The UNIQUENESS of Cuba

More Than Just the Revolution!!

        Since its discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the Caribbean island of Cuba is best known for its Jan. 1-1959 victory over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship and its remarkable survival since then as a sovereign nation after centuries of domination by foreign nations such as Spain and the United States. But there is much more to Cuba than just its pugnacious reputation as a rebel enclave battling to attain and then to maintain its independence. A new and first-ever Cuban exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History has now recognized "The extraordinary biodiversity of Cuba. Its remote forests, mysterious caves, expansive wetlands, and dazzling reefs" establish Cuba as a unique island and nation.

   On its superb website this week, Live Science features a magnificent segment entitled: "Giant Owls and Painted Snails: Incredible Creatures from Cuba, In Photos." You can go online and access those "incredible" photos. Above is an exhibit of butterflies unique to Cuba, an island unique in many ways.

          Senior writer Mindy Weisberger at Live Science indentifies this green fellow as a "Cuban Knight Anole Equestris." He {or she} is the largest species of anole and it is only found in Cuba's Alejandro de Humboldt National Park. The photo is courtesy of AMNH/R. Mickens and is a part of the American Museum of Natural History's new exhibit honoring Cuba's uniqueness. 

And by the way:

An American photo courtesy of Earl Pitts. 

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Cuba Is STILL STANDING

But So Are the Batistianos!!

        Twenty-eight-year-old Cristina Escobar is proof that Revolutionary Cuba is still standing. Uncommonly talented, beautiful, healthy and well-educated, she is an expert on U.S.-Cuban relations and, in fact, her thesis at the University of Havana was "HOW PRESIDENT OBAMA WILL AFFECT U.S.-CUBA RELATIONS." She was prescient enough to predict that Obama, "A decent man on the heels of the fiercely anti-Cuba Bush administration, President Barack Obama could quite possibly have a profoundly positive effect on U.S.-Cuba relations." As far as I know, no U. S. journalist -- including veterans -- was astute enough to make such a precisely accurate prediction. And now...a bit older and even wiser, Cristina has made another profound statement: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami or Washington. We Cubans on the island owe it to great Cubans who died fighting for our independence, like Jose Marti, and great Cubans like Celia Sanchez, who devoted their lives as guerrilla fighters and then decision-makers so Cuba could remain a sovereign nation, not a foreign-dominated pawn. Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami or Washington, care the most about everyday Cubans. And I believe there are enough Cubans on the island today to do what Jose Marti and Celia Sanchez did, which is to give their lives to make sure that Cuba's fate is up to real Cubans on the island. If that's the only way we stay sovereign, then so be it." 

      When Cristina Escobar speaks, people listen attentively. 

       Cuba's Cristina Escobar is an expert on journalism and the United States. She is shown here on the right in California in 2014 honing up on those passions by consulting with top professors at Cal State.

       It is also a fact that in 2016 Cristina Escobar's skill as a broadcast journalist mightily impressed U. S. veterans such as NBC's Andrea Mitchell who made it a point to congratulate Cristina. The photo above shows Cristina making history by being the first Cuban to ask questions at a White House news conference, and she ended up asking six pertinent questions to White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

MY POINT IS THIS: As long as Cuba can keep producing Cubans as brilliant and as dedicated as Cristina Escobar, Revolutionary Cuba might well continue to defy the odds and remain an independent island. Dedicated to that principle, Cristina has turned down obscenely large offers to defect to Miami. The first offer only stipulated that she denounce Fidel Castro. She replied, "I will never do that on any soil." Then she got a higher second offer with the stipulation that she didn't have to denounce anyone but that her mere high-profile defection to Miami would be worth the money, presumably another pile of tax dollars courtesy of the U. S. Congress. She still refused, proving that there are Cubans unwilling to sell their souls.

    Cristina Escobar interviewing Hugo Cancio of Miami, Florida.

       A frequent visitor to Cuba, Hugo Cancio is a well-known Cuban-American businessman in Miami. He is among the 63% of Cuban-Americans in Miami who desire normal relations between the United States and Cuba. But Hugo says, "I am among the majority of Cuban-Americans here in Miami who are not represented by our local or congressional politicians." Still resembling a Banana Republic more than a democracy, Miami this month of Nov.-2016 easily returned its four anti-Castro zealots to the U. S. Congress although Hugo Cancio believes that any of over two million Cuban-American moderates would make better politicians.

