birthday action Today's Granma has photos of Fidel insisting that he "feels very happy!" One of the photos does that creepy "look, the hostage is still alive thing" of posing Castro holding up a copy of yeterday's newspaper. I'm not buying it yet--let's see if he follows that up with some kind of birthday announcment. If he really does look this good, we should hear something from the guy. Plus Chávez is apparently on his way to town, which definitely means photo-op. STILL no freaking Raúl. The weirdness isn't going to stop anytime soon. And, dude, that isn't an Adidas logo on his little jacket, is it??!

**Update: I thought something looked extra-weird about the newspaper photo:



Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the "Granma" banner usually/always in red, not black? All the copies I brought back from Cuba have red banners, as do all the copies I dug out of the library basement for my thesis...as are all of the editions I can find with a google image search for "granma." But maybe weekend editions are different or something...? I wish I had a hard copy of yesterday's edition to compare...  ¶ 10:17 AM