Castro As You Have Never Thought Of Him

Just read Jeffrey Goldberg's staggering little piece of reportage from Havana. Just stop now and read it. Strange, creepy, funny, and also in some way, if one can even think of the old commie in this fashion, humane. I note, as an aside, that Castro is not just suddenly anti-anti-Semitic (he's actually very moving on the subject) but also anti-anti-homophobic, in what appears to be some kind of senescent bid for absolution from a God in which he does not believe.

I find any respect for this old dictator distasteful, but Jeffrey manages to describe him with the requisite aplomb. Dish fave:

When I asked him, over lunch, to answer what I've come to think of as the Christopher Hitchens question - has your illness caused you to change your mind about the existence of God? - he answered, "Sorry, I'm still a dialectical materialist."

The last one left. For what it's worth, I think Castro's right that the looming Israel-Iran clash could be the spark of a new and dark age of global war. For all our talk of recession and economics, this president may well be remembered for one thing alone: whether he manages to prevent us from entering this cataclysm.

At some point, it may be up to him alone.

And all I can say is that I feel about this looming possibility oceans of dread. Somewhere in the back of my head, I drank in this summer as deeply as I could, because it feels at times like 1913 with nukes and anthrax.