Video: Fidel Castro is OK!
Wonderful news from Cuba, as a recent news broadcast from one of the western hemisphere's two remaining democracies shows lider Fidel Castro alive and well as Hugo Chavez - the leader of the other democracy - comes to pay him a visit and congratulate him on his return to health and his return to fighting against the fascistic dictatorial oppressor regime to the north.
Buenos suerte, mi comrade Sr. Castro!
UPDATE: I hate to quote from "that parvenue site" as Ariadne calls them, but comrade Blake Fleetwood has important and heart-warming news. Fidel says "I can speak in a loud voice if I want" and not only that, he can play baseball too!
And:
Castro also met yesterday for an hour with Kofi Annan. Until this morning details of the conversation have not been made public.
However, a Cuban publication, Rebellious Youth, said that Castro gave Annan a book excerpt that details the life of Fidel from 100 hours of interviews between the Cuban leader and the French journalist Ignacio Ramonet.
"To Kofi Annan, our infinite recognition," reads the dedication from Castro to the Secretary General of the UN.
Posted by Ariadne at 08:48 PM | Comments (3)
Somos unidos con Fidel Castro!
There are only two real democracies in the Western Hemisphere, and one of them isn't Venezuela. The other is, of course, Cuba: a tropical paradise with free, high-quality healthcare and a 97% literacy rate. For almost fifty years, Sr. Castro has been leading Cuba, managing crises, weathering storms, guiding it from peak to peak of successes, and, of course, dealing with the insane oppression of its much larger neighbor to the north.Now, Sr. Castro is in ill health, but the signs are that he will continue to lead the island nation for years to come. We at HuffAndBlow wish him the very best, and we know it won't be long before we see him puffing away and astonishing the world with his successes.
Here is the text of a letter that was read on state television:
Be well, mi amigo.Because of the enormous effort involved in visiting the Argentine city to attend the Mercosur meeting, at the closing of the Summit of the Peoples in the historic University of Cordoba and the visit to Alta Gracia, the city where Che (Guevara) lived in his childhood and immediately afterward attending the commemoration of the 53rd anniversary of the attack on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes barracks, the 26th of July of 1953, in the provinces of Granma and Holguin, days and nights of continuous work with hardly any sleep, have caused my health, which has withstood all tests, to fall victim to extreme stress and to be ruined.
This has caused in me an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding that has obliged me to undergo a complicated surgical operation. All the details of this health accident can be seen in X-rays, endoscopies and filmed material. The operation will force me to take several weeks of rest, away from my responsibilities and duties.
As our country is threatened in circumstances like this by the government of the United States, I have made the following decision:
1) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba to the second secretary, comrade Raul Castro Ruz.
2) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as Commander in Chief of the heroic Revolutionary Armed Forces to the same comrade, Army Gen. Raul Castro Ruz.
3) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as president of the Council of State and of the government of the Republic of Cuba to the first vice-president, comrade Raul Castro Ruz.
4) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as the main driving force behind the National and International Program of Public Health to Politburo member and Public Health Minister, comrade Jose Ramon Balaguer Cabrera.
5) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as the main driving force behind the National and International Education Program to comrades Jose Ramon Machado Ventura and Esteban Lazo Hernandez, members of the Politburo.
6) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as the main driving force behind the National Program of the Energy Revolution in Cuba and cooperation with other countries in this field to comrade Carlos Lage Davila, member of the Politburo and secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers.
The relevant funds for these programs - health, education and energy - should continue to be assigned and prioritized, as I have been doing personally, by comrades Carlos Lage Davila, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers; Francisco Soberon Valdes, Minister President of the Central Bank of Cuba; and Felipe Perez Roque, Foreign Relations Minister, who have accompanied me in these duties and should constitute a committee for this purpose.
Our glorious Communist Party, supported by mass organizations and the entire public, has the mission of carrying out the duties outlined in this proclamation...
