Havana, Cuba vs. Old Havana, USA!

An Incredible Dichotomy!!!
{Updated for Saturday, April 6th}

       Beyonce and Jay-Z, America's most famous billionaire couple, went to Cuba this week to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary, a phenomenon captured by the above James Devaney/FlimMagic photo. A Cuban waitress told the Associated Press that the wealthy entertainers dined with their mothers. She called Beyonce "beautiful, without a drop of makeup." Most Americans, it seems, are yoked and led by rings in their noses to accept whatever it is that self-centered, self-serving radicals tell them to accept when it comes to Cuba. However, it appears Beyonce and Jay-Z don't have yokes around their necks nor do they have rings in their noses. Thus, they gladdened the hearts of Cubans on the island this week and, at the same time, observed the changing landscape as decent Cubans and decent Americans, after so many cruel decades, seek the right to interact. Such thoughtfulness should be saluted.

     As Beyonce and Jay-Z ventured around Havana, respectful but joyous Cuban crowds were ecstatic, as indicated by the Ramon Espinosa/AP photo above. It was a kind and courageous gesture by Beyonce and Jay-Z. They could have taken their jets or yachts to any spot on earth. They chose Cuba and the deserving Cubans on the island appreciated it. The Cubans above have no ill-will toward Americans.

      By all accounts, Beyonce and Jay-Z have enjoyed their visit to Cuba. On Wednesday night they dined for three hours at La Guarida, Cuba's most famed paladar, which is a restaurant in a private home. La Guarida opened in 1996 and is located on an upper floor of a crumbling early 1900s palace in the Centro neighborhood of Havana. Their waitress, Vivian Aimerich, told Miami's El Neuvo Herald by phone that Beyonce and Jay-Z drank daiquiris, rum and wine, snacked on shrimp, and shared a big plate of white rice and black beans. Jay-Z finished off a fish filet and tomato-based sauce. Vivian said, "They were nice."

     Beyonce carried a camera and Jay-Z smoked a cigar as they strolled around Havana. They refused to answer questions posed by journalists but spoke freely and posed with everyday Cubans. Jay-Z has fondly mentioned Cuba in at least two of his most popular songs and now he has experienced it.

      Mauricio Claver-Carone and the ultra-powerful anti-Castro lobby is, of course, going bonkers over Beyonce and Jay-C visiting Cuba. Claver-Carone - a lawyer born in Florida and raised in Madrid, Spain -- runs the U. S.-Cuba Democracy political action committee among his many enterprises in Washington. On his Capital Hill Cubans blog, Claver-Carone blasted Beyonce and Jay-Z for "fulfilling a propaganda dream for Cuba's brutal dictatorship." Of course, propaganda machines go into over-drive to denounce any Cuban positive, even a simple visit from American celebrities, and it's been that way since 1959. 

Meanwhile.................

       Yoani Sanchez -- Cuba's most famed anti-Castro dissident -- this week was soaking up the euphoria, awards, and riches in Old Havana in Miami, USA! Since January of 1959 when the U. S. - backed Batista/Mafia dictatorship was over-thrown and reconstituted in nearby Miami, being anti-Castro has created fame and wealth for anti-Castro Cubans. Yoani Sanchez didn't join a tiny club.

       Of course, Cuban-U. S. aficionados are still trying to fathom why the 86-year-old Fidel Castro magnanimously allowed Yoani Sanchez to leave the island on her around-the-world 80-day anti-Fidel tour. But, then again, Fidel has fascinated and confounded the world every day of his life since the 1950s.

      Yes, that's Fidel Castro himself riding a horse across a rocky stream high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of eastern Cuba in 1957. He survived that ride and, less than two years later, he had chased the Batista-Mafia dictatorship off the island and managed to somehow hold on to it for 54 more years and counting. And that's the Cuba, the old one and the new one, that Beyonce and Jay-Z visited this week.

      The above photo appeared in Life Magazine in 1958 and shows Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky leaving the casino at Hotel Nacional with a female companion and a satchel that reportedly contained $200,000.00 -- one night's loot from one Mafia casino in 1950s Havana! After being chased out of Cuba to the nearby safe haven of Miami, Lansky told his lawyer, Frank Ragano, "We sure made a killing in Havana but, Frank, the Mob is making out just as good being anti-Castro in Miami. You might say Fidel did us a favor!"

       Frank Ragano, on the right facing the camera in the above photo, made a nice living in Miami keeping Mafia thugs like Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante Jr., and Carlos Marcello from ever having spent a day in jail on U. S. soil. Before he retired Ragano and his Mafia friends {above} drank a toast to, uh, thank the U. S. government for its benevolence and cooperation. And that was, uh, the least they could do.

       Meanwhile -- while a nice sanctuary awaited Lansky, Trafficante Jr., and the other Mafia leaders in Miami -- Cubans took to the streets of Havana {as depicted above} and began destroying the Mob casinos that had epitomized the wholesale rape and robbery of the island from 1952 till Jan. 1-1959 during the U. S. - backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Of course, each day since Jan. 1-1959 the trio that ruled the island and constructed those casinos has tried mightily to re-capture it and, doubtlessly, REBUILD THOSE CASINOS! It appears in April of 2013 that Beyonce and Jay-Z will admit that fact in Havana. However, it is highly doubtful that Yoani Sanchez and her acolytes in Old Havana will ever do the same.

      Frank Ragano, the Mob Lawyer, died in 1998 at age 75. By then the Mafia figures he had kept out of prison had also died. Thus, in his last years Ragano was amazingly frank about the evil deeds his major clients committed, both in the United States and in Batista's Cuba. And Ragano validated his details.

       In 1994 Frank Ragano co-authored a tell-all book entitled "Mob Lawyer." He enlightened history about his prime clients -- Santo Trafficante Jr. and Carlos Marcello -- and their gruesome rape and robbery of Cuba during the Batista dictatorship and their equally gruesome attempts from Florida designed to kill Fidel Castro and re-capture the island. Of course, Ragano's insightful details regarding the involvements of Trafficante Jr. and Marcello in their vows to murder both John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy still resonate to this day, along with his Cuban revelations. As referenced in his book and stated again succinctly just before his death in Tampa in 1998, Ragano frankly stated: "Santo and Carlos both appreciated all the money the U. S. government allowed them to steal in Cuba. But, truth be known, they did not expect, nor did I, that the U. S. government would let them continue their Cuban activities once Castro took over Cuba. It was like the Batista dictatorship just moved from Havana to an even more lucrative conclave in Miami, with continued U. S. government support." Of course, it has been easy to corroborate Frank Ragano's take on the U. S. - Cuban maelstrom but it remains politically correct to deny an undeniable fact. But from Ragano in the 1990s to Beyonce and Jay-Z today, truth slowly ebbs out!

      My Canadian friend Rosa Jordan has visited Cuba often and traveled from one end of the island to the other multiple times. Rosa grew up in Florida but immigrated to Canada in 1980. She has written three outstanding books about Cuba and has intimate knowledge of the island's history and its people. 

        I just finished Rosa Jordan's book "Cuba Unspun" and I thought it was so brilliant and moving that I purchased another copy from Amazon-Canada this morning to give to a friend. 

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