If not me, then my children

But fidelito, your end will come and the truth will be known!

American-born college students keep flames of Cuban protest burning

By Madeline Baró Diaz
Miami Bureau

June 28, 2006

Candice Balmori has never been to Cuba, but when the Davie resident is not attending classes or taking exams, she's working to bring change to the island.

At Harvard University, where Balmori is a senior, she and fellow activists once erected a life-size jail cell and hung a Cuban flag inside to let the campus know about the arrests of dozens of dissidents in Cuba. They have also held candlelight vigils, screened movies and discussed Cuba with visiting dignitaries, all in an effort to bring attention to the island's totalitarian system.

Balmori is part of the new generation of Cuban-American activists who are finding their own way to support Cuba's internal opposition. By doing so, they are steering away from the traditional issues of the older generation, such as the U.S. embargo of the island.

"I think every college kid has to have a cause," said Balmori, 21, president of Harvard's Cuban American Undergraduate Student Association, or CAUSA. "Everyone has to take up a banner of some sort." [Read more]

Cuban migration to Mexico increases

The US is the not the only destination for Cubans leaving the island seeking freedom and economic opportunity. Mexico, because of its proximity to the island is an alternate destination when the US does not pan out. Mexico has been receiving approximately 13 thousand Cubans per year and the numbers are increasing. The majority arrive legally and are permitted to stay, and eventually some will make their way north to the US. Those that arrive "illegally" by rickety drafts are soon repatriated back to the enslaver, in accordance to Mexico's hypocritical policy. At least 500 Cubans have been sent back to the island.

[Here more in Spanish].

One thing for sure, the exodus is one way...out of the island.

More on the Island of Dr. castro.

In January I posted about the ongoing effort to make transsexuals a state (Cuba) sponsored and protected class, including offering operations. This has been the work of Mariela Castro (raul castro's daughter, fidel castro's niece), who leads the National Center for Sex Education, and with her high connections in the Cuban leadership she is sure to be successful. Is this the daughter carrying out her father's unfulfilled dreams? Perhaps. Is Cuba heading towards extending their "Operation Miracle" to include gender operations along with cataracts?

Castro niece fights for new revolution
Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:46 AM ET

By Esteban Israel

HAVANA (Reuters) - Mariela Castro is leading a Cuban revolution less well known than her Uncle Fidel's: one in favor of sexual tolerance within the island's macho society.

Castro, 43, is leading the charge from her government-funded National Center for Sex Education, based in an old Havana mansion.

As director of the group, she promoted a soap opera that scandalized many Cubans in March by sympathetically depicting bisexuality. The controversial show depicted, among other story lines, the life of a construction worker who leaves his wife and children for the man next door.

Now President Castro's niece is pushing for passage of a law that would give transsexuals free sex change operations and hormonal therapy in addition to granting them new identification documents with their changed gender. Read the rest [here].

Fracaso: Revolution built on failure

The true accomplishment of castro's revolution has been to successfully turn back the clock. Once a world heavyweight in sugar production, Cuba now produces "less than a fifth" of the amount it did in the 1950's, actually it is producing at 1800 levels.

Cuba's sugar industry won't make harvest goals
By Frances Robles

Cuba's struggling sugar industry won't make its harvest goals this year, the government acknowledged this week, saying that inefficient mills and a late start proved to be obstacles difficult to overcome.

"The recently finished harvest demonstrated that hard work and final results don't always correspond," the Communist Party daily Granma reported Tuesday.

In February, when sugar prices rose to 17 U.S. cents a pound, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced his country - after having closed sugar mills and furloughed workers in 2002 - would try to increase its production. The government announced it would shoot for a 3 million ton harvest.

But experts say it is now producing about 1.3 million tons a year - less than a fifth of what was grown in the 1950s. Government officials also recently announced plans to increase ethanol production fivefold - a lofty goal that requires a stepped up harvest.

The nation that four years ago had 156 operating mills now has just 42, and says 28 of them began the season late. Of 22 low-production mills, eight couldn't grind the amount of sugar cane that had been projected and two were shut down due to "reiterated inefficiency and high per-ton cost," Granma reported.

Had all the mills operated at capacity, Cuba could have produced another 43,800 tons, the paper said. But Granma did not offer any actual production figures for this year's harvest.

"The late start couldn't be beaten," the paper said.

About 15 percent of the mills produced high quality sugar, Granma said.

"There are always excuses - `no spare parts, it's the weather,"" said Nicolas J. Gutierrez, president of the National Association of Sugar Mill Owners of Cuba, a group of exiled sugar growers. "Even before this decline in production, Cuba was producing at 1907 levels. Maybe now with the decline, they are at 1800s levels."

In the second half of the 1990s, production costs were up to 15 cents a pound, and the selling price just eight. The industry had been so heavily subsidized that in 2002 Castro closed 71 mills and announced 90,000 sugar workers would be paid to go to school for retraining instead. Castro then said he welcomed foreign investment.

Cuba, once a world leader in sugar exports, found itself having to import the sweetener just to meet domestic needs and international demand.

When prices rose again, "Castro had second thoughts," Gutierrez said.

But the cutbacks made just four years ago were too steep to recover, experts said.

With the workforce diverted to other jobs and more than half the sugar fields now used for other crops, Castro "couldn't do an about-face if he wanted to," said Florida International University economist Antonio Jorge.

"The industry is devastated. It has collapsed," Jorge said. "It requires an investment in the order of $6 or $7 billion. I don't think he has the money, and I don't think he'd spend it even if he had it. He has other priorities."

Jorge said Castro is more interested in the more profitable areas of tourism, biotechnology and mining. Cuba had been criticized as being too heavily dependent on sugar as its main industry. But the former growers say a healthy sugar industry will be key to maintaining a stable economy when Fidel Castro dies, because it's the only island-wide industry that employs up to half a million people.

"The industry will continue limping along," Jorge said. "Castro will try to get what he can out of it, which is not much."