Posted by John Ciccilini at 10:32 PM | Comments (2)
Star Jones or Barbara Walters?
I don't care and neither should you. Turn off the idiot box and listen for a second. Do you realize what is going on in America right now? Instead of watching The View, you should be watching Current.TV or PBS Now. Or, even better, listening to NPR or even Pacifica.
Do you realize how you're being sheared?
We have a Bush administration that is leading us closer and closer to the Taliban. Due to their hatred of proper government programs, Bush and his minions have been chopping hundreds of programs out of the federal budget. What's worse, Bush had the grand plan of taking over the world, and we saw where that got us! At least Saddam was elected by his people, unlike The Shrub.
Corruption stalks America, and all you can do is sit there on your couch watching Star Jones and Barbara Walters. Wake up and get up!
Posted by John Ciccilini at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)
Kimmie Meissner, Olympics, and the truth
Kimmie Meissner is a figure skater in the 2006 Winter Olympics. As you can see above, she's quite the patriot. Or, at least a patriot in the Bu$hian style. Put down the flag and the credulous smile, Kim. Just put it down and think for yourself for a moment.
How could anyone celebrate this country considering all that we have done during the $hrub administration? How could anyone feel pride displaying our flag which has been stained by the actions of our "wartime leader"? Even worse, she's wearing an ad for a clothing company in the photo above, together with an ad for our occupiers and invaders in her hand.
No, not for me.
This year, I will not be cheering for America in the Olympics.
I will be cheering for our victims in the competition. There are over 85 countries competing, including Albania, Algeria, China, North Korea, and Venezuela.
I will be cheering for them.
Posted by John Ciccilini at 01:16 AM
Rolling Stone slanders the equiphile community
I'll save you reading this week's Rolling Stone feature on the top news stories of 2005.
One of their choices involves a close friend of mine: Rupert Stix. You've probably seen his name in relation to the "strange" doings at a horse farm in Enumclaw, Washington State. One of our common friends - Edgar Hoffenstein - was, in effect, thrown off a horse at that farm and died. According to Rolling Stone, this tragedy is apparently funny.
It isn't funny to those of us who love horses, and in a most intimate fashion. The love that dare not utter its name is more widespread than Jann's rag would like you to believe. "Sexual identity is part of the genre of narrativity," says Foucault. The without/within distinction depicted in Madonna’s Material Girl emerges again in Sex. It could be said that Derrida suggests the use of Marxist socialism to challenge the status quo.
Indeed.
Edgar hadn't done anything wrong, but you might not know that from this piece which focuses on the statements of the local district attorneys and various so-called "animal rights experts". Edgar loved horses, he wasn't out to infringe on any of their rights. Sontag promotes the use of textual objectivism to read and analyse sexual identity. In a sense, the main theme of the works of Madonna is the common ground between truth and society. [1] After reading Jann's attempt at yellow journalism, you might think that people practicing alternative sex and confronting their gender identity were damaged, self-destructive individuals in need of help. You might think they had a disease to be cured, kind of the way we used to look at homosexuality (and some people in Bush country still do). You might think that investigating animal love would destroy your career. [2] It's pretty sad when the magazine responsible for much of the best creative non-fiction ever published, the magazine that married music and politics, decides to go the way of a right-wing tabloid rag.
In Erotica, Madonna reiterates the pretextual paradigm of reality; in Sex she examines social realism. In a sense, if the subdialectic paradigm of narrative holds, we have to choose between social realism and Lacanist obscurity.
Let us.
Previously: "What Rolling Stone isn't telling you about Global Warming"
Posted by John Ciccilini at 09:59 PM
Justice for Banana Boy!
The recent arrest of Banana Boy has generated a slew of bad puns and bad reportage from sources as varied as the PostStar and the UPI ("Banana Boy generates bunches of media inquiries"; that story was conveniently erased from the Star's site).
