Useful Models and the Like

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There was a time when it was plausible that there were true believers of the castro line. That time is long past. So when I see celebrities, congressmen, and the types that seem to have made a livelihood of cheerleading for the Havana Mafiosi on the net, I have to wonder.
Some are easy to dismiss because they don’t have two IQ points to rub together. Take for instance, the latest stunt Naomi Campbell pulled in Cuba. She “stunned” a couple of newlyweds by giving them the keys to one of the 100 homes Chavez built in Cuba. The newlyweds are described as “speechless.” I’ll say they were, given the housing crisis in Cuba. Is this PR moment supposed to make a difference? It does to the press. It’s hard to say who is more ignorant here: Campbell or the writer of the article, who casts Campbell as “Mrs. Claus.”
Others, people who should know better, people who do know better, seem almost perverse in their insistence on supporting the regime and denigrating its victims, to the point where it is something of a personal jihad. Some, particularly in Academia, seem to have a pathological need not to see the “Revolution” for what it is, cannot face that they have been wrong for decades. But in some cases, I suspect the truth is that when the books in Havana are opened, we will find some interesting expenses and perhaps some even more interesting pictures.

4 thoughts on “Useful Models and the Like”

  1. I suspect the truth is that when the books in Havana are opened, we will find some interesting expenses and perhaps some even more interesting pictures.
    It’s a media-driven world. Dictators and penny-ante terrorist scum alike preen for the cameras and protect their posterity.
    I would not be surprised if such records were being cleansed already.

  2. I was in Russia for most of the summer of 1988, and none of this surprises me at all. You could tell that the whole stupid facade was about to come down. I went to a circus, and the clowns were more like comedians than our clowns, and the comedy was always a mixture of slapstick and political. There was even some investigative journalism on TV.
    In 1987 a group of former Soviet Afghan War and US Vietnam War pilots met at my campus and those of us in the Russian department met (and drank a lot) with them. Many of the Russians freely admitted having flown in Vietnam, even though the USSR had always denied that their pilots were actually in combat. So, the official Soviet line was actually cracking even earlier, in 1987.
    This was a really refreshing article to read. Thanks for digging it up.

  4. Well, she obviously can’t stay on the catwalk or do magazine covers indefinitely, and I suppose she needs a plan B for an “alternate” career. I’m sure Alicia Alonso would understand.

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