Cuba's medical apartheid system

If you are a Cuban-American you have probably at one time or another sent a package or two to your family in Cuba. You most likely paid at least $15 per pound to send a package containing simple over the counter medicines; aspirin, vitamins, ointments, pharmaceuticals that are liberaly available in most remote areas of the globe, but not in Cuba. Here is an article published in a Norwegian website that gives an insite as to why you are the one providing those medications and not the Cuban regime.

Cuban Medicine Today

by Dr. Hilda Molina, a former member the Cuban National Assembly, is one of Cuba's most distinguished scientists. She broke with the government on the issue of medical apartheid, the denial of medical care or medicine to Cubans while the same services are provided to dollar-paying foreign patients. In this report, smuggled out of the island, she says that she "opposed the use of Cuban patients as laboratory animals." Dr. Molina is founder of Havana's International Center for Neurological Restoration. She is a virtual hostage on the island, and despite repeated requests, she and her elderly mother have not been permitted to travel abroad.

Since I joined the health sector in 1968, the Cuban government has repeatedly asserted that "a central objective of the Revolution is the entitlement of free, quality medical care for everyone." The government systematically rejected the use of medicine as a means of making money. In 1989, Fidel Castro told me that he was "roundly opposed to charging for medical services," and that he "would even prefer that such services be given free of charge to foreigners who need them."

But, beginning in 1989, 1 began to notice an unfortunate change of attitude. Cuban authorities have established mechanisms designed to turn the medical system into a profit-making enterprise for the government. I witnessed this firsthand at the International Center for Neurological Restoration, which I directed from 1990-1994.

You can read this rather lenthly but highly scathing report of Cuba's medical apartheid system by clicking [here].

H/T: Interested Participant

What will remain of castro's remains

Jim Guirard writes about a post castro Cuba, and while many of us contemplate what it would be like after the bearded stooge's death, and how it may lead to a freer Cuba, Guirard sees it differently. Guirard correctly characterizes castro as a "left-wing Nazi" but he does not see an opening for the Cuban people after castro assumes room temperature. This is an interesting read printed here in its entirety.

Exclusive: Post-Castro Continuity
Jim Guirard
Author: Jim Guirard
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: June 26, 2006

As Fidel Castro gets ever older, many Americans hope for a post-Castro awakening of freedom in Cuba. But as FSM Contributing Editor Jim Guirard explains, they’re likely just to get more of the same old oppression.

Post-Castro Continuity
Jim Guirard
June 26, 2006

At a time when Castroite illiberals in throughout American society continue to whitewash the horrendous human rights record of Fidel Castro's police-state in Cuba, it is prudent to take a close look at just who this aging "Socialism or Death" tyrant actually is.
This is particularly true when just to his south an oil-rich Venezuela, led by another Comandante-for-life, Hugo Chavez, is flirting with the murderous likes of al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Syrians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and every other anti-Western radical on the planet.

Is today's Castro still that nasty old communist dictator who most Americans remember all too well? Or is he merely a "fellow progressive" as all too many socialists in America and across the world seem to believe?

To begin with, we should note that without the benefit of such patently false labels as "liberation movements" and "progressive fronts" and "social justice," an unbiased analysis of Castro’s 46-year tyranny demonstrates that he is nothing but a left-wing Nazi
.
These are the same sort of linguistic deceits and semantic masks which are inherent in Osama bin Laden's pseudo-religious language of "Jihadi martyrdom" -- which is at heart a mirror image of Castro's neo-Leninist language of "liberation theology."
In this context, there is a tight moral equivalence between UBL's murderous (and now dead)Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and Castro's equally ruthless (and equally dead) executioner, Ernesto "Che" Gueverra, in 1960s Cuba and Bolivia. It is no surprise that these two messianic America haters and their acolytes of deceit and death enjoy such affinity. Clearly, they both subscribe to V.I. Lenin's cynical postulation that "Religious men and women are easy to convert and win, and will easily accept our thinking if we wrap it up in a kind of religious terminology."

Back to Fascist Fidel

Returning to Fascist Fidel himself, and to the surprise of many "progressives" in his fan club, here is a man who, in his youth, idolized both the racist Adolf Hitler and the ego-maniacal Italian socialist dictator Benito Mussolini and who is now entering into an equally unholy alliance with bin Laden's and Ayman al-Zawahiri's Islamo-fascist Left.
This should make any true liberal retch in revulsion. Castro’s life-long tendencies toward policies reminiscent of Hitler and Lenin include:

• Pervasive Racism – Although his nation’s population is almost 70% black, Castro’s inner circle has remained almost entirely white, a fact that many African American liberal leaders can conveniently ignore.
  

• Anti-Semitism - From a pre-Castro Jewish community of over 5000, all but about 300 have fled Fidel's vicious persecution. In addition, both his historic and current collaboration with a wide variety of anti-Jewish terrorist groups (including Hamas, Hezbollah, Egyptian-Jihad and even al Qaeda) define him as an anti-Semitic dictator of the first order.

• Homophobia - As documented by celebrated Cuban exile writer Reinaldo Arenas, Castro has repeatedly herded homosexuals into brutal penal colonies. Prominent gay columnist Andrew Sullivan comments: "It staggers me how people who consider themselves 'liberal' and 'enlightened' could suck up to a man who dragooned homosexuals into concentration camps...."

• Sexism – A womanizer in the earlier part of his 45 years in power, a still chauvinistic Fidel Castro has virtually excluded women from his Politburo (Cabinet) and from the Central Committee.

• Imperialism - In shameless service to the former Soviet Union, Castro once had over 70,000 "liberation forces" spread across the world, helping add colonies to what President Reagan so correctly called "The Evil Empire." Today, he conspires with Colombia's FARC guerrillas and with al Qaeda's suicide mass murderers, and continues his efforts to transform a formerly peaceful and democratic Venezuela into an aggressive dictatorship along the Cuban model.

• Human Rights Violations - The record here is painfully clear. Almost five decades of his and brother Raul's jackboot repression have trampled the Cuban people's freedoms of press, speech, information, assembly, habeas corpus, artistic expression, independent unionism, emigration, judicial due process, privacy, property, multi-party political options, religious education, capital investment, and peaceful protest - all in the name of "social justice".
  

