Festive Left Friday Blogging: The show goes on in Cuba

Age? What’s that? Okay, it’s a bit more than just a number to Cuba’s prima ballerina emerita, but she’s still on her feet:

Famous Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, retired from the dance for decades due to age and physical limitations, surprised the audience at the Havana Festival of Ballet on Monday night with a short dance performance, which was received with a standing ovation.

Nearly 92 years old, and despite difficulties with movement and vision, Alonso interpreted “Retrato para el recuerdo” in homage to Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963), one of Cuba’s greatest composers, whose best-known composition, “La Comparsa”, is 100 years old this year.

“The applause on Monday was interminable, and will surely be repeated during the next days of the 23rd Festival”, according to Juventud Rebelde.

Alonso, director and choreographer of the National Ballet of Cuba and president of the festival, demonstrated that “her spirit still dances at the level of legends”.

Alonso was partnered with Jorge Vega, a Cuban former principal dancer now living in Mexico, along with other retirees of the dance such as Martha García, María Elena Llorente, Orlando Salgado, Lázaro Carreño, and Osmay Molina, who all danced in tribute to Lecuona.

The 11-day festival takes place in the great halls of Havana and Cárdenas (150 km east of Havana), with 30 grand performances and 56 débuts, nine of them world-class, under the motto “Of Tradition and New Paths”.

Among the invited ballet companies are Ballet Preijocaj and Malandain Ballet Biarritz (both from France), Jo Strømgren Kompani (Norway), the Concert Ballet of Puerto Rico, and José Manuel Carreño and Estrellas del Ballet Norteamericano.

Along with the homage to Lecuona, two other gala performances are scheduled: one to the centenary of the birth of Cuban author Virgilio Piñera (1912-79), and a 40th-anniversary retrospective of Alicia Alonso’s performance in Giselle, which elevated her to fame as prima ballerina and choreographer.

The festival also celebrates the 64 years of the National Ballet of Cuba, founded by Alonso, which has achieved international renown and has elevated numerous dancers to worldwide recognition.

Translation mine.

Much was made at the time of Alicia Alonso’s decision to return to Cuba and contribute to the revolution, instead of staying in the US where her ballet career could have been that much more lucrative. But her choice was vindicated in that Cuba has maintained its culture, and grown, too, thanks to her contribution. Coming hot on the heels of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, too, this festival is a peaceful reminder that Cuba remains unbowed, even in the face of aggression from just ninety miles to the north. ¡Viva Compañera Alicia!

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Festive Left Friday Blogging | Comments Off on Festive Left Friday Blogging: The show goes on in Cuba

Clip ‘n’ Save: Handy Hurricane Hints

For my friends south of the border, a helpful checklist:

Remember this when you go to vote, because if you or anyone you know plans on voting for Mittens, this is what you’ll get. A shitstorm.

PS: More helpful hints to and from the jet set here.

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Posted in Clip 'n' Save, Economics for Dummies, El Predicto Speaks..., Environmentally Ill, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Good to Know, Isn't It Ironic?, The Hardcore Stupid, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on Clip ‘n’ Save: Handy Hurricane Hints

Henri is haunted!

C’est affreux, ce qui passe à ce pauvre minouche aujourd’hui. Henri, je t’adore pour dire la vérité!

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What’s stronger than Hurricane Sandy?

These are:

These modest homes are all plastic, made in Venezuela. And they are strong enough to withstand even the force of a Caribbean hurricane:

Much destruction, countless uprooted trees and downed power lines. This remains the predominant scene in every corner of Santiago de Cuba on Monday. But it is accompanied by swarms of men and women who, using modern means or simple machetes and brooms, are transforming the images of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation from four days ago before our very eyes.

The president of Cuba, Raúl Castro, toured the streets of Cuba’s second-largest city, and nearby zones of renown such as Siboney and El Caney. The spirit of Santiago’s citizens was as great as the devastation.

Raúl began his tour with an homage to José Martí at his mausoleum in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, which also houses monuments to the fallen of the July 26 uprising, and the internationalist martyrs. There was no major damage at the site, nor was the Martí mausoleum affected.

