Hooking Left: Cuba Tees Up Golf's Revival

[rayofreason]

Source: Wall Street Journal

Now that Fidel Castro has retired, perhaps he can find the time to work on his golf game.

In 1962, Mr. Castro lost a round of golf to Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who had been a caddy in his Argentine hometown before he became a guerrilla icon. Mr. Castro's defeat may have had disastrous consequences for the sport. He had one Havana golf course turned into a military school, another into an art school. A journalist who wrote about the defeat of Cuba's Maximum Leader, who was a notoriously bad loser, was fired the next day.

Now, top officials on the island want to turn Mr. Castro's Communist paradise into a hotspot for this decidedly capitalist sport, to generate hard cash for its cash-strapped economy. Last year, Cuba's minister of tourism, Manuel Marrero, announced plans to build as many as 10 golf courses to lure upscale tourists.

"The message from Cuba is: bring on golf projects," says Mark Entwistle, a former Canadian ambassador to the island.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120372084292586793.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[oscarmitre]

1. Is there a word such as Maui-isation? n/t

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. No wonder Castro lost. Check out the golf shoes!

[rayofreason]

3. LOL!!!! eom

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. He reminds me of John Daly.

If John Daly wore fatigues and had a beard and glasses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Daly_%28golfer%29

[Paladin]

4. I'm Going To Fool Around And Not Make That Trip To Havana

I always wanted to go there before the embargo was lifted, just to see what it's like. Looks like, God willing, the embargo may go away before too much longer---and a couple of years after that, Havana will just be Cancun with better smokes. Of course, that's more than offset by the fact that the U.S. won't be keeping the Cuban people hungry, just to satisfy a bunch of right-wing jerks in Miami. Stupid, failed policy.....

[roody]

5. Go now! Before McDonalds gets there.

You won't see hungry people. You will see people doing meaningful work. If you need a doctor, there will be one close by and you will get good health care.

[robcon]

6. You'll see something, though.

"You won't see hungry people. You will see people doing meaningful work. If you need a doctor, there will be one close by and you will get good health care."

You'll see politically repressed people, yearning to break free from their masters. People trying to survive on diminished calories and $19/month.

[roody]

7. Have you been to Cuba?

You'll hear kids singing songs about doing good. You'll see teenage girls everywhere without babies in their arms. You'll even see folks walking their cute dogs. You'll see some wild sexual dancing if you want.

[robcon]

8. No I haven't been to Cuba.

But I've dealt with Cuban officials as part of a joint venture my company is involved in with the Cuban government. Although above the levels North Korea and some sub-Saharan countries, Cuba's people are suffering from chronic malnutrition...

"As discussed earlier in this fact sheet, FAO's minimum daily nutritional requirements for Cuba are 2,400 Kcal of calories, 75 grams of fat, and 72 grams (29 and 43 grams of animal and vegetable origins, respectively) of proteins. What is Cuba's record with regard to the nutrition of its population? To address that question, the data presented by FAO, the Cuban government, and some Cuban scholars are examined...

...From 1980 until 1991 in the official Cuban data and until 1993 for FAO data, Cuba exceeded the minimum daily requirements of 2,400 calories. Although they had been decreasing since 1989 and 1991, respectively, it is not until 1992 and 1994 that the intake falls below 2,400 calories. The pattern is different regarding proteins. From 1980 until 1989, the figures remained very close above the minimum daily requirement of 72 grams; after that year, they decreased abruptly and have remained below the minimum requirement. Data for fat intake behaves similarly to that for proteins. In the 1980s, levels of fat intake were slightly above the minimum daily requirement of 75 grams. Since 1988, according to the official data, and 1991 for the FAO data, fat intake levels of 75 grams per day remain below the minimum daily requirement. It is obvious that these low levels coincide with the establishment of the "Special Period in Time of Peace" (a series of measures announced by the Cuban government in September of 1991 which was intended to deal with the economic hardships brought to Cuba by the collapse of the Soviet bloc). The startling finding, however, is that, although the Cuban government supplied the numbers to FAO, the official statistics in Cuba's official Anuario Estadístico are not only below those of FAO, but they are reported to have begun decreasing even before the establishment of the Special Period in all three cases (1989 for calories, fats, and proteins), with fat being the one showing the worst scenario. When the daily per capita intake of calories, proteins, and fats is broken down by animal and vegetable sources, the decreases experienced in the three nutritive measures were greater from animal sources, which have higher nutritive value than vegetable sources..."

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE483

[Judi Lynn]

9. Why not use information from current records?

Nutrition: An Up Side to Hard Times

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: October 9, 2007
Cuba’s economic crisis in the 1990s had a silver lining, scientists are reporting: a decrease in the rates of obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke.

And no wonder. Average calorie consumption dropped more than a third, to 1,863 calories a day in 2002 from 2,899 in 1989. Cubans also exercised more, giving up cars for walking and bicycling.

Using national vital statistics and other sources, the researchers gathered data on energy intake, body weight and physical activity in Cuba from 1980 to 2005. In Cienfuegos, a large city on the southern coast, obesity rates decreased to less than 7 percent in 1995 from more than 14 percent in 1991. As more food became available, obesity increased to about 12 percent again by 2002.

Nationwide, coronary heart disease mortality declined 35 percent from 1997 to 2002. Diabetes mortality was down to less than 10 per 100,000 in 2003 from 19 per 100,000 in 1988. The death rate from all causes declined to 4.7 per thousand in 2002 from 5.9 per thousand in 1982.

“No one is recommending an economic crisis as a health measure,” said Dr. Manuel Franco of the department of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins. “What we are saying is that changes at the population level designed to reduce caloric intake and increase physical activity might be best suited to prevent obesity and its related conditions.”


