Fresh New Hell

According to today’s Miami Herald Fidel Castro made a “live” Radio and TV appearance on Cuban radio and TV yesterday when Cuban radio and TV broadcast Hugo Chavez’s Alo Presidente program from Cuba.

WOW! Fidel live. Talking to the Cuban people. Wasn’t he supposed to be moribund?

But don’t get too excited. For the press covering Cuba, a live appearance isn’t exactly what a live appearance would be in the rest of the world.

Castro’s “appearance” was by phone. Frankly, I’m not too impressed. Al Gore, Louis Farrakhan, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson and even Fidel himself have called the Babalu Radio Hour. Live.

So, after not addressing the Cuban people for over 15 months, the dictator calls Hugo. Instead of talking about Cuba, he talks about spreading revolution, (read oppression, poverty and despair), all over Latin America:

''The world is full of Vietnams,'' Castro said, ``in the face of a tyrannical power that is exercised over the planet.''

Referring to the famous Che Guevara quote. Castro added that now, 40 years after the t-shirt icon was executed, his ideas are finally blossoming.

Castro, ever the optimist, also warned of the apocalypse:

he warned that the world was, ''very close -- very, very, very close'' to a nuclear war.

He didn’t elaborate if this is because of the Iranian efforts to develop a nuclear weapon and bring about their version of “the final solution”.

Castro didn’t comment on the economic “debate” that is sweeping the island nor did he come up with any ideas to save the revolution, again. But, I admit it might have been a tad uncomfortable to bring up the failing and dysfunctional Cuban economy to the recovered comandante since his brilliant ideas were the ones that caused all of Cuba’s problems in the first place.

Chavez’s show also aired a video of Chavez’s visit with his idol. In the video, The Bolivarian Renaissance Man, sings, presents Fidel a painting that he painted himself and even prays to his mentor Fidel:

He treated the Cuban leader with a mixture of gentle humor and semi-religious reverence, intoning at one point a revolutionary version of the beginning of The Lord's Prayer: ``Father Fidel, our father who is, and always will be, in the earth, the sky and the waters.''

I hope that Cuba resists the temptation of airing Chavez’s show over the Cuban airwaves every week.

What a “Fresh New Hell” (as Marta puts it) that would be!