Those naïve souls who excuse this brutal record by citing Cuba's grassroots literacy program and broad-based (but rudimentary) health services should recall that two of Nazi Germany's favorite bragging points involved the education of "Hitler Youth" and the physical fitness of the German people -- all the better to serve the "Thousand Year Reich," of course.

As Dr. Enrique Canton and Dr. Sergio de Paz of the Florida-based Commission of Studies for the Freedom of Cuba have observed: "... education and health are used in the island-prison as implacable instruments of ideological, mental and psychological control of the unfortunate citizens."

The Likely Meanings of "Post-Fidel" -- and of "Post Osama"

Having clearly established what Fascist Fidel's soulless, "Socialism or Death" dictatorship is all about, we should more clearly define what a post-Fidel Cuba would be like.

Unfortunately, "post-Fidel" does not mean post-communist, or even post-Castro. Upon the old tyrant's long-overdue demise, power will pass automatically to thuggish brother Raul Castro's in-place, in-charge communist infrastructure -- the Politburo, Central Committee, KGB-designed secret police and so-called "People's Army."

Tragically for the oppressed Cuban people, their post-Fidel Cuba will remain old, ugly, racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, homophobic, poverty-stricken, devoid of civil liberties and now complicit in all variety of terrorism. As the French say, "Le plus ça change, le plus c'est la meme chose."

Its long-awaited "newness" will be akin to what World War II Germany might have become if NAZI power had passed from a charismatic and eccentric Adolf Hitler to his diabolic Gestapo chief, Heinrich Himler. It would have been different in style and tempo but equally evil -- National Socialism without the loud-mouthed, ego-maniacal "charm" of its Maximum Leader.

Much the same can be expected of a post-Osama world, as well. Once a tiresome, cave-dwelling "Death to America" bin Laden is finally dispatched, many echoes of his genocidal terrorism -- "Hirabah" in Arabic and "war against society" in English -- will still be around to remind us of what the al Qaeda Apostasy and its plainly satanic killing machine (which today targets all Christians, all Jews and all Muslims who happen to disagree) were all about. Unfortunately, such personality-driven movements just don’t seem to die with the personality that built them.

Life's little joys

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not have the time, so the Cuban dictator's lapdog did not get to meet with the PM.

PM too busy for Cuban, Left red

New Delhi, June 25: The Left parties are apparently miffed that Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque was not granted an appointment with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which prompted him to cancel his Delhi trip earlier this month.

Roque was coming to invite Singh on Cuban President Fidel Castro’s behalf to attend the next summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, to be held in Havana in mid-September.

Although there was no official word from the Left, it hinted that Roque could not get the appointment as a close aide of the Prime Minister did not want to annoy the US.

The government has put up its own argument — Singh might be holding charge of external affairs but he cannot meet every foreign minister who comes to Delhi.

Roque was asked to hand over the invite to junior for- eign minister Anand Sharma, who handles Latin America, but he cancelled his trip at the last minute and sent it through the embassy.

Cuba's excellent dental care system

I am sorry, I know that the photo of Cindy made you wretch and here I am doing it again. I am feeling a little sadistic.

Ready, set, Barf!

Sorry folks, I know that you are ending up your lunch hour in the east coast, and in about an hour we start ours here in the left coast.

MOOMBAT Maximus via Free Republic
H/T: Cardinal Martini

Israeli spymaster and his associate

Rafi Eitan, the 79-year-old former spymaster, who was in charge of the Mossad operation that led to the 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann and who ran the bungled Jonathan Pollard espionage case, will be in Havana to light a menorah together with his "associate" fidel castro. Mind you tha Rafi is an Israeli government official, and Israel does not have diplomatic relations with the Cuban regime.

Fidel Castro to light Menorah

Cuban leader, Israeli Minister Eitan to inaugurate huge Israeli symbol in central Havana square in memory of Holocaust victims

Cuban ruler Fidel Castro will use an official state ceremony to inaugurate Israel's symbol – the seven-branch menorah – in a central Havana square, in memory of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Will Cubans murdered by the castro regime one day have their own memorial in a Havana square?

Attending the event will be Castro's associate, Israeli Minister Rafi Eitan (Pensioners Party).

Associate? Is that associate as in the business sense, or as in the friendship sense? Lets read on!

Eitan said the idea to set up the memorial was suggested by the Havana Mayor, who is renovating the city's old quarter.

The mayor is a professor of history and teaches at the University of Havana. For years, he researched the history of the Jews of Havana, and renovated a series of hotels which were in Jewish ownership. He also renovated the Rachel hotel, which offers its guests Israeli meals.

Eitan has enormous citrus lands in Cuba, amounting to around the size of Gaza.

That is the equivalent of 360 sq. kilometers (107,369 acres). A Cuban that uses his land to cultivate produce for his own consumption, for bartering or resale could end up in serious trouble with the authorities for just trying to ensure his daily survival.

Castro's door always open

You don't get to be a rich dictator by closing doors or business associates, even if they come from a country that you would love to see destroyed.

He set up an enormous real estate project in the country, together with an associate, including 18 residential buildings and a commercial shopping center, at around USD 200 million.

Here is the word associate again. Earlier it was used referring to castro. Are Cubans the ones benefiting from these "residential buildings" or is fidel and his associates? And of course we all know that the commercial shopping center are strictly for tourists, buying with euros.

Until he became a minister in Israel, Eitan would frequently visit Cuba, where he lived in a beautiful villa, and where he would sculpt in the basement.

OK, now I am getting a little sick. Did Rafi build raul's and fidel's respective villas as well?

Recently, he flew to Cuba to cut off business activities there, as Israeli law demands for members of the government.

A photograph of Fidel Castro hangs in Eitan's office. The two met in 1994, when Eitan received a medal for agricultural investment, and from that time Castro's door has been open to Eitan.

Mazoltov!

Cuba: A member in good standing?

The European Union brings to attention one of the worst violators of human rights and of one of the United Nations Human Rights Council most notable member.