During a brief stop at a site along the Central Highway, near the exit from Santiago, where a hundred Venezuelan-made “petrocasas” had been erected five years ago, it became evident how little damage these buildings had sustained compared to the devastation wrought by the hurricane on the other homes nearby. It is a sign that the petrocasas are a good option, especially in rural zones.

The Santiago residents of the petrocasas could personally confirm the buildings’ resistance to strong winds.

“Listen, I thought they wouldn’t hold out, but there they are — they’re super-strong!” said Olvedis Ramos, who was surprised by the cyclone while he was visiting local relatives.

“I thought Sandy would be stronger than the petrocasas, but she was no match for them.”

In a characteristic gesture of solidarity, the inhabitants of the petrocasas took in many neighbors who were at risk. None of the Venezuelan-built homes suffered any damage.

Said Raúl Castro about the passing of Sandy over the province, “It’s been hard, but Santiago is Santiago. It has resisted gales and wars of every kind, and it will overcome this one too. We must resist!”

A smattering of applause was the response.

Translation mine.

The idea of the petrocasas was conceived a few years ago in Venezuela, as a solution to the housing problems there. Many Venezuelans, especially in urban areas, live in precarious shantytowns on flood-prone hillsides. They need inexpensive but durable materials to build their houses so the latter don’t rot away in the heat and rain of that tropical land, as so many of the rickety improvised hillside ranchos do. And since petroleum is abundant and cheap, hard plastic became an obvious choice. Many former slum dwellers now live in safe, dignified petrocasas, which are made from PVC walls filled with cement.

Now Venezuela is helping out Cuba (which supplied doctors and literacy teachers to those same slums) by replacing poor families’ bohíos (shacks) with petrocasas, among other things. And since Cuba was recently found to possess some vast offshore oil deposits, which the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA (builder of the petrocasa!), will soon help develop, it’s just a matter of time before petrocasas become a regular feature of the Cuban landscape. They will play a considerable part, too, in Cuba’s industrial revamp and modernization, and will provide plenty of good jobs.

Just more proof that when Cuba comes in from the cold, it won’t be because the US lifted that odious blockade with which they attempted to starve the island into submission, nor will capitalists play the role of the heroic liberator; it will be with the help of fellow Latin Americans, most prominently the oil-rich (and oil-wise) Bolivarian people of Venezuela.

And just more proof that human solidarity is stronger than any hurricane.

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Posted in Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Economics for Dummies, Huguito Chavecito, Karma 1, Dogma 0, Socialism is Good for Capitalism! | 1 Comment

Operation Caymans, plus a post-Sandy roundup of sorts

Two funny folks went to the sunny place where Mitt Romney hides his pieces-of-eight, and discover a real-life pirate’s nest.

It’s not exactly a big secret that Mr. R-Money is a big fan of the Caymans, since his partyboat bears their flag. And he’s not releasing his tax returns, which is rather highly suspicious, don’t you think?

But hey, this stuff is an awful downer, considering that people in New York (who probably don’t have money stashed offshore, let alone in the Caymans) are drowning in rat-infested floodwaters right now, when they’re not struggling to feed themselves or going on Craigslist to get their starving, rat-eaten butts laid. So let’s just remember that Mr. Mittens also talked of privatizing FEMA, and enjoy this wacky jogger who decided to welcome the storm while wearing a fake horse’s head.

PS: Please also enjoy his rollerblading unicorn cousin.

PPS: Perhaps our two equine shirtless dudes are just happy that the wild ponies of Chincoteague are safe? I know I am.

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Posted in Economics for Dummies, Environmentally Ill, Filthy Stinking Rich, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Not So Compassionate Conservatism, The United States of Amnesia, The WTF? Files | Comments Off on Operation Caymans, plus a post-Sandy roundup of sorts

Music for a Sunday: Something shimmering and white

Wish I knew what you were looking for…

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Wankers of the Week: Hello, weenies!

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You’ve heard of Mr. Potato Head? Meet his cousin…Mr. Pumpkin Pants.

Crappy weekend, everyone! Celebrating Halloween a little early, are we? Watch out for ghosties, ghoulies, goblins, and long-leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night. (If they’re just kids, throw candy at ’em. That’ll make ’em go away, and not soap your windows or TP your trees.) And while you’re at it, watch out for these people, who might just give you a nasty shock…

1. Danielle Fucking Smith. Tainted meat crawling with E. coli from XL Foods? No problem! Just feed it to the poors. They deserve to eat shit anyway, right? After all, Alberta is rich white folks’ country!

