Stan and Kim in Cuba

(blog by Stan) I've never seen a Fast and Furious movie, and don't plan on seeing the 9th one of the franchise, which was released this week. But the catchy title came to mind as I read the story in Mark's gospel of Jesus coming down the mountain and casting out a destructive spirit from a boy. The boy was prone to convulsions and gnashing of teeth, leaving him completely rigid. The disciples' inability to make any headway with the evil spirit made Jesus furious ("You unbelieving generation! How long do I have to put up with you?"). When questioned about the healing, Jesus told them there are some things that can only be confronted with prayer and fasting. So, if we're to imitate Jesus in confronting the evil and destructive spirits of our generation, we'll need to fast, and remember that it's not un-Christlike to be furious in the process of praying.   We are well into the second "unbelieving generation" when it comes to US-Cuba relation...

 (blog by Stan) Just when you thought bipartisanship was dead and buried, President Biden has single-handedly revived it by throwing his support behind Donald Trump's inhumane and ineffective Cuba policy. It seems we can now call it the Trump-Biden agenda. The former President's obsession with punishing Cuba manifested itself in no less than 240 executive measures aimed at tightening the US stranglehold on the island's economy, causing senseless suffering and unleashing a humanitarian crisis for our neighbors ninety miles away. Among his almost weekly actions against Cuba were limitations on travel, blocking a humanitarian shipment of masks and ventilators early in the pandemic, shutting down embassy services, prohibiting remittances, and placing Cuba on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror. The last official action he took as President was to place the International Finance Bank of Cuba on the list of sanctioned institutions. Since this is the bank t...