Paxety Pages

Our Cuban driver needed to make a brief stop. Ten hours east of Havana, near Cuba's far eastern tip, he pulled over in this sleepy farm town and jogged up the broken tile steps of a ramshackle wooden house, tapping on his aunt's front door.

He got a big smile and a kiss on the cheek, then quickly slipped his aunt some money sent by relatives in the capital.

Foreign visitors were immediately invited inside, more smiles and cheek-kisses, along with a warm welcome and some strong Cuban coffee, served from chipped china cups.

The ragged wooden house had two tiny bedrooms, a small hot kitchen with a gas burner, a fireplace still smoldering with charcoal and battered pots and pans hung from the walls and rafters. The only appliances were a beat-up fan, an ancient, rusting Russian refrigerator and a boxy, black-and-white Russian television that looked at least 30 years old.

The bathroom, reached by ducking under sheets, shirts and jeans strung out to dry on lines crossing the tiny backyard, was a wooden-sided privy. It was neat and clean, complete with a stone seat and a rusty nail holding a sheaf of pages torn from the Communist daily newspaper, Granma, placed strategically for an obvious purpose.

Read the whole thing. Heh.

And speaking of Granma, it  has a glowing review of the Cannes Film Festival award winning film "Viva Cuba".

Viva Cuba is a road movie that goes from one end of the island to the other, in which two children run away from home so that they won't be separated by their parents. In a journey “toward the heart of hope,” Jorgito and Malú, the two winning heroes, travel through the island “searching for a wish – to be together and overcome the differences and find a better future,” the director explained during a press conference.

According to the preview, the two children promise to be friends forever, and run away together, fleeing from the plan of Malu's mother to leave the country and take the girl with her. “The first thing we want to do is call on parents to reflect, so that they very much take into account the opinions of their children when they make such important decisions.”

Who wants freedom, right? Especially you folks who can afford to attend Cannes. And let the children make the tough decisions in life - it's all about the children anyway.

But then, The Miami Herald prints an opinion piece by Carlos Alberto Montaner in which he, gasp, says Granma prints lies about him.

The Global Politician has an interview with author Humberto Fontova -

RM: Humberto, how has the situation with Fidel Castro changed over the past decade or so?

HF: The better for Castro and his toadies--the worse for Cuba. He just signed on with two new sugar-daddies, Venezuela and China. Chavez' subsidies to Cuba totaled $1.3 billion last year in free oil. It amounts to 80,000 barrels daily now. Not all is refined in Cuba, which doesn't have the capacity for refining that amount of crude oil. Castro's gov. actually RESELLS some of this crude, mostly in South & Central America for hard cash. Castro's honorarium to his chum Chavez comes in the form of military and security "advisors." Mainstream media calls these "doctors and teachers." China just "re-scheduled" (probably forgave) the billions in debt Castro owned them from the 90's and signed several deals to extract Nickel from Cuba. (Cuba's Nickel rich) I need not tell you what type of production Nickel is essential for. Apparently China wants it badly. Just last month Castro gave a speech where he crowed gleefully about his regime's new lease on life. "Cuba is rising from the ashes like a Phoenix!" he gushed. "We don't need the U.S. ! We don't need Europe!"

Sadly, nowadays he's right.

It's a must read.