By John David Powell - The call from my friend Oscar came as I dozed in front of the television. “Are you watching Univision or Telemundo?” he asked. I told him I was dozing, and asked him what was going on.

He told me that the Spanish-language stations had just announced that Cuba’s Fidel Castro was undergoing surgery and had turned over power to his brother Raul.

“They’re already dancing in the streets in Miami. The old son-of-a-bitch may already be dead. Wasn’t Stalin dead for a week before they told anyone?”

Oscar and his family have been in this country for more than forty years, but his ties to Cuba remain strong, partly because he has family still in Havana. He remembers watching the Playa Girón, or Bay of Pigs, invasion from his apartment window. He retells stories of the installation of anti-aircraft guns on the top of his apartment building. On rare occasions, he shows the home movie he took as Castro and his band of thugs entered Havana.

He shares snippets of Cuba’s past, how Cuban women sold their jewelry to bail out a bankrupt Continental Army, how the Chinese played a major role in Cuban history and culture.

He has no patience for those he terms useful idiots who wear t-shirts bearing the face of Che Guevara, the cowardly murderer of children and the darling of the pretentious and ill-educated left. He ridicules those who speak in glowing terms about Cuba’s healthcare system, whose doctors are no more than paramedics or physician assistants. He politely endures stories from those who visit Cuba and boast about how much one can buy for a single Yankee dollar and ask if he ever went to the Buena Vista Social Club.

He longs for a return of the luster of the jewel of the Caribbean.

My friend Oscar is not alone. The Internet provides outlets for countless supporters of a free Cuba, millions of dreamers anxious in their wait to awake from their collective nightmare.

And today, the first day of August, just a week before Castro’s eightieth birthday, the blogosphere is afire with news and rumors, along with hope and speculation for Cuba’s next chapter. An Internet search narrowed for Cuba, Castro, and blogs returns 1.9 million hits.

The Blog for Cuba (http://blogforcuba.typepad.com) could be the blog of blogs, with links to more than sixty anti-Castro news and blog sites. Today’s entry, “While We Wait”, includes photographs of death, destruction, and despair.

Abajo Fidel (www.abajofidel.blogspot.com) provides Internet radio links and scatological steam letting, along with Drudge-like headlines:

“Medical advise from a reputable cuban gastro doctor from texas...Fidel castro may have had a gastric ulcer or bleeding through the colon area.. At at that age it is very difficult for him to survive but not impossible.. Even if he does survive he may have great additional complications......Developing......”

Oscar frequents the Babalu Blog (www.babalublog.com). Today’s posts provide no news but a lot of rumor:

“As you can imagine, rumors are rampant right now within circles of the Cuban-American community. Ive heard that there was one person who witnessed the bearded bastard die personally. Of course, I cant cofirm the validity of that report. Nor, I suspect, will we be able to confirm any report of any kind regarding this issue. the Cuban government is holding all the cards on this right now. Im getting emails from folks who have been in contact with family in Cuba, most of which saying that there's an eerie silence in the island and most family members are apprehensive about discussing the events via telephone with family abroad for fear of reprisals.”

The Real Cuba (www.therealcuba.com) takes a more traditional approach by providing video clips of the latest news and links to historic documents regarding Castro and the United States.

The Miami Herald is the defacto paper of record for news about Cuba. As expected from a professional news outlet, its blog (http://blogs.herald.com/cuban_connection) offers a journalistic approach to news and information, one that is not fueled by speculation, and therefore, much less entertaining, than, say Independent Sources (http://independentsources.com/2006/07/11/fidel-castro-dead/) that provides a picture of Daisy Fuentes laughing in the surf.

Such are Cubans as they live their lives while they wait for death.


John David Powell is a six-time winner of the Houston Press Club Lone Star Award for Internet Opinion Writing, a communication professional, and a contributor to the Christian History Project. His email address is johndavidpowell@yahoo.com