Decline of U. S. Journalism

And How It Hurts Democracy
Updated:  Friday, November 13th, 2015

Note:

        I wrote and posted this essay entitled "Decline of U. S. Journalism on Wednesday, November 11th. The next day -- on Thursday, November 12th -- The New York Times had a major editorial entitled "Why Has Trust in the News Media Declined?" Because I believe a strong and brave democracy needs a strong and brave media, I invite you to read the The New York Times editorial as well as this Cubaninsider "editorial" that I updated today. The operative word is "Decline," which is very bad for the U. S. and democracy.

         This is Leslee Udwin, a great broadcast journalist. She was born in 1957 in Israel and she is England's greatest film-maker, and the winner of numerous "Best British Film" awards. Broadcast journalism in the United States does not have a Leslee Udwin because in the U. S. the two over-riding priorities are money and political correctness, neither of which afflicts Leslee Udwin's contributions to journalism.

         Leslee Udwin's latest documentary is entitled "India's Daughter." It is not only brilliant and topical, it is important. In recent days the routine rapes of women and children in India have made worldwide headlines. With courage and brilliance, Leslee Udwin's "India's Daughter" examines the portion of the patriarchal society in India, a democracy, that condones and tries to legalize this abominable practice.

          India has banned Leslee Udwin's "India's Daughter." Yet, as Ms. Udwin is informing the world, India condones 900 or so porn sites "as freedoms of expression in a democracy." Leslee Udwin believes that, for example, the two infants recently raped in India also deserved some democratic freedom.

        Leslee Udwin uses speaking engagements to promote "India's Daughter" in the hopes that India will relent and allow its people to view it. She is a superb speaker and her outrage over the rape of women, children, and infants should be observed and supported by all the decent people worldwide.

         Rana Ayyub is India's greatest investigative journalist. Bravely, brilliantly, and consistently, she has reported in India on female rights...especially the right of women, girls, and infants not to be raped.

      In my opinion, the grandest broadcast journalist in America is Kate O'brien. I believe if the great visionary Ted Turner was still in charge of his brainchild CNN, he would have Kate O'brien in charge of that network to set the example for all broadcast networks to emulate. For thirty years, starting right after she got out of college, Ms. O'brien was the prime dynamo in the radio and television news division at ABC. Safely ensconced as the top decision-maker at ABC News, she tired of the increasing demands of money-crazed executives to reduce covering news and concentrate on the less-expensive tactic of saturating newscasts with talking-head pundits, many of whom welcome the free airtime to promote themselves, their latest books, their blogs, etc. Kate O'brien left ABC-TV because she wanted to cover the news and not be a reservoir for talking-head pundits. She believed Aljazeera America provided that opportunity as long as its bosses in Doha, Qatar, let her be the boss. They agreed; she agreed. She hired 800 reporters and anchors -- including many of the very best on the planet, including John Shuster, John Siegenthaler, Ali Velchi, Sheila McVicar, Libby Casey, Stephanie Sy, Joie Chen, Soledad O'Brien, Andrew Simmons, Karl Penhall, Lisa Fletcher, Adrian Brown, Harry Fawsett, Jennifer Glasse, Ms. Charlie Angela, Rosalind Jordan, Nicole Mitchell, Mary Snow, Catherine Soi, Jonathan Betz, Del Walters, Patty Culhane, Mauhamad Jamjoon, etc. In addition to raiding U. S. and British networks, Ms. O'brien hired many of the best English-speaking journalists in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the volatile Middle East. For example, many Americans and Latin Americans believe the three best broadcast journalists covering Latin America are Lucia Newman, Teresa Bo, and Virginia Lopez -- all of whom now work for Kate O'brien. On YouTube you can view a 15-minute interview of Kate O'brien at Kent State University in which she expresses her disdain for talking heads and her love of actually sending talented reporters out to cover the news. She also is a strong advocate of pertinent documentaries and in the last week of October, 2015, her Aljazeera America network debuted two stunning documentaries -- one entitled "The Cost of News" about the murders or silencing of great journalists in countries such as Mexico and Russia; and one entitled "The Hostage Business" that documents such things as Western nations paying sums such as "$525,000" to terrorist kidnappers so they will free nationals and then the governments cover up the payments. TechKnow features her award-winning documentaries on the environment. In the first week of November she had top reporters covering pertinent stories such as damnable conditions on Indian reservations in the U. S. and why such a high percentage of black babies die in Cleveland. She has world-class reporters covering war and terrorist zones from Nigeria to Syria and beyond. Kate O'brien is the prime reason you should sample Aljazeera America because she prefers covering news important to Americans and disdains repetitive talking-head pundits other networks utilize as a cost-saving ploy. Kate O'brien, journalism's superstar!!

