cafe con arsenic

painting by adolfo sanchez

Required. Reading new book "Cuba and it's Music" by Ned Sublette. In chapter 19 titled "Marti's Monster" he quotes Winston Churchill 1896:

"Though the Spanish Administration is bad, the Cuban Government would be worse- equally corrupt, more capricious, and far less stable. Under such a Government (US backed) revolutions would be periodic, property insecure, equity unknown. A graver danger represents itself. Two-fifths of the insurgents, and by far the bravest and best disciplined part of the rebel forces, are pure negroes. These men... demand a prominent share of the government of the country. Such a claim would be indignantly resisted by the white section, and a racial war, probably conducted with bitter animosity and ferocious cruelty, would ensue, the result being, after years of fighting, another black republic, or at best a partition of the island, as in San Domingo" (Dominican Republic / Haiti)

Back then it wasn't just confederates in the u.s. who felt that even the whitest of cubans failed their "just one drop" (of black blood) racial yardstick, therby conveniently inferior and conquerable. Today I say "welcome to the mulatto millennium"


Ned writes:
"Almost no one in cuba today can tell you the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but everyone can tell you what the Platt Amendment was. On three occasions in the first two decades of the century the United States invoked the Platt Amendment and sent in troops. Much of the capital and land was in the hands of foreign entities..."

The power structure in Miami may run out of benefits of cuban doubt. Diaz-Ballart and Iliana Lehtinen, Mel Martinez, with microphobes like BabaluBlog n Radio Marti, have been duped by the BFEE for personal benefit. Their drums stop beating as a new chapter is written. CHANGE is always in the wind and it is storm season once again in the swamp. Cuban-Americans today feel a pain that is without tears. We find solace in our music and the spirit of a people that is invincible.

That's just the tip of the cigar, the red-hot end. For the chomped and salacious end, listen to cuban music and read more.

Gracias to Jumel Terrace Books for the signed copy.

UPDATE... to be fair:

#067 Padilla Sues US Officials

Researched by Christina Long and Bill Gibbons

Jose Padilla, a US citizen, arrested on US soil and convicted (under extraordinary circumstances) of being an Al Qadeda operative, is seeking to hold former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and 59 other US officials responsible for physical and psychological abuse and unconstitutional tactics while being held as an ‘enemy combatant’ in military custody for 43 months. Early in 2007 a civil lawsuit was filed on behalf of Padilla in federal court in South Carolina over abuse he suffered from 2002 to 2006 in the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston Station South Carolina. Serious violations included sleep deprivation, stress positions, prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation and other extreme interrogation techniques calculated to profoundly disrupt his senses and personality and destroy his ordinary emotional and cognitive functioning. The government held Padilla for two years without any outside contact, including that of his lawyers. When that policy changed, government officials warned Padilla not to reveal any conditions of his confinement to his lawyers, the suit says. Padilla is left severely psychologically damaged.

“Padilla Sues US Officials Over Confinement” Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor 8/24/2007
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0824/p03s03-usju.html?page=2

Global Waw on SOME terists

Here is a nice pic of cuban brides 50's that a lady was showing at a recent BBQ of the Municipio de Camaguey, one of the The Big Five Club, a local must-join social club for cuban-americans here. They just love my obamobile. To be in exile is a work-ing progress, I should know, these are my people. we are here to not suffer, to boldly go where no cuban has gone before, miami, where old folks relish unfullfilled, where the irony is painful.



militant cuban exile honored.

"I want to give you a kiss," said a woman who was among the first to greet Posada as he arrived at the Big Five Club....

...an attorney who represents the Venezuelan government in the extradition case, called the tribute to Posada "outrageous," adding: "It would be like Osama bin Laden being honored by the Arab-American community."

Robert Perry of Consortium News has the poop on this:

Bush got a round of applause when he declared “one of the lessons learned after September the 11th is that we must hold people to account for harboring terrorists. If you harbor a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, if you house a terrorist, you’re as equally guilty as the terrorist.”

So let's call Posada a "freedumb fighter".

MAM goes soft on Pinkos

My Lam look-alike is not for sale.

MAM has a big show of Wilfredo Lam ... the picasso of cuba.

Lam, a Chinese-AfroCuban who settled in Paris, where he became Picasso's friend and contemporary, had a life of almost cinematic drama: a long, productive interlude in Spain, Italy and France; visa denials from the United States when he tried to leave war-torn Europe; acclaim as an icon who elevated African and Cuban culture to the world stage.

"Like Picasso, Lam is one of the most forged painters, and some Miami collectors unknowingly have purchased fakes."

As Cuba's totalitarian state assumed a greater profile, Lam ''had resentments. but he was not going to turn his back on the Cuban Revolution,'' Eskil says. ``He was not a rabid activist, but he did feel that more social justice for Cuba was the right path.''

What makes is possible for Miami's Cuban-American gop bigwigs to set aside political ideologies and embrace the work of Wilfredo Lam in spite of his support of Castro's revolution? Is it because it's really good art or is it the money and prestige?

More cubanity from our very own Bubba-lu...

Every time I hear of a “Cuban art exhibit” somewhere, I cringe because almost invariably it brings out the misguided, the impervious, and the apologists. Jim Lowe of the Barre Montpelier Argus Times probably falls in one of these categories. In this article about “¡Cuba!: Art and History from 1868 to Today” at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, it’s apparent that he may or may not know his art, but he certainly doesn’t know his history.

Babalu reads like a moldy hard-boiled zealot...

25 castaways, 50 dry feet

an extra swampy tidal algae plume, photo not related.
25 Cuban rafters came ashore at Haulover Beach. It must have looked like freedom to them but with overhaul of Haulover, that spit of beach is quite an unwelcoming mess at the moment.