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© St. Petersburg Times, published May 20, 2002
On U.S.-Cuban relations, it is always surprising to see how long it takes public policy to right itself. Fidel Castro has been following his one-track mind for 43 years. By most political and economic standards he has seriously diminished his country; by Fidel's standard, his governance is right. He actually seems proud of it.
But who are we to talk? The narrow view in the United States -- fomented largely by the exiled Florida-based Cuban community, but by extension also by the federal government -- is that we should starve Castro out of power. It is plain to see that he does not starve easily, but it is also plain to see that the Cuban people do. So what is the sense of U.S. embargoes and boycotts and general hostility when we have nothing against the Cuban people?
Unfortunately, George W. Bush has named such Cuban hard-liners as Otto Reich to carry out policy on U.S.-Cuban relations, so we are clearly heading in the wrong direction. We need openness and understanding with Cuba, and this is the message that Jimmy Carter conveyed. If we cozy up to a major Communist nation (China) how come we can't get closer to a waning Communist holdout like Cuba?
-- Edward Rapp, Inverness
A May 12 article by Saundra Amrhein and Tamara Lush (The "reality tour" of Cuba) details their experiences as participants in a recent "reality tour" to Cuba. While the story offers a some good factual information about Cuba, it also provides a hefty dose of biased commentary. But the purpose of my writing is not to critique the article, but rather to urge Times readers to visit Cuba and see the reality for yourselves.
St. Petersburg residents now have an opportunity to engage directly with Cubans from all walks of life and participate in a positive and proactive community-based people's diplomacy effort.
The St. Petersburg-Guantanamo sister cities project is a grass-roots volunteer effort that builds bridges and puts people above politics, breaking down the artificial barriers that separate and alienate us from our island neighbors.
A friendship delegation from St. Petersburg will visit Cuba this summer, and as a gesture of friendship and solidarity we're helping to send a diesel school bus to Guantanamo City, loaded with medical, educational and sports supplies and equipment. An artists' exchange and a baseball diplomacy project are being organized.
To find out more about this project, call (727) 527-5526 or e-mail sistercitiesproject@yahoo.com.
-- Michael Canney, St. Petersburg
I think it's wonderful that ex-President Jimmy Carter, after being in Cuba only 24 hours, found no sign of the Castro regime's producing any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Just think, now he can go to Iraq and in maybe four days, give the Saddam Hussein regime the same clean bill of health regarding the production of weapons of mass destruction.
After that, we should send him to the Far East to give the American people the same reassurance about China and North Korea. Of course, this might take him a week, because of the vast area he would have to cover.
Oh boy! Peace and tranquility at last.
-- Fred W. Otten, Lutz
Re: You bought this beach, May 12.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the beach replenishment projects. Laugh, because they're so futile, or cry, because they represent the unfairness of "welfare for the rich" and a waste of taxpayer money.
In a nutshell, I think beach replenishment falls in the "don't mess with Mother Nature" category. You can't stop earthquakes, volcanoes or beaches washing away. By the same token, the sand might come back -- in a hundred years, or next year. Who knows? It's just part of the long-term scheme of things.
It's interesting that one proponent cites the assistance we give after "Texas floods or when Iowa has storms." Note the word "after." I guess if a hurricane or tidal wave destroyed a bunch of beachfront homes, there wouldn't be a big issue with assistance. But that's not what this is about.
To the people who think that it's only fair for us to pay for replenishing the beach because of all the property taxes they pay, I say: move. People who lose their homes in a mudslide shouldn't expect the taxpayers to ensure their view (and home), and the owners of beachfront property shouldn't expect us to ensure their beach, either.
-- Ernest E. Lane, Trinity
Re: You bought this beach, May 12.
Yes, we "bought" this beach, just as we "bought" the tremendous repairs to U.S. 19 and other much more expensive projects for use by all. One "flyover" on one intersection of U.S. 19 costs more than all the beach renourishment done during the last five years in Pinellas County.
I live across from the beach and see the beach parking accesses in our town fill up with out-of-town and out-of-state cars. Without sand, we might as well close down coastal Florida and then we wouldn't need U.S. 19 and all the other roads that cost so much more than the beaches.
-- Bob McEwen, Indian Shores
Re: Can we move on? by Frank Rich, May 12.
It is reassuring to read that our all-consuming culture war to smear reputations in the 1990s has met its well-deserved demise and clarification by David Brock.