2. Ann Fucking Coulter. For shame! How dare you speak of Paul Fucking Ryan that way? I know he’s a little slow and all, but did you have to rub it in? And gee, Ann, why don’t you say the R-word a little louder, so Sarah Fucking Palin can hear you all the way from Alaska? PS: Ha, ha. I do so love to see ‘winger shrews blasting their own. It saves me so much work. PPS: Ha, ha, ha — this is even sweeter. How’s it feel to be pwned by a real live “retard”, Ann?

3. Mitt Fucking Romney. Send in the cavalry with horses and bayonets! We MUST attack Persia and cut off Syria’s route to the sea! Et cetera. NOW do you understand why this rich idiot would make a poor president?

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Oh yeah, and there’s this, too. Ol’ Mittens is a homophobe from way back.* Now we know why he attacked that guy in high school and cut off his hair. PPS: This little bit of late-breaking dickishness doesn’t help, either. PPPS: And that giant glug-glug you’re hearing now is Mittens’ political career, sinking. Irretrievably.

*Yes, I know it’s not real. But it’s still an accurate representation!

4. Rick Fucking Santorum. Why do you hate the Pursuit of Happiness, Butt-Sploodge? Oh yeah…it made you fat. Well, suck it up, Ricky, and start pursuing happiness at the other end of a treadmill, if it bothers you so much. But don’t try to convert anyone else to your dumbass puritanism. Nobody is interested!

5. Conrad Fucking Black. Oh dearz, Lord Blah-Blah does NOT like to be reminded of his own criminality. And he’s all whiny and victimized about it. Well, suck it up, you thin-skinned old coot, you’re going to be hearing no end of it. And good luck trying to sue your way out of accountability this time. Nobody’s intimidated by your legal threats anymore. (Probably because they know you don’t really have the money to cover your ass with high-powered lawyers.) PS: Ha, ha. Kiss your Snowflake goodbye, Con-man! PPS: Oh look, the spiteful old git is taking my advice. Trying to beat the Order to the punch, natch. So long, Con…and don’t let the door hit you where your mama done split you!

6. Maurice Fucking Vellacott. Nope, he still hasn’t gotten laid. And he’s very cranky about it…so much so that he’s willing to nominate a serial harasser for a medal. Will no one volunteer to finally give him (or pay for) whatever it takes to shut him the fuck up? And while you’re at it…could someone please do something about that shellacky helmet hair? It looks like it was just snapped onto his head, like a Lego piece or something. PS: Ha, ha. What an asshat.

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7. Mark Fucking Clayton. You know your campaign is a joke when the merry pranksters of Gawker decide to “endorse” you. (Note the quotes.) When all you’ve got is homophobia, misogyny and paranoia, you’d best just pack it up and go home. But since “home” is Tennessee, this bozo will probably get far more votes than he deserves.

8. Michele Fucking Bachmann. Oh looky, Ms. Pro-Life fled from a disabled would-be interviewer! Guess we now know how she really feels about all those special-needs children she’s trying to keep from being aborted. Whoopsie!

9. Todd Fucking Akin. That giant clanging you hear is the death knell of Legitimate Rape Man’s campaign. Of course, he’s probably going to take the martyr’s pose now that his anti-choice activism from the 1980s is no longer a dirty little secret. BTW, since he’s been arrested and jailed for those ugly activities, shouldn’t he be automatically disqualified from running for office?

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10. Richard Fucking Mourdock. And in other anti-choice scumbaggery, how about him? His theory on rape and pregnancy clashes with #9’s, since he thinks rape-induced pregnancy “is something God intended”. GOD INTENDS FOR RAPE TO HAPPEN??? Yo, Dick…God just called. She says to tell you She don’t work that way. She doesn’t disapprove of women who abort rape pregnancies. In fact, She says She’s the biggest abortionist there is. Suck on that, dickface. PS: Make that DOUBLE dickface.

11. Chris Fucking Brown. Yeah, yeah, we get it, dude: You like your women beaten and bloody. Now fuck the hell off. Seriously.

