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Cuba is an example of an international subject with a Texas tie-in, and particularly the Houston/Galveston area, which includes ShadeyHill Ranch, where we have a sizeable Cuban population. In fact, the guy who makes my hand-rolled cigars is Cuban. And a former colleague came to the United States with his parents in the early 60s after watching the Bay of Pigs fiasco from his apartment window. Well, last week the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12658025) reported on the death of Alberto Granado, the guy who tooled around Latin America on a motorcycle in the 1950s with Che Guevara. That diaries kept by this...

Last week on his show Piers Morgan Tonight, the smitten host gushed that his impromptu guest Charlie Sheen (before his complete meltdown) was "the Che Guevara of television" and "one of life’s great characters." What a wild and crazy guy, that Che Guevara! CNN was the first U.S. network Fidel Castro bestowed with a Havana Bureau, so Morgan’s epic stupidity might be superseded by other factors here. And Sheen’s meltdown has greatly accelerated since then. But Piers Morgan’s stupidity still presents an irresistible lure. So let's get started. . The puritan Stalinist Piers Morgan equates with Charlie Sheen initiated Cuba's...

Among Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s final requests before he was executed by Bolivian forces in 1967 was that a message of hope be sent back to Fidel Castro: the revolution would come to America. Che immediately became the martyr for the radical left, with his image seized by American protestors of the 1960s. Since then another, cultural, revolution has taken place. Wikipedia catalogs references to him worldwide from restaurant names, to advertising campaigns, to music, to pop culture. His image adorned an Obama Texas campaign office in 2008. Che’s image is now displayed by average college students and even toddlers. No...

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...

Last year, the U.K. Guardian interviewed Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro regarding his Cannes-winning role as Che Guevara in Stephen Soderbergh's movie Che. "Dammit This Guy Is Cool!" was the interview title. "I hear of this guy, and he's got a cool name, Che Guevara!" says del Toro. "Groovy name, groovy man, groovy politics! So I came across a picture of Che, smiling, in fatigues, [and] I thought, 'Dammit, this guy is cool-looking!'" Well, there you have it. In effect, Benicio del Toro, who fulfilled an obvious fantasy by starring as Che Guevara in the four-and-a-half-hour movie he also co-produced,...

Communism has been proclaimed dead more than once in the past couple of decades. But today, it's safe to say, it is really dead. Irreversibly dead. Cemetery dead. Consider this comment from a knowledgeable Cuban critic who was asked if the country's brand of socialism, created by Fidel Castro after his 1959 revolution, could be of use in other countries: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore." That remark would have gotten him in trouble with authorities, if his name were not Fidel Castro. There may yet be admirers of Cuban communism in certain precincts of Berkeley or...

Arizona's new law that requires the police to ask people to show ID, which was just knocked out by a supremacist judge, may not be the most controversial Arizona law about illegal aliens. Gov. Jan Brewer signed another law this year that bans schools from teaching classes designed to promote solidarity among students of a particular ethnic group. This law bans classes that "promote the overthrow of the United States government" or "promote resentment toward a race or class of people" because schools should treat all pupils as individual Americans. The issue arose because the Tucson School District offers courses...

At first glance, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden seems like the perfect candidate to head the U.S space agency. A former Marine test pilot and a minority, he flew the Space Shuttle four times, twice as the co-pilot and twice as the Commander. Bolden retired from the Marines as a Major General and had an excellent career there, although it was not highly distinguished. Had he not been an astronaut, he probably would have retired, at most, as a Colonel. But Bolden is now in the process of following Obama’s orders to destroy America’s manned spaceflight program. The international prestige we...

Che Guevara spawns tourism industry with 'Che Trail' In life, Ernesto "Che" Guevara fought to overthrow a corrupt, capitalist elite. In death, he is spawning his own tourism industry – soon to include a three-country "Che Trail." Tourism officials in Argentina, Cuba and Bolivia are collaborating on a historic route that will allow Guevara buffs to retrace the footsteps of the Argentine medical student turned revolutionary in Cuba who was killed in a failed mission to foment an uprising in Bolivia. Bolivia's vice minister of tourism, Marco Antonio Peredo, said that the international "Caminos del Che" trail will include sites...

I mean, really! There's no reason at all for Arizona to ban ethnic studies. They're a lovely tradition, full of sugar and spice and everything nice. They teach unity. They teach democracy. They teach equality. Yeah. And Eric Holder knows how to read before he opens his big mouth. Here's what some Arizona "ethnic studies" students have been learning ...

