I do not think Castro read your comments on literacy.

"Cuba is doing more for education than UNESCO," he said, referring to the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization."

VANESSA ARRINGTON
Associated Press

Castro calls Bush 'deranged,' says Cuba is 'heaven'
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/world/10790634.htm

Pssst...no es por nada, but "irregardless" isn't a word.

If you're gonna go off on literacy, at least, you know, use words that exist.

:)

Alabaooooo. Folks, I was being facetious with the irregardless thing.

I am very proud of my home state today.

Glad to hear you were just messing about. 'Irregardless' drives my wife nuts. That, and people who pronounce the T in 'often'. It can be tough being married to an English major sometimes! Don't ever use the phrase 'run the gauntlet' when you meant 'gamut', or I'll hear about it for days.

Val,

I discovered your site thru Michelle Malkin. Important and wonderful work you are doing here!

Although it breaks my heart to read about the cruelty and idiocy that is Castro's Cuba, I will be checking in daily for your thoughts.

God bless you and the good people of Cuba.

Hey, I cannot believe you said "irregardless." That is not a word, man. If you had gone to Uncle Fidel's fine schools, you would know this.

You wont find those books in many houses here in Miami either, this is a consumer society, most people in this society are only interested in shopping at the malls.
A lot of new arrivals are professionals, doctors, writers, engineers, educated by the system in Cuba, you cant deny that.
Try to get educated here and see how much it will cost.

jferrer,

Dejate de hablar mierda, asere. I can take you to any twenty homes of your choice and you will find any one of a million items in print that castro's government deems subvervise.

Nowhere in my post does it say that becoming educated was a bad thing for Cubans, only the waste of that education is.

And if you are so displeased with this country, pack your bags and leave, dude. No one will stop you, i can assure you.

I found you through Michelle Malkin as well.

Your site encourages me to predict that when Castro dies, the Cuban people will embrace democracy with even more enthusiam than the Iraqis did this past weekend.

Just think, he can't live forever and we will all likely be alive to hear the news of his death.

What a wonderful day that will be!

I like the country but not people like you "rightwingers" borderline fascists. And I am not going anywhere cause this is "America". Learn to respect others opinions so that you can practice it in Cuba when Castro falls

Sorry you dislike us rightwingers so much, jferrer. I will work harder than ever now to make sure us rightwingers solidify our power here in the US.

Oh, and as for opinions, do you see anywhere on this site the word "forum?" this is my site, dude, I pay for it, I run it and I maintain it. When the day comes that you put in any of the above three things into this site, then you can consider it a place to come and spew your venom, otherwise, I will not tolerate any more anti-american shit from you or anyone else.

capiche?

Con permiso, Sr. Ferrer, but you seem like a communist. Perhaps you think you are a leftist or a socialist or even maybe a progressive. I hope you are young, that you may grow out of such notions.

Communism, not just Fidel, must pass for Cuba to be free of insane tyranny.

WOW so much for tolerance.... Here we go, Radio Manbi all over again. May God help the Cuban people with people like you waiting to bring their "freedom" to Cuba.

Right on, Val!

j ferrer is one confused little boy. Let's follow his logic.

1. Who are we to criticize Castro's oppressive totalitarian state when people in America like to go to shopping malls!

2. Smart people like doctors and writers have fled one of the most repressive regimes on earth, but before they risked their lives in fleeing from Castro, they received their education in Cuba, so how bad could it really be?

3. Under the American capitalist system, you get free education through high school, but if you want to get a college degree, you have to pay for it. Some colleges are expensive! Thus, capitalism is evil!

4. Bush = Hitler. Always a nice fallback position...

WOW so much for tolerance....

I was hoping that I could find a better quality of troll over here, but it would seem that my optimism was totally uncalled for.

jferrer, go read up on "private property rights", right now, then come back and explain to us why Val should allow anything that you say to be posted here on his private property.

Next, explain to all of us why it always seems that "tolerance", to you, means agreeing with or sympathizing with everything you say ONLY. Or, if that's not the case, make a case for showing tolerance for Nazis as well. Compared to Communists, they were rank amateurs when it comes to mass murder.

Finally: You don't HAVE to leave, but you CAN. Any time, unmolested, without any hindrances. That's a "luxury" that Cubans don't have.

Discuss.

Val,

The lie that things in Cuba can be universal or free does not stand up to reason. If a person is not (1) free to earn a living, (2) free to keep and spend the fruits of his labor as he sees fit,(3) secure and protected in his property rights, or (4) free to enjoy the God-given rights of all men, then the fact that a country has universal healthcare and education is meaningless.

Put differently, in Cuba, the human spirit and human soul are taxed at 100%. If Castro is offering universal healthcare and an education in exchange, I'd say that Cubans are paying a pretty high price for these "benefits."

I am sorry I cant dabate with you all cause Val threw me out. I am the nail that stands out.

Oh Mighty Emperor,

I couldnt have said it beeter myself.

Tom,

Exactly. But, you know, no matter how much hard data and how many facts are introduced into the indiocy syndrome sufferer they will always come back with the free health care and education fever.

Its not just about lauding castro with these guys, for them its about hating America.

I havent thrown you out, jferrer, we're waiting for you to humiliate yourself some more and run with the proerbial tail between the legs.

Thank you Val, all in good sense....
I'll like to read your opinion on the part of the documentary where thousands of Cubans are asking "Paredon, Paredon!". )give them firing squad), what do you think of a people that without any remorse what so ever ask for mass killings of their own compatriots without any remorse what so ever? And I ask myself. Are this the same peoples now walking the streets of Miami? and why did they leave when the govt. steped on their toes instead of fighting back? although many did fight back but not the majority, what were they thinking of? saving their own skin, perhaps?,

Val - I saw your comment on Diplomad's site.