12. Donald Fucking Trump. All that buildup just for another skeezy Birther blackmail threat? Gee, now we know how he got to be such a mogul. Pure flimflam, what else? Next thing you know, Da Donald will be revealing that he’s actually stone bald under that ugly orange comb-over. Oh, wait…we already know that! PS: Ha, ha. I love Stephen Colbert, and I want the whole world to know it!

13. Devon Fucking Clunis. No, you can’t pray the crime away, any more than you can pray away the gay. What you can do is work for social justice, and that’s possible even without prayer. But don’t expect to hear that from a religiously fanatical police chief who thinks that God put him there!

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14. Christopher Fucking Tolhurst. “Pro-life” = murderous + psychopathic. Also dumber than shit. Any questions?

15. Sarah Fucking Palin. Aw, gee. I guess she’s too busy being racist to worry about the ugly word the Coultergeist used. Every day she’s shuckin’ and jivin’…

16. Robert Fucking Gibbs. So, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old US citizen killed in a drone strike, needed a “far more responsible father”? How about a far more responsible government, one that wouldn’t send drones out or keep “kill lists”? Proof, sadly, that you don’t need to be a Repug to be a callous idiot with no sense of the value of human life.

17. Andrea Fucking Peyser. Mitt Fucking Romney is a “feminist candidate”, because Andrea Fucking Peyser is “not stupid”. This is the woman whose sex column is even worse than Slutever, albeit in the opposite direction. Honestly, you can’t make this shit up. And I would know; I’ve tried.

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And yes, that picture is real, too. (Poor kitty looks terrified.)

18. Dinish Fucking D’Souza. Last week, I wank-listed him for d’vorcing his wife over some young d’imwit. This week, he’s getting it again…for feuding over d’nero with his shitty crapaganda film’s investors. Ha, ha, fucking HA. Looks good on all of them!

19. Courtney Fucking Stodden. Whose life have you “saved” by dressing like a cheesy stripper, pray tell? If anything, you’ve caused nausea, vomiting and possible heart failure. And eyesores. Lots and lots of eyesores.

20. Gilberto Fucking Valle. Conspiring to kidnap, torture, kill and eat a hundred women is a crime. But creating a corny online dating profile in order to lure them? That’s a motherfucking wank. Yeah, I wonder why his wife left him and tipped of the FBI. Good thing she did, or we’d have another rash of “unexplained female disappearances”. And of course, the cops would know nothing, because duh, he’s one of them!

21. Bryan Fucking Fischer. Oh noes, Barack Obama wears a wedding ring! And it’s somehow symbolic of some sort of “closeted Muslim” conspiracy! And on a related note, isn’t it high time for that embolism in this old troll’s head to burst once and for all? This is his loopiest turn yet.

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22. Marvin Lee Fucking Aday, better known as Fucking Meat Loaf. Or, as of this week, Fucking Mitt Loaf. You know, I always did wonder what was supposed to be the attraction with this big dumb palooka. All the most immature guys at every school I ever went to seemed to think he was some kind of fucking rock god; my only lasting impression was that of a fat dude bellowing tunelessly and sweating. And I never liked a single one of his “come on, baby, I’ll say anything you wanna hear as long as you spread your legs for me” song lyrics, either. (Taste: I has it.) It’s been charitably said that he was drunk off his ass when he mangled “America the Beautiful” onstage with Mittens the other night, but I think his problem goes a bit deeper than that. He’s still got his head stuck up his ass, which is still firmly mired in the Cold War. Hello, Pork Chop? The 21st century called. It says get thee to a detox, STAT.

23. Justin Fucking Huchel. Yup, nothing says “tasteful wedding wishes” like a bunch of sad street people in a prank video. Made, of course, in honor of your rich pop star friend and his also-rich actress bride, for their delectation as they get married oh-so-exclusively in Italy, and then sell the photos of their widdle Pepto-pink shindig to the tabloids for nearly a quarter of a million buckereenos. Yay, let’s all make fun of these poor schmucks whose lives are even more talentless and meaningless than ours! Isn’t that fucking hee-hee-hee-larious? PS: Ha, ha. Joke’s on YOU, Justin! Looks like your buddy’s not amused, either.

