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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A Cuban Lady's Well-Earned Tears

The Greed and Revenge That Makes Her Cry

Updated for April 5, 2013

     Ramona de Saa {above} is a sweet, world-class lady who has shed a plethora of sad tears the last couple of days. She is the director of Havana's National Ballet School, the largest such school in the world with over 3,000 students {according to Wikipedia}. Since shortly after the Cuban Revolution, first the legendary Alicia Alonso and then Ms. de Saa have scoured the island in search of talented children who are then offered free ballet scholarships in Havana. A testament to its remarkable success is found in top ballet companies around the world in which Cuban graduates have starring roles. Cuba has continued funding the program even in face of highly sophisticated and financed efforts to get the Cubans to defect, mostly from U. S. sources much more concerned with hurting Cuba than with helping the defectors or benefiting American ballet companies. In that wake are waves of unabashed tears.

         In the last few days, seven of Ramona de Saa's top ballet stars defected while performing in Mexico. Because of the U. S. Wet-Foot, Dry-Foot law that, of course, pertains only to Cubans, all they had to do was prove they were Cubans and then they freely crossed over into the U. S. Ranging in age from 20 to 24, six of them -- Annie Ruiz Diaz, Luis Victor Santana, Ariadnni Martin, Jose Justiz, Edward Gonzalez, and Randy Crespo -- have already arrived in Miami and the 7th, Alejandro Mendez, is expected to arrive shortly. A tearful Ramona de Saa told Andrea Rodriguez, a top journalist at the AP bureau in Havana, "It really pains us." Ms. de Saa said she considered one of the defectors "like a daughter." It is believed she was talking about Annie Ruiz Diaz. But Ramona anticipates such pain. Annie said, "It is the most difficult decision I have made in my life, but we're not thinking about the past but rather the future." That past includes Ramona.

        The BBC did a nice 50th anniversary story on Ramona de Saa's National Ballet School, pointing out that young students like those above were the best trained in the world although, after long and intense instruction, defections to other companies around the world were regular occurrences.

Carlos Acosta, for example, has long been England's top ballet star after defecting from Cuba.

       Ramona de Saa has an identical twin sister, Margarita de Saa {above}. They have been separated for going on five decades because Ramona stayed in Cuba and Margarita defected to the U. S. In the above photo Margarita is instructing her students at her Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet.

          The identical twins -- Ramona and Margarita de Saa -- are shown on a happier day when they were both still in Cuba. The U. S. - Cuban conundrum since the 1950s has been an apocalyptic sadness for most so it can be an astringent windfall for a few. The saga of these twin sisters is a product of that inexcusably salacious ignorance and cruelty. The fact that it cannot be corrected remains a very salient reminder that sometimes a few criminals and benefactors are simply smarter or stronger than all the rest.

     This Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP photo shows a Cuban dancer with Ramona de Saa's National Ballet of Cuba. Is she thinking about performing or...defecting? One thing is abundantly sure: The enormous cottage industry in the United States that makes money and sates revengeful appetites on such decisions is anxiously concerned with what the dancer decides. It's been that way since January of 1959.

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Latin America's Past Portends A Brighter Future

If More Females Replace More Males As Leaders
{Updated for April 2, 2013!}

    Kate Doyle {above} is a prime reason the U. S. should follow the leads of England, Germany, Australia, South Korea and other democracies and finally elect a woman as its leader.

     Claudia Paz y Paz {above} is a prime reason Guatemala should join Chile, Argentina, and Brazil as democracies in Latin America who have very wisely elected a woman as their leader.

      This photo from Latin America's past explains why Kate Doyle should be a future President of the United States and Claudia Paz y Paz should be a future President of Guatemala. Their brilliant humanitarian and prosecutorial backgrounds coupled with their gender would mean less wars as well as less disparity between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-notes, than the leadership of men would likely render. The above Jean-Marie Simon photo shows the three military commanders who staged a bloody coup in Guatemala on March 22, 1982. At a news conference the day after the coup, that's Brigadier General Jose Efrain Rio Montt in the middle flanked by General Horacio Egberto Maldonado Schaad and Colonel Francisco Luis Gordillo Martinez at the National Palace in Guatemala City. A multitude of torture-murders and disappearances followed in their wake and for decades elitist men inside and outside of Guatemala protected the perpetrators, a common practice throughout Latin America from the 1950s deep into the 1980s. Even after that, the protective shields were in place, sending messages to other brutal and illegal leaders that they would never be held accountable for gross sins against humanity. But then along came two of the world's most brilliant and determined women -- Kate Doyle and Claudia Paz y Paz. Because of them, in this year of 2013, there are trials underway in Guatemala to finally, three decades later, hold Rio Montt and others responsible for their alleged crimes after seizing control of a sovereign country. Thus, these two women are doing what multitudes of men failed to do, which is to send proper and very stern messages to would-be totalitarian leaders that, yes, they could one day be held accountable and be punished for mass torture-murders or disappearances of innocent people.