      This is Naomi Kikoler. She is a great lady. One of Kate O'brien's best reporters, Tom Ackerman, this week explained on Aljazeera America why she's a great person. She devotes her life to preventing genocide and reminding the world of the Holocaust, Rwanda, Serbia, etc. She is now making sure the world knows about the plight of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, especially the slaughter of Yazidi children.

     Naomi Kikoler works for The Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Her work is far more important and topical than biased opinions of talking heads on cable networks. At least, Kate O'brien believes that is so and I believe she is correct. Thanks, Ms. O'Brien. Now I know about Naomi Kikoler.

      To be perfectly fair, occasionally the Talking Head-obsessed U. S. networks send excellent investigative reporters to report on issues important to Americans. Hallie Jackson works for NBC News. This week Ms. Jackson was afforded airtime on NBC's prime 6:30 P. M. newscasts. She explained to us why the cost of prescription drugs in the U. S. are far, far higher than in any other Western nation. We already knew the reason was that, in the U. S., lobbyists and pharmaceutical companies can easily buy-off enough members of the U. S. Congress so they can maintain their absurd prices on prescription drugs. But it was still refreshing that Hallie Jackson and a mainstream newscast in the U. S. actually reminded us of that fact.  Hallie Jackson is a recent hire of NBC, which also has recently hired one of Kate O'brien's best journalists -- Morgan Radford. It's a reminder that Kate O'Brien's propensity for news gathering, opposed to Talking Heads, is beginning to influence the mainstream U. S. networks...and let's surely hope so.

         I think 27-year-old Morgan Radford is America's best young broadcast journalist, putting her in a virtual tie with Cuba's brilliant 27-year-old Cristina Escobar. Ms. Radford, a North Carolinian, graduated from Harvard and Columbia universities, interned at CNN, worked at ABC-News, and then was hired by Al Jazeera's Kate O'brien. But now NBC-News has hired talented Morgan Radford away from Al Jazeera.

         Elaine Diaz is a prime example of independent broadcast journalism taking flight in Cuba as the revolutionary government, thanks to a thawing of relations with the United States, opens up a bit...even to critical journalists. Elaine taught journalism for seven years at the University of Havana. Then she spent a year via a Peabody scholarship at Harvard University. Now she is back in Cuba with her own network and outstanding blog. She has hired reporters and is able to pay them starting salaries of $100 a month.

         Cristina Escobar, of course, is Cuba's superstar news anchor. As fluent in English as she is in Spanish, she is not afraid to criticize the Cuban government if she feels everyday Cubans are being mistreated in any manner. Americans may also recall the headlines Cristina garnered when she covered the last Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic session in Washington. She made it a poignant point on U. S. soil -- at a White House news conference and in subsequent interviews and speeches -- to denounce the U. S. media. While in Washington, she repeatedly said: "Lies told by the American media hurt everyday Cubans the most." As Cuba's top newscaster she says she is "more able to tell the truth regarding everyday Cubans than the politically correct U. S. broadcasters are." At age 27, Cristina is also the star of regional network newscasts and you can observe her talent on YouTube. Her influence on the island is huge and growing.

       Meanwhile, this ubiquitous image of Ana Navarro is a journalistic joke in the U. S. and a dire insult to Americans. Note that CNN identifies Ana Navarro as "a Political Commentator." That implies she is about to fill the airways with valuable, unbiased political information Americans need. Ana Navarro was born in Nicaragua but is a Miamian through and through. She has grown rich as a publicist/propagandist for Miami conservatives or right-wingers, working to promote people like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio -- her two favorites to be the next two presidents. She mostly saturates CNN but other U. S. networks use her because, as Kate O'Brien points out, talking-head pundits are a lot cheaper filling air space between commercials than actually going out and covering the news. To his credit, when he introduces Ana Navarro, CNN's Anderson Cooper often points out, "Ana is a promoter of Jeb Bush and a friend of Marco Rubio." How nice!! After that brilliant disclosure, Mr. Cooper permits Ana Navarro free airtime to propagandize Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in the guise of being an unbiased political journalist.