What's been lost is a fundamental travesty of justice and the omnipresent police state powers caused, at root, by the Bush administration.
The "Boy" is a costumed character who appears on WMCE TV-8 in upstate New York. He plays a crime fighter, and last week he and two co-stars were filming a fight in Hudson Falls. A policeman saw the fight, and, not realizing it was staged, pulled his gun and arrested all three.
Now, BB and his friends have been sentenced: 40 hours community service, plus a $100 fine. And, all they were doing is shooting a scene.
Aren't there better things our police and courts could be doing? For instance, finding those missing WMDs. Or, how about looking into Jack Abramoff's or Tom Delay's connections? Maybe they should go to Alaska and try to find out more about global warming.
I guess that wouldn't be too "appealing". To tell you the truth, I am sickened by this whole spectacle and this administration.
Posted by John Ciccilini at 08:34 PM
"Princess Leia in her Bikini": Is slavery just a fun joke?
My cousin, the author and former member of the Clinton administration Sidney Ciccilini, sent me a link to a site featuring women dressed in Princess Leia's "slave outfit" from Star Wars as a joke. It was funny for a few seconds, until I realized what was being discussed at the site and the subtext. My laughter soon stopped: slavery is not a joke.
Turning to the encyclopedia, we see that millions were enslaved and thousands died through the centuries when there was slavery. And, many millions of their descendents are more or less slaves even today. Is that funny? If so, then why aren't they laughing at this "joke"?
And, why would women parade their own subjugation? References are made throughout the site to "boyfriends" and how much they appreciate these bikinis. I'm sure they do: most men aren't that much evolved from the days when women were simply property. But, why would these women celebrate this? Do they think it's sexy to support them being controlled by men?
I understand that these "Cons" and this dressing-up is a good outlet for people who appear to be, to be frank, nerds. I am vaguely reminded of another sub-culture: furdom. But, at least in that no subjugation or slavery is the common theme: all animals are on the same equal footing.
The violent subtext of the photos of Julie are particularly disturbing. Is that supposed to be some kind of a "turn-on"? If so, why am I not "turned-on"?
Posted by John Ciccilini at 03:07 PM
Solidarity with the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders!
As you know, Carolina Panthers cheerleaders Renee Thomas and Angela Keathley were allegedly caught having sex in a stall at a bar in Tampa. Now, they've been fired.
This site stands in solidarity with their struggle to regain their jobs.
This matter - titilating to some - is a clear case of workers' rights. And, it also reveals the Rethugnantcon "morality": firing working women simply for expressing their love.
I urge you to sign the petition asking the Panthers to keep Renee and Angela on the team, and tell all your friends to sign it too.
Cheerleader Solidarity Now!
Posted by John Ciccilini at 02:18 PM
Everglades crisis
It is reported that there are 20-foot long Burmese pythons roaming the Everglades eating tourists to survive.
The normal food source of these pythons: squirrels, small rodents, birds, etc. has been severly impacted due to global warming, which has been made into a tragic situation by George Bush refusing to sign the Kyoto Treaty.
To add insult to injury, these majestic snakes are an invasive species. In fact, all of them are discarded pets or their offspring. Rangers estimate that there are approximately 1000 such snakes in the Everglades National Park, and, of course, none of them are native. Many of them were released by former owners who could no longer keep them due to president Bush's economic policies.
Furthermore, in 2000, Bush signed the Invasive Species Protection Act. This legislation was spearheaded by snake trappers and their lobbyists, and has made the importation of Burmese pythons and similar species much easier than in past years.
Posted by Ariadne at 08:29 PM
El presidente, usted es mi presidente!
What a world we would live in if Venezuela's great leader Hugo Chavez could run for president in the U.S.? Instead of a barely funded, anti-people program like No Dollar Left Behind, we could have the Bolivarian model:Chavez affirmed that his government considers education to be a "vital aspect" of the Bolivarian political program and is committed to improving the education system’s quality and transforming its traditional paradigm through the construction of "Simoncitos," as the Bolivarian preschools are known, as well as Bolivarian schools, high schools, universities and technical schools.
