Well, I'm someone who constantly refers to my fellow Canadians as "Soviet Canuckistan, Castro-luvin, Dubya-dissin, Hosers, as a joke. (yer right, why bother with jokes on current mudcat?)

I NEVER loved (in any way) ol' Fidel though. He struck me as a pompous, long winded overly sincere kind of revolutionary. What he did in the beginning probably was quite remarkable, but he quickly took on some of the worst aspects of the system he deposed. Probably no choice either, 'cause hanging on to power in ANY system means draconian measures will be used. Newspapers wanna keep printing, and editors wanna stay out of jail, so whether it's Havana or Houston, they'll support the status-quo.

On the other hand, the beaches are nice, the priveleged get lotsa perqs, and surviving as long as they have, is pretty amazing. When Castro croaks, listen for that "instant suckingggg" sound. My guess is that MacDonald's will get there first.

Rick