       

           Alex Castellanos was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1954. The Castro Industry in the U. S. has been a goldmine for Alex and many other Cuban-Americans. He too is a publicist/propagandist for conservative or right-wing Republicans. Usually without delineating his background, Alex is ubiquitous on CNN and other U. S. networks while being promoted as "a political commentator." Ted Turner, Kate O'Brien and others who respect great broadcast journalism surely cringe at U. S. networks who insult both journalism and their viewers with their emphasis on talking-head pundits. Kate O'Brien, when she left ABC-TV News for Aljazeera America, expressed that anti-talking head, anti-pundit opinion in the YouTube interview.

        Ted Turner, the visionary founder of CNN in 1980, is now 76-years-old and retired. Unfortunately, he sold CNN to corporate interests far more interested in money than news, thus the proliferation of talking heads. Ted Turner, like Kate O'Brien, relished sending good reporters out to cover real news. Except for O'Brien, cable news in the U. S. has evolved into a joke much funnier than Jon Stewart's former satirical puns on Comedy Central. When O'Brien left ABC-TV News for Al Jazeera America because she detested talking heads and loved covering news, it reflected the sorry state of the television news industry in the U. S. Also of significance, I believe, was/is the scathing analysis of the U. S. media by Cuba's young and highly respected top newscaster. Ted Turner's splendid vision, like a gradually expanding sinkhole, has dissolved into an abyss of greed in which talking heads have replaced actual news coverage. 

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Cuba Emerges From The Cold

Obama Thaws Paying Off

         Josefina Vidal, Cuba's unfathomably brilliant Minister of North American Affairs, returned to Washington this week for more talks with State Department officials. Yesterday -- November 10th -- she held a news conference at the new Cuban embassy and told reporters she is nearing agreements with the U. S. on...flights, environment protection, direct postal service, and the fight against drug trafficking.

Vidal's news conference in Washington, D. C.

  Yesterday -- November 10th -- Vacation Express launched its CUBA.VACATIONEXPRESS.COM website. It provides full booking capabilites for people who would like to travel to Cuba legally. It offers hotel line-ups in six vacation spots: Havana, Varadero, Cayo Coco, Cayo Santa Maria, Holguin, and Santiago de Cuba.

       Three imposing Chinese warships arrived in Cuba yesterday -- November 10th. China is now Cuba's #2 trade partner behind Venezuela but China is striving to be #1. Also, China desires closer ties with Cuba as tensions rise between Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea. China is truly refocusing on Cuba.

This photo shows Chinese warships docking in Havana yesterday.

         Rob Manfred is the Commissioner of Major League Baseball in the U. S. Yesterday -- November 10th -- Mr. Manfred said he is working hard so Major League teams can play exhibition games in Cuba beginning next year during spring training. He said, "It will be a good thing for baseball." Baseball scouts in the U. S., along with profiteering human traffickers, realize that Cuba is a gold-mine for baseball talent and fans. 

        This photo shows President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico hosting President Raul Castro of Cuba this past weekend at the Yucatan State Government Palace in Merida, Mexico. Both men wore Cuban-style white guayabera shirts. A few years ago Mexican President Vicente Fox mimicked the George W. Bush administration's antagonistic policy towards Cuba. But now Barack Obama is the U. S. President and Mexico's President Pena Nieto is replicating Obama's friendship regarding Cuba. Raul Castro and Pena Nieto released this statement: "We have set about creating conditions for more Mexican companies to invest in Cuba." Pena Nieto said that he wants Mexico, with its historic pre-Fox ties and proximity to Cuba directly across the Yucatan Peninsula, to jump past Spanish and Brazilian companies in investing in Cuba.

       It is known that Mexico's ultra-rich businessman Carlos Slim is a great admirer of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. In 2010 Mr. Slim read that the ailing Fidel loved to watch television news and documentary shows. So, Mr. Slim sent Fidel a nice television. Mr. Slim's flagship company, American Movil, already has a roaming deal with Cuba. It will be interesting to see if Carlos Slim invests more in Cuba.

       Mexico's richest man, Carlos Slim, is worth about $80 billion, up in the Bill Gates stratosphere and well ahead of Warren Buffett. He turned 75 last January 28th and many are wondering if, encouraged by his President Pena Nieto, he will invest more heavily in Cuba. Two Mexican companies have recently signed investment deals with Cuba's refurbished Mariel Port Economic Zone and it is known that other Mexican firms -- such as bottling company Femsa and cement maker Cemer -- have very exciting plans in Cuba.