Chavez blamed the capitalist and imperialist media campaigns for filling the people with poison, teaching them to overvalue money and leading them to believe that the poor "are worthless." In order to change these parameters, the Venezuelan President asserted, values such as unity, brotherhood and solidarity, must be placed above competition and individualism. "We are all a team, going along eliminating little by little the values or the anti-values that capitalism has planted in us from childhood"
...According to [head of education] Isturiz, the Bolivarian high schools are focused on transforming adolescents from being individualistic to being socially aware; from being competitive to cooperative; and from being consumers to being creative...
...After affirming that the transformation of the educational system was not only "Isturiz's responsibility, not only the responsibility of the government, but also of everyone, of the citizens," Chavez asked Isturiz to design evaluation committees composed of community members to discuss progress and projects. "The very own students, along with their professors, can form their cooperatives to operate the resources and develop their planes," he affirmed.
Posted by John Ciccilini at 01:37 PM
Capitol evacuated, and public distracted
Don't watch the magicians hand with the cards, watch what he's doing with the other hand.
I see that the Capitol was evacuated today due to a terror "scare." But, it was just a small plane and nothing bad was happening. The pilot has not been charged with anything. Who is this pilot? Is he a friend of $hrub? Was he involved in this so called scare, or was he just a pawn in this national chess game?
With this obvious attempt to distract our national attention, $hrub has tried to keep America on it's toes and remind us of his "leadership" against "terrorism".
And, what was George W. Bush doing with his other hand while this was happening? He was bicycling!
Yes, that's right. While Senators and Congresspeople were running for the basement, Junior was biking through a park, without being aware that anything bad was happening. Why is it that whenever something happens, he'sl always doing something else? What of those 15 minutes, George?
And, what else was happening while pResident $hrub was out enjoying his day? You guessed it: the Treasury Department was awarding $2 Billion dollars in tax credits!
Watch the magician's hand without the cards!
Posted by John Ciccilini at 05:00 PM
Chavez, Castro unite for world's poor
For decades, Cuba has stood the line against America's "yanqui" aggression. It's one of the few true democracies in the western globe. Don't let the neo-con theo-cons tell you different. Unlike the $hrub administration, Fidel Castro cares about his country's poor people.
Another target of American imperiali$m is Venezuela's extremely popular leader Hugo Chavez. Of course, if our oil wasn't under their country Bu$h wouldn't care.
Chavez is leading the fight to help his country's poor and raise their standards of living. "Cuba, Venezuela offer medial assistance to other countries": Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on May 8 said that his country and Cuba will carry out a programme entitled "Mision Milagro" with the aim of bringing light to the poor people with eye diseases in the Latin American and Caribbean regions.
In Venezuela, Chavez's oil revolution pumps money into programs for the poor: Under Chavez, the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA spent more than $3.7 billion last year on social and agricultural programs, housing and other public projects -- about a third of its earnings.
Chavez sets an example that the neo-cons don't want you to know about. Open your eyes to the truth!
Posted by John Ciccilini at 10:18 AM
Solidarity with Korea!
I went to the Democratic (I added that. It's more than we can say here) People's Republic of Korea a few years ago. It was a year or so before I went to Iraq and saw what that was like. The countries were very similar and were both suffering the oppression caused by the U.$ war machine for oil and other profits. Both countries were in bad shape.
I see from teh paper that the $hrub is massinv forces and it looks like some battle or war might happen. Haven't the people of Korea sufferred enough? Why won't Dumbya leave them to live and work in peace like all people all around the world want to do? Is peace so hard for him to understand? Please, read this and sign this. I've been up for a while thinking about this and running it through my head. I'll have more to say later.
Posted by John Ciccilini at 01:42 AM
