A Twitter-riffic Beclowning: #Trudeaueulogies

First came the silly utterance. Then comes the Twitter mockery.  There's nothing quite as entertaining as watching an overhyped public figure shoot himself in the foot.

Cuban Exiles Celebrate in Miami's Little Havana

Good riddance to Fidel Castro. 

2016 has seen the departure of all too many notables from David Bowie to Florence Henderson, but I can't say that I'm sorry to see the last of Castro. A bunch of my leftie friends are busy waxing eloquent about him, but my sympathies are closer to Andy Garcia's sentiments and to the Cuban exiles celebrating in Little Havana.

Here's a detail:

The passing of Castro was also welcomed by Miami’s mayor, Tomas Regalado, who was born in Cuba and whose father was a political prisoner for more than 20 years. 

“For 57 years Fidel Castro has been the symbol of tyranny and oppression of our people,” Regalado said in a statement. “I call on the Obama administration and the Trump administration to demand real changes from the Cuban regime, on behalf of many Cubans who have died in the U.S. and in Cuba waiting for this day and for freedom.”

UPDATE 1: Obligatory "Cuba Libre" joke/tie-in. 

UPDATE 2: A Yale history professor does some mythbusting. Good for him.

UPDATE 3: Read this.

Qaddafi's Useful Idiots

Here are the top 10.  You won't be surprised, I think!  Here's a taste of it, in terms of Qaddafi and Hugo Chavez: "The greatest thug bromance since Hitler met Mussolini."

Congratulations to Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, New Nobel Laureate for Literature

Vargas Llosa absolutely sounds like my kind of guy:

Mr. Vargas Llosa was deeply involved in politics from a young age. He was an early backer of socialist causes especially the Cuban Revolution. He parted ways with Havana in 1971 after protesting the government's persecution of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla who was forced to make a Stalinist-like recantation of his critical poetry.

The Peruvian author later became known for his defense of free market and pro-democratic policies. In particular, he became the ying to the yang of Mr. [Gabriel] García Márquez [the 1982 Colombian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature]. Mr. Vargas Llosa has acidly referred to Mr. García Márquez, who is still a good friend of Fidel Castro, as a "Castro courtesan."

Their friendship came to a spectacular end in 1976 when at a Mexico City movie premiere, Mr. Vargas Llosa greeted Mr. García Márquez with a right hook that knocked the Colombian author on the red carpet and left him with a bloody nose and a black-eye. 

... The author [Vargas Llosa] led the fight against an eventually unsuccessful attempt by Mr. García to nationalize banks in Peru in the late 1980s.

The thought does occur to me: apparently this year, the Nobel Committee has regained a hint of common sense. It awarded the Peace Prize to someone who actually works (and suffers) for freedom and human rights in China, and it awarded the Prize for Literature to a writer who criticizes authoritarian regimes, slams Castro and Chavez, and champions free markets and democracy.  (Here is his official website.  Read this fascinating interview with him.)

Kudos, sir, and felicidades indeed!  I give you something even better than congratulations: 

"He is a reference point for all those who defend freedom in Latin America," said Carlos Alberto Montaner, an exiled Cuban writer. "And now with the Nobel, his voice will have much more weight."

OH YES.

UPDATE: An amusingly snarky observation by Kyle Smith on Vargas Llosa punching García Márquez:

Is Vargas Llosa, the freedom-and free-market-loving Nobel prize winner for literature, the first Nobelist to have the honor of having punched out another Nobel prize winner? Too bad he didn’t punch out Arafat, but he did manage to floor a chum of Fidel Castro...

Quote of the Day: Castro on the Cuban Model of Life and Government-Run Economy

According to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg who interviewed Fidel Castro recently, the Cuban said, "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."   Wait, what?  Here's a blurb from Goldberg's report:

I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said.

This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, "Never mind"?

I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, "He wasn't rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under 'the Cuban model' the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country."  [My emphasis -- MM]

Julia pointed out that one effect of such a sentiment might be to create space for his brother, Raul, who is now president, to enact the necessary reforms in the face of what will surely be push-back from orthodox communists within the Party and the bureaucracy.  Raul Castro is already loosening the state's hold on the economy. He recently announced, in fact, that small businesses can now operate and that foreign investors could now buy Cuban real estate.

Well, well, well.  Look who's finally got a taste of cold hard reality.  Hm: "the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country."  HEH.  Statists, listen up!  Oh, and didn't I just post about this sort of idea?