         The United States {Estados Unidos} was represented at Cuba's International Trade Fair by companies such as Pepsi and Gatorade as well as American Airlines, Boeing, Cargil, Caterpillar, etc. Alabama-based Cleber LLC wants to build a tractor factory in Cuba. As things now stand, Cuba prefers doing business with more trusted friends -- such as Mexico, Venezuela, Spain, Canada, China, Russia, Brazil and Vietnam.

       The worst relations between Mexico and Cuba came when two rich cowboys were Presidents of Mexico and the United States. The two countries are contiguous and these two vaqueros were also contiguous. Vicente Fox was Mexico's President from 2000 till 2006; George W. Bush was American President from 2001 till 2009. Cubans on the island still dread just thinking about the Bush-Fox tandem. 

Fox looked to Bush for Mexico's Cuban policy.

Cuba thinks Bush-Fox tried to recapture the island.

Obama-Pena Nieto are treating Cuba decently.

          The demise of Revolutionary Cuba has been predicted on a daily basis since January of 1959 when the Batista-Mafia dictatorship hastily decided it would be safer to relocate in nearby Miami. As the Castro brothers have aged to 89 {Fidel} and 84 {Raul}, some eager would-be Batistianos savor a golden post-Castro opportunity. However, that might again be misjudging and underestimating the tenaciousness and resilience of the Caribbean's biggest island. It seems, at the moment at least, that the growing impetus for the post-Castro era in Cuba will be domestic {Cuban} and not foreign {American}, but that could change. In January of 2017 the colossus to the north gets a new Commander-in-Chief. Cuba is preparing for that.

And by the way:

       I love old movies on the Encore channels and my all-time favorite actress was/is Hedy Lamarr. She was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1914 and died in the USA in 2000. In Hollywood's heyday, she was often called the most beautiful woman on the planet. She was also very smart and discernible, as indicated by the above quote. Of course, Ms. Lamarr died before Viagra and Cialis emerged to allegedly elevate wimps to men.

     And did I say the uncommonly beautiful Hedy Lamar was smart? In 2014 she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Born in Vienna, Austria, Hedy hated Hitler's Nazis so much during World War II that she invented a technology -- described above -- that was designed to block the spread of Nazi propaganda. To this day her invention is a key component of modern technology.

Beauty, brains, talent...and a great lady!!  

Eres bienvenido regreso manana.

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The Future of Cuba

Is Tied to Its Economic Survival
{Updated Tuesday, November 10th, 2015}

         Irina Bokova is a Bulgarian politician who is now Director General of UNESCO, which stands for: United Nations, Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. At UNESCO's just concluded 38th General Conference in Paris, Ms. Bokova went out of her way to praise Cuba "for its achievements in education."

      This is a Cuban classroom. Prior to UNESCO's praise for Cuba's educational achievements, the World Bank and the World Health Organization had praised Cuba for the extraordinary percentage of its wealth devoted to education and health. It is generally verboten to mention Cuban positives in the U. S. media.

          Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs, is back in Washington today to review topics with the U. S. State Department. This session was arranged during the last of the four diplomatic sessions Vidal had with Roberta Jacobson that led up to the re-opening of embassies in the two capitals. Vidal is pleased with such advances in the process of normalizing relations but she will today rehash three Cuban irritants that remain: the embargo, regime change programs, and the theft of Quantanamo Bay. 

        In the renewed U.S.-Cuban discussions today in Washington, Vidal will represent Cuba while Alex Lee will represent the U. S. He is the State Department's Deputy Assistant for Latin America. He will counter Vidal's three basic demands with some of his own, including asylum that Cuba provides for  U.S. fugitives.

       This photo is courtesy of REUTERS/ENRIQUE DE LA OSA. It was taken last week -- October 3rd, 2015 -- at the 33rd International Trade Fair in Havana, the first since the U. S. flag began flying at its new embassy in Cuba on August 15, 2015. Standing at the podium above was Rodrigo Malmierca, Cuba's Minister of Foreign Investment. What he said is important to those who love Cuba, those who hate Cuba, and those even moderately interested in U.S.-Cuban relations and how the Caribbean's biggest island will interact with the region and the world in the future. Mr. Malmierca said:

                  "Cuba has 326 projects {seeking foreign investment} ranging from the production of rum to a venture that would create high-definition, pay-per-view television. As you can see from our portfolio, we expect about $8.2 billion in U. S. dollars in those international investments, with about $2 billion a year added additionally. We realize, I repeat, that the private sector co-operatives, private entrepreneurs, and other forms of property and management apart from the government, will have spaces within our future development. In the past year we have signed 36 deals, including six at the new Economic Zone built around the port of Mariel, which all of you are invited to visit 28 miles southwest of Havana to judge for yourselves if it is a state-of-the-art, deep-water economic zone. Under no circumstances do we want to go back to being dependent on one market."

