The news is so bad from Lebanon that LI has barely had time to celebrate Fidel Castro’s upcoming embalming. It is funny how communist parties in the final state of their decay leap over the French revolution and begin imitating Louis XIV. The failure to root themselves in anything but the bureaucracies they create is, perhaps, one reason for this, since family is the last trustworthy precinct in the morass of misrule. We do regret that Castro wasn’t either blown to smithereens by an anarchist bomb or otherwise deposed 35 years ago. Even for his sake -- at least that would have been an aesthetically pleasing terminus. Probably have done something good for the left in Latin America, too. Instead, like an island Franco, he reduced Cuba to a nullity, a welfare spot, a whorehouse for progressive tourists. That malign presence will now pass into the hall of fame of Latin American dictators: Duvalier, Pinochet, Vargas, Somoza, Castro.
Anyway, we can only hope that Raol, that old rotten homophobe, takes a dive into the pit too. Prying the corpse’s hands from the body of Cuba is going to take a long time, however. I hope Reinaldo Arenas is up in heaven, laughing.
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6 comments:
Wow, roger. You realize with this post you will be excommunicated from The Kool Kids Klub of the Left, don't you?
In all honesty, if you're going to have a corrupt, militarized ranting dictator, Castro is probably quite a bit better than, say, Somoza. Not that I'm saying Castro is "good" by any means.
Brian, being the lumpen bourgeois liberal type, I'm pretty much excommunicated anyway - they even took away by Che Guevara Master Card!
My feeling is, if you are going to have a dictator, you should ... reconsider.
roger--you always think independently, and are smarter than I am in most things (not to mention most other people). However, I am the first recipient of the position of Long Sunday Permanent Deletee. Do you really think you can top that?
However, I have decided to place my faith in the American middle class still existing by mid-December, which is why I went out in the blaze yesterday to fetch Sterno for my Fondue set that was given to me 20 years ago and that I nearly threw out several times until I realized that you don't get given a Fondue set just every day--and I wish to dream of cozy times of cologned sweaters in the candlelight. Nevertheless, we could still have a blackout and my roommate thought he'd have to go to the hospital in the night, even though we have some AC (they turn it down at these times.)
NYT has pic of Kay Bailey looking annoyed in their senators-only-elevator story (interns rush in.) She's come a long way from the 5 and Dime.
NYP,
Kay is a trip.
hey, I have the smarts of your average redneck, but as we say around these parts, I kin tell the pig's in the poke by the squeal. One of those useful cracker barrel sayings sold on postcards at out of the way holiday spots.
LS is languishing a bit thise summer. Aside from the tourist lefties, though, I can't imagine anyone actually thinking of Fidel C., at this late date, as our ambassador from Utopia. If the LS crowd sheds a tear for him, I'll be surprised.
I was wondering what you were going to use that sterno for. Fondue in a City heat wave -- sounds like a John Cheever short story! Be careful -- I wouldn't stint on the a/c for a night or two.
Dear Cheever would have probably made a Pink Lady out of it. The Fondue will be in Oct, Nov, or Dec., I was behaving like a squirrel doing that; what's ridiculous is it seemed completely sensible, not just 'characterful-eccentric.'
Bob Herbert mentions the greater number of extremely hot nights that are now occurring in the global warming process in pretty good op-ed today, some citing of Gore that you already know. Heat waves in Manhattan are different one from the other, though, and it's some central control that keeps the AC from being comfortably cool so that we don't blow. Anyway, I've been through many, the hell summer was 1999, but this one right now is hotter than any I have EVER been through, and only because of fair leadership has there been no blackout since the recent Queens one, which was only fixed last week. The 2003 blackout, which lasted about 18 hours, made you think first it was a terrorist attack, but it was absolutely not nearly this hot. If we had a blackout with this one, we'd have enormous numbers of deaths, more like the European heat wave than the Chicago 1995 one. NYT, in its reports this week, refers to the Queens blackout as occurring 'last week', even though it occurred on two 98 degree days two weeks and two days ago. I think this is pitiful, I didn't think they did that kind of inaccuracy, and it's been there uncorrected for a few days.
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