       If the photos of Cristina Escobar reveal that Revolutionary Cuba is still standing, this photo taken Wednesday, November 8th, 2016 reveals that the Batistianos are still standing too, or still sitting as the case may be. That's Marco Rubio, newly elected from Miami to a second 6-year term in the United States Senate, on the left. He is shown huddling this week in Congress with one of the most famed anti-Castro dissidents in Cuba. The photo is courtesy of Fox News Latino. Instead of using his safe lifetime {if he wants it} seat in the U. S. Senate always trying to recapture Cuba, perhaps Rubio should concentrate on dealing with nagging problems that concern his constituents and Americans. I mean, for example, Cuba, compared to Miami and other U. S. cities, is almost crime-free. Cuba, compared to Miami and the United States as a whole, has a much lower infant mortality rate. Cuba provides totally free education through college for students like Cristina Escabor but millions of Americans can't afford college and millions more are desperately trying to pay-off God-awful student loans that presumably make rich bankers richer. Cuba also provides totally free health care from birth to death while tens of millions of Americans are struggling mightily to pay for outrageously high medical expenses or criminally high medicines, presumably just so rich executives can get richer. And, of course, Cuba's position on the U. S. embargo gets all 191 worldwide votes while Rubio's position gets ZERO worldwide votes. So, Senator Rubio, instead of spending so much government time and tax-dollars trying to recapture Cuba, why not devote that time and those dollars to dealing with American issues that direly need attention, or is that question out of order, Senator Rubio? 

      News reports this week said that Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and Cuban-American Senator Ted Cruz from Texas jointly sponsored a bill honoring the anti-Castro dissident photographed on Wednesday with Rubio. Nice, but what about trying to accomplish something in the Senate on behalf of Americans instead of using the Senate to assail Cuba and to run for the position of President of the United States? In their first terms in the Senate, Rubio and Cruz accomplished nothing for Americans but, in the guise of "hurting the Castros" did a lot to hurt totally innocent Cubans on the island while continuing to funnel tons of tax dollars to Miami for such senselessly extravagant anti-Castro propaganda boondoggles as Radio-TV Marti, which has been known for decades to be -- as ABC News termed it -- "The Broadcast to Nowhere" because Cuba blocks it and because Cubans on the island have lived with Fidel Castro for 90 years and they perhaps know him a bit better than the two generations of Cubans he booted off the island. In addition to supporting anti-Castro programs with millions of dollars that could be spent on worthwhile U. S. projects, both Rubio and Cruz seen to view their Senate seats as mere platforms to continue their bids to be President. Their expensive 2016 presidential races plummeted badly but they are backed by dozens of conservative and right-wing billionaires longing to purchase the White House, so Rubio and Cruz can be expected to use most of their time in the next four years campaigning for billionaire dollars and the 2020 presidential race. If either ever makes it to White House, an appropriate conclusion might be: THE BATISTIANOS HAVE CAPTURED THE UNITED STATES before RE-CAPTURING CUBA.

     Meanwhile, in Havana a young, feisty, talented and dedicated Cuban -- Cristina Escobar -- means what she says: "Cubans on the island will decide Cuba's fate, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." Rubio and Cruz dispute that sentiment as they hide behind the skirts of the world's economic and military superpower and hurl grenades at the island, grenades that hit everyday Cubans, but not Castro. So Cristina is a decisive underdog. But so was one of Cristina's idols -- Celia Sanchez -- when Celia made the Cuban Revolution viable in 1953 as both a recruiter of anti-Batista forces and a fearless guerrilla fighter herself.

Cristina Escobar: 2016. 

Celia Sanchez: 1953. 

Marco Rubio: This week.

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If You Knew Cuba...

 ...like the BBC knows Cuba!!
But first: 

         The first two photos of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Cuba yesterday -- Nov. 16, 2016 -- are courtesy of Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press as are the quotes. This image shows Mr. Trudeau answering questions from University of Havana students, many of them about threats posed by the election of Donald Trump as the next President. Cubans are always nervous about Republicans in the White House especially now that both chambers of the U. S. Congress are also Republican-controlled. Mr. Trudeau tried to reassure the student questioners. He said, "The UN has just voted 191-to-0 without even the U. S. supporting its own embargo and with polls even in Miami showing that most Cuban-Americans are against the U. S. Cuban policy maintained by Congress. I think it will be hard for even Miami Republicans, a Republican in the White House, and a Republican Congress to go against the will of the whole world, the will of most Americans and most Cuban-Americans and so forth. But we will have to wait and see, because we, other nations, have felt that way for a while." Asked point-blank if Trump's election along with a Republican Congress would cause him and "other world leaders" to lessen their support of Cuba, Mr. Trudeau replied: "No. For me, election results in the United States will not change the strong relationship that is a friendship and a partnership between Canada and Cuba. In fact, the power of a few in the United States to hurt Cubans, I think, gains Cuba considerable international support that Cuba deserves."  

