Tuesday, June 06, 2006

D-Day Remembered, Cuban Suffering Ignored

Via Babalu, two remarkable things. First, this image, a photo of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's message to the troops on their way to Normandy.

It was to Normandy that this gentleman, my grandfather, was likely headed. Babalu also links to an excellent D-Day remembrance at Black Five.

Second, a link to this chilling article, written by Babalu blogger Val Prieto. It details the controversy over the presence in school libraries of a whitewashed account Cuban schools, Vamos a Cuba. Among the faults of the book:

...there'’s also nary a word in the book about las safras and las cosechas, where children are bused to the countryside to do their compulsory work on the fields, cutting cane or tobacco or whatever the crop du jour may be. They spend weeks away from their families, living in the countryside in makeshift dilapidated structures with little or no amenities. And every child must meet his daily quota for the harvest.

This was an experience my wife suffered in the Soviet Union. It is the first thing on her mind whenever she is asked to indulge some hagiography for the socialist state written from the comfort of a tenured position at an American college.

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