Democracy could bring guns and mass shootings to Cuba

News media estimates of Cubans bidding farewell to Fidel Castro range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, including these mourners wending their way to the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana on Monday (AP photo). 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The death of revolutionary Fidel Castro prompted Cuban-American Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and many others to express the hope the island is "a step closer to freedom," as an editorial in The Record put it.

Just which rights would be appropriate in Cuba beyond freedom of speech, of the press and other basic freedoms?

You wouldn't be free to call for the overthrow of the socialist government, which provides universal health care and education to 11 million island residents despite the crushing U.S. trade embargo dating to 1962.

And, god forbid, Cubans would be given the right to bear arms, and imitate Americans' propensity for gun violence, school shootings and other mass killings.

Cubans also don't deserve a two-party system poisoned by money (Menendez himself is facing trial on corruption charges), suppression of minority voters and white police officers shooting a large number of blacks.

First flights

Americans on the first flights from New York, Newark and Miami to Havana in more than 50 years will be vacationing in the safest major tourist destination in the Caribbean.

They'll enjoy Havana's unique paladares, restaurants of no more than 12 seats set up in private homes; great Afro-Cuban music, eco-tourism and much more on the 777-mile-long island.

They'll even be able to rent a car and drive to a cafe on a hill where they can use binoculars to look at the U.S. prison in the Guantanamo Bay naval base. 

Soft news

Readers of The Record today and Monday have plenty of time to speculate about Cuba's future in view of all of the "soft" news and ho-hum local news assembled by Gannett editors.

Today's front page has only one hard news story -- the attack on the campus of Ohio State University.

Monday's Page 1 had no hard news, just a couple of feature stories that would have been more appropriate on the Local front.

Plus, 1A carried another boring political column from so-called Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson, whose updated thumbnail photo still has him propping up his head. 

Local news?

Check out some of the headlines in the local-news section today and Monday:

"Attorneys
to sum up
on Ramsey
Wawa plan"

"Wayne's world
means football"

"Missing Florida dog
is found in Paterson"

"Englewood church rebounding after fire"

"2 towns consider sharing complex"

"Hasbrouck Heights set to license cats"

"North Bergen's Police Dept.
welcomes body armor grants"

Many of the local-news stories in The Record now are being written by reporters from the weekly papers owned by Gannett's North Jersey Media Group.

Generally, they are younger and have less experience than reporters for the Woodland Park daily, and the stories show that.

The food-phobic travel editor

Page 1 of The Record today is filled with hard news, which is not always the case. The newspaper loves putting sports and infrastructure stories all over the front. Readers may not know that a story, no matter how important, will not be assigned to the central element of the page unless it has a great photo (or graphic, as in the algebra-test story today). In Record parlance, that story is "the patch."

On Page A-8, a story about a protest by commercial fishermen is silent on whether the new rules will affect New Jersey fishing ports.

A letter to the editor on A-11 claims "police salaries are out of control." The Record has published a number of stories in recent years, blaming high police and teacher salaries for the financial troubles of many towns. But it has been silent for the past decade on the incredible inefficiencies of home rule. Does Bergen County need 70 police chiefs, and police and fire departments; almost as many superintendents of schools and Departments of Public Works, and 100 to 200 neighborhood schools? Aren't they the reason property taxes are so high?

The Local section has no municipal news from diverse Teaneck, Hackensack and Englewood.

Better Living  has no food coverage, which is the case on most Saturdays, unless you count the stories on Halloween candy.

The Sunday Travel section -- delivered with the Saturday paper -- is a collector's item. It actually carries a story about restaurants (in New Orleans). Many travel sections are filled with stories about food, a big reason many people travel, but not The Record's section.

Have readers noticed the paper has had no major articles about travel in South Korea in many, many years? It's believed The Record's travel editor -- an animal lover -- is horrified by the notion  that some South Koreans allegedly eat dogs and won't run any stories about South Korea. This same editor traveled to Africa to help animals -- not people.

The story about New Orleans restaurants confines itself to the French Quarter, ignoring all the great neighborhood places, including Li'l Dizzy's Cafe (shrimp and grits) and Parkway Bakery (overstuffed po' boy sandwiches). It also provides no strategy for avoiding all the artery-clogging butter and cream in creole food, such as eating at one of the great Vietnamese places in or near the city.

Image via Wikipedia