The article was published online in The American Journal of Epidemiology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/health/09nutr.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Population-Wide Weight Loss In Cuba Resulted In Fewer Deaths From Diabetes And Heart Disease

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2007) — Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Cienfuegos, Cuba and Loyola University had a unique opportunity to observe the impact of population-wide weight loss due to sustained reductions in caloric intake and an increase in energy output.


This situation occurred during the economic crisis of Cuba in 1989-2000. As a result, obesity declined, as did deaths attributed to diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke.


"This is the first, and probably the only, natural experiment, born of unfortunate circumstances, where large effects on diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality have been related to sustained population-wide weight loss as a result of increased physical activity and reduced caloric intake," said Manuel Franco, MD, a PhD candidate in the Bloomberg School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology.

"Population-wide approaches designed to reduce caloric intake and increase physical activity, without affecting nutritional sufficiency, might be best suited for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and diabetes."

The study authors gathered data on energy intake, body weight and physical activity using previously published literature from the Cuban National Institute of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Cuban First and Second National Surveys on Risk Factors and Chronic Diseases and the Cuban Ministry of Public Health.

There was a drop in the daily per capita food availability from the late 1980s to 1995, resulting in a daily energy intake decline from 2,899 kcal in 1988 to 1,863 kcal in 1993. In 1987, 30 percent of Havana residents were physically active. From 1991 to 1995, 70 percent of Cubans were physically active as a result of widespread use of bicycles and walking as means of transportation. Obesity prevalence in Cienfuegos, Cuba, decreased from 14.3 percent in 1991 to 7.2 percent in 1995.

During the end of the Cuban economic downturn and the years following it, there were substantial declines in cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and all-cause mortality. The researchers report a plateau in the number of deaths from diabetes during the food shortage of 1988-1996, when physical activity increased and obesity decreased.

"Future steps towards prevention of cardiovascular disease and diabetes should focus on long-term population-wide interventions by encouraging physical activity and the reduction of caloric intake," explained Franco, who is also affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Welch Center for Prevention and Epidemiology.

More:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070928214552.htm

http://www.danheller.com.nyud.net:8090/images/LatinAmerica/Cuba/People/Kids/school-kid-c-big.jpg http://www.danheller.com.nyud.net:8090/images/LatinAmerica/Cuba/People/Men/McShit-big.jpg

[Mika]

10. I'm shocked. Just shocked, I tell you what ..

.. I just can't believe that the "American way" isn't the best way to do all things. :eyes:



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[roody]

11. It is time for a DU meetup in Cuba.

How about the last half of July?

[Judi Lynn]

13. Remembered your concern for the poor when I saw this article. thought you'd want to be notified.

NEW YORK: The United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) has warned of a potential nutritional crisis in Central America, where the prices of wheat and corn have nearly doubled in the past year and bad weather has pushed the price of beans to unprecedented levels.

The agency notes that the surge has meant that the actual calorie intake of an average meal in rural El Salvador, for example, is today roughly 60 per cent of what it was in May 2006.

"At this stage, it is still premature to provide figures, but we fear a deepening nutritional crisis among the poorest segments of the population, those already food and nutritionally insecure," WFP El Salvador Country Director Carlo Scaramella, who is coordinating a study of the impact of recent rising prices in the region, said.

"At the same time, what we are seeing is the emergence of a new group of nutritionally and food-insecure people among the poorest strata of the population," he added.

More:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/USA/Potential_nutritional_crisis_to_strike_Central_America_UNWFP/rssarticleshow/2818693.cms

[Mika]

14. robcon, your "facts" are out of date. - UN praises Cuba's ability to feed its people

'Cubans are starving.' Yet another canard put forth by DU's Cubaphobe "experts" who have never set foot on the island.


Robcon, in 2007 the UN ndependent investigator on “the right to food” praises Cuba's ability to feed its people.

http://netnerd.ca/2007/11/07/un-food-expert-praises-cubas-ability-to-feed-its-people/

A U.N. food expert hailed Cuba as a world model in feeding its population, some 18 years after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc ravaged the island’s economy and sparked widespread hunger.

Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations’ independent investigator on “the right to food” since 2000, spent 11 days in Cuba on a fact-finding mission, meeting with top officials and chatting up farmers, state managers and ordinary Cubans waiting in line for food allotted by ration cards.

“We haven’t seen even one malnourished person” — a rare feat in much of poverty-stricken Latin America, Ziegler said Tuesday. “The right to being fed is the priority, without a doubt.”

Cuba is one of 32 countries that include the “right to food” in their constitutions, and fewer still — including Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy — meet pledges to provide food to all their citizens, he said.

Ziegler, who visited two prisons in Havana to ask inmates about their daily diets, did not address human rights concerns over the arbitrary imprisonment and alleged abuse of political prisoners and critics of the island’s one-party government.

Despite a 46-year U.S. embargo against the communist-run island, Cuba has found ways to ensure its population does not go hungry, Ziegler said. “Cuba always invents an answer,” he noted.

Widespread daily shortages continue to frustrate Cubans, and the government blames those — and nearly all other — problems on the embargo. Yet since 2000, Cuba has been able to purchase food and agricultural products from the U.S. on a cash basis.

The island still struggles with major deficits in food production, and relies too much on foreign imports, Ziegler said. But the related need to improve production capacity has been addressed more openly since July, when interim leader Raul Castro encouraged people to seek ways to improve efficiency in farming and other sectors.

Raul Castro has governed Cuba since July 2006, when emergency intestinal surgery forced his brother Fidel to step aside.

Ziegler’s visit marked the third time a U.N. special investigator has been invited to the island since 1998. The Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council appoints outside experts like him to investigate specific countries or subjects, giving them wide latitude in their reports.

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