Yet while we can be thankful that Brock's mea culpa for that era may well be its epitaph, the cost will continue to be paid by many past leaders in malicious whispers concerning unproven lies about their personal reputations for years to come.
How many will ever learn that many of the things they believed were politically motivated "old witches' tales"? Some negative hatred will last a lifetime, and I fear our country will continue to pay a high price for this undermining of faith in our leadership.
-- Kathleen Brady, Lutz
Recently much has been published regarding "spinning" headlines as well as news reporting, to fit a publication's agenda. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw the May 16 headline Many FCAT scores look better. Could that possibly have been more lukewarm?
I have no doubt that if any Democrat were governor of this state, and had established as much credibility in education as Jeb Bush has done, the headline would have been blaring with praise. It must just kill you to admit that this governor may be right. That goes for the One Florida program, all around. I guess that what seems so unfair is that liberal thinkers are unwilling to even give Bush one term to try out his ideas, whereas education had languished for one term after another under Democratic governors.
Remember the antiwar slogan, "Give peace a chance." My thinking has been, "Give Jeb a chance." This is a good man, a just man, a moral man, and now he seems to be proving to be a smart man, as well. Thank goodness, the voters don't swallow everything they read.
-- Sandra Harrington, Tampa
Re: Gov. Jeb Bush plays a better teacher on TV, May 13.
Diane Roberts seems to imply that Gov. Jeb Bush is responsible for creating and not solving many of Florida's current problems.
She writes that Florida ranks near the bottom among states in per-capita education funding. I do not believe this is a sudden situation that occurred only after Bush became governor.
She writes that Bush campaigned on fixing an agency (Department of Children and Families) that had long been a byword for dysfunction when the state can't account for the safety of abused children. So the problems must have existed prior to Bush.
She writes that Bush remains committed to locking up drug offenders instead of treating them. Wasn't this also the situation prior to Bush?
She writes that the administration has been hostile to allowing for the smaller-classes measure to be placed on the November ballot. She fails to mention that none of the prior Democratic governors provided for smaller classes.
Why weren't these problems corrected prior to Bush? Apparently, she expects all these problems to be corrected "pronto" by Bush with no blame given to prior governors and administrations for allowing them to occur in the first place and, in turn, to be inherited by Bush.
-- M.A. Elliott, St. Petersburg
Re: Gov. Jeb Bush plays a better teacher on TV.
The governor and Legislature know what we want. We want better education for our children and a clean environment. Whenever they want to increase taxes or float a new bond, they say it's for these reasons. Do they really think we're so gullible?
I would not support an increase in taxes for any reason. It will be spent making life even sweeter for the wealthy. Let's face it. It takes a lot of money to be elected. Wealthy people don't relate to peons, which the average citizen is regarded as. They send their children to private schools; they don't care about public schools. The past proves it.
-- Gerald Starling, Tampa
Re: A Mother's Day for me, May 12.
Thanks for Jeanne Malmgren's continuing series on the Cambodians and her Mother's Day article in the Floridian about her adopted Cambodian child.
I hear of joyful news about the kids there and it makes me remember why I had resigned my commission in 1972 after coming home from Southeast Asia. And I suppose that resigning one's commission is regarded as somewhat odd, not mainstream, but adopting Cambodian children is regarded as something wonderful. But there is a connection.
The truth is that I resigned my commission to protest the carpet bombing of eastern Cambodia, which I personally saw in 1971 flying back to Vietnam after two week's of temp duty in Thailand. I saw 90,000 bomb craters in a 60 by 30 mile tract along the eastern edge of Cambodia. I was a flight instructor in tactical airlift with a geography degree. I knew where I was and I know what I saw. The bomb craters were evenly distributed and extended for some miles further north toward Laos. Their military effectiveness was minimal, overall, because the vast area of bomb coverage was done over several years, but did not impede the traffic as it was dispersed and continuous. The environmental impact was enormous.
I came home hearing the voices of children. I would have gone back to be in the bombing for my next flying assignment, as a tanker pilot. So what does a kid matter? If it's a kid you want to adopt, it matters a lot. But if it's a kid unseen living in a hut in a jungle village, it is not a problem, collateral damage. And anyone who feels for that kid is sentimental.
The current wars are full of collateral damage. We need to save the kids. We need to hear accurate damage estimates, not denial. And we need to hear stories of caring and hope.
-- James Willingham, St. Petersburg
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