The Bully Pulpit

Real reform is at last achieved! While Cuban residents may be strangled by a blockade instituted by the United States for more years than I've been alive — you've seen the cars: Jesus, open a Hyundai dealership already — a measure of change dawned on that Caribbean country this week when Raul "not the real dictator" Castro bequeathed upon his people the power to grow their own brain tumors.

Cell phones have come to Cuba.

Members of the Buena Vista Social Club can now — in the middle of their basement set, dodging the single communist light bulb that sways back and forth on its moth-eaten cord — call their American cousins and say, "Wish you were here."

And the American cousins can say, "That music sounds great. Let me record you, release the album and make a mint off your talent while you remain conveniently stuck in Red Cuba, unable to cash in on Capitalism."

It's nice to see progress made in the struggle for human rights. Cell phones. Man, what's next? Ipods?