Posted on 12/20/2008 10:04:00 PM PST by nickcarraway
U.S. physician and clown Hunter "Patch" Adams, known internationally as "the doctor of laughter," put on an act for homeless people in the Cuban town of Santa Cruz del Sur, devastated in November by Hurricane Paloma.
"It was a really important experience to be part of this and make friends," Adams told reporters Friday, after taking his art to this town in the eastern province of Camaguey, where he found "a spontaneous welcome of friendship."
Adams, 65, has visited Cuba six times since 1998, and this time came with a cast made up of 15 Virginia medical professionals and students to present his shows of "humanitarian clowning."
The group shared the stage with members of the Cuban children's theater company La Colmenita (Little Beehive), which Adams judged "the most beautiful meeting of two countries with such a complicated history" in which "the bridge is this group of children" with whom "we were working as a team."
Another of the group's actors, Dr. John Glick, said that for a week they put on shows in which language was "never" a barrier and through music and dance they communicated with an audience of different generations.
He also said that working with La Colmenita has been "very special" and expressed a wish "to do a bigger show and to be together more often."
Since the creation in 1986 of the health project led by Adams, he has traveled to more than 62 countries, and his schedule includes visits to Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone and the Gaza strip in the coming months.
Homeless in Cuba?
“Homeless in Cuba?”
Paging Michael Moore!
"Adams, 65, has visited Cuba six times since 1998..."
"...and the Gaza strip in the coming months."
He came through St Louis once when I worked in baggage service for TWA. I found his well decorated suitcase going around and around on the carousel, well after the flight had arrived. I figured that he was waiting at the wrong carousel or something so I paged him,
“Will the clown from TWA flt319 arriving from Detroit, please come to carousel M2 to claim your luggage...”
I heard him laugh from across the room, over the gasps of other passengers. Nice guy, didn’t know or care about his politics at the time.
Doctors wasting time clowning around instead of treating sick people. Do actual clowns come in and do surgery and dispense pills?
A quick look at the Latin American Herald Tribune (the former Caracas Journal, according to the “about” page) confirms that this is Hugo’s English-language mouthpiece.
The colorfully-attired Patch Adams and his consort passed through National several times when I was working there two years ago. He did not strike me as at all humorous and admitted he was obsessed with taking down GWB. Presumably, recent developments have restored his lightheartedness and put spring in his step.
Having looked at some of the Cuban blogs, including that one about the real state of that wonderful free Cuban health care (that is, for the little people, not the rich gringos and nomenklatura) I should think the homeless orphans would be more grateful for Adams and his crew if they were in white lab coat mode rather than clown suit. Especially considering the reputation of Cuban doctors in Venezuela.
As far as Patch Adams goes, I really underestimated the creepiness.
Cuba-the land of the greatest health care system in the world,
Oh, he’s a clown alright.
“Homeless”
And all along I thought that Cuba is a socialist paradise....I’m so disappointed.
I wonder how his ego has been since having Robin Williams “play” him in a major studio movie?
Let me get this right:
Hummmm....
The case of Patch Adams is an example of how search engines can prevent acquisition of accurate articles. Several years ago I discovered a criticism of Patch Adams written by a close associate who asserted that: Patch was a mentally impaired charlatan who fraudulently solicited millions of dollars for an institute that was never built.
Many examples of Patch’s bizarre and destructive activities were recounted. It was disclosed that at the time of Patch’s celebrity status that Virginia had no record of his medical licensure.
I consider the failure of Google and Dogpile to elicit critical resources relevant to Patch Adams to be indicative of how knowledge and opinions can be manipulated by special interests.
People are starving and homeless and this caring clown puts on a nightclub act for their benefit.
Typical liberal style over substance nonsense.
Has anyone noticed that Robin Williams always plays the same character? He’s the fun-loving iconoclast, friend to all good and openminded people. Then some sinister, tight-lipped killjoys decide he must be stopped. Their evil plot knocks the heart and soul out of him, and he begins speaking in strained, bitter tones as he learns that the world isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. With the support of his many friends, his spirit rallies, but he is a sadder and wiser man, his boyish spark forever diminished.
This summary is all you ever need to know about Patch Adams, Dead Poets’ Society, and Good Morning Vietnam.
Which is why my favorite work of his, once “Mork and Mindy” went off, was always his standup.
Guess this goes down as example #1756 of the fact that “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder”.
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