       Of course, the most important sentence Rodrigo Malmierca uttered in Havana last week was this one: "Under no circumstances do we want to go back to being dependent on one market." In the 1960s Revolutionary Cuba, fearing that the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship, solidly and powerfully retrenched on U. S. soil, would use the awesome might of the U. S. military to recapture the island, turned to the Soviet Union as a counter-balance. After the fall of the Soviet Union to start the decade of the 1990s, Cuba depended mostly on Venezuela for its economic survival. Now Venezuela has its own problems. Cuba's resilience on what Malmierca referenced as "one market" -- first the Soviet Union and then Venezuela -- is now history. No, pugnacious little Cuba is not about to capitulate to a second generation of powerful Batistianos backed by the ultra-powerful U. S. government. Nor is it going to suddenly transition to a capitalist democracy. But what it is going to do, as outlined by Mr. Malmierca, is to incorporate a Chinese/Vietnamese-style economic machine -- one that welcomes local entrepreneurship and foreign investments -- to sustain Cuban sovereignty from the threat it has long perceived immediately to its north.

           This Reuters photo was taken on August 15, 2015. It shows the U. S. flag being raised in front of the reopened U. S. embassy in Havana -- reopened for the first time since 1961. The Cuban flag, a few weeks earlier, had been raised in front of its reopened embassy in Washington for the first time since 1961.

    Pope Francis and the entire world support President Obama's Cuban sanity.

         Each October for the past 24 years the nations of the world, via their vote in the United Nations, have resoundingly denounced the U. S. embargo of Cuba, which was first imposed in 1962 for the stated purpose, according to declassified U. S. documents, of starving and depriving Cubans on the island to entice them to overthrow the still un-thrown Fidel Castro. The Reuters/Getty Images photo above shows the UN vote last month: 191-to-2 with no abstentions. Only Israel, very dependent on billions of dollars each year in military and economic aid from the U. S., voted to support America's flawed Cuban policy.

          Yet there remains a vast, well-funded propaganda apparatus in the United States that is determined to keep the huge and lucrative Castro Industry going strong. That well-funded and well-heeled propaganda machine, for example, controls the easily purchased U. S. Congress regarding Cuba and only the U. S. Congress can end the embargo against Cuba. Therefore, as undemocratic as it may be, it won't be ended. The photo above shows anti-Castro zealot Mauricio Claver-Carone. As a superstar lobbyist in Washington he has a vast array of assets as an anti-Castro zealot. Mr. Claver-Carone, in my opinion, is synonymous with the very lucrative Castro Industry in the United States that was spawned at about the time {1959} the Cuban Revolution chased the Batista-Mafia dictatorship off the island, all the way to South Florida.

       Mauricio Claver-Carone was born in Florida, raised in Madrid, became a Law Professor at George Washington University in Washington, has his own national radio program, writes regularly for such media giants as The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal, is a former adviser to the U. S. Treasury Department, has a powerful U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, and edits the well-funded and well-heeled Capital Hill Cubans blog, which gets less than half the daily hits as this Cubaninsider, which is a lone-wolf blog that has only one participant -- me, a democracy lover not pleased with how the U. S. Cuban policy so severely harms the U. S. and democracy. It appears to me that Claver-Carone and others like him want to either recapture Cuba or just continue the lucrative Castro Industry in the U. S. for another half-century or more. {You are invited to Google the above information and to sample the Capital Hill Cubans blog. I believe Americans should be free to research and then judge for themselves in order to render opinions regarding U.S.-Cuban relations. I further believe self-serving Castro Industry lobbyists/propagandists demand that they alone control the Cuban narrative in the U. S. That apparently is why everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to travel to Cuba. Should Mr. Claver-Carone be asked, "Should Americans endlessly be denied the freedom to visit Cuba and should Americans endlessly allow Congress to pass laws such as Wet Foot/Dry Foot and The Cuban Adjustment Act that are designed to enrich and empower Cuban-Americans while discriminating against everyone else?" The rest of the world seems to be asking such questions but, when it comes to Cuba, Mr. Claver-Carone and the vast lobbying mechanism that he epitomizes has cowered most Americans into not asking such questions.