13 June 2006
Human Rights in Cuba Deteriorating, Says European Union

Number of political prisoners in Cuba said to be increasing

By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The European Union (EU) says it deplores what it calls "further deterioration" of the human rights situation in Cuba since June 2005.

In a June 12 statement, the EU's foreign ministers said that according to Cuban human rights organizations, the number of political prisoners in Cuba has risen in the last year to more than 330 documented cases. This figure includes several individuals detained without charge or trial since 2005.

In addition, the EU's ministers said, hundreds of young Cuban citizens have been detained and sentenced under a Cuban penal code that makes it unlawful to show the "propensity to commit a crime." The foreign ministers’ statement was released after the Luxemburg meeting of the EU's General Relations and External Relations Council, which deals with the EU’s foreign affairs.

The foreign ministers reiterated their call for the Cuban government to "unconditionally" release all political prisoners in Cuba, including a group of 75 people who were detained and sentenced to prison in 2003.

The EU foreign ministers expressed particular concern about several dozen acts of violent harassment and intimidation against members of Cuba’s peaceful political opposition and civil society reported since July 2005. The Cuban authorities, said the ministers, were not fulfilling their obligations to protect all Cuban citizens. The foreign ministers "urgently" called on Cuba's government "to take prompt action to stop the ongoing harassment and to undertake every effort to effectively prevent its resumption."

EU relations with Cuba are governed by what is called the EU’s "Common Position" adopted in 1996. Among other things, it requires regular evaluations of the situation in Cuba.

The Common Position says the EU's objective in its relations with Cuba is to encourage "a process of transition to a pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people."

The United States and other members of the international community repeatedly have condemned human rights abuses in Cuba. A report released April 5 by the U.S. State Department says that for the past 47 years, the Cuban government of Fidel Castro has "consistently spurned domestic and international calls for greater political tolerance and respect for human rights." Read more [here].

Meet the UN Human Rights Council members

The new and improved UNHR Council began functioning today.

The old Commission was packed with human rights violators, who got on as part of regional lists. It met for six weeks only each year and nobody was impressed by its pronouncements.

Here are few of the new stellar members.

Azerbaijan : "Azerbaijan's government has a long-standing record of pressuring opposition political parties and civil society groups and arbitrarily limiting critical expression."

China : "While many governments have praised recent developments in China, the country remains a one-party state that does not hold national elections, has no independent judiciary, leads the world in executions, aggressively censors the Internet."

Pakistan : "Six years after seizing power in a coup d'etat, President Pervez Musharraf's military-backed government did little in 2005 to address ongoing human rights concerns."

Cuba : "Cuba remains a Latin American anomaly: an undemocratic government that represses nearly all forms of political dissent. President Fidel Castro, now in his forty-seventh year in power, shows no willingness to consider even minor reforms."

The fox watches the henhouse. Read the rest [here].

You can't say, "Cuba es una mierda"

Because the sons and daughters of Cubans, Cubans that hold very important positions in the castro regime will never be able to visit or see their family again on the island. It is utterly amazing the culture of duplicity that castro has created for the Cuban people. Just like medicine and doctors are exported all over the world making castro the darling of the third world and of the idiots of the first world,while at home on the island the people don't even have an aspirin to comfort a simple muscle ache or a headache. But shame to those who are outside the island living a comfortable life, support castro in public, and in private detest him. They want to have their cake and eat too, on the backs of their brethren.

Very quietly, they reject Fidel Castro

Children of the Cuban regime's ruling class who have emigrated to Spain find they must keep a lid on any dissenting views so they can continue to visit relatives on the island.
BY GUY HEDGECOE
Special to The Miami Herald

MADRID - They are the sons and daughters of Cuba's ruling class, living in Spain but keeping a low profile so that Fidel Castro's government will let them return home for visits.

They are known as quedaditos, which means ''those who stayed'' but implies the under-the-radar lives they lead to avoid the whiff of dissidence that might stick to their decision to live outside the communist system.

''If you say something here, over there in Cuba they'll find out and you'll never see your family again,'' said a Cuban lawyer in her 30s who lives in Madrid. 'For example, if you put in the newspaper my name and quote me saying, `Cuba is a load of crap,' if that's published, they'll say: 'You said what? You're never going back to Cuba again.' ''

So the quedaditos try to live quiet lives and remain largely unknown outside the close-knit group of Cubans in their same situation.

Some are critical of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Others just want to get away from the island's intense politics. Others want to do business, without Cuba's draconian controls. But for all, unlike Miami, living in Spain does not immediately point to dissidence and the end of their possibility of frequently visiting the island.

There's Agustín Valdés, the son of the former Cuban interior minister and notorious hard-liner Ramiro Valdés, who has lived in Madrid for the past eight years, forging a career as a painter.

Javier Leal, the son of Eusebio Leal Spengler, who heads the Historian's Office of the City of Havana, runs a travel agency and an art gallery in Barcelona, selling the looted art confiscated from Cuban families (em).

Read the rest [here].

Yale's gift to the Cuban regime

The castroit regurgitator Prensa Latina reports that Yale Universtiy has donated tons of unpublished photos and film documentaries to the Cuban regime. It has been deemed to be of "incalculable value" by Cuban regime officials. The gift must be filled with communist progaganda, or incriminating evidence. Since it is coming from an American institution of higher learning, I believe the former.

Yale Donates Films to Cuba

Havana, Jun 16 (Prensa Latina) The US University of Yale has donated to Cuba a collection of unpublished documentary films shot on the island between 1964 and 1969 and several movies filmed from 1957 to 1959.

These historic documents, work by US filmmaker David Stone, were delivered Thursday to the History Institute in Cuba, Granma newspaper reported Friday.

Together with the 62 digital films, another 5,000 photos, most of them unpublished, were also donated.

These snapshots were taken by journalist Andrew St George and they include the time since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution January 1, 1959 to the nationalization of US companies in 1961.

The quality of those films, information, interviews and photos has incalculable value for this country's history, said IHC president Raul Izquierdo.