       Kate Doyle will never remotely rival the likes of Kim Kardashian as a celebrity. And she doesn't mind that fact of life one bit because she does not want to be distracted from her life's work, which is to make Latin America a better place for women...and children...and the poor...and the oppressed. Ms. Doyle has brought a former leader of Peru to justice, among many other accomplishments. She is currently the Senior Analyst and Director of the Guatemala Documentation Project at the U. S. National Security Archive. She is a world treasure and her work is making the world a better place for generations to come.

    After a brief recess, Claudia Paz y Paz's prosecution of Guatemala's former dictator Rios Montt resumes the first week of April, 2013. It is the first time a former head of state has stood trial in his own country for genocide. Data uncovered by Kate Doyle resonates across Latin America and Claudia Paz y Paz had the courage to make use of it. Women like Doyle and Paz are spreading their wings...bravely and palpably.

    Rios Montt was born in 1926. Belatedly making him stand trial for his dictatorship's genocide in Guatemala in the 1980s is not merely to punish him but to send topical and future messages that such atrocities will not be tolerated, especially when foreign powers are involved for self-serving reasons.

      U. S. presidential administrations that supported dictators like Rios Montt in Guatemala from the 1950s deep into the 1980s can no longer get away with such flagrant, anti-democratic antics. The thanks for that throughout Latin America and the Caribbean goes to determined, courageous women like America's Kate Doyle and Guatemala's Claudia Paz y Paz. It is also the likes of Doyle and Paz -- certainly not greedy, power-hungry, war-mongering men -- that paved the way for waves of democracy to replace foreign-backed dictatorships throughout Latin American beginning in the 1970s. That's why women like Kate Doyle and Claudia Paz y Paz should not only be top prosecutors but also top leaders of their countries.

     Guatemala Indian women like the two above are closely monitoring the Rios Montt trial. Thousands of their relatives and ancestors were slaughtered in the Guatemalan genocide with bullets funded from abroad. But those two women can now actually vote in Guatemala and people like them constitute the majority in that nation as in Bolivia where a Bolivian Indian named Evo Morales is now President. Take a guess: Are these two women likely to vote for a Efrain Rios Montt-type or a Claudia Paz y Paz-type?

     On the eve of the 1970s Dilma Rousseff was a teenage rebel trying to replicate her idol Fidel Castro's overthrow of a U. S. - backed military dictatorship in her native Brazil. That's why Dilma became Prisoner #3023 and was unmercifully tortured for three years in a military prison. But she rose from that abyss and took advantage of elections in Brazil! Oh, Yes! Prisoner #3023 has come a long, long way since then!

      Today Dilma Rousseff is the democratically elected President of Brazil, making her by far the most important and most influential person throughout all of Latin America! Yes, she still idolizes Fidel Castro.

Cristina Fernandez is the President of Argentina.

President Fernandez of Argentina gets along fairly well with U. S. President Obama.

But, like President Rousseff, President Fernandez worships Fidel Castro.

      Michelle Bachelet was the democratically elected President of Chile from March of 2006 till March of 2010. Since then she has been the United Nation's "Women Leader" where she doggedly continued her life's work on behalf of women and children. But in March of 2013 she resigned that position and announced she is running for re-election as President of Chile! A pediatrician, Ms. Bachelet is a warrior against what she considers the "obscene disparity" between the rich and the poor. She speaks five languages -- Spanish, English, French, German, and Portuguese. Her father was tortured to death in a military prison during the dictatorship of the U.S.-backed Pinochet in Chile. And...she hasn't forgotten.

 President Obama deeply admires Chile's past and future President, Michelle Bachelet.

      But Michelle Bachelet worships Fidel Castro, who was extremely close to the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, who died in the coup that made the U. S. - backed Pinochet Chile's dictator for almost two horrendous decades. So Chile's initial bid for a democracy ended with Allende's death, which was followed by many other deaths, including that of Michelle Bachelet's father, during the Pinochet genocide. Thus, Chile's progression from Allende to Pinochet to Bachelet sort of embodies the rough and bloody paths democracy has had to endure in Latin America. It is also interesting to note, I think, why the three democratically elected female Presidents in Latin America worship Fidel Castro, not the United States. That's because those females evoke a perception that Fidel Castro supports women and the poor while the United States supports the rich and the powerful. Remember, I said perception. But that's what got pro-Castro female Presidents Bachelet, Rousseff, and Fernandez elected the leaders of their countries...with more to follow now that both women and poor people can vote in Latin America. That transcendent revelation, of course, also meant that U. S. - backed dictators...Batista, Pinochet, Trujillo, etc...are no longer welcome in the Caribbean or Latin America. {If that statement is not politically or socially correct in the U. S., it sure as hell is factually correct and, perhaps, it is time Americans had the courage and/or intelligence to admit it} Meanwhile, the re-election of Michelle Bachelet as President of Chile will reflect a Latin American trend that the United States and the rest of the world should emulate -- ELECT FEMALES WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT PEOPLE AND PEACE, NOT MALES WHO MOSTLY CARE ONLY ABOUT MONEY, POWER, AND WAR-MONGERING EGOS! Michelle Bachelet personifies those basic facts.

