Hola de Cuba!

A post from Cuba

I know I said there would not be any - because I had read that the internet is so bad, but then I found a WiFi connection.  The internet is bad.  I am convinced it is intentionally so.  It is ridiculously expensive for the average Cuban.  Thirty minutes of dial-up (yes, dial-up.  Remember that?) would cost a Cuban a days wages.  The other day it took me five minutes just to login into my gmail.  Facebook, because it has graphics, was much slower.  I would log on and let it run in the background while I read and responded to email.  If I was lucky, I could see my page for a minute before my card expired and the computer shut down.  You don't even get to keep the pages you loaded to read off-line.  They just melt away.  Cool graphic, that - your page melting away.  Once you get past the disappointment of seeing it melt away....

Mobile phone communication, even land lines, is equally pricey.  Skype calls cost more than $1. a minute.  Why?  Well, as John Marshall famously said: "the power to tax is the power to destroy."  I bet Hosni Mubarak wishes he had made communication a lot more expensive just about now.

At any rate I am in Cuba, learning a ton.  Some of it good, some of it bad.  But as my father used to say: "it costs money to learn how to play the piano."  Learning how to avoid getting cheated costs some money.  It cost me $12.50.  About the cost of a piano lesson.

The weather has been quite variable.  From sweltering on Wednesday, to downright cool yesterday.  Today is somewhere in the middle.  Tonight is my last night in Havana, then I get out and begin to see parts of the rest of the island.  Havana has been great.  Lots of material for the blog, but be patient.  I have taken advantage of the time here to write up most of the Turkey posts, so there is a backlog that needs to be cleared before the Cuba stuff starts. 

For Americans, I really wish you could come and experience this.  It is unique in many ways and, I expect, very perishable.  It's kind of a Catch-22.  You can't see it until the embargo ends, and when the embargo ends it will disappear.  I am taking pictures for you though.  Sadly you will have to live vicariously.  Until soon - Enjoy the canned posts.

Bonus WiT? Clue:  Am I going to have to bust some heads to get you to guess?  'Cuz I will.  Don't doubt me.  I'll do whatever it takes.  He'd prefer you hate him, well, fear actually...