Thursday, May 21, 2015

Elian betrays his mother's sacrifice

On Thanksgiving Day 1999, little Elian Gonzalez was found floating in the Florida Straits.   He had escaped Cuba with his mother, who sadly drowned on the way to freedom.
In mid-2000, the Clinton Administration picked up Elian, reunited him with his father, the same man who walked away from him and his mother years before, and sent them back to Cuba.
It was a shameful performance by the Clinton administration, specially the scene of commandos grabbing the little boy.
Why didn’t President Clinton show this toughness to Al Qaeda sitting in Afghanistan and preparing attacks on the US?
Today, Elian is a young man and a mouthpiece for the dictatorship’s talking points:
“In an ABC News exclusive interview, Elian said his relationship with the former Cuban president is one of friendship.
“I am his friend but above all i consider him my father, my grandfather,” Elian said.
“Fidel, he is an incredible person. Everyone has his own opinion. It is somewhat difficult to refer to Fidel, because everyone thinks of Fidel as a god or those who rejects him call him the devil. But I’ve known one side of Fidel and what I have left to say is he is a normal person. He is a friend. He’s someone you can share with, you can laugh with.””
The problem is that Elian has forgotten, or forced to forget, his mother’s courageous story.
She put him on that boat so that little Elian could live in freedom.  I doubt that Elian’s mother wanted her son to become a propaganda mouthpiece for the dictatorship that she was running away from.
Elian’s mother must be crying in heaven watching what her little boy has turned into!
I hope that Elian comes to terms with the reality that he is chosen a different path than the one that his courageous mother died to give him.

 P.S. You can hear my show (CantoTalk) or follow me on Twitter.


Tags: Elian Gonzalez 1999 and 2015  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
Posted by Post Link --->

The Panama Canal story gets more fascinating

(My new American Thinker post)
We don't talk much about Panama lately, except when # 1 favorite son Mariano Rivera retired from the Yankees.   

It's refreshing for a Latin American country these days to make the front pages when one its heroes retires from professional reports.  We have cartel fights in Mexico, a complete mess unfolding in Venezuela, a dysfunctional political system in Argentina, a family scandal in stable Chile, anti-government marches in Brazil, second thoughts about negotiations with the FARC in Colombia, more repression in Cuba and little Central American countries overrun by cartels.

It's an ugly picture in Latin America and then there is a cool story down in Panama.

In fact, things are going well down in Panama and the Canal is the reason why, as we just read in story at Time:
The last time someone dug a trench through the Isthmus of Panama, the result was declared the greatest wonder of its age. It’s being done again–mountains toppled, earth moved by the millions of tons, oceans connected–and the wonder this time is that anyone notices.
The 2015 version of the Canal is fascinating, even for someone like me who does not know a thing about construction or engineering:
The new locks also operate differently. While the old chambers feature miter gates–which open and close like double doors–the new gates, made in Italy, slide in from one side, like a pocket door. The freshwater from the lake above will rush in and out through cavernous, curving culverts that, as workers complete the finishing touches, feel like something from King Solomon’s Mines. Basins next to each lock will store water for a single reuse, reducing freshwater usage by 7% per passage. The same new locks are also being installed on the Atlantic side, but in the midsection of the isthmus all ships will continue to steam along the original waterway, which has been upgraded.
Curves in the famous Culebra Cut, named for the mountain ridge the original canal had to be cut through, are being widened to ease turns for the bigger ships.
Metal communication towers are going up behind the picturesque lighthouses that string the length of the canal, along which 625 new lights are being installed.
Everything is bigger and more efficient–but also a bit less interesting than in the old canal, like a dull I-95 compared with the kicks of Route 66. But superhighways are what the Seven Seas have become. The number of cargo ships worldwide has more than quadrupled over the past 20 years, to 50,000 vessels carrying $13 trillion in goods each year. In a world economy bound together by supply chains–cars to China, sneakers to Houston–sea travel long ago ceased being leisurely. The canal takes reservations months in advance, collecting a 15% booking fee on a toll that often runs to $400,000 but guarantees passage in no less than 18 hours.
The expanded Canal will be great for Houston and other southern ports.

A century ago, the canal was an idea that revolutionized maritime trade and brought the world a bit closer.   It also  cost thousands of lives because of yellow fever and other tropical diseases.   

Today, the same canal, just a little wider, is about to change the world again!

P.S. You can hear my show  ( CantoTalk  ) or  follow me on Twitter   .
Tags: Panama Canal  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
Posted by Post Link --->

Marquette and some of the idiots teaching our kids today


(My new Babalu post)  

 We are happy to report that Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has removed the mural honoring the woman who killed a New Jersey state trooper.  

 This is the same person hiding from US law for years and living in the island with the blessing of the Castro dictatorship.    This is the latest from Milwaukee:  
"Marquette University has removed a mural that celebrated Assata Shakur, a convicted cop killer who is on the FBI's Most Wanted list under her birth name, Joanne Chesimard.
The mural, which had been on display in the student union's Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, was taken down Monday after a suspended professor noticed it on the center's Facebook page."
How did this happen?  What makes a woman who killed a police officer so attractive to the college left?
The answer is a combination of ignorance and disdain for the US.   I don't know what else to say.
Again, thanks to Marquette University for taking down this offensive poster.
Tags: The left in our universities  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
Posted by Post Link --->

The 113th anniversary of Cuba's independence & US-Latin America stories


Guests:  Fausta Rodriguez Wertz, editor of Fausta's Blog....and Fernando Hernandez, author of "The Cubans, Our Footprints Across America", a book about the story of Cubans in the US.......we will look at the 113th anniversary of Cuba's independence and remember some famous Cubans who came to the US..........also, the latest in US-Cuba talks plus a follow up on the events in Venezuela, Argentina and the murder of Mr Nisman, Brazil and the bad economy, Chile and a family scandal plus other stories from US-Latin America.....

 Click to listen:

Check Out Politics Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Silvio Canto Jr on BlogTalkRadio



Tags: Cuba Independence Day 1902  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
Posted by Post Link --->
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Search This Blog