Free Republic

Penny Starr at CNSNews.com found an appalling example of journalistic fawning over the Castro brothers of communist Cuba on Wednesday’s All Things Considered, the evening newscast of taxpayer-subsidized National Public Radio. Ramon Castro, the older brother of Fidel and Raul Castro, died last week at age 91. NPR reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro warmly recalled his sense of humor from going to a party in Havana for American business people (despite the ongoing trade embargo).

Ramon Castro, a lifelong rancher and farmer who bore a strong physical resemblance to younger brother Fidel Castro, has died, Cuban state media announced Tuesday. He was 91. Widely known by his nickname "Mongo," the white-bearded Ramon Castro preferred tending crops and livestock to the revolutionary political life embraced by his younger siblings Fidel and Raul, who replaced Fidel as Cuba's president in February 2008. Two years older than Fidel, Ramon was long used to getting double-takes from people who insisted he looked just like his famous brother. At times, Ramon was said to reply that because he was older,...

HAVANA (Reuters) - How did a well-to-do country boy with a conservative education called Fidel Castro turn into a fearless rebel and enduring leader of one of the world's last Marxist states? For Finnish documentary-maker Folke West, granted rare access to early Cuban state archives, the answer lies in Castro's formative years, long before he became a Communist. His 2-hour, 50-minute "Young Fidel" traces the Cuban president's life from his father's ranch through Jesuit schools and volatile university politics to a nearly suicidal raid on Cuba's second largest military garrison, prison and finally exile in 1955. "Most biographies jump most...