       This photo shows Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warmly hugging Cuba's 85-year-old President Raul Castro right after the Q & A with the students ended. Mr. Trudeau met with three of Fidel Castro's sons and he had requested permission to visit Fidel in his home as many other world leaders have done recently. But Mr. Trudeau was told that Fidel's wife Dalia had decided that the 90-year-old Fidel's health "at this time would not allow the visitation, much to Fidel's and his whole family's regret." Pierre Trudeau, Justin's father, was Fidel's dear friend beginning when he was Prime Minister of Canada in the 1970s.

Pierre Trudeau & Fidel in 1976. 

       In fact, a 3-day visit by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to see Fidel resulted in this book-- "Three Nights in Havana." Mr. Trudeau had been the first Western leader to visit Fidel's Cuba, and it was widely criticized.

       When Pierre Trudeau died in 2000, Fidel was a pallbearer at the funeral in Montreal. This photo shows Fidel consoling Justin Trudeau at that funeral. But yesterday in Havana, Fidel at age 90 apparently was not well enough -- as judged by his wife Dalia -- for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to visit Fidel, who had appeared well a couple of weeks ago when the Dutch President was permitted a rather long visit. 

          Meanwhile, the U. S. media yesterday while the Canadian leader was paying a friendly visit to Cuba was typically spending time providing Americans with only the Batistiano or Little Havana side of the Cuban equation. The above photo shows U. S. Senator Marco Rubio yesterday huddling with the well-known Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas. It was used to illustrate a major anti-Cuban diatribe written by Elizabeth Llorente for Fox News Latino. Rubio is one of four anti-Castro zealots from Miami who were re-elected to the United States Congress this month even though polls show most Cuban-Americans in Miami favor normalizing relations with Cuba, but such sanity never shows up in Miami elections. Rubio's new 6-year term in the U. S. Senate will be, of course, halted again-and-again by his frequent absences to solicit billionaire donations and campaign for the 2020 presidential sweepstakes...reminiscent of what his first 6-year term was like. In fact, Rubio had by far the lowest voting record of any Senator during his first term because he wasn't there much, although he was surely a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and he wasn't about to miss a vote in which he could hurt one particular foreign nation, Cuba, in the guise of hurting the Castros but, of course, really hurting everyday Cubans on the island with such atrocities as the embargo, a cruel farce that actually boosts the worldwide image of the Castros while also getting a 191-to-0 worldwide denunciation at the United Nations. Rubio's 2016 Republican presidential bid is mostly remembered for his begging billionaires for money and getting wiped out twice -- once by Chris Christie in a debate and later when Donald Trump annihilated him in a primary race in his own state of Florida. After that, Rubio quit the race and vowed loudly he would not seek re-election to the Senate. Yeah, right! Being Cuban-American in Miami, he can retain his Senate seat for four more decades if he chooses. Also, by having the reputation for allegedly being for-sale he'll again have plenty of money for his 2020 presidential bid. When he arrived in the Senate six years ago, his bio heralded the fact that his parents escaped the tyranny of Castro in Cuba for the freedom of Miami till it was pointed out that his parents left Batista's Cuba long before anyone even believed Castro was a threat to overturn a ruthless U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed dictatorship, one that didn't hang around Havana to fight the charging rebels, not with getaway planes and ships already looked with loot that included heavy gold bullion.  