24. Robert Fucking Anderson. Oh bliss, oh joy, another crazy-conservative religious leader calling for gays and their supporters to be put to death. What is this, Taliban Afghanistan? No, wait, lemme guess: Iran, under the Ayatollah Khomeini. Nope, sorry — it’s Maryland! I suppose the next thing we’re gonna hear is that it’s not religious fascism when “Christians” do it.

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25. John Fucking Sununu. Awwww, isn’t it sweet? He’s just doing his bit to help finally sink the campaign of Mittens once and for all. And by “sink”, I mean appeal to the latent and blatant racism that is really the only thing left motivating anyone to vote Republican at all. This fucking election farce can’t end soon enough!

26. Kelly Fucking Fenton. Lessee, does she have all the ingredients for a shit soufflé here? Obama, Russia, Putin, Satan…yep, she’s cookin’ with gas! Try not to blow your fucking kitchen up, idiot.

27. Lil Fucking Reese. Dunno the motherfucker (he is, ostensibly, a newly signed rapper), but it sounds like he and Chris Fucking Brown might share the same prison cell someday. And for the same offence, too.

28. Eric Fucking Hartsburg. How nice, you got $15,000 to get a Romney logo tattooed on your face. And if you’re smart (ha, ha), you will want to reinvest all of that in getting it lasered off the day after your guy loses.

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29. Silvio Fucking Berlusconi. A convicted tax cheat? How unsexy. I thought he’d surely go to jail for all that under-age bunga-bunga, if anything. And what’s this shit about being “obliged” to stay in politics? That’s even MORE unsexy.

30 and 31. John Fucking Baird and Rebecca Fucking Kadaga. How to make a farce of human rights, in five easy steps: 1. Invite a random foreign dignitary to a conference in Canada. 2. Pay no attention to the fact that she’s from a country with an exceptionally poor human-rights record, especially when it comes to gay rights, until she’s up and talking smack about “colonial attitudes” and “forcing the people of Uganda to embrace homosexuality”. 3. Be gay and in the closet yourself, and a member of a party that is basically doing its damnedest to trample human rights at home AND abroad, but just babble the usual pieties about human rights, as if you had any idea what the fuck they were. 4. Keep funneling millions of Canadian taxpayer dollars to Museveni’s horror in Uganda, in spite of that motherfucking “Kill the Gays” bill. 5. Oh yeah, and have absolutely ZERO sense of the irony inherent in all of this. Especially the bit about how Ugandans accepted Christianity from their colonial oppressors, and internalized all its crazy homophobia. BOOM! Shit-show accomplished.

32. and 33. Vladimir Fucking Putin and the Fucking Patriarch (or whatever he is) Kyrill. It’s bad enough that two members of Pussy Riot are still incarcerated in Siberian prison camps (yes, separately, so they can’t even rely on each other for morale!) Now they want to ban Apple’s logo, because it’s too fucking sin-of-Eve-y? Yeah, I smell a distinct odor of misogyny wafting out of Mother Russia’s pot-of-borscht. Or is it all the corruption from the church and the Kremlin, wining, dining and sixty-nining each other, complete with gold watches? Fuck, it’s getting so hard to tell. It’s shit like this that makes me nostalgic for the old Soviet era. And, considering I’m not an atheist, nor am I in favor of forced atheism (proud Wiccan here), that’s really saying something.

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And finally, to all the Repugnicans, on both sides of the 49th Parallel. Kindly spare us your pious rhetoric about how much you care about life (and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). We’re through watching your mouths when you talk; we are now watching your feet as you walk. Or, as the case may be, stumble…over how you value fetuses and corporations above actual living, breathing human life; over your whole “freedom for me, jail for thee” hypocrisy; over your tough-on-crime, soft-on-guns schizophrenia; and over your general slimy skanky scungy skeeviness. I hope you all fucking FAIL.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 1 Comment

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Evo dines with the Queen

Look who had a royal visitor:

No, this wasn’t just some standard photo-op grip-and-grin with a beautiful Bolivian aguayo cloth. There was a greater significance to this royal visit than just pleasantries and gift exchanges. But let’s hear it from the president’s mouth:

At a youth forum yesterday in Cochabamba, 400 km southeast of the capital city of La Paz, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, revealed that Queen Sofia of Spain told him, “Now you will be the rich and we will be the poor.”

