European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 5, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Thursday december 5,1991 the stars and stripes b Page 13 commentary Candice Hughes die hard Castro wonders what happened Havana a Day by Day some things grow scarcer and others move More slowly. Factories shops and stores Are silent. Buses trucks tractors and trains stand Idle. Torpor seems to grip this communist bastion Only 90 Miles from Florida but even so workers Are blasting through dirt and Rock to build a honeycomb of bomb shelters under Havana. Work on the Peoples tunnels accelerated As the soviet bloc dissolved and the costly project continues despite the dire state of the cuban Economy. A siege mentality is in evidence. Official rhetoric has taken on an apocalyptic tone since soviet communism was brought Down by a failed coup in August against Mikhail Gorbachev. A if they have to kill All the people to crush the revolution then the people behind their leaders and their party will be willing to die a president Fidel Castro declared at the end of the cuban communist party Congress in october. Many other cubans wrestle with painful questions raised by the soviet upheaval. It is a time of profound economic political and personal crisis seen by some As an Opportunity to reinvigorate ideals redefine socialism in cuban terms and look beyond Lenin. A socialism should always be Green like a Palm a said Santiago Perez a political scientist at the Center for american studies. The key he and Many other party intellectuals believe is to not to lose sight of the humanity at the heart of the cuban revolution of commitments like free health care and education. Others find their most passionately held convictions thrown into doubt by the sudden death of Lenin a party an event Castro described As a terrible incredible a my communism came from the heart it was something truly idealistic a said novelist Daniel Chavarria 58. A the collapse of the East bloc is like having something torn from me Chavarria whose political convictions led him to Hijack a plane to Cuba in 1969 from Russia with Lone and dedicate a spy novel to Felix Dze Rohinsky founder of the soviet secret police said writing of the contemporary world had become too painful. His new Book is set in Athens in the 5th Century . The fall of soviet communism ended an already dying relationship Between Castro and the Kremlin. It closed 30 years of patronage that supplied his islands 10 million people with everything from paper to Petroleum. Soviet Aid was dwindling and nearly everything had been rationed by the time statues of Lenin began to Tumble. But Cuba needed Oil the soviets wanted sugar and some sort of Deal seemed Clear. Now nobody knows what will happen. At the soviet Trade Mission where the cuban communist party newspaper grandma serves As toilet paper an official recited the dictum of Boris n. Yeltsin president of the russian Republic no Aid no Loans no credits no technical assistance. Every dispatch from Moscow brings More stunning news. Within Days the Mission Learned the soviet state Petroleum exporting company was going private and the Central Bank might fold. After the Shock of the soviet coup Many cubans looked for answers from their party Congress and found none. Castro quashed the two most hotly debated topics a a More open press and free Farmers markets a and the party endorsed Only measures discussed Long before the soviet upheaval. Academics diplomats artists and officials say the party poured its Energy into maintaining Unity. One said the mentality was a Are you with us or against us a As Carlos Lac Davila a politburo member told the Congress a this special period will oblige every cuban to define himself. The real revolutionary is firmest in this hour More convinced More optimistic. The opportunist is unmasked. The Coward drops out or joins the c Tho associated pres Scarl Rowan cowardly networks should run condom ads the television networks Are throwing More teen agers and unmarried adults into perilous sexual encounters than any institution in America with the possible exception of the movies. Yet television executives have been utterly irresponsible in inspiring people to engage in sex while refusing to run advertisements for condoms which Are so essential to making sex Safe in a time of aids syphilis herpes chlamydia and other diseases that Range from awful to fatal. Fox to has been provoked by the magic Johnson and his his to break the Wall of hypocrisy and agree to air condom commercials a but Only if they address the Issue of disease prevention. It will still be a no no for Fox to run a commercial that says in effect a if watching married with children on Fox provokes you to have sex be sure to use a condom so you done to get the networks go squeamish and sanctimonious when someone suggests they run condom ads As part of a a Safe sex Campaign. The network brass is cowed by people who see condom ads As condoning sexual Intercourse outside marriage a people who believe that if the is Are not run the millions of sexually Active people out there will take up knitting and gardening. The magic Johnson tragedy and some straight thinking news people Are pushing the networks away from this hypocrisy. No cd a today show carried a feature in which an aids Counselor used an artificial Penis and demonstrated badly i note How to put on a condom. After this bit of mid morning sexual instruction How Long can Abc refuse to air commercials for condoms the networks and local television stations Are As much a part of americans educating process As Are the schoolhouses and colleges. For a generation television has titillated and tempted millions of youngsters using sex in programming and sex in the promotion of perfume soap jeans menus shirts Ana just about every product you can name. But television has hidden cowardly from the real world when the Issue was condoms and other products that might ease a torrent of births out of Wedlock or end a grotesque epidemic of aids. I think we Are about to see the rising threat of aids Jerk a lot of to Heads out of the Sand. C North America Syndicate