        Americans should get to know this man. His name is Will Grant. He is a journalist for the BBC and his home-base is now Havana, Cuba. He carved his journalistic skills while stationed in places like Mexico City, Caracas, London, and Miami. The island of Cuba, especially since the 1898 Spanish-American War and most particularly since the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution, has occupied a significance on the world stage far out of proportion to its size, population or wealth. In fact -- because of its sheer beauty, its strategic location, and its being the largest island in the Caribbean -- Cuba has been special since 1492, the year it was discovered by Christopher Columbus who proclaimed it, "The most beautiful sight these eyes have yet seen." Those are some of the reasons that the BBC -- the world's biggest and best news organization -- has one of its top reporters stationed in Havana. {The BBC reaches almost half-a-billion people and, with additional funding from the UK government, will soon broadcast or print in forty different languages}. Also, the BBC has positioned the brilliant Will Grant in Havana because Cuba's significance has been elevated in the Americas and around the world because of the significant overtures by outgoing two-term U. S. President Barack Obama to normalize relations with the island, relations severely at odds for the past six decades by both Cold War and Hot War differences. But the Democrat Obama's remarkable peace overtures to Cuba may well end in January when Republican Donald Trump becomes the next U. S. President and joins a Republican dominance of both chambers of the U. S. Congress. In recent decades, Republicans in the White House and the Congress have been hell-bent on destroying Revolutionary Cuba while being unmindful of the significant collateral damage it continually does to America's and democracy's worldwide images. Last month at the United Nations the world voted 191-to-0 to emphatically denounce the U. S. embargo and other imperialistic designs on the island {such as the occupation since 1903 of Cuba's plush Guantanamo Bay}. There is probably no topic in the entire world that could garner total adverse unanimity in the UN except The U. S. Cuban policy. And now the U. S. government itself in Oct.-2016 no longer had the heart to support it, leaving the world mystified as to why the U. S. government can't correct its most flagrant and continuous abomination. Thus, the imminent presidential transition from the Democrat Obama to the Republican Trump is vastly important regarding Cuba because, since the 1950s, there has been no issue over such a long duration as America's Cuban policy to shower shame upon both the U. S. and democracy, shame that is of no apparent concern to a relative handful of right-wing extremists enmeshed in the bowels of Congress {and sometimes the White House} who can defy the world with their self-serving Cuban piggy-bank and punching-bag, a veritable unceasing anti-democracy bonanza.  

        And that brings us back around to Will Grant, the BBC journalist stationed in Cuba who has the freedom and integrity to report fairly on both Cuba and U.S.-Cuban relations. Considering what it means to Cuba's survival and the U. S. image around the world, a key question now is: "What Does A Trump Presidency Mean for U.S.-Cuba Relations?" AND HEY!! That just happens to be the exact title of a major BBC article written by Will Grant this week. Americans should go online and read it, not because they care about Cubans on the island but because they should care about democracy and the United States. In addition to the aforementioned very pertinent title, the article fairly addresses such sub-titles as: "Many Wonder If the Newly Opened Diplomatic Ties Between the U. S. and Cuba Will Hold," and "Mr. Trump's Comments On Cuba Have Been Conflicting." Will Grant's BBC articles provide the best reporting on very important U.S.-Cuban issues.

      Will Grant's BBC article this week includes the Reuters photo above to illustrate its fair-minded report on the sub-topic entitled "Mr. Trump's Comments on Cuba Have Been Conflicting." The photo shows Mr. Trump, on the eve of the November 8th presidential election, huddling with prospective voters in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Will Grant points out that, before capitulating in Little Havana, Trump had said President Obama's peaceful overtures to Cuba were "fine" and that "50 years is too long" for such things as the embargo. But in Little Havana Mr. Trump turned about-face {two-faced, actually} with promises to quickly reverse all of President Obama's peaceful Cuban overtures, promises that would mean ending such things as the embassies in Havana and Washington that Obama reopened for the first time since 1961. In fact, some people in both Big Havana and Little Havana now believe that Trump, influenced by four newly re-elected very visceral Republican Cuban-American members of Congress from Little Havana, will end up trying to provoke Cuba into a pretext for a military solution to the decades-old quest of right-wingers in Miami and Washington bent on regaining control of Cuba. That belief has been exacerbated by reports that Trump is about to include several extremists anti-Castro zealots from the George W. Bush administration, the scariest of which are rumors that President-elect Trump might even name John Bolton as Secretary of State or some other powerful position. The U. S. media will not question such things because the topic relates to Cuba, but great journalists like Will Grant and venues like the BBC will discuss such issues, and that's why real journalism should trump...pardon the verb...both scared journalism and pure propaganda.

