"Sounds like paradise has lost just a bit of its glow."
Nobody - not in my hearing anyway, has ever claimed Cuba to be a 'paradise' - except those who would prove that it wasn't.
It was a poor and viciously oppressed country under Batista; that was a fact widely enough accepted for film directors like Francis Ford Coppola to depict it as such, with scenes of women reduced to publicly having sex with animals for the entertainment of the Yankee visitors (a grim reality in South Viet-Nam where 'the saviours of democracy' there were actually treated to the same type of 'entertainment').
America has actively prevented Cuba from improving its lot for over half a century with an embargo designed to starve its people into subjugation.
There have been numerous miltary incursions (noteably the Bay of Pigs debacle) and a constant threat of same; at the last count there have been 80+ direct attempts on Castro's life.
Despite this cowardly global bullying led by the US, and despite numerous natural disasters, Cuba has survived as an independent power, holding two fingers up to the world's most powerful, aggressive and predatory nation for 52 years, from 90 odd miles away, during which time it has provided its people with an enviable health and education system, comparing mightily with the recent sordid squabbles over providing US citizens with affordable health care in order to simply keep the poorest of them alive.
Not a 'paradise' by any means, but a miracle of dedication, courage and fortitude by the people of an impoverished and underdeveloped country towards maintaining their independence and not becoming just another scalp on the belt of the all-consuming US empire.
Every American should hang their head in shame for their country's role in trying to bring a tiny island nation to its knees, instead of starting sneery little threads like this designed to invent a victory it has been unable to gain in reality.
Jim Carroll