Great Blog I Found

Here is a link for a blog called Nota Latina. It seems to be run by two Brazilians who "get" the reality of Fidel, Hugo, the left in Latin America, and their Human Rights violations.

This Will Never Get Old

I dunno whether to laugh, cry, or scratch my head...

I dunno whether to laugh, cry, or scratch my head...

Obama and Lula are most popular presidents in Latin America

According to LatinBarometer 2009, an annual poll that measures the preferences of Latin Americans, Barack Obama, U.S president, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, are the most respected presidents in the region. Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is in the middle of the list, while Hugo Chavez, from Venezuela, and Fidel Castro, Cuban leader, garnered the least support, making them the most disliked figures in the region. The poll includes more than 2000 interviews in 18 countries throughout the region.

Black Sheep Of Cuban Exile: El Hebreo

Via Review of Cuban American Blogs I found a very interesting post about Jews in Cuba, one transplanted Cuban Jew in particular. Black Sheep of Cuban Exile writes about his relationship with Chaim, and how he saw Castro for what he was, even in the early days. The post is old, but its words still hold meaning.

Brent Bozell Sticks It To The MSM On Castro

Brent Bozell says it better than I could, and without resorting to obscenity and name calling either!!

Castro: Not a President

"Fidel Castro Resigns." That's a fantastic headline, and should be cause for celebration. But just because the doddering dictator is stepping aside doesn't mean that Cuba's abandoning tyranny. And just because he's leaving doesn't mean the media are dropping their fictions about Castro, the Cuban "president." Glancing at a TV set, I caught this CNN screen graphic: "Fidel Castro Resigns: Cuban Pres. Rejects New Term." Where on Earth is the media's regard for accuracy?

A "new term"? This murderous despot has only had one long, abusive term, and it's lasted 49 years. Anyone who says otherwise, that the Cuban "parliament" would be setting another "election," is not just a useful idiot. He's simply an idiot.

AP reporter Anita Snow suggested using the word "dictator" to describe Castro is tantamount to mudslinging. While "Castro's supporters admired his ability to provide a high level of health care and education for citizens," his "detractors called him a dictator." The American media was absolutely allergic to words like "dictator." Rudy Giuliani can be routinely attacked by liberal reporters as "despotic," "authoritarian" and "totalitarian," but Fidel Castro is just a "president" or a "Cuban leader."

For decades, this has been an easy display of the media's foreign affections. Every right-wing dictator, like Chile's Pinochet, is a "dictator," while every left-wing dictator is merely a "leader" or, in Castro's case, a "dashing revolutionary" and a "rock star." That was ABC's Diane Sawyer on the morning of Castro's abdication announcement.

It was nauseating to watch ABC's Robin Roberts assert that so-called "Cuban President" Castro was stepping down, and then see reporter Jeffrey Kofman suggest that the "so-called" sneer should be leveled against his opponents! "The fervently anti-Castro community of so-called Cuban exiles here in Miami erupted in celebration" when Castro grew ill in 2006.

Cubans living in Miami are "so-called exiles"? They traveled on "so-called" boats, risking "so-called" death at the hands of a regime that promised to "so-called" kill them if they were caught escaping, too.

Kofman added insult to injury by dragging out the ancient trope that Castro outlasted our pathetic presidents and their bungling attempts to damage him: "The world's longest-serving political leader is leaving on his own terms, having survived efforts by 10 different U.S. presidents to bring him down, including a disastrous CIA-backed invasion in 1961 and a missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962." Everything wrong with Cuba-U.S. relations is the fault of American presidents.

How, to a media that would claim to favor democracy as a political ideal, is it a virtue to "outlast" freely elected presidents who have submitted their office to the people by killing or imprisoning all your political opponents?

Throughout Castro's long history of dominating Cuba, he has also dominated the American media, who have covered him with a sickening parade of ardor and accolades, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Consider these morally bankrupt valentines:

1. Barbara Walters on ABC in 2002: "For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth."

2. Dan Rather on CBS feeling all warm after Elian Gonzalez was ripped away from those "so-called Cuban exiles" in 2000: "There is no question that Castro feels a very deep and abiding connection to those Cubans who are still in Cuba."

3. Katie Couric applauding communist achievements on NBC in 1992: "Considered one of the most charismatic leaders of the 20th century. … Castro traveled the country cultivating his image, and his revolution delivered. Campaigns stamped out illiteracy and even today, Cuba has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world."

4. Peter Jennings on ABC in 1989: "Castro has delivered the most to those who had the least, and for much of the Third World, Cuba is actually a model of development."

