I’ve never been to Cuba, I’ve known only a few Cubans in all of my travels, but I’ve always been in love with the place. I love the Caribbean culture (the pale white guy from Upstate New York dairy country that I am), I love the music, I love the food, I love the cigars and I love the rum. I can’t keep from dancing (well, my version thereof) everytime I hear Celia Cruz or Tito Puente.<\/p>\n
I fell in love with Gloria Estefan back in the early 80s when it was just the Miami Sound Machine and the only place you could watch her was on that old Spanish-language network SPN – and all of her music was in Spanish.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I feel cheated by Castro – admittedly not to the extent that Cuban\u00c2\u00a0exiles\u00c2\u00a0feel cheated, of course – but cheated nonetheless of\u00c2\u00a0steamy tropical nights in Havana with the smells and sounds that accompany my imaginary forays through that magical and historical city. The first thing I do when get out of the US is buy a Partagas Lusitania and a bottle of Havana Club Anejo Especial (most often at the Bodega Mi Amiga<\/a> on Via Porra in Panama City) and head for the nearest beach with my big straw hat to do my best imitation of a colonialisto. <\/em><\/p>\n Anyway, thanks to the internet,\u00c2\u00a0I get to read what life is like in Cuba and what it was like before 1959. So some of my favorite “recreational” blogs are Cuban – pale white guy from Upstate NY dairy country that I am.<\/p>\n But anyway, today from Uncommon Sense<\/a> (a great Cuban blog to keep up on Cuban and Cuban-exile politics\u00c2\u00a0with some historical perspective thrown in) I read the best refutation of Michael Moore’s latest low-budget-poorly-written-poorly-acted-film-masquerading-as-a-documentary from a recent Cuban immigrant who has witnessed first hand Castro’s healthcare system\u00c2\u00a0at her blog Cubanita in Colorado<\/a>. I don’t want to spoil it for you by quoting from Mailyn\u00c2\u00a0– please go read it for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"