          The plush Radio-TV Marti studios in Miami since the 1980s have received an ungodly amount of tax dollars flowing freely and steadily in a plush pipeline from Washington. As far as I know, there is not a single unbiased expert who considers it nothing but a vast anti-Castro propaganda machine that supposedly penetrates Cuban airspace but is easily blocked by the Cuban government. So, it seems since the 1980s the prime purpose of Radio-TV Marti is to serve as one of countless methods to provide tax dollars to selected Cuban-Americans in Miami. {You are invited and encouraged to ask your Congressman if that is so}. The above photo shows Yoani Sanchez, the most internationally famed anti-Castro zealot on the island, broadcasting from those lush Radio-TV Marti studios in Miami. Some may consider this an extreme paradox because Cuba allows her to fly to the U. S. and around the world promoting her views, and then fly back to Cuba to more effectively produce her anti-Cuban blog and online newspaper. By contrast, everyday Americans are not allowed to visit Cuba to make judgments for themselves.

       Cuba even allows its most famed dissident, Yoani Sanchez, to fly to Washington and confer with the two most powerful anti-Castro Cuban-American politicians in the United States -- Senators Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez. And then, with that impetus, she flies back to Cuba and commences her internationally famed and Congress-blessed anti-Castro diatribes. {P. S.: Democracy is still the best government on the planet, even when it often resembles Batista's 1950s-era Banana Republic}.

       When she is in the United States, every rich and powerful right-wing organization covets Yoani Sanchez on its anti-Castro or pro-Batistiano panels. She obliges. During her introduction, one of them mentioned "Yoani's world tour funded by unknown patrons." Uh, yeah -- unknown patrons, ha-ha!

          Since 1959, one way to get rich, powerful, and famous is to be Cuban or Cuban-American and rise to the forefront of the Castro Industry in the United States. A spot at the top awaited Yoani Sanchez's first trip to the U. S. in 2013. To this day, Cuba allows her to fly back-and-forth between the U. S. and Cuba but everyday Americans are restricted by the U. S. from flying to Cuba, a freedom that all non-Americans have. Meanwhile, propagandized Americans are not supposed to question that paradoxical dichotomy. Ask the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Capital Hill Cubans, Fox News, the Tea Party, etc. But, tuh, ask it carefully. 

        For the benefit of most Americans, most Cubans, and most Cuban-Americans, the U. S. and Cuba should be as close as the 50-star and one-star flags depicted above are. That's what President Obama, Pope Francis, and most of the world desires. But it won't happen because, like a cancer deeply embedded within the bowels of the world's greatest democracy, the Castro Industry in the U. S. is too profitable.

       Pope Francis, the first Latin-American pope, played a huge role in ameliorating much of the animus that has existed between the U. S. and Cuba since the triumph of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. Pope Francis this year {above} also fulfilled a wish by getting to visit Fidel Castro in his Havana home. Back in Rome after visiting both Cuba and the U. S., according to the respected El Pais website, Pope Francis pondered the state of the 89-year-old Fidel Castro's health. Then he reportedly predicted: "After Fidel Castro dies, those in America who have profited from their portrayal of his life will want to continue to profit from their portrayal of his legacy. And I believe they will succeed."

The above quotation, I think......

...........confirms that Pope Francis............

.........is a very smart and decent man.

      Fidel Castro is now 89-years-old. To his reckoning, his Cuban Revolution is now 62-years-old as of July 26th, 2015. On July 26, 1953, Fidel barely survived his ill-advised attack on Batista's powerful Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on the island's southeastern tip. For most of the next two years, Fidel was imprisoned on the Isle of Pines, which he later re-named the Isle of Youth, a separate island just southwest of the main island. The above photo is courtesy of Toraya/Newscom. It shows this year's remembrance on the 62nd anniversary of the start of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution. As remarkable as was its victory on January 1, 1959, its longevity is even more remarkable.

And by the way:

      This map shows the 14 provinces of Cuba. I mentioned that Fidel Castro was in a Batista prison from July of 1953 till May of 1955. The prison was on the Isle of Pines, named for its pine trees. After the Cuban Revolution ousted Batista, in 1959 Fidel Castro named it "Isla de la Juventud," or "The Isle of Youth." Notice that The Isla de la Juventud is due southwest of Havana and is an important island in its own right. It is home to 86,420 Cubans and it has one of Cuba's top baseball teams, a major newspaper, etc. Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, has 4,195 keys and islets on or near its alligator-shaped coastlines. 

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