These historic testimonies, stated Izquierdo, will enrich the Institute and Cuba's documentary heritage, as well as foster ties of exchange and solidarity between experts from both countries.

Abrasive, and spreads shit like no other

I told you they were stupid...

The Detroit City Council continues its stupidity of aligning itself with enemy governments, while the City of Detroit remains one of the poorest most mismanaged cities in the US. The Council looks to Venezuela for help in resolving the great poverty affecting its citizens, but they can't even do this right.

Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, yesterday announced the Venezuelan government’s interest in working with the city of Detroit in the fight against poverty. Alvarez Herrera made the announcement in a reception lunch at Detroit’s International Institute that followed an early afternoon meeting with City Council and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s office.

“We talked with the mayor, and we decided there were many ways we could work together,” Alvarez Herrera said.

Alvarez Herrera’s announcement came in response to a Sept. 2005 letter, drafted and signed by all eight members of the Detroit City Council, to the government of Venezuela, one of the world’s largest oil exporters, which asked that a heating oil discount program be extended to Detroit. The program, which is run by the Venezuelan state-owned CITGO Petroleum Corporation, provides low-income areas with heating oil discounted by as much as 40 percent.

The program, introduced by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, has been operating in U.S. cities, including New York and Boston, since 2005.

However, as the majority of Detroit homes are heated by natural gas, the discount program is not feasible in Detroit. The city is now looking into a diesel gasoline discount for city buses.

Did you pay attention to the last paragraph? The insulting program is to help low income homeowners with cheap Venezuelan heating oil, but as it turns out most homes in Detroit are HEATED WITH NATURAL GAS! What a buch of DUMB ASSES! Perhaps, Hugo's own gas can be harvested to save Detroit.

Read more about their stupidity here.

El cabezón Alarcón talks

Mirta Ojito talks via satellite to el cabezón de la revolución, Ricardo Alarcón at the opening of the NAHJ conference in Ft. Lauderdale. Listen to the interview here.

I tip my hat to Ms. Ojito, she handled the interview better than I expected asking questions that made the commie lackey take thought and measure his words carefully before speaking. However, did we learn anything new? Absolutely, NOT! Alarcón is stuck on the castroit do-loop, spewing the same mierda over and over again, blaming the imperialist US for their own failures.

If the success of the NAHJ is to be measured on the Alarcón interview, then it failed miserably. Where are the opposition interviews?

Babalú has more on the story.

Keystone cops vs. castro

The failure of the CIA to "kill" castro is presented in a comedic play. There is nothing funny about a life castro.

Comic take on Cuban conspiracies

IT has been dubbed 'the play the CIA do not want you to see' and now this new 'explosive' comedy from the pen of The Office's Brian Stewart is to be unleashed on audiences in Greenwich, writes Emma Durdle.

Killing Castro starts at Greenwich Theatre, Crooms Hill, Greenwich next Monday, June 12 and will give theatre goers an insight into some of the CIA's bizarre plots to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the 1960s.

Having obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act, Mr Stewart set about writing a play dedicated to the imaginative, but less well known plots hatched by American CIA agents.

According to actor Michael Praed, who stars as Tom Madison in the play, the plots range 'from the sublime to the ridiculous' and include exploding cigars and poisonous snakes.

The former, Robin of Sherwood star said: "I play one of the four CIA agents who discuss ways and means to assassinate Fidel Castro.

"They are the most extraordinary ways known. One idea was proposed to put an exploding shell under water, because it was known that Fidel Castro used to like going scuba diving."

Michael stars alongside Casualty's Clive Mantle, former Watson, Edward Hardwicke and Murder Investigation Team star, Joe Shaw in the play.

He said he didn't hesitate in joining, Clive, who he appeared with in Robin of Sherwood in the 1980s, Edward and Joe on stage when he was asked if he was interested.

He said: "I liked the script a lot. It's a new play and I think it's very funny. The notion that you get very intelligent people who are on top of the food chain and they have a problem that they need to find a solution to and they resort to this is very funny."

Despite starring in a play with serious political undertones, Michael says world politics do not interest him in real life.

"Politics isn't one of my interests, he said: "But then I don't think Killing Castro is a political play, it's a black comedy first and foremost."

Performances run from Monday, June 12 to Saturday, June 17 at 8pm with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2.30pm. Tickets range from £14 to £22 and are available from the box office on 020 8858 7755.

Order in English

At Geno's they want you to order in English, or no service! Here and here.

Plain and lucid

Forwarded for your reading pleasure without comment:

Christine M. Flowers | HOPELESS IN HAVANA, CLUELESS IN HOLLYWOOD

ANDY GARCIA has the entire package: good looks, the ability to speak articulately (in at least two languages), a decades-long marriage, solid moral values. He's basically Mel Gibson with a sprinkling of cilantro.

For almost 20 years, the Cuban-born actor has brought power and elegance to a wide range of characters from the doomed poet Garcia Llorca to the man who taught Sofia Coppola how to roll gnocchi.

But his dream was to move to the other side of the camera and recreate a world that now exists only in memory: the pre-Castro Cuba of his parents. This was his "Passion," so to speak.

Like Gibson, he poured his own money into this labor of love. And, like Gibson, he managed to outrage mainstream Hollywood by making a film that doesn't do what it's supposed to: please the most "progressive" constituency this side of Beijing. Andy Garcia refused to make the communists look like the good guys.

Critics have panned his movie "The Lost City" as historically inaccurate since it fails to show how Castro and his henchman Che Guevara had the unified support of the working poor. They say that he paints too sanguine a picture of Batista and the monied classes, and that he twists the facts to make Che look evil. How could a guy who looks so fine on trendy T-shirts be on the wrong side of history? How indeed.

The reaction to Garcia's film reminds me of how the chattering classes lobbed grenades at Gibson's "Passion," calling it everything from anti-semitic to - surprise! - "historically inaccurate."

If accuracy were the sine qua non of celluloid, would Tony Curtis have been able to hail Spartacus in a Brooklyn accent? Or would the creamy-skinned Liz Taylor have been cast as an Egyptian queen, or Rock Hudson as a ladies' man?