       America's democracy-lovers and businessmen are strong supporters of normalizing relations with Cuba, and James Williams is a prominent member of both those categories. He is the President of the Washington-based Engage Cuba advocacy group. While it is verboten for the mainstream U. S. media to mention the sane viewpoints of people like Mr. Williams, Will Grant at the BBC has the freedom to do so. Mr. Williams was quoted liberally by Mr. Grant in the aforementioned article. He is not too bent-out-of-shape about the Republican Trump corralling the White House or even Republicans dominating both chambers of Congress. He believes the democracy-loving sanity bravely unleashed by President Obama will be hard to turn back. James Williams told Will Grant that his advocacy positions came out of the long election cycle, which finally culminated on November 8th, in better shape than ever before. He said, "We're actually in a much stronger position than we were a few days ago. The pro-engagement forces picked up four Senators and over 10 pro-engagement members in the House of Representatives." While I don't question the tabulations by Mr. Williams, I've never known sanity, decency or democracy to take the moral high ground when it came to Washington's Cuban conduct -- especially since 1898 when the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor to provide the pretext for the Spanish-American War and particularly since the U. S., admired worldwide for its democracy, teamed with the Mafia in 1952 to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba.

       James Williams pointed out that "63 percent of the Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor normalizing relations with Cuba." Which begs a very sane but also very brave question: Why is it that only anti-Castro Cuban-American zealots -- like the easily {November 8th} re-elected Rubio, Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart, and Curbelo -- are members of the Congress from Miami? IF democracy-lovers like Sarah Stephens at the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas; Peter Kornbluh at the Washington-based U. S. National Archives; James Williams at Washington-based Engage Cuba and 300 million more democracy-loving Americans combined to insist that the U. S. government normalize relations with Cuba, the four newly elected Cuban-American members of Congress from Miami along with Cuban-American U. S. Senators Bob Menendez from New Jersey and Ted Cruz from Texas can probably use the Trump presidency to reverse the Obama-fueled sanity regarding Cuba. That will be almost assured if Trump, as rumored, appoints Bush-era zealots to key positions, such as Secretary of State or Defense. So, I disagree with James Williams when he says that the Obama-generated positive momentum regarding Cuba was enhanced by the November 8th elections. Trump signing Executive Orders can overturn those signed by Obama; the U. S. Congress is Republican; and Trump is likely to recycle Bush-era anti-Cuban extremists.

Trump's Secretary of State?? 

Wow!! Really?

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The U.S.-Cuban Malaise

 Where Vigilance Reigns 

       The pragmatic zealot who sent me the above graphic insists that after President Obama told Vice President Biden to "shut up!" following Biden's statement about the "police forces," Mr. Obama didn't cup his hands over his face till Biden disobeyed the POTUS order and followed up with a second statement, the one that actually caused POTUS -- President of the United States -- to close his eyes and noncommittally hide his face: "Barack, with Republican Trump in the White House and Republicans in charge of both chambers of Congress, do you think your prized Cuban legacy will get blown up when the Republicans nuke Cuba?" 

           Please understand, Dear Cubaninsider reader, that I can't vouch for that follow-up statement or for the presidential reaction, but also note that I didn't totally dismiss it...such is the U.S.-Cuban malaise. 

But I can vouch for this: 

       Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Trudeau arrived in Havana yesterday -- Nov. 15, 2016. The photo at Jose Marti Airport is courtesy of Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press. Prime Minister Trudeau met quickly with Cuba's 85-year-old President Raul Castro yesterday and he will speak at the University of Havana today, Nov. 16th. He also said he hoped to be able to visit 90-year-old Fidel Castro "presuming that Fidel's health is well enough." Mr. Trudeau also said, "Canadians can be pleased that they have played a positive role in Cuba through the years." Over 1.3 million Canadians visited Cuba in 2015 and the number of Canadian tourists increased in 2016 due to the U. S. efforts to normalize relations with the island.

       Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the father of Canada's current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, famously visited Cuba in January of 1976. This photo from the Canadian Press archives shows Fidel Castro greeting Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau warmly on the day that Pierre Trudeau became the first Western leader to visit Fidel Castro's Cuba. The two men remained dear friends after this historic handshake.

       When Pierre Trudeau died in 2000, Fidel Castro attended the funeral in Canada. This photo shows Fidel consoling Justin Trudeau at his father's funeral on Oct. 3, 2000. This week Justin Trudeau, as Canada's current Prime Minister, hopes to visit the 90-year-old Fidel at his Havana home if he gets permission.

