You can picture the scene now.

Walt (or it is “Ken?”) flings down his London Review of Books indignantly, livid with rage after reading the latest Monbiot editorial describing the misery of oppressed Americans who were denied entry to Mercersburg and Brown. Gwendolyn sympathetically brings him a glass of Chardonnay, and sighs, “Oh dear, if only there were something we could do!”

“There must be.” returns Walt (or Ken) with determination.

He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary. “We were all appalled by the Bush years,” one said.

What Walter Kendall Myers kept hidden, according to documents unsealed in court Friday, was a deep and long-standing anger toward his country, an anger that allegedly made him willing to spy for Cuba for three decades.

“I have become so bitter these past few months. Watching the evening news is a radicalizing experience,” he wrote in his diary in 1978, referring to what he described as greedy U.S. oil companies, inadequate health care and “the utter complacency of the oppressed” in America. On a trip to Cuba, federal law enforcement officials said in legal filings, Myers found a new inspiration: the communist revolution.

Read the whole thing.

The Russians have an almost 50 year old tradition of testing democrat wimp presidents. John F. Kennedy conspicuously failed that test in 1962 when he abandoned the Monroe Doctrine, and traded US missiles in Turkey and a promise to leave Castro in place for Russian removal of missiles from Cuba and an ersatz public victory.

Now it very well may be Barack Obama’s turn.

Reuters:

A Russian general said on Saturday Venezuela has offered the use of its La Orchila island airfield for Russian strategic bombers on long-range flights.

Russia has been keen to build relations with a rival to the United States in the Western hemisphere in an effort to counter U.S. influence in formerly Communist countries in eastern Europe and central Asia.

“If certain political decisions are taken, it is possible (for Russian bombers to use the base),” Interfax news agency quoted the head of Russian strategic aviation general-major Anatoly Zhikharev as saying.

Zhikharev also said Russian bombers would be prepared to use four or five airfields on Cuba if the political leadership of the two countries allowed the use of Cuban bases.

Two Russian long-range bombers flew to Venezuela last year in a visit designed to show off Moscow’s military strength and build ties with a foe of the United States.

Photo and video described as having been shot at Key West at Sunset, New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2008. It certainly looks like a missile. via Coast to Coast.

No official comments or MSM reports so far.

7:09 video

Washington Times

My wife finally had a chance to see Andy Garcia’s new film The Lost City, and Karen complained to me today that she could not understand why so excellent, and unusual, a film (one that actually tells the truth about Communism) is not receiving greater attention and support from the right side of the media and the Blogosphere.

I reviewed it with discretion myself, not wanting to give away all the details of the plot, since I expected many readers would not yet have seen the film. I have, however, promised Karen that I would supply some links providing more commentary and appreciation.

Humberto Fontova, Movie Critics Aghast at Andy Garcia’s ‘The Lost City’

Ninoska Pérez Castellón, The Havana of my dreams was a city of lights.

Kathry Jean Lopes, Don’t Let This Movie Get Lost.

And, last but not least: Marc Masferrer, “Son-of-a-bitch, fucking communists.” (I normally avoid certain kinds of language here, but in this case, these are technical terms.)

Earlier posting here.

Trailer

Andy Garcia’s independent film The Lost City officially opened April 28th, but is only gradually beginning to show up on the screens of suburban art theatres.

Made with a budget of only ten million dollars, TLC was a personal labor of love begun by Garcia more than twenty years ago, in 1983, which arose from an idea of portraying pre-Castro Havana as a kind of Casablanca.

The protagonist (played by Garcia himself), “Fico” Fellove, is a member of the younger generation of an upper-class Cuban family. His father, Don Federico Fellove, is a humanist professor at Havana University. His uncle, Donoso Fellove, manages the family tobacco plantation and produces cigars. Fico is an apolitical man-about-town, content to preside amiably over his popular nightclub, El Tropico, passionate only about the music and dance of his native Cuba.