This perverted desire to whitewash communist brutality is a throwback to the time when Alger Hiss rubbed shoulders with heads of state and Joe McCarthy was ridiculed as delusional. History has proven that Hiss was a traitor, and that McCarthy, whose methods were famously flawed, was actually raising legitimate issues of national security.

In fact, many have criticized the country's failure to legitimately recognize the communist threat in the years after World War II. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, hardly a conservative, once wrote that "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards American Communism."

But the cold war is over, yesterday's news. We don't hate the communists anymore (and some never did in the first place).

In fact, so distant is the fear of communism that Cuba has now become a fabulous vacation destination. Strolling through my favorite bookstore the other day, I found, sandwiched between a book on Colombia and a pictorial tour of Denmark, a lovely guide to the delights of our Caribbean neighbor.

On the cover was a lovely beach vista, all white sand and sun and swaying palm trees. Looking closely, I could swear I saw little Elian Gonzalez playing with a beach ball. Must have been my imagination (or a bad cuba libre).

And then you have the college students who spend "learning semesters" in Havana, immersing themselves in the expansive culture and coming back with their very own sanguine view of the country and its people.

They must have missed the political dissidents in the rat-infested prisons. They must have overlooked the men and women on the street and in the bodegas, young and old, male and female. Waiting to die. These are the broken souls of Castro's revolution, the ones who never noticed that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. But the left doesn't want to hear what they're saying, just as they closed their ears to the cries of Stalin's victims.

This is a dangerous blind spot. Communism is a creeping illness that didn't die when the Iron Curtain fell. Some on the left would like to deflect attention from it, and downplay its importance. But the lines between the newest form of socialism and Castro's creed are blurred.

Hugo Chavez is a prime example of the danger. Venezuela's socialist president stands arm-in-arm with the Cuban dictator while he violates the civil rights of his people and antagonizes the U.S. Evo Morales, the newly elected leader of Bolivia talks about empowering the indigenous populations while embracing Chavez.

So Andy Garcia tells some uncomfortable truths about his homeland, and Hollywood won't listen. They'll lionize Ed Murrow, who challenged the anti-communist bogeyman. But criticize the murderous Fidel? That's box-office poison.

Vent Zarqawi's End

Faux revolutionaries

What happens when you live in a society, where the only way to survive and have a somewhat decent living is to pretend to be someone that you are not. The following story is provided via Babalú, which tells us that when in Rome do as Romans do, but make no mistake it clearly tells us that el cesar is all alone.

Mascarade Rafael Ferro Salas, Abdala Press

PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba - June (www.cubanet.org) - Mrs. Novo says she's a revolutionary. She's the wife of a coronel in the armed forces. Coronel Cámara (that's Mrs. Novo's husband's last name) is the head of the Association of Combat Veterans in this province. It's an organization that groups together army veterans commanded by Mr. Castro who overthrew the previous government in 1959.

By pretending to pass for a "revolutionary" and also by being the wife of a coronel, Mrs. Novo is provided with various perks. But...don't be confused, my friendly reader; Mrs. Novo's is a game that many here in Cuba call two-faced morality, though it's a mere euphemism and has no morals to it. The Novo woman--as some call her--is a fat, well-dressed lady, and it's unnecessary to say that she eats well, too.

Socialism is a system that generates squalor on a large scale, and those squalid conditions are distributed evenly among people. It's a diabolical formula: the distribution of misery affects more misery.

Mrs. Novo adapts herself to Cuban socialism by pretending to be a good socialist, and escapes the squalid conditions. She has almost all her brothers and sisters in Florida, but she doesn't publicize it. Her weakness for money and the good things in life gets carried away when those siblings visit the island. Then Mrs. Novo becomes a veritable lion protecting the packages her siblings bring. Mrs. Novo is very intelligent, as it's said in good Cuban: she knows how to swim and hide the clothes.

From her social rank as the wife of an officer of the armed forces with an "important post" like her husband, Mrs. Novo visits the best tourist resorts in the province, reserved for government officials and high-ranking army officers only. It's obvious to point out that in those places of privilege for "revolutionaries" Mrs. Novo also doesn't talk about her exiled brothers and sisters in Florida.

Just a few days ago a newphew of Mrs. Novo was searched by the police in his home, and all kinds of electronic goods, money and even the house were seized. The nephew put up foreigners there and did it illegally. It seems someone denounced him and the boy's luck changed overnight.

The "revolutionary" Mrs. Novo learned of what happened to her beloved newphew and flew into a rage. She felt that everything they'd done to him was unfair. That's to say as a revolutionary she did the impossible to save him, but... for fun, the woman's mask then began to fall from her face. They stepped on her callus--another popular saying--and it hurt her greatly.

The occupation of journalist leads one to learn about all things--or almost eveything, not to be too absolute--and this reporter learned that Mrs. Novo is preparing something. They say she's on the verge of retirement and when she does, she'll go apply for a visitor's permit at the United States Interests Section to visit her brothers and sisters like the good "revolutionary" that she is.

Don't be surprised, friendly reader; many of "today's revolutionaries" dance to the beat of Mrs. Novo's son. They're the privileged cast of a mascarade ball and... there aren't masks for everyone in this 46-year-old carnival, the longest on earth.

Bolivia: Che tourism

It always gets worse before it gets better. You can stop one kid wearing a Che t-shirt, explain the truth about the murderous bastard, and he may or may not get it. But if he does, you've just turned around a mistaken soul. However, what happens when an entire nation, one of the sorriest poorest nations in the world starts to think that Che is one way out of their economic plight.

Bolivia sees glint of gold in Che Guevara's footsteps

By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent

CAMIRI, Bolivia (Reuters) - The spirit of capitalist enterprise is flourishing in the footsteps of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary who died in his unsuccessful attempt to bring communism to Bolivia.
Advert for the Scotsman.com money channel

Enterprising Bolivians think the time is ripe to expand tourism by increasing the trickle of international leftists who travel to Bolivia to pay homage to Che. He was shot in 1967, at the age of 39, and became a revolutionary icon.