      All foreign leaders seeking to visit Fidel Castro -- such as French President Francois Hollande -- must await the final decision that will always be made by Fidel's fiercely devoted wife Dalia Soto del Valle.

        Dalia Soto del Valle has been married to Fidel Castro since 1980 and she is the mother of his last five sons, all of whom are extremely devoted to their parents. Dalia, from the colonial city of Trinidad, had been a close friend of Cuba's greatest revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez, Fidel's all-time closest soulmate. As Celia was dying of cancer at age 59 in 1980, she asked Dalia to marry Fidel and "take the best care of him, knowing he will need the best care." There is no doubt that Dalia has fulfilled both of those requests. 

And by the way:

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Cuba's Precious Children

Speak Well of the Revolution!!

         The graphic above used Cuban schoolchildren in a poster denouncing the U. S. embargo against Cuba, an obscenity that has existed since 1962 much to the detriment of the United States worldwide image and, conversely, much to the enhancement of Cuba's worldwide image for merely being able to survive the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a strong country against a weak country. But Revolutionary Cuba has done more than just survive; against all odds, it has somehow managed to provide a much safer and richer lifestyle for its children than existed during the vile U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that ruled the island from 1952 till 1959. The photo used in the above graphic is merely one indication of that fact, especially when contrasted with Batista-era photos of Cuban children that will be included as documentations in this essay. But back on Oct. 26-2016 the overwhelmingly emphatic 191-to-0 vote in which the entire world unanimously condemned the U. S. embargo of Cuba stands, of course, as the most emphatic denunciation of the U. S. embargo of Cuba, an embargo maintained decade-after-decade by a mere handful of miscreants in the 535-member U. S. Congress. A powerful propaganda and intimidation campaign vilifying Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 while sanitizing the Batista rule of Cuba and the Batistiano dictation in the U. S. Congress is now bent on convincing sufficiently intimidated or supposedly ignorant Americans that the number zero is larger than the number 191. In Banana Republics, of course, sufficient propaganda and intimidation worked wonderfully. The 191-0 UN vote reflects the fact that the world is surprised it works today in the U. S.

      This photo was taken by Alexander Caronado and is used courtesy of Havana Times.org. It was one of hundreds of entries in that blog's just-concluded and very impressive 8th Photo Contest pertaining to life in Cuba. This photo shows children in Santiago de Cuba, the old capital city on the island's southeastern tip. As you can see, these children are hilariously happy. They don't have much in regards to material things, and the U. S. embargo has embedded that fact into their lives. But in Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 children are guaranteed good and totally free health care for life; good and totally free educations through college; food and shelter if needed; and...in stark contrast to Batista's Cuba...their island is remarkably safe when it comes to crime or even when devastating hurricanes hit the island 90 miles from Florida.

      This is another sweet photo provided by Havana Times.org editor Circles Robinson and used in his aforementioned Photo Contest. This shows a little Cuban girl making some important point to a little boy. Dany del Pino took this very beautiful photo that captures a private, unscripted Cuban moment.

       Also courtesy of Circles Robinson, I love this photo of a happy little Cuban girl sitting carefree and confident on the steps of her home. To protect Cuban children that they felt were not protected or prioritized during the Batistiano-Mafiosi rule, Revolutionary heroines Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, starting in January of 1959, devised the block-by-block creation of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution composed of everyday Cubans on those particular blocks. It has worked amazingly well to protect and prioritize Cuban children like this little girl. Making a country safe for children is very important.

       This great photo was taken by Caridad, a photo-journalist for Havana Times.org. It shows another gorgeous and confident Cuban schoolgirl sitting on the back of the lion that is an indelible edifice in the Prado section of Havana. Cuban schoolchildren in their distinctive white-and-red uniforms are ubiquitous across the island and, not surprisingly, the favorite subjects of tourists with cameras. So, Cuban children...even ones as young as the girl sitting atop the lion...become quite accustomed to posing.

     A lucky artist might get a Cuban angel to pose for a portrait.

 A still-sleepy and closely watched Cuban schoolgirl.

        I mentioned that Cuba's great Revolutionary heroines Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution created the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution to protect Cuban children block-by-block. These two women also created several unique and still-powerful Committees empowering Cuban women, major changes that corrected the major victims of Batista's Cuba -- the women and the children. The great photo above shows Celia, the studious one, and Vilma, the carefree one, in 1957 when they were prime guerrilla fighters during the Revolutionary War but also major decision-makers during the war. This seminal photo, by the way, was taken by Dickey Chapelle, the greatest female war photographer who became very close friends of Celia and Vilma during Cuba's Revolutionary War.

