All joking aside, Cuba is a mess - (good, from a Canadian, if she didn't blame U.S. blockade!)

EDMONTON SUN.COM ^ | MAY 30, 2005 | Patrycja Romanowska

[snarks_when_bored]

Castro has always had all the answers, he's always known what's best for his people (just ask him). So why would he need the U.S., with its decadent capitalist system? Why couldn't he build his little communist Fantasy Island without us? Blockade? Why should that matter?

[Toskrin]

Amazing how anyone can blame the sad condition of Cuba the least bit on the USA embargo. What denial!

[Leo Carpathian]

Sewage and other household liquids drip onto the streets from cracks, broken pipes and balconies. There is garbage everywhere.

Bush's and Americans fault!

Stoopid "amazonka" Eh?

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Why repair anything that you know is a tear-down?

It's just a matter of time.

The failed exhibition of one man's ignorance and arrogance.

[wizardoz]

I hate to admit this but there's something I don't know: Is it an embargo, or a blockade? I mean, do we simply refuse to trade with them ... or do we actually have the island surrounded, preventing anyone else from legally trading with them?

[LibFreeOrDie]

The author refers to what the U.S. is doing as a "blockade." It is not. The U.S. Navy is NOT blocking Cuban harbors, nor is it preventing ships of other countries from getting to Cuba.

Details of sanctions here:
http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sanctions/

Castro is free to get any stuff he wants from his socialist pals in the region (Chavez, ...) or from anywhere else. But he chooses not to.

[Leo Carpathian]

Prior to my arrival in Cuba, I had much admiration for the tenacity of this small country in defying the dominance of the United States - especially coming from Canada where we constantly struggle to strengthen our (very different) relationship with the U.S. while maintaining our cultural integrity.

Looks like this Polish named reporterette must be brainwashed with old commie stuff, can't shake it off, Eh?

Calling Bush idiot, will do the "strengthening", Eh? Which cultural integrity? Must be the official Multicultural.

[billorites]

There is no country in the Western Hemisphere that I would more like to visit and get to know than Cuba.

I hope someday I can.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The U.S. is not blockading Cuba. They can trade freely with any other country in the world. The truth is that the socialists don't have a clue about the relationship between output and incentive. Cuba has stores that are for foriegners only that have anything you want yet Cubans do without and cannot go in them and Cuban pesos are not accepted in them.

[Donald Meaker]

Canada would be more sure to keep its culture of long lines at the medical clinics if they would keep their people north of the border, rather than having them constantly trooping down to our country to get decent care.

I am sure that our doctors love the color of their money, but I get browned off at their smug superiority.

[CHARLITE]

"The author refers to what the U.S. is doing as a "blockade." It is not."

BINGO! .......and BRAVO, too! I was waiting for a reader to see that error. She no doubt meant "embargo" or "sanctions." However, considering that she is most likely a liberal, then using the term "blockade" sounds more sinister, and implies more blame for America.

Thanks for your comments and the link.

Char

[Waco]

Cuba, like all socialist slop holes is a HUGE suucess. Just ask the NYT. Castro can bring anything he wants in Cuba. Tootsie needs to wake up.

[Natural Law]

It is good to know that the blocade is working, but I have concerns that again the wrong people are suffering. Castro has a personal wealth of over $400M and doesn't go without anything.

[RicocheT]

Why is it that evil dictators such as Castro live so long? Absolute power and the ability to squash others like a bug must have some artery clearing, brain stimulus function.

[cibco]

The US refuses to trade with Cuba. The rest of the world does. Cuba can't make it based on this.

Cuba's problem is - Cuba.

[SamAdams76]

I had much admiration for the tenacity of this small country in defying the dominance of the United States - especially coming from Canada where we constantly struggle to strengthen our (very different) relationship with the U.S. while maintaining our cultural integrity.

Cultural integrity? Aside from ice hockey, skunky beer in green bottles, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray and a few other pop singers, what cultural integrity are we talking about here?

Not that Canada is a bad place. But this author is talking as though Canada is some kind of intellectual mecca.

[CHARLITE]

It is the same in all totalitarian dictatorships. We were travelling in Romania 10 years before the fall of Ceaucescu. We met a Russian diplomat in our hotel lobby, who told us that right there in that hotel, (one of Bucharest's most elegant hotels) there were reserved suites with call girls, ("on call!") where the top functionaries of the Ceaucescu regime could go at any hour of the day or night, and that one of the most popular activities was taking baths with the girls, in bathtubs filled with champagne and caviar,

When Jane Fonda told an audience that "if you knew what Communism IS, you would get down on your knees and pray that we BECOME COMMUNIST"....do you think this is what she was thinking of?.........'round the clock availability of champagne and caviar baths, "if you know the right people?!"

Char

[Paulus Invictus]

Touche' ! You spelled it out beautifully. I have been to Eastern Canuckistan many times and never discovered their presumed "culture." Maybe it has to be all about hockey violence and/or poorly piped Scot pipes that they used to play to tourists at the border with NY. Or is it the unintelligible 18th Century French they speak there? Hmmmm?

[commonasdirt]

"Castro is free to get any stuff he wants from his socialist pals in the region (Chavez, ...) or from anywhere else. But he chooses not to"

Chooses not to....or cannot pay? Chavez might give him free stuff but doubt anyone else will. Eh....either way the regime/workers paradise is coming to an end, and soon