Doesn't this seem to be something that is tailor made for Laura Bush to speak out about? She was a librarian for years and her sister in law is Cuban.

She has obviously made a concious decision not to politicize her position, ala Hillary. She doesn't take stands, nor have public "views". That said, an American first lady should stand for something. She chose literacy and a love of reading as the causes for which she would carry the torch, and this could be a perfect opportunity to merge her chosen cause with her husband's political beliefs.

A simple, short, public service type television message, urging librarians' associations to rethink their stance and making Joe American, whom I am sure knows nothing of this (I certainly didn't) aware, would suffice. I hope it is suggested to her.

Nancy,

Laura Bush's sister-in-law is not Cuban, but Mexican.

Tell ya though - her input on the issue of freedom of speech and of the press in support of the independent libraries is a nice idea.

OOPS - Thank you for the correction. My (stupid) mistake.

Irregardless of his education, J Ferrer doesn't seem to know diddly... ;-)

I just noticed the post J Ferrer left on the Cubans yelling paredón and I had to comment.

I can tell you most assuredly that two of my grand-uncles and my beloved grandfather knew fidel and his inner circle were filthy communists from the start. That is why our family had to leave. Many people chose to leave and most chose to stay. My paternal uncle and my paternal grandmother were supporters of the bastard and chose to stay -- sadly, the only members of my family to do so. I can still remember the packages with eyeglasses and medicines my father had to send my grandmother -- superior medical care, indeed! My grandmother died a slave of fidel. My uncle, I know nothing anything about. Sad, isn't it, what that maricón has done to Cuban families?

Those very same people, the ones who supported fidel, are, along with two -- two!! -- generations of their families, reaping the whirlwind of the evil class hatred and envy fidel and his bunch brought to Cuba and institutionalized. They got their vengeance, all right. But what happened after all the enemies and gusanos and contra-revolucionarios were dead or gone or imprisoned? The old Chinese proverb says that one who goes for revenge must dig two graves. Well, they are in the grave they and fidel built year by year and inch by inch. And it's still being dug.

Mr. Ferrer, you have a lot of growing up to do. Maybe a year or two cortando caña, or making croquetas from rats, or digging yourself out of a house that just collapsed because you couldn't buy wood or concrete, will teach you a thing or two about how damn lucky you are to be in the US.

God bless the United States of America and Viva Cuba Libre!

Val:

Glad you kept jferrer around so he could, like a dog, return to his own vomit.

On neologisms, though, let's not get all tight-assed about "irregardless." My wife, for example, has spontaneously come up with words like "disjarring" and "enlifting." Do either of these seem unclear to anyone? I think they're imaginative and charming, and that we ought to encourage this kind of creative conflation; otherwise, we run the risk of living with no music in our heads. And Steven Pinker, author of the Language Instinct, agrees with me --or, rather, I agree with him, since he's the smarter one.

Sincerely,

JdB

Mr. Du Bois, I find Val's blog extremely enlifting! One of the first virtual visits of the morning after I have my tostada and cafecito. (In case you are curious, in this order: Fox News, National Review Online, Front Page Magazine, Drudge, BabaluBlog, JihadWatch, Ace of Spades: a bracing constitutional, if I may say so!)

--Try to get educated here and see how much it will cost.--

That's socialism for you.

Too pricy.

----

Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy."
- John Derbyshire

Sorry to tell you this, but you will now find irregardless in the dictionary, as a blend of irrespective and regardless.

George,

Thanks for bringing some light and wisdom to Mr. Ferrer.

Sandy P, wonderful quote from Derbyshire! If you are the same "Sandy P" from "Iberian Notes", I enjoy your writings greatly!

I knew irregardless was a word, irregardless of what was claimed! By the way, WHO decides what is and isn't a word? Being a poet, I'd have to say that a word is a word if it is used meaningfully by the person who makes it up or uses it. It may be improper grammar, at first, but language is not like Scripture, even though our ability to speak and use words does come from the Word.

Regarding Cuba, check out what the Latvian library association had to say about Cuban library propaganda. Over at my blog.

http://americanchartophylax.blogspot.com/

"WHO decides what is and isn't a word?"

They're an eclectic collection of English and linguistics professors, journalists, etc., called the usage panel. Every dictionary's is different and, as one might expect, they often disagree. But their decisions are based on actual usage, not some kind of attempt to conform the language to a preconceived standard (like, say, the Academie Française does to a truly ridiculous degree).

Since you asked...or was that a rhetorical question? ;-)

Thank you Dave. What you posted confirmed my view of how words are, shall we say, from the peoople, as Sandburg might have written. The fact that usage panels from different dictionaries disagree is important. I like the OED, though perhaps like is too mellow a word for such a mamouth resource. My point, if enough people start using a word (which "isn't" a word when it is first used or made up), then the citations will end up in OED and it will become a word through usage. Good point about the French; another indication of their totalitarian bent, a la the Terror, etc.

"WHO decides what is and isn't a word?"

Exactly. You can use any "words" you like to express yourself. I mean, look at the French. They have a different word for EVERYTHING!

I love this blog! you are all so "HANGOUTABLE". I have a big smile on my face.To Tom Gordon- thank you for the 1, 2, 3's. You made the conversation easy to comprehend! I must say that using an education and healthcare as positives for living in cuba are just riddiculous! when i was there in 2002, a young doctor visited our family in Guantanamo who told the story of selling his bicycle to buy his mom a t.v and BORROWING a pen from another doctor so he could make notes on his morning rounds! Great education, but he didnt even own a pen! Healthcare is so "awesome" in cuba that many children are being born with learning disabilities because of trauma caused bY DELAYING any medical supervision to a mother in delivery! lets hear it for healthcare and education in cuba.