Today, I learned of Steve Pichan's new music video, "You Don't Know 'Ché'," that sets the record straight about murdering revolutionary Ernesto 'Ché' Guevara.

Friday night a week ago in New Orleans a petite female political operative and her boyfriend were attacked and seriously injured by a vicious group of crazed cowards who shrieked political insults while pouncing. After the pummeling, the petite female and her boyfriend were left, collectively, with a compound leg fracture, a concussion, a broken nose and broken jaw. No robbery occurred. But wait!....Don't waste your time -- if you're Googling for this item on CNN, New York Times, Wa-Po, MSNBC, Huff-Po, ABC, Salon, CBS, etc., that is. What? But don't attacks (physical and/or verbal) of a political nature outrage...

Poland: Your Ché Guevara T-shirt can land you in jail Poland's revised criminal code includes a ban on communist symbols, such as the red star or hammer and sickle, though one artist says "they are no longer meaningful." By Hilary Heuler • A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent. Evocative symbols of Europe’s troubled past, such as the swastika, have long been illegal in countries across the continent. But now Poland has gone one step further, revising its criminal code to include a ban on symbols of communism. Poles can now be fined or even put in prison if...

The U.K. Guardian interviewed Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro earlier this year regarding his role as Che Guevara in Stephen Soderbergh’s new movie “Che.” “Dammit This Guy Is Cool!” was the interview title. “Del Toro was fascinated with Che Guevara from the first time he heard his name mentioned in the Rolling Stones song ‘Indian Girl,’” reads the introduction to the interview. “I hear of this guy, and he’s got a cool name, Che Guevara!” says del Toro. “Groovy name, groovy man, groovy politics! So I came across a picture of Che, smiling, in fatigues, I thought, ‘Dammit, this guy...

On the eve of the French Revolution, the aristocrats inhabiting the palace of Versailles enjoyed, “as an ironic lark, sporting the clothing of the working classes,” according to writer Charles Stenson. These pampered elites were undisturbed by the fact that their peasant getups mocked the real peasants, many of whom were dying as a result of the elites’ self-serving policies. These clueless aristocrats have descendents in spoiled college kids who think it’s trendy to idolize Communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Che’s face is emblazoned on T-shirts, he was glamorized by the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries,” and Time magazine described him...

Are you kidding me? Last night while watching TV, I was certain I saw a Che Guevara poster on the wall of a child's room in a Windex commercial. Anybody else seen it?

Attention all you folks who think of yourselves as counterculture types who demonstrate your rebelliousness by wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. The author of the most popular blog from Cuba, Yoani Sanchez who not only talks the talk but walks the walk, thinks you are absurd. The Generation Y blogger was the subject of a Miami Herald story on Saturday. We will get to her marvelous quote on the subject of Che T-shirts below the fold but first some fascinating information on the person who provides an inside look at what is really happening in Cuba which is often missed by...

Ernesto "Che" Guevara's famous beret is gone. His iconic beard is filthy and matted against skeletal cheekbones. One bushy eyebrow arches over his half-open eyes. As a Bolivian country surgeon methodically saws off his lifeless hands, Che appears vaguely amused. Gustavo Villoldo, a stocky figure in green army fatigues, stands just inside the tiny laundry room where the Cuban revolutionary's corpse rests atop a sink. For five months, the CIA operative has led soldiers hunting Guevara through the rough crags and valleys of southern Bolivia. Less than 24 hours ago, his team had captured and executed him in a village...

....Che hardly ever sat for a bad photo--even in death. But of all surviving photographs of him, one in particular stands out: the head-and-shoulders portrait of a bearded, longhaired, 31-year-old Che, wearing a bomber jacket and his trademark beret emblazoned with the comandante star. Casey makes this image the central concern of Che's Afterlife, and in the book's opening chapter he offers a vivid re-creation of the "frozen millisecond" when the photo was taken. The date was March 5, 1960; the location a spot near Havana's Colón cemetery; the occasion a public funeral sponsored by the revolutionary government. The previous...

Imagine if a couple of women launched a "Hitler Spotting" website and proclaimed that they weren't Nazis but neutral about the morality of the subject. However, at the bottom of of the web page was this quote: "Sieg Heil!" What would you think about the true leanings of the women despite their protestations of political neutrality? Well, change just a few details and we are describing Kelly Westhoff and Jen Paulus. Their "Che Spotting" website begins with this "disclaimer." We are Kelly and Jen, and we are not Communists. They aren't card-carrying Communists but, as you shall see, they are...