Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The sons and daughters of the revolution are running out of toilet paper in Cuba, according to a Reuters report . “Cuba's financial reserves have been depleted by increased spending for imports and reduced export income, which has forced the communist-led government to take extraordinary measures to keep the economy afloat. "’The corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper,’ an official with state conglomerate Cimex said on state-run Radio Rebelde. “The shipment will enable the state-run company ‘to supply this demand that today is presenting problems,’ he said.” Why, it may be asked, don’t the sons and daughters of the revolution make their own toilet paper, thus lowering the price that Cubans pay for more expensive imports? Cash poor Cuba, under the enlightened administration of the Castro brothers, does make some toilet paper. However, it does not have the cash to purchase the raw material to prod...

A citizen of Castro’s Cuba, a hotel cook and taxi cab driver, perhaps weary of the slender tips he has been receiving since Castro came to power in 1956 , takes a drag in his cigarette outside the Xanadu hotel, built in the 1920’a by U.S. millionaire Irenee du Pont de Nemours and expropriated by the Castro regime, and tells a Reuters reporter, “Not one person here has anything against the Americans. Let them come to Varadero in their boats or whatever because for us the Americans mean one thing -- more money.” Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez speculates whether the “Cuba sí, Yankee no!" proposition is destined for the ash can of history. Supposing the island is to be flooded by U.S. Tourists, she wonders, “What would party militants think if they were told to accept those who until recently they were told to hate?" Bloomberg news reports that Latin American “leaders” such as the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez will press President Barack Obama for an end to the Cuban embargo pu...