January 24, 2009

No Aficionado of Cubans: Updated

Time to run out and get your February issue of Cigar Aficionado This month's issue features a "special report" on, you guessed it, Cuba-

SPECIAL REPORT: CUBA
OPEN CUBA NOW — It’s time to normalize relations with our neighbor to the south. An expert on Cuban affairs drafts an open memo to the incoming U.S. president explaining why and how the embargo should be lifted.

APPROACHING CASTRO — Since Eisenhower ended diplomatic relations in 1961, nearly every president has attempted covert negotiations with Cuba. And they’ve all been handled the way porcupines mate—very carefully.

CIGARS UNDER COMMUNISM — The pride of Cuba has always been its world-class cigar production. But the industry has experienced vicissitudes as the communist regime nationalized factories, the United States imposed an embargo and an attempt to double production ended in debacle. Through it all, the cigars remain classics.

HAVANA PLEASURES — As the possibility of waves of American tourism nears, the Cuban capital’s dining and lodging infrastructure has largely not advanced with the times. We detail the long-standing charms of Havana’s icons


Aside from the presumption of dictating Obama's foreign policy, the editorial includes all the usual, as in American tourists will succeed where tourists from all over the world have failed. Nowadays, even Cuban Americans have given up the ghost. Yada, yada, yada.

The best is this shining example of understatement:

We don't gloss over the widespread and justified condemnation of some of Cuba's domestic policies that have limited political freedoms and human rights.

Gee, only "some" of its domestic policies have "limited political freedoms and human rights"? And of course, there is no understanding of the complexities behind the embargo, as in expropriated property. Can't wait to read the rest, but it'll have to wait 'til I hit my local library. Not on my dime.

Update: You know the rationale has to be pretty transparent when the New York Times calls you on it. In this, the editor calls it right.
The motivation has less to do with politics than with a good cigar.

H/T Alberto

Posted by rsnlk at January 24, 2009 06:48 PM

Comments

I wonder, If Cubans, let's say migrate to the Dominican Republic and use Cuban methods to grow, harvest, hand roll, and distribute Cigars, are they not Cuban? Just thinking about it here.

I buy Cuban cigars made here by Cubans y hecho a mano por Cubanos, so doesn't that make them Cuban?

See where I'm going here?

They meaning the "Cigar Aficionados" think that you have to go 90 miles from Key West to get contraband cigars that you can get here, or in the Dominican Republic. Come on!

Cohiba, Romeo y Julieta, Monte Cristo, all of these "puros" are being done out of the prison island. What? They just want to say "Oh I got these in Cuba."? Get the fuck out of here with that shit!

Posted by: Felix L. Ricardo [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 24, 2009 08:52 PM

For the life of me, I don't understand where is the patriotism of Cuban Americans? Why do Cuban millionaires like all of those Cuban cigar makers and the Bacardi's-- who advertise in Cigar Aficionado-- continue to do so? They are paying tens of thousands of dollars to advertise in that piece of junk and in doing so sustain it and keep it alive to attack us and to shill for the regime.

It's mind boggling. Why don't they at least try to influence that magazine. American advertisers--that is to say firms-- often threaten magazines, newspapers and TV stations if they have big advertising contracts with them and the magazines, newspapers or TV stations do some news story that harms their sales. I've heard where they have threatened to boycott [end their advertising contracts] and the news agency has had to cancel or change their stories in order to not loose their lucrative contracts.

But Cuban Americans do absolutely nothing.

Posted by: Rayarena [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 24, 2009 09:13 PM

Somehow, an endorsement of lifting the embargo by Cigar Aficionado strikes me as a tad non-objective. It puts me in mind of an article I read some years ago which extolled the many virtues of coffee; I noted, at the end of the article, that it had been published by the Brazilian Coffee Institute.

Posted by: Paco [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 24, 2009 10:30 PM

You guys seem to be missing the whole point here. This is not about politics, or ideologies, or even about the Cuban people themselves. This is about the writers and readers of Cigar Aficionado being able to puff on a Cuban cigar. That's it, we don't need to read any more into it.

So the tobacco is grown on an island plantation worked by slaves who are owned by the ruling elite--what does that have to do with some good old red-blooded American being able to enjoy a good cigar?

Posted by: albertodelacruz [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 24, 2009 10:57 PM

Guess the old commercial was right: walk a mile - or 90 miles - anything, for a Camel.

Posted by: Gigi [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 25, 2009 02:09 AM


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