     Kathy Castor has been in the U. S. Congress since 2007 as a member of the House of Representatives from Florida's 14th District, which encompasses the Tampa-St. Petersburg region. Born 46-years ago in Miami, she should be elected President of the United States in 2016 and re-elected again in 2020!

        Congresswoman Castor is a brilliant lawyer but her energetic expertise on behalf of her constituents in the Tampa area -- especially when it comes to promoting business and health care -- has been both admirable and remarkable. Additionally, she has more courage than any politician Florida has sent to Washington since the 1950s as proven by her steadfast positions regarding U. S. - Cuban relations. With intelligence and guts normally anathema to Florida politicians, she strongly advocates sensible, not self-serving and revengeful, dealings with Cuba such as ending the embargo. Resolute and sagacious, she is not pro-Castro in the least but she is a friend of the Cuban people and she advocates what is in the best interest of most Floridians, most Cuban Americans, and most Americans. The people in Tampa were wise to send her to Washington; Americans would be very wise to send her to the Oval Office.

    And...if you'll permit me one more pontification...Josefina Vidal should be the post-Castro President of Cuba. She is currently Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs. There's no one in North America who can out-smart or out-fight her. {She reminds Fidel Castro of Celia Sanchez. 'Nuff said!}

Josefina Vidal primarily fights for women, children, and the poor as well as for a sovereign Cuba.

At long last, Latin American women are power-brokers!!!!!

{"Feliz dia Mujer" means "Happy day of the Woman."}

     There is no doubt in my mind...nor should it be in yours...that the U. S. democracy's love of right-wing killer-thief dictators, such as Augusto Pinochet {above}, throughout Latin America in the 1950s through the 1970s paved the way for waves of democratic elections that now prevail. When a right-wing U. S. President aligned with a right-wing Secretary of State and a right-wing CIA Director brutally over-turned the democratically elected President Allende to install the killer-dictator Pinochet in Chile, the U. S. democracy's vast influence in Latin America began a precipitous decline and has not recovered to this day. And that's an amazing fact considering that the U. S. remains the world's superpower still quite capable of regime changes OR lavishing FRIENDLY nations with billions of dollars in economic and military aid. So, in the year 2013, Pinochet and his ilk (Batista, Trujillo, Somoza, etc.) personify why America's democracy still suffers from the right-wing decisions decades ago of leaders like Nixon, Kissinger, and Bush -- white men in Washington who unwittingly hastened the march of democracy and WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT across the region. Yes, that is one of history's quintessentially ironic nuances. It's also a factual one. Americans unaware of that or who deny that are, simply, anti-democracy.

Democracy's lesson to be learned and heeded: ELECT WOMEN!!!!!!! 

Soldiers once tortured Dilma Rousseff. Now they salute her around the world on red carpets!

She survived a dictator's prison to become the democratically elected President of Brazil!

Dilma Rousseff: One Woman's Majestic Journey!

    Last week President Obama named Julia Pierson America's first female leader of the Secret Service, the agency with the awesome responsibility of protecting U. S. presidents. President Obama well remembers his trip to Cartagena, Colombia, last April when the Secret Service usurped his headlines because its agents appeared more interested in lining up prostitutes than protecting President Obama. So, now that a female is in charge of the Secret Service, its priorities should make him feel better.

     It appears that 44-year-old Lisa Monaco is about to be named by President Obama as America's first female FBI Director! A great move, Mr. President, but I have a suggestion: Today only 11 females head up FBI field offices in the U. S. and there are 56 field offices, all of which should be led by females.

     President Obama recently named his Counter-Terrorism Adviser, John Brennan, as the new CIA Director. Mr. Brennan, born in 1955, follows a long line of old white men with a CIA background (Brennan is a 25-year CIA veteran) to lead that agency, which also should finally have a female in charge. I believe Mr. Brennan is too tied to the military and too drone-happy. A female head of the CIA would probably mean less wars and less conflicts so the world's democracies could concentrate on other things.

The NY Times used this photo to illustrate the protest that disrupted John Brennan's Senate confirmation.

      Brazil and Latin America improved drastically because Dilma Rousseff survived that military courtroom {above} and then survived three years of unmerciful torture in a military prison to later be democratically elected to her present position -- President of Brazil. If American voters are diligent enough, they too could probably find some Dilma Rousseffs, which would markedly improve the political landscape.

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