5. Even sportscasters darkened their reputations. In a 1991 special covering the Pan Am Games, ABC's Jim McKay could have been speaking for the media in 2008: "You have brought a new system of government, obviously, to Cuba, but the Cuban people do think of you, I think, as their father. One day, you're going to retire. Or, one day, all of us die. Won't there be a great vacuum there? Won't there be something that will be difficult to fill? Can they do it on their own?"

Castro has announced his retirement. I'm happy he'll be gone, and hope he'll spend his final days on Earth contemplating his eternity in hell.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

On Fidel "Stepping Down"

Quite a bit on the web and news about Fidel "retiring". In this post here I have links to a few articles I found via my Google Reader. For Cuba related news, you can find plenty at Babalu Blog and Review of Cuban American Blogs. I may not always agree with the positions and views they take, but there is news and conversation a plenty there. Two more articles/ posts I want to call attention to is this one, from The Economist, and this one, at Marginal Revolution. What does this mean for Cuba? Probably nothing. At least not now. Raul is in charge. There is still a dictatorship in place. There are political prisoners and no civil liberties. Until that changes, same shit different smell.

Assortment Of Links and Articles

Here is a collection of stuff that popped up on my "Google Reader" rss feed thingamajigger:

From The New York Post:

Cuba Libre, Someday

Fidel Steps down

A hero's welcome for Dubya

From The New York Sun:

Farewell to Fidel

On Cuba Policy, Copy Poppy

From Fidel, a farewell or a fraud?

From The Washington Times:

Castro, Cuba, and the future

Economic Duldrums

From Little Green Footballs:

Castro Bails

From Google Blogoscoped:

Really interesting post about lost and found on Google. Searches people have typed looking for, or saying they have found certain items:

Google's Lost and Found

Lula To Visit Cuba, Wants To Meet With Fidel

Brazilian President Lula will be visiting Cuba next week and hopes to meet with his good friend Fidel. Fidel and Lula are old friends. It is not mentioned in the articles, but I am pretty sure while Lula was exiled from Brasil he spent time in Cuba. Many in Lula's inner circle surely did. His former Chief of Staff, who resigned in one of the many scandals here, Jose Dirceu, "trained" as a "revolutionary" during the late 60's and early 70's. There is no denying Lula is leftist. But to his credit, he did not take Brasil on a sharp left turn as many expected. Before Morales and Chavez and Bachilet, there was Lula. When he took office many feared the worst. Now, perhaps because of his election, and the fact that he wasn't as bad as many thought, fears eased up a bit and that led to the elections in other countries. The Brasilian economy is strong, stronger than it has been in recent memory anyways, and the business sector has not had its worst fears realized. Lula however, is red as red can be, and his friendship with Fidel is all I need to know about him. A few years back there was even a scandal that Cuba donated dollars to Lula's re-election campaign and his party, the PT, Partido Trabalhadores, the Workers party. (There are hundreds of political parites here, an alphabet soup, all known by initials). Anyways, Lula is visiting Cuba and wants to meet with his old buddy Fidel. Anyones guess if this actually happens. Lula has "bought" into the Fidel myth and doesn't realize Fidel has no friends. There was even a huge split in his party because Lula refused to denounce Human Rights abuses in Cuba. The purpose of the visit is to say goodbye to friend before he dies, I mean make some business deals. More here and here.

January 1, 1959, el proximo año...

If you have to ask why that date is in the title, you probably will never understand. That is the day Fidel Castro and his band of merry men rolled into Havana. Since that day, the island of Cuba, and to an extent the world, has been under his power and spell in a way that boggles the mind. I don't want to argue the causes, I don't want to argue who is to blame and what could have been done, or what needs to be done, or who is to blame. The subject has been covered, and will be covered around the world, on other blogs, and for now, this is not the time or the place.

Every New Years Eve Cubans every where lift their glasses and say "el proximo año en Cuba", just like they did on Noche Buena, just like they did last year, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that, every year, since 1960. Every year, someone says "THIS, is the last one, I can feel it..". Sadly, it keeps getting put off until the next year, and that one is again christened the "last" one. So will this one, be the last one? I don't have a crystal ball, and neither do you. Every year the news of Castro's health is worse and worse and the man just keeps on ticking like a freakin' Timex. Every year thousands of families lose a loved one whose only wish in life was to out live Fidel.

So, what's my point? Well, go ahead, enjoy the time with your family and friends, lift your glasses, and we will all say, or at the very least think, "el proximo año...". We will get it right at some point. He can't live forever. (He can't guys, lets face it.)