"There are great conditions now to develop the (Che) business," said Karen Wachtel, who owns the Chaco Guarani Tours travel agency and played a key role in developing the "Che trail" which connects the landmarks of Guevara's guerrilla campaign.

"The left is gaining strength in Latin America and here in Bolivia, there is a much, much talk about Che Guevara."

Bolivia's leftist president, Evo Morales, hung a huge portrait of Che Guevara in the presidential palace after he took office in January and the revolutionary leader is often mentioned in speeches by members of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism. But it is small entrepreneurs, not a socialist state, who are looking to profit from Che Guevara.

The way to do that, tourism operators say, is to offer tours that combine left-wing pilgrimage with adventurous eco-tourism -- on foot, horseback or four-wheel-drive vehicle -- through rugged mountain areas which have barely changed over the past 40 years. Read the rest here.

And don't forget the souvenirs.

Its offers "Che T-shirts, Che tank tops, Che club shirts, Che hoodies, Che headwear, Che military wear, Che collectibles, Che clearance, Che new titles, Che top sellers, Che books, Che DVDs/videos, Che music, Che posters."

Not time to post

¡Abajo el millonario!

Travel waste

Who are the kings/queens of the boondoggle, living large at the taxpayers expense. Here is one that we know very well...

The study turned up other interesting educational travel and irregularities. Congressman Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, has amended his forms for a trip in 2000 to Cuba, where he met with Fidel Castro. He first violated ethics rules by accepting travel expenses for his son and his wife, on a trip that was supposed to address the plight of endangered birds. But confronted with the center's findings, Mr. Rangel recently reimbursed and identified additional sponsors for his son's travel and for the trip; the sponsors included one of his longtime fund-raisers, John Catsimatidis of Gristede's Foods in New York, and the Cuban government. George A. Dalley, Mr. Rangel's chief of staff, said he erred in not knowing the reporting rules.

The plight of endergered birds??? It must be the bearded feces rapacious maximus.

Read about the rest of the crooks here.

I was warned

And I did proceed, and I did get sick. Enrique at Abajo Fidel has posted a schedule of the sick festivities that will take place celebrating fidel cagalitroso's 80th birthday. Check out the concert tab and view the artists that profess their love to the plantation owner. Many of these have toured the US and the world as slave representatives of fidel castro; all their earnings enriching their master.

Zoé Valdés: My opinion

Zoé's candid answers, no fancy words no bullshit. Maybe she should be the one asking Ricardo "el Cabezón" Alarcón the questions on the upcoming NAHJ conference.

« L'Amérique, du Nord au Sud, doit s'ouvrir au monde »
Interview

Prune Antoine - Paris - 5.6.2006

"America, both North and South, must open themselves to the world"

Zoé Valdés, 47, a Cuban writer exiled in Paris and author of I gave you all I had talks about her opposition to the Castro regime and getting rid of political correctness

Committed author Zoé Valdés was born in Havana in the year that Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba. In one of her first books, The Daily Nothingness, published in 1995, she talked about the economic failures of the regime and the deprivation of freedom suffered by the island's inhabitants. She has since been declared 'persona non grata' by the Cuban regime.

You have Cuban ties, Spanish nationality and you live in Paris: do you feel European?
I'm Cuban and have had Spanish and French nationality for a few months. If I feel European, it's mainly because in Cuban crossbreeding there is a very strong Spanish and French heritage. I live in France and I like this country's culture. I like its literature, its mindset and the rigour of the French language. Exile can be a source of inspiration but it is still a punishment and not a gift from the Gods, especially when it's enforced exile.

You were banned from ever returning to Cuba in 1995, so what do you think of the European Union's policies vis-à-vis the Castro regime?
I think that Brussels should act firmly with Fidel Castro, because he's a real tyrant and is still getting away with it. He's taking advantage of the US trade embargo and Europe's decision to re-establish commercial trading and resume diplomatic relations. The EU should demand that all political prisoners be freed, without exception or conditions, then find a quick, peaceful solution to make Castro hand over to other political leaders and a real democracy.

How do you see the future of South America?
I'm neither an expert in international politics nor a fortune teller. I can only say that I really don't like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, the populist leaders who support Castro, a recognised dictator. Latin America has a reputation for major corruption and 'caudillismo' (This is a cultural phenomenon that first appeared during the early 19th century in revolutionary South America; a type of leader with a charismatic personality and enough of a populist program of future reforms to gain broad sympathy, at least at the outset, among the common people). I think that America, both North and South, should open up to the world. Relations between the countries within the continent must improve: it's time that their governments stopped insulting each other and fighting over trifling matters. Cubans have many associations with Europe and North America. I think that the European Union should see its links with America from a more human point of view, commercial certainly, but human first and foremost. There are still some Cubans working like slaves for companies – most of them European – on miserable salaries, paid in pesos and not in euros. Castro's dictatorship makes these people slaves and lets others abuse the situation.

Politically, you're dead against Fidel Castro: do you think that this involvement goes well with literature?
While I do not hesitate to express my opinions in the press, I'm not a member of any political party or anti-Castro organisation. My involvement is personal and is due to my own suffering, my life, my experience as a Cuban and as a writer, the way I see things and my solidarity with my fellow countrymen. Other Latin America authors are also speaking out about dictatorships at the moment. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – except that he is in favour of a dictator - Isabel Allende and Luis Sepulveda. Some European and US writers have also been active against war, if not against everything: Arthur Miller, Paul Auster, Susan Sontag… the list is endless. Involvement is one thing, literature is another: it is possible to mix the two but not permanently. Nowadays people who speak out against George W Bush or against war are admired and respected because these causes are politically correct. It is more difficult to tell it like it is. Say "that's enough!" to Castro's dictatorship, "that's enough!" to any form of terrorism and "that's enough!" to political correctness.

Is it offensive if you include everyone?

