Miami -- It is there that a nutty bunch of Cuban exiles have controlled U.S. foreign policy regarding this insignificant island nation. These Cubans, many of whom were Batista supporters and lived high on the hog while that crook ran the country, seem not to have slept a wink since they grabbed their assets and headed to Florida.

And, since 1960, they have insisted on pulling us into their madness. Why is it that in every incident of national torment that has deflated our country for the past three decades-the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, IranContra, our drug abuse epidemic-the list goes on and on-we find that the Cuban exiles are always present and involved? First it was Lee Harvey Oswald's connection to the Cubans in New Orleans. (Or was it the Cuban exiles acting alone to kill Kennedy, or Castro ordering the assassination 'cause he just got bored with Kennedy trying to bump him off? Whichever theory you subscribe to, the Cubans are lurking in the neighborhood.)

Then, on the night of June 17, 1972, three Cubans- Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, and Virgilio Gonzalez (plus Americans Frank Sturgis and James McCord Jr.)-were caught breaking into the Watergate offices of the chairman of the Democratic Party. This covert operation eventually brought down Richard Nixon, (so I guess there is a silver lining to that particular Cuban-exile operation).

Today, Barker and Gonzalez are considered heroes in Miami's Cuban community. Martinez, later pardoned by Ronald Reagan, is the only one who feels bad. "I did not want myself to be involved in the downfall of the President of the United States." Oh, well, how nice of you!

When Ollie North needed a cover group to run arms into Nicaragua to help overthrow the government, who else could he turn to but the Miami Cubans? Bay of Pigs veterans Ramon Medina and Rafael Quintero were key managers of the air-transport company that supplied weapons to the Contras. The U.S.-backed Contra War was responsible for the deaths of thirty thousand Nicaraguans.

One of the big bonuses to come out of our funding of these Cuban exiles was the help they gave us in bringing illegal drugs into the States, destroying families and whole sections of our cities. Beginning in the early sixties, a number of Cubans (who also participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion) began running major narcotics rings in this country. The DEA found little support within the federal government to go after these Cuban exiles, because they had organized themselves under the phony banner of "freedom groups." In fact, many were nothing more than fronts for massive drug-smuggling operations. These same drug runners later helped to run arms to the Contras.

U.S.-based Cuban terrorist organizations have been responsible for more than two hundred bombings and at least a hundred murders since Castro's revolution. They have got everyone so afraid to stand up to them that I probably shouldn't even be writing this chapter. I am, after all, one of the few unarmed Americans.

So why am I not worried? Because these Cuban exiles, for all their chest-thumping and terrorism, are really just a bunch of wimps. That's right. Wimps.

but the new version of the theme is OK, but I still think the first season one was the best

the newsroom scenes are in fact somewhat soporific to those who don't work in the exciting field of print reporting, but hopefully that may change

i woulda done exactly what McNulty did, except for the drinking first.

it's the middle of winter here and fuel oil is like a thousand dollars a gallon so i have the thermostat set at 33 degrees. i am huddling around the socket where the rechargers are plugged in, trying to warm myself from their friendly radiance.

seriously; in a country where half the population spends at least half the year trying to add heat to their dwellings and workplaces, the various costs of replacing the 'waste heat' electronics, incandescent bulbs, etc. give off have to be factored into the savings from eliminating the 'waste'.

in a parallel vein, the site kiva.com lets people make micro-loans of $25 to third world folks with a business plan, via Paypal. You get the money back when the loan is repaid, usually 6-12 months. "Kiva is using the power of the internet to facilitate one to one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive."

It's like you're walking down the street and you see somebody carrying a DVD. Did they steal it? Maybe, so better report them to the police, just to be safe.

you will die, your daughter will die, america will die, civilization will die, humanity will die, the planet will die, the solar system will die, the universe will reach maximum entropy. it's sort of unfortunate, but it seems to be unavoidable. you'd best accept it, and adjust your behaviors accordingly. and, as has been observed quite a few times, it does take a fairly large weight off your shoulders to consider that in a relatively short time, nobody's going to remember your screw-ups. even if you accidentally started a war in the middle east.

http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/leisure/jewishleisure_article.php?article_id=5630

"The religion most similar to Judaism"

-apocryphal jewish joke

I was in Canada right after that happened; the leader of one of the national Islamic organizations went on a hunger strike to protest the presence of domestic violence in Islamic homes. At least that got some media attention, between all the questions of "where are all the moderate Muslims?"

When people speak of their honor, what they really mean is their anger. (approximate quote)

-NeoAddix

Jon Courtenay Grimwood