Cuba

It was 1958, and I was a semester or so from graduation with my degree in political science over at old Northwestern State College in Natchitoches. (They named it University later). From a lecture by dour old Medford Evans Sr., the Yale Ph.D. who later became a recruiter for the John Birch Society, I'd go to the next class down the hall to hear "the other side of the story" from Harvard Ph.D. Dick Payne, a self-confessed "card carrying member of the ACLU." It was the Fifties version of "fair and balanced" education in government operations, not to mention barely concealed campus politics between two professors who loathed each other. In other words, a preview of today's all-hassle-all-the time of Fox vs. The New York Times. Karl Rove vs. MoveOn.Org. Rush Limbaugh vs. Planned Parenthood.

It was also the time that Fidel Castro was rising to prominence with his revolution against the corrupt dictator Fulgencio Battista in Cuba, against the backdrop of the so-called Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union, and in the afterglow of the vicious era of U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy, whose Communist-hunting stunts tied the nation in knots that have morphed into the religious-political wars that define too much of today's public discussion. A big question in 1958, when Castro was becoming a rock star, was whether he was a Communist, or a self-righteous windbag who could talk eight hours at a stretch in praise of his form of self-government. Professor Evans, the grumpy curmudgeon, growled, "Castro is a Communist," to anyone who would listen. Dick Payne wasn't sure it mattered, and taught a scholarly curriculum of government courses on the American democratic system, the evolution of the concept of citizenship, and shades of meaning in the U.S. Constitution

As things turned out, both were right. Castro was a Communist. And for everyone except ten or twelve million Cubans caught in his crazy trap, it didn't matter. Except for a political/military debacle early in the John F. Kennedy administration of the 1960s called "The Bay of Pigs," which was followed in short order by the redeeming Kennedy drama called "The Cuban Missile Crisis," Cuba has been pretty much off the serious American policy agenda. There were a few intermittent publicity eruptions--the Mariel boat lift during the Carter administration, in which Castro emptied his jails of criminals and political prisoners, sending them to America's tender care; the weepy-creepy tabloid drama of Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban boy stranded in evil Miami among relatives conspiring to smother him in unwanted care and affection, who was allowed to be deported back to Cuba to be with his loving father, and where he may now be starving in poverty in a small country picked threadbare and blighted by 48 years of mindless misrule by the crackpot Castro regime. Oh, and the dreaded Economic Embargo, instituted during the Eisenhower administration, and which has excused every new level of misery suffered by the Cuban population not lucky enough to have escaped to Florida, or drowned trying to get away.

Any problem that lasts 50 years may not have a solution. Or, maybe there's a reason no one wants to solve it. Or, maybe it's already been solved and what's left is just the argument. Or, maybe it's not even a problem.

OK, so you read all the way through just to find the joke. So, the report is, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called on Cuban Supreme Leader Fidel Castro to extend wishes for his health. Putin noticed that people he saw on the streets in Havana were poorly dressed, bedraggled looking. Everywhere he looked, the people moped about in shoes that were in terrible shape. Putin scolded Castro about the poor appearance of the population, especially that after almost 50 years of socialism, the government had not even been able to provide the people with decent shoes. Castro blamed the problems on the American embargo, and said he was working to make things better. Putin waved off the excuses, telling Castro that everyone in his own country was well fed, well dressed, and wore good shoes. He invited Fidel to fly to Moscow with him to witness that Russians enjoyed the good life. He even told Castro he could shoot anyone he saw with worn-out shoes. The maximum leaders landed at the Sheremetyevo International airport in Moscow and were met by the usual delegation of officials. Castro spotted one disheveled man at the edge of the group whose shoes were falling apart. He pulled his .45 and shot the man dead on the spot. The next morning edition of Izvestia, the Moscow daily, carried the headline, "Bearded Lunatic Shoots Cuban Ambassador at Airport."

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