Perú says NO to the imperialist Chavez

The people of Perú have sent a very clear message that Chavez’ choice was not going to be theirs. The country opted to elect Alan Garcia, a piss poor ex-president, but the people were sick of Chavez’ meddling. Every Latin American leftist and nationalist presidential candidate should have Chavez as its benefactor.

LIMA, PERU: Nation returns former leader, Alan Garcia, to presidency

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: June 5th, 2006 01:21 AM (PDT)

Former President Alan Garcia, whose 1985-90 government left Peru mired in guerrilla violence and economic chaos, won back the office Sunday by defeating a fiery nationalist ex-soldier who was endorsed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

Garcia’s lead of 55.5 percent against 44.5 percent for Ollanta Humala with 77.3 percent of the vote counted was insurmountable, said the head of the electoral agency, Magdalena Chu.

Hugowood

Just recently, the Venezuelan satrap, Hugo Chavez announced that Oliver Stone was planning a movie about the 2002 coup. It wasn’t long after, that Stone made it clear that he was not planning a movie despite an announcement to the contrary by President Hugo Chavez. Perhaps a little embarrassed; although, for that you need to have a little shame, Chavez has decided to take his own movie future into his own hands.

Chavez bid to counter Hollywood

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has opened a film studio in the country aimed at curbing the cultural influence of the US in Latin America.

"It's a Hollywood dictatorship. They inoculate us with messages that don't belong to our traditions," he said.

The government is giving $11m (£5.8m) to the project which will fund local and South American films.

Mr Chavez has been a staunch critic of President George W Bush and often attacks free-market policies.

Heroes

The president toured film sets, costume rooms and sat in the director's chair on his visit to the Film Villa Foundation on the outskirts of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

One of the first projects is a series about Francisco de Miranda, who fought for Venezuela's independence from Spain in the 19th Century and one of Mr Chavez's heroes.

He has also accused Hollywood of portraying Latin Americans as violent criminals and drug traffickers, and urged children to turn away from superheroes such as Superman.

The Venezuelan government is the main investor in Telesur, a Latin American TV news station seen as an alternative to US networks such as CNN.

Some US politicians have branded Telesur, which began broadcasting last year, as a "propaganda tool" for Mr Chavez.

Don't worry Chavecito, Hollywood loves its dictators, and soon enough it will come to your rescue.

Mirta Ojitos' Schedule

Here is Mirta Ojito's 2006 appearance schedule. It seems like her next appearance is in Ft. Lee, NJ on June 10, 2006 (that's 8 days from now). Here is an opportunity for our friends in the NY/NJ/CT/PA area to pay a visit and hand her in person the questions you would like ther to ask el cabezón de la revolución Ricardo Alarcón. You already know where she is going to be June 14 - 17, kissing commie ass. If applicable, I'll apologize after the interview.

Ojitos' e-mail: ojito@mirtaojito.com, mao35@columbia.edu (one of these has to work).

Ricardo Alarcón coming to Ft. Lauderdale (UPDATE)

UPDATE: Babalú has done the homework, and here is the list he has compiled of NAHJ members. You can send them your questions.

Media Contacts: Joseph Torres, (202) 662-7143;
jtorres@nahj.org

nahj@nahj.org for general NAHJ information

Daniela Montalvo, (202) 662-7152
dmontalvo@nahj.org

Executive Director
Ivan Roman
iroman@nahj.org

Deputy Director, Communications and Media Policy
Joseph Torres
jtorres@nahj.org

Parity Project Director
Kevin Olivas
kolivas@nahj.org

Development Director
Azuree Salazar
asalazar@nahj.org

Finance Director
Jerry Crute
jcrute@nahj.org

Parity Project Associate Director (West Coast)
Rosa Maria Santana
rsantana@nahj.org

Parity Project Associate Director (Texas)
Michele Gonzalez
mgonzalez@nahj.org

Professional Development Manager
Marissa Silvera
msilvera@nahj.org

Educational Programs Manager
Christie Gomez
cgomez@nahj.org

Communications and Research Coordinator
Daniela Montalvo
dmontalvo@nahj.org

Membership Coordinator
Claudia Araujo
caraujo@nahj.org

Executive Assistant
Yaneth Guillen
yguillen@nahj.org

Parity Project Researcher/Administrative Assistant
Leticia Salazar
lsalazar@nahj.org

Program Assistant
Virginia Galindo
vgalindo@nahj.org

_____________________________June 1, 2006

Via satellite el cabezón de la Revolución, Ricardo Alarcón will attend the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ convention this month in Fort Lauderdale.

Cuban activist Ninoska Pérez Castellón said she hopes journalists challenge Alarcón when he gives untruthful answers.

"I hope the journalists there have the integrity to ask him the questions that need to be asked," she said. "Every time we see Alarcón interviewed ... he gives a ridiculous answer and they just sit there and take it."

The Sun-Sentinel has the rest of the story.

Cuba defends its medical "miracle."

It seems that the recent story in the Jamaima Gleaner expressing concerns that Cuba's "free" eye operations, which pose a threat to Jamaicans has touched a nerve with the Cuban regime.

ARMED WITH statistics and testimonies from satisfied patients, Gisela Garcia Rivera, Cuban Ambassador to Jamaica, has hit back at critics of the 'Miracle Operation' eye surgery programme.

The doctors have pointed to patients who, having undergone surgery in Cuba, have developed complications since being back in Jamaica.

"We do understand, however, that for the persons with the problems, these statistics will provide no comfort. That is why the Government and people of Cuba are committed to them until the end. Even if they have to go back to Cuba for further treatment. We will do whatever is necessary. Even if they need a transplant. We will not let the patients down," said Mrs. Garcia Rivera.

Wow, a transplant! Which is a medical impossibility. There are 1.1 million little nerves that would require reattachment, and the technology simply does not exist nor the expertise, much less in Cuba. Perhaps a cornea transplant is what the ambassador is talking about, but that will require donors and with all their fu*k ups will mean many donors. Moreover, all this is provided by the benevolent Cuban regime “at no cost.” At no cost to whom? The Cuban people have paying the price and continue to pay a very high price.