       Dickey Chapelle also took this photo. It shows a youngish Fidel Castro spotting for one of his guerrilla fighters who is shouldering a bazooka that was getting ready to fire at an approaching Batista tank. 

 Dickey Chapelle, a war photographer for Look Magazine at age 23.

     The great photographer Dickey Chapelle was killed on a Vietnam battlefield on November 4, 1965. Deeply admired for her bravery and talent, she was loved by the soldiers and guerrilla fighters she photographed. The above AP photo shows American soldiers stunned by Dickey Chapelle's tragic death.

        I mentioned Vilma Espin and Celia Sanchez as two of Cuba's greatest guerrilla fighters during the Revolutionary War as shown when they were photographed by Dickey Chapelle. The photo above was taken in Revolutionary Cuba soon after the 1959 triumph over the Batista dictatorship. Vilma had just given birth to a baby and Celia was visiting them. Vilma had married Raul Castro within days after the Jan. 1-1959 revolutionary victory and she became the mother to all four of his children. Beginning in 1957 right after he joined her Revolutionary War in the Sierra Maestra foothills of eastern Cuba, Fidel Castro worshipped the ground Celia Sanchez worked on, and at age 90 he still worships that Cuban ground to this very day.

        In Revolutionary Cuba the four most powerful leaders were pictured above. Left to right they are Vilma Espin, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Celia Sanchez. Fidel Castro -- on the day this photo was taken and today at age 90 -- rated the power and importance of these four in this exact order: #1 Celia; #2 Fidel; #3 Vilma; and #4 Raul. Now please remember that Americans are not supposed to know such facts because -- since the Batistianos and Mafiosi fled Cuba in their getaway planes and ships in the wee hours of January 1, 1959 -- the Cuban narrative in the U. S. has been dictated by anti-Castro Cuban exiles, which is now deep into a second generation as Fidel has aged to 90 and Raul to 85. Celia died of cancer on January 11, 1980; Vilma died of cancer on June 18, 2008. While all Cuban insiders know the history, power and achievements of Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, Americans are not supposed to know about them. That's so the lucrative vilifying of the macho Castro brothers can help sanitize what the Batista-Mafia dictatorship did in Cuba and what the Batistianos and Mafiosi have done since fleeing to U. S. soil, namely Miami. Of course, for machismo reasons...I reckon...it is better to maintain that burly macho men, certainly not beautiful women, were the prime reasons their greedy asses...pardon my language...got booted off the island.

        This photo shows a typical peasant family in Batista's Cuba during the years from 1952 till 1959 when the Batistianos, the Mafiosi and rich American businessmen were busy robbing the island blind. Families like this were not given a second thought, unless word of their treatment reached the United States where the tax dollars of U. S. citizens were supporting the army that supported the Batista-Mafia dictatorship.

      By 1953 a great New York Times reporter named Herbert L. Matthews was using America's most powerful newspaper to tell the U. S. people and the world what was happening in Cuba -- the extreme poverty among the peasants, the extreme thievery by the vile rulers and U. S. businessmen, and -- most shameful of all -- the murders of Cuban children, apparently as a warning to Cubans not to resist. The most famous of those murders involved little Willie Soler and his four schoolmates; their bodies were left in a vacant warehouse for their relatives to find. Today, if you manage to visit Cuba despite the U. S. embargo that still forbids such visits for everyday Americans, you can see a major children's hospital named for...William Soler. Herbert L. Matthews also chronicled for Americans street marches conducted by brave Cuban mothers, as shown above, about the murders of their children such as little Willie Soler. Contrast the previous two black-and-white photos with the earlier photos of modern-day Cuban children and you might comprehend the changes in Cuba wrought by heroic Cuban women like the mother shown marching above and, of course, like Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, the guerrilla fighters turned decision-makers.