Queen Sofia visited Bolivia from October 15 to October 20. On Tuesday the 16th, president Evo Morales gave a dinner in her honor in the great hall of the government palace.

“When the queen arrived at dinner, she was seated beside me, and she told me: ‘Evo,’ she said, ‘now you will be the rich, and we will be the poor.’ The queen told me that! I’m not making this up, the vice-president [Alvaro García Linera] heard it too.”

Morales mentioned the instance in context of the economic successes of his government since the nationalization of Bolivia’s natural resources in 2006.

“The queen was always asking me, ‘What have you done to elevate Bolivia?’

“Since the great global powers are no longer robbing Latin America like they used to, now they can no longer be so powerful. The theft of our natural resources has ended and in a short time, we have raised ourselves up,” said Morales.

Drawing a comparison with the social development of his own country, Morales continued: “What are they calling for in Spain? An assembly to rewrite the constitution. And here, we had a constituent assembly, as well as in Venezuela, and in Ecuador they also achieved a new beginning by way of their constituent assembly.

“How many years has it been since the Moncloa Pact [of 1977] did away with military dictatorships? But they think they’ve resolved their internal problems, and they haven’t resolved them. Europe’s problems are worsening,” added Morales.

Translation mine. Linkage added.

And as usual, Evo hits it right on the nose. In fact, earlier this year, there were calls in Spain for a “second Moncloa Pact”. Spain is one of the countries hardest hit by the European monetary crisis, and the antideficit measures they’ve had to bow to will only make matters worse. Half of all young Spaniards are now out of work, and the protests are going on nonstop, with sporadic riots every time the police attempt to crack down on the dissenters. Many have fled Spain for wherever they can find work; ironically (considering the role of Angela Merkel and the German bankers in precipitating the whole crisis), many are doing so in Germany. Things are going to get worse all over Europe before they get better.

Meanwhile, Bolivia is on the up and up. It used to be Latin America’s poorest country; not anymore! Two weeks ago, in this same slot, I showed you Evo’s enviable numbers. I’m betting the Spanish prime minister would kill for anything even half so good (he’s no more popular than Franco ultimately was, at this point, and for good reason; he’s from the same fascist party). And if Queen Sofia came away with anything from this visit, besides that gorgeous length of aguayo, I hope she takes Rajoy aside for a stern talking-to and holds up Evo’s Bolivia as the good example Europe really needs.

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Posted in All About Evo, Confessions of a Bad German, Economics for Dummies, Ecuadorable As Can Be, EuroPeons, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Free Trade, My Ass!, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Law-Law Land, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!, Under the Name of Spain | Comments Off on Festive Left Friday Blogging: Evo dines with the Queen

Quotable: Assata Shakur on freedom

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A charlatan? You don’t say!

Last Saturday, I wank-listed a certain Venezuelan doctor who falsely claimed, on two separate occasions, that both Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro were dying. Those rumors have since been roundly refuted, but their purpose was clear: It was all about stirring the pot of political “uncertainty” and “instability”, in the hopes of discrediting both leaders (and, in the case of Chávez, impeding his re-election…another thing that, happily for Venezuela, didn’t happen.) The beneficiary of all this zozobra? Gringolandia, of course. So naturally, their media were all over this guy’s fairy tales. They headlined him as a “respected physician” with privileged access to top-secret information. In reality, none of the “information” he imparted was even the least bit accurate. So, basically, the anglo whore media were giving credence to a bunch of obvious bullshit, from a guy who had no access to either of those leaders, and no access to their private medical information, either. And it was all to serve the interests of the Miami Mafia and their good buddies in the State Dept. Now, let’s take a closer look at the crapagandist who spread all that bullshit around:

José Rafael Marquina, the Venezuelan physician who falsely predicted the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro a few days ago, as he had done some months ago with the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, was an activist of the right-wing party of ex-president Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP), who was responsible for the Caracazo massacre in the Venezuelan capital in 1989.

While he was a student at the University of Los Andes, where he obtained his degree, Marquina placed himself at the service of CAP’s party, declaring himself to be an unconditional admirer of him.

Marquina maintained his ties to CAP after both went to live in Miami. Witnesses say that the political medico had a picture of CAP hanging in his office, signed “To my friend José Marquina, with love.”

