobic side of Castro's character to his liberal devotees. Safer did not embarrass Alonso with the recollection of her role in these decidedly unprogressive happenings.

Cuban culture owes very little to Alicia Alonso — except a black eye. Communist Cuba has not yet achieved the sophistication of Communist Russia, where tsars like Peter the Great, writers like Dostoevski and composers like Tchaikovsky have been rehabilitated as examples of the superiority of the Russian nationality. By contrast, in Cuba everything before 1959 is still considered backward and counter-revolutionary. Just as Communist economists must depict pre-Castro Cuba as underdeveloped and Communist moralists denounce it as hedonistic, Alonso is expected to portray Cuba's past as devoid of popular culture and art. Her pronouncements against pre-revolutionary culture are given wide currency in the U.S. media because it would be incongruous that so famous an exponent of Cuban culture should fail to recognize — let alone demean — that which she herself represents. The explanation that Alonso lies from self-interest — because it is in her interest to be wellspring of Cuban culture — is simply overlooked.

For much of the 20th century (that is, until 1959), the music and dance of Cuba were the music and dance of the world. If you are between 50 and 100 years of age, you have partaken richly of Cuban culture even if you are not Cuban. Of what other cultures can the same be said?

The rumba, the mambo, the conga and the cha-cha-cha: who will say — and who can prove? — that these are manifestations of backwardness or that ballet is more refined and worthy? If so, Cuban dance is a wonderful "backwardness" in which the whole world shares, unlike ballet, which is for the few and the nimble. How remarkable that this supposedly nationalistic revolution has replaced Cuban folk music and dance with the elite Soviet sport of ballet!

What has the arid and stupefying cultural climate in Castro's Cuba produced in the latter half of this century? Since I am not objective commentator on the "achievements" of the Cuban Revolution, I will led British historian Hugh Thomas do this sad office for me:

"Along with the fine arts, popular culture in Cuba, that is, the music, literature, art, dance, theatre, and film enjoyed by the broad sections of the population, has lost its creative zeal under a regime that respicts artistic freedom and individualism. Cuba, which prior to Castro was one of the leading centers of Latin dance music, has since failed to contribute to the rich body of Latin American popular music. Tragically, the Cuban Revolution cannot offer a single notable novelist a famous poet, a penetrating essayist, nor even a fresh contribution to Marxist analysis. Censorship and fear have smothered creativity in Cuba. What is left on the island is merely the incessant voice of official propaganda."

Is ballet the exception that has survived the death of all the arts in Cuba? Not unless a ballet company that features a 70-year old ballerina can be said to be anything other than a freak show. Alicia Alonso is Cuban ballet as she was in 1940, and there's the rub. After Alonso, what? Let us hope Fernando Bujones — the exiled great of Cuban ballet — in a free and democratic Cuba [Bujones died of cancer at age 50 in 2005].


POSTSCRIPT:

New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal also commented on Safer's 1987 interview with Alicia Alonso on 60 Minutes [March 26, 1987]. Since this is one of the few ocassions that The Times ever complained about somebody else's misrepresentation of the Cuban reality, it is worth quoting:

On "60 Minutes" Morley Safer is interviewing Alicia Alonso, the great Cuban ballerina. Alonso is 65, nearly blind, a heroine and beloved teacher in Cuba, admired deeply by the world of ballet at home and in the United States, to which she travels often.

Mr. Safer points out that although she had a privileged position under the dictator Batista, during his regime she carried out her own protest against his brutality. Dancers are not just horses, running in blinders, she says. So she protested by refusing to dance for several years until, as Mr. Safer said, "the revolution succeeded."

Now she is a national figure in Cuba, and lives a queenly life.

No, not one word. Not one word from her and not one question from Mr. Safer about how she feels now about horses, or Mr. Castro's imprisonment of poets, painters and writers. An unquestioning plug for Mr. Castro and a rewriting of history by omission.

Mr. Safer is skilled enough, sophisticated enough, to know better. He does. He told me that he did indeed ask the ballerina questions about Castro tyrannies. But she was wordy and polemical so he thought he would cut that part. It made for a better show, he said. A judgment call, he said.

Alicia Alonso: The Cuban Sphinx

Babalú newbie Alberto de la Cruz hits a home run with his post on prima ballerina assoluta (obsoleta is more like it) Alicia Alonso, who has just been placed at the entrance of "Monsieur Castro's Wax Museum" so that she can denounce the U.S. trade embargo as a "siege" while Culture Minister Abel Prieto announces plans for celebrating the 60th anniversary of Cuba's National Ballet (60th anniversary? Yes, it was founded before the Revolution, as was Alonso's star and legend).

Alonso is truly as wretched a human being as ever lived upon the earth and was a mentor to Castro not just a groupie. In the 1960s she fed her "children" (the male dancers she trained as arm-rests) to the UMAP concentration camps. Still, she is lavishly praised when she performs in this country by the very people who are hailing the $11 million fine imposed by a jury on a Christian Church that opposes homosexuality and exercises its constitutional right to protest it peacefully if in poor taste.

Twenty years ago, I wrote that it was inconceivable that Alonso could still be performing in her seventh decade. Now she is in her ninth, and nothing is inconceivable to me anymore. They might well embalm her and keep her on stage forever. Certainly, she won't be any less animated than she is now.

I will look for the article. It was entitled, if I remember correctly, "Giselle and Fidel." Or did I change my mind and call it "Alicia in Wonderland?" Today I would call it "When Greatness Becomes Baseness and Finally Self-Parody."

Alicia Alonso's greatness as an artist belongs to the time she was a human being. She stopped being a human being (and an artist) 50 years ago and that is the anniversary they should be commemorating in Cuba.

A long life is not always the best thing especially if one negates in old age the accomplishments of one's youth. Ask Marshall Petain. Ask Alicia Alonso but don't wait for an answer.