Fico admires Aurora (played by Spanish supermodel Inés Sastre), the beautiful wife of Luis, his liberal idealist brother (who is actively engaged in a conspiracy of patriots to topple the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista), and serves as her friend and confidante. But family is the most important thing to Fico, and he is devoted to both his brothers, even to Ricardo, the self-righteous and fanatical radical leftist.

The Fellove family’s pleasant way of life is soon, of course, destroyed by Revolution. TLC combines the story of the family’s unhappy fate with a lyrical portrait of a Lost City, a lost country, a lost way of life. Garcia delivers both a remarkable performance and a very moving film.
—————————
History of the project.

Columbia University, at its 2006 Commencement held yesterday, awarded an honorary doctorate degree to Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, organiser of the Varela Project, a Christian non-violent movement seeking the liberation of Cuba.

Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger mentioned Castro’s refusal to allow Osvaldo Payá to travel to New York to receive the award, and read the citation:

I am supposed to have the duty of presenting Oswaldo Payá, to whom the Trustees have awarded an honorary doctor of laws. Unfortunately, his chair here is empty. Mr. Payá could not join us on this occasion because the Government of Cuba has not granted him an exit visa to be here. We were prepared to confer the degree, but Mr. Payá has written us to ask that Columbia’s leadership allow him to receive the degree in person when he is free to travel. We all look forward to that day. For the present, this is what we would have read to you about him:

Engineer, journalist, activist, tireless campaigner for human rights and advocate for the people of Cuba, you represent the aspirations of millions around the world yearning for freedom and democracy. Based on the Cuban constitution itself, your Varela Project—a peaceful civic initiative to gather signatures across Cuba for the establishment of a free and democratic citizenry—is a model of civic activism. At great personal sacrifice and despite nearly constant surveillance and harassment, you have remained committed to nonviolent dissidence and political change. You embody a life of principle in practice and we are proud to celebrate your extraordinary dedication to peaceful, democratic values by conferring on you the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.

Why not? His Communism was only ever an opportunistic justification for him to operate as a brigand. And he’s already got the beard.

Today is the 45th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which could have effectuated the liberation of Cuba, but failed due to the inexcusable cowardice of one American official. Cuba has lived under tyranny, and the United States has lived with shame, ever since.

Babalu Blog has published a must-read tribute for the occasion. Every conservative blogger should read it, and link it.

In it, Robert Molleda quotes Humberto Fontova’s book Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant:

Fontova mentions that Brigade 2506 was outnumbered by Cuban troops by almost 40 to 1! Two-to-one, or three-to-one are staggering enough odds, but forty-to-one? Nevertheless, it took the Soviet-backed Cuban forces three entire days to defeat a group of 2,000 men, and this was only after they ran out of ammunition. If only Kennedy would have provided the air support as he had promised, there would have been no Missile Crisis, no brutal dictator 90 miles to our south, and no author of this post (my parents met in the U.S.).

Dean Esmay links Val Prieto’s coverage of the aftermath of last week’s arrest in Cuba of Czech Supermodel Helena Houdova for photographing the real Cuba.

Houdova, Miss Czech Republic 1999, spoke to journalists today after returning from Cuba.

“The revolution’s watchmen rose up because I was taking pictures of something they do not like,” said the top model, referring to the fact that the Communist regime of Fidel Castro denies the existence of slums on the island.

Houdova went to Cuba to find out whether her Sunflower foundation could assist the local children – orphans, the handicapped or those afflicted with AIDS. She pointed out that it is almost impossible to provide any assistance through official means because the Communist authorities refuse to admit anything in their country does not work.

However, Houdova personally ascertained the pathetic situation in several Cuban hospitals.

Houdova was arrested along with psychologist and fellow model Mariana Kroftova. The two women spent 11 hours in police custody.

The Cuban police confiscated the roll of film that was in the Czech women’s camera. However, Houdova managed to conceal the memory card of her digital camera inside her brassiere.

[she] told journalists today that she will display the pictures she took at an exhibition portraying the island not only as a tourist paradise but also as a land of political oppression.

Maria Kroftova, the partner-in-crime