Neither the Spanish daily paper, ABC, nor its counterpart in Miami, El Nuevo Herald, reported these facts when they spread the false information in their pages and on the Web in a disinformation operation synchronized with the media networks by the US State Department.

José Rafael Marquina was secretary-general of the Acción Democrática (AD) party at the University of Los Andes, and everything indicates that he dedicated more attention to his partisan militancy than to science.

In fact, in Miami, Marquina promoted himself in the local advertising rags as a specialist in “sleep medicine”, which “practically cures all patients”.

In an interview with the commercial website D’Latinos, where he bought advertising space, Marquina, like a true charlatan, stated some months ago that “sleep serves us as a detoxification process of the brain, to replace neurotransmitters.”

His hero, ex-president CAP, was the main culprit responsible for the Caracazo of February 1989, which took place in Caracas. The then president ordered the intervention of the police and armed forces to suppress protests. Three hundred dead was the official figure given by the government, whereas unofficial sources speak of more than a thousand dead.

Carlos Andrés Pérez’s ties to the CIA showed in many circumstances. As minister of the Interior under the rule of Raúl Leoni, he was compared to Pedro Estrade, the head of the “Gestapo” of dictator Pérez Jiménez, he of sinister fame.

Under the auspices of the “hero” of “doctor” Marquina, Venezuela experimented with the concepts of “disappearances” and the “theatres of operation” of Cuban-American CIA agents which he himself placed at all levels of his secret police force. CAP was the one who allowed Cuban-born assassins, such as the repugnant Luis Posada Carriles (alias Comisario Basilio), Ricardo “El Mono” (The Monkey) Navarrete, and Rafael Rivas, to take absolute control of the Venezuelan secret police (DISIP).

Carlos Andrés Pérez died on December 25 of last year, of a heart attack, in Miami.

Translation mine. Linkage added.

So, “Dr.” Marquina is more of an AD political operative than a truly respectable physician? Shocked, shocked. And he has ties to the murderous CAP, too! Will wonders never cease?

Meanwhile, a bit of further digging reveals that Marquina lives and practices in Naples, Florida; that he is specialized in critical-care medicine, internal medicine, pulmonology and sleep medicine (all board-certified); that his HealthGrades rating is an okay but not terribly distinguished 3 1/2 stars (out of a possible 5), and that he’s on Twitter. He also produced this perky, but not terribly informative, self-profile on YouTube:

Which is all very nice, I must say. Unfortunately, none of this qualifies him in the slightest to pronounce on the health of leaders with whom he has no contact, personal or professional. He is not specialized in oncology (cancer care, relevant to the case of President Chávez), nor cardiology and neurology (relevant to Compañero Fidel Castro, one would think, if the latter had indeed suffered an “embolic stroke” and been left in a “near-vegetative state” — which he clearly hasn’t).

And if Jean-Guy Allard’s piece, which I translated above, is at all accurate, then he clearly has no grasp of the role neurotransmitters play in the brain, either. “Detoxification of the brain” is a fashionable nonsense term, considering that the only organs that actually do the job of detoxifying the body are the liver and kidneys. And there is no evidence, either, that dreams “detoxify” the brain, much less that they “replace neurotransmitters”. Their relevance is best left to psychiatry…a specialty which, I notice, is also not on Dr. Marquina’s CV.

BTW, here’s his D’Latinos interview about Chávez, in Spanish, if you’re in the mood for a good laugh:

And here’s another in which he’s even crazier, claiming Chávez is relying on Santería, of all things:

I’m still looking for the bit about sleep medicine as a cure-all and brain-detox and neurotransmitter replacer. If any of you can find it, please post a link in the comments below. (It’s quite possible that it has since been removed. Wouldn’t want to look like a quack, would we?)

Like I said, this man is not an oncologist, but here he is, playing one on TV. A lot of his “scientific” claims about the nature of cancer are frankly bullshit. And he’s mixing politics in very shamelessly (or shamefully, for him…CAP is not a politician ANYONE should be proud to have had for a “friend”.)

I don’t know about you, but if ever I’m in Naples and having sleep troubles, I don’t think I’ll be looking this guy up.

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, She Blinded Me With Science, Spooks, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on A charlatan? You don’t say!