This afternoon I happened to flip on the tube during the Cuba sequence of The Godfather, Part II. In light of recent events, it served as a reminder of how a man of promise and potential can deteriorate into a miserable, twisted buffoon. To think that Pacino used to get Oscar nods…

While it’s good that Fidel Castro is finally going away, celebrating his resignation is embittering. It’s a reminder that he’s been around roughly 49 years too long. Some say we should be embarrassed that we tried to take him out in 1961–I think we should be embarrassed that we didn’t try hard enough. I cannot imagine that Cuba was better off with Fidel in charge.

It is increasingly unlikely that he will meet his end by being chased out of Havana and floating to Miami on an inner-tube, only to be surrounded upon landfall by huddled masses of expatriate Cubans with baseball bats and tweezers. I haven’t given up hope yet.

Hopefully, in the very near future, Cuba will shed communism and we’ll lift our sanctions so that we may once again get inebriated on their rum, blacken our lungs with their cigars, and rot our teeth with their sugar and coffee…

Apparently, an Academy Award-winning director, enamored of Cuba’s health care system—we won’t name names—wants Fidel to show up at the Oscars. Oh, that he would, and that security be lax.

…

(Tangent: there have been rumors of a Pacino cameo in the next Bond flick. If he is, I may have to eat my own face in protest.)

3 Comments

Discupulus ex Abysso Says:

The thing with Americans is that they see communism as this horrible thing, but that is a product of the way they are raised. With the type of communism that Cuba, specifically, has, comes stability that is hard to achieve otherwise. Communism isn’t necessarily bad, but neither is it democratic, so it IS bad in the eyes of a simple american that covets certain freedoms. I’m not Cuban but I personally am interested how Cuba’s government is going to change without Fidel in power. Truly, is a president with a 61 year term so bad?

February 21st, 2008 at 5:34 pm

Discupulus ex Abysso Says:

rather, 49 year term

February 21st, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Vincent Viscariello Says:

Seems to me that there are plenty of Cubans who also “see communism as this horrible thing.” So did a lot of Russians, and Ukrainians who starved during the purges, and East Germans who tried crossing the Wall, and Hungarians whose rebellion was crushed in the 1950s, and the Romanians who executed Ceauşescu first chance they got, etc.

When hundreds of thousands of people risk death to escape your country, your country is probably doing something wrong. It’s that “simple.”

Have a look at The Black Book of Communism.

February 21st, 2008 at 10:55 pm