November 05, 2003

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? . . . "This is a pre-recorded message," I hear on answering the phone. But it's a recorded message. Tell me, please, what is the difference between a recorded and a pre-recorded message?

P.S. Either way, I was not motivated to hear it out.

CUBA, HERE WE COME . . . Meanwhile, Oak Park and other softballers will be off to Cuba, where they are sure to find (a) great weather and (b) hearty welcome from the Great Dictator. Oct. 11-reported crackdown on Cuba travel notwithstanding, THEY HAVE PERMISSION, Oak Leaves reports in its 10/29 issue.

The softballers belong to Windmills, founded in 1989. T-men say up to 25 of them and elders can go. They will be "cultural ambassadors," says the one-time OP trustee who speaks for them to mediums.

Fine, but here's an idea: Make it a field trip to a police state. Forget trips to County Jail or Stateville. Send these kids to the Land of the Durable Dictator, prepping them with assigned readings on Castro and Communism.

Start with Whittaker Chambers's Witness, the 1952 book which wise guy would subtitle "Alger & Me." Follow with ex-Chi Daily News person Georgie Anne Geyer's book on Castro (look it up) and others (look them up) and move on to Sam Tanenhaus' Whittaker Chambers, a 1997 book that revisits the Alger Hiss trial and the stunning behavior of America's best and brightest Useful Idiots lined up on the side of the perjuror Hiss. To allay doubts on that score, they can read Allan Weinstein's 1978 book Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case.

Once these OP softballers were ready, off they would go, prepared to counter Bushies' anti-Cuba-tourism edicts with their own pre-emptive justification: as students of Communism, they have a right to go! Let John "Torquemada" Ashcroft and his myrmidons put that in their pipes and smoke it!

Sure, "American tourism won't bring democracy to Cuba," as Vladimiro Roca, arrested in 1997 for writing vs. Castro, said. And "illegal tourism perpetuates the misery of the Cuban people," as Bush said; and Bush "must match his rhetoric" with strong action, as Dem presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Leiberman said. But none of them say anything about field trips by well-read softball teams.

posted by Jim Bowman @ 11/05/2003 09:26:00 AM 0 comments links to this post