Fore!!!

[BT]

Now that Fidel Castro has retired, perhaps he can find the time to work on his golf game.

In 1962, Mr. Castro lost a round of golf to Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who had been a caddy in his Argentine hometown before he became a guerrilla icon. Mr. Castro's defeat may have had disastrous consequences for the sport. He had one Havana golf course turned into a military school, another into an art school. A journalist who wrote about the defeat of Cuba's Maximum Leader, who was a notoriously bad loser, was fired the next day.


Now, top officials on the island want to turn Mr. Castro's Communist paradise into a hotspot for this decidedly capitalist sport, to generate hard cash for its cash-strapped economy. Last year, Cuba's minister of tourism, Manuel Marrero, announced plans to build as many as 10 golf courses to lure upscale tourists.

"The message from Cuba is: bring on golf projects," says Mark Entwistle, a former Canadian ambassador to the island.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120372084292586793.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[The_Professor]

I hope they rot. Now, all of a sudden, we are supposed to hurry done there and be met with open arms and spend our money in a tropical paradise that has been an authoritarian regime for decades? I do not think so!

[BT]

I found it interesting that Fidel closed the courses because he lost a game to Che.

And i have no problem with normalizing relations with Cuba.

Should have been done long ago.

[The_Professor]

why?

[BT]

Because the embargo hasn't had the desired effect, yet look what detente and normalizing relations with China have accomplished. Your argument of letting our culture do it's thing in the middle east should also apply to Cuba. Let the people get a taste of what passes as the good life here.

[The_Professor]

Ok, I'll buy in.

We'll have 'em singing "Let the Dawgs out" soon enough.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The most successful Communist country economically was East Germany, and yet it fell when West Germans were allowed to visit and bring as much money with them as they wished.

Allowing unrestricted passage between the US and Cuba will have the same effect. Those of you who do not wish to spend money in Cuba can play golf in the Dominican Republic's Casa del Campo. When Cubans from here can visit their relatives there, it will not be long before the Cubans there become disappointed with their government.

The main reason that there is still an embargo is that a very small number of wealthy Miami Cubans (who contribute to politicians a lot) are profiteering from the 40 cent a minute phone calls and $9.00 a pound package shipments and other services that only they have a monopoly on.

Observe that China changed immensely after the US recognized it.
The embargo does not work, and has never worked.