       This is the front entrance to the William Soler Pediatrics Hospital in modern Havana. Now you know how and why this hospital got its name. For its entire existence, it has been hurt by the U. S. embargo that prevents it from getting some needed medical equipment and some medicines. A new poll shows that 63% of the Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor ending the embargo. Yet, the 8 Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots in the 535-member U. S. Congress -- especially Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Bob Menendez -- insist that the embargo remain in place. Amazingly, the U. S. democracy is not strong enough to over-rule them despite the U. S. government's agreement with the 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations denouncing the embargo. Meanwhile, Rubio, Cruz and Menendez -- fixtures in the U. S. Senate at least till they run for President -- never have to answer questions about the 191-to-0 UN vote, the 63% of Cuban-Americans who want the embargo ended, or about the fact that -- despite their self-serving belligerence -- poor little Cuba has one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates, lower than that in the United States and especially lower than that in Florida, New Jersey and Texas where Senators Rubio, Menendez and Cruz hail from.

         This photo shows a dedicated and highly trained doctor tending to a baby at the William Soler Pediatrics Hospital in Havana. This doctor and this precious Cuban baby are hurt by the U. S. embargo of Cuba...and the rich and powerful U. S. Senators Rubio, Menendez and Cruz don't seem to give a damn.

        This photo shows Samantha Power, the very decent United States Representative to the United Nations. She is shown here speaking at the UN back on Oct. 26-2016 explaining why she refused to vote to support the United States embargo of Cuba, and by abstaining she allowed the unanimous worldwide 191-to-0 denunciation of the embargo to go on the record. If you care enough about the embargo's affront to the United States and to democracy, go online and dial up Samantha Power's entire UN speech or read the transcript that is also available online and on the State Department's .gov website. Miss Power used one sentence to mention "the differences" the U. S. has with Cuba and she used many sentences to praise Cuba for what it does for women and children on the island and for what it does to help poor people like Africans when Ebola hit and Haitians when hurricanes hit. Of course, it seems that not enough Americans appear interested in what Samantha Power says but they listen to what Rubio, Menendez and Cruz say when they use the halls of Congress or the U. S. media to rant about how awful Revolutionary Cuba is while, of course, implying that Batista's Cuban hellhole was a Utopian paradise for the Cuban people.

U. S. Senators Cruz, Menendez & Rubio.

       I mentioned Herbert L. Matthews as the great New York Times reporter who had the guts to tell Americans about what was happening in Batista's Cuba. Other than that, Matthews -- who died at age 77 in 1977 -- is famed for a major historic episode during Cuba's Revolutionary War. In 1957 the vile U.S.-backed dictator Batista informed the Cuban people and his supporters in Washington that Fidel Castro had been killed by Cuban soldiers. It was a lie that Cubans and Washington believed but it didn't sit well with the most important Cuban rebel, Celia Sanchez. Celia had the biggest bounty on her head because Batista knew she was the main recruiter of rebels, weapons, money and supplies -- the necessary ingredients to sustain the revolution. Celia knew and cultivated the fact that Fidel was the hero to all the Cuban peasants, the people she depended on for support. She knew that if the peasants believed Fidel was dead, her war against Batista would be severely hurt. The brilliant and bold Celia thus devised a scheme. She knew she had many U. S. military and journalistic supporters, such as Matthews. So she bravely and astutely arranged to personally meet Matthews at a rail-head near the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. She then used a mule and horse to take Matthews across rocky streams and through dense foliage and dangerous swamps up into the mountains. That's where Fidel waited at a base-camp. Matthews had a camera, as Celia insisted. She used his camera to take a photo of Matthews interviewing a live Fidel. That photo and the front-page article by Matthews in the New York Times disproved Batista's lie about Fidel being dead, one of many instances in which Celia Sanchez simply out-smarted the Batistianos.

   This is the photo with Matthews that proved Fidel was alive. 
 Dead men don't light cigars.

Celia Sanchez Manduley.

         Yes, it was her Cuban Revolution. In fact, today it is still her Revolutionary Cuba. Study two of her most famous quotations and you might agree: {1} "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives;" and {2} "We rebels get too much credit for winning the revolution. Most of the credit should go to our enemies because of their greed, stupidity and cowardice." And while you study those two historic quotations, you might begin to understand why Senators Rubio, Cruz and Menendez hope that you have never heard of the petite doctor's daughter Celia Sanchez but they'll tell you all about how mean the macho 90-year-old Fidel Castro is...so, you'll know such self-serving facts as zero is a larger number than 191, "so forget the UN vote and leave our embargo alone when we are so close to recapturing Cuba."

Celia Sanchez loved Cuba's children.

What do Rubio, Cruz, & Menendez love?

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