Generation Vex – The (really) long goodbye of the Baby Boomers. – by P.J. O’Rourke

O rend thy garments, America! Heap ashes upon thy head. We, the generation of generations–triumphant in our multitudes, invincible, indomitable, insufferable–have come into our inheritance. Hereby we claim our birthright. Give us all your money.

The pittance that is a current Social Security payment was intended to maintain the doddering retirees of yore in their accustomed condition of thin gruel and single-car garages. Such chump change will hardly suffice for today’s vigorous sexagenarians intent on (among other things) vigorous sex, in places like Paris, St. Bart’s, and Phuket.

How can present Social Security allotments be expected to fund our sky-diving, bungee-jumping, hang gliding and white-water rafting, our skiing, golf and scuba excursions, our photo safaris to Africa, bike tours of Tuscany and sojourns at Indian ashrams, our tennis clinics, spa treatments, gym memberships and personal fitness training, our luxury cruises to the Galapagos and Antarctica, the vacation homes in Hilton Head and Vail, the lap pools, Jacuzzis, and clay courts being built thereat and the his and hers Harley Davidsons?”*

• CNN’s Rick Sanchez Interviews Juanita Castro: “While you were still in Cuba and your brother was beginning a Marxist revolution, you were not only cooperating with the CIA, but you were protecting CIA agents who were inside Cuba at the time.”
• Miami sports agent who aided in defections freed from jail – Juan Ignacio Hernández Nodar, a Miami sports agent who served 13 years for trying to help Cuban baseball stars defect, will fly home Friday.
• Could the U.S.-Cuba Travel Ban End Soon?
• After 76 years, a return engagement for Cuba’s Septeto Nacional
• The head of the World Health Organization says Fidel Castro looks stronger and wonderful for his 83 years.
• Statement by Sarah Stephens, Center for Democracy in the Americas, UN Vote on Cuba embargo – After UN Embargo Vote, Obama Should Push Further, Faster on Cuba Policy Reforms
• Independent bloggers school opens in Cuba
• U.N. Vote to Condemn (Obama’s?) Embargo on Cuba
• Fidel Castro’s younger sister, Juanita, now living in Miami, reveals in a Univisión-Noticias 23 report on her new book that she worked with the CIA while living in Cuba.
• Más mujeres en estructuras de poder de Cuba
• Cuba allows U.S. access to jailed dual citizens – While Cuba recently gave a State Department official permission to visit jailed U.S.-Cuban citizens, travel restrictions remain in place.
• A steep drop in U.S. payments for telephone calls to Cuba may have been caused by Cuban Americans’ growing travel to the island, the U.S. economic crisis or increased Internet communications
• A small Miami-based company said the U.S. government has given it permission to lay the first optical communications fiber from the U.S. to Cuba. That could drastically cut the cost of calling the island nation and make the Internet more accessible to Cubans.
• A Cuban blogger who has become an international sensation for offering frank criticism of her country’s communist system said she was denied government permission Monday to travel to New York to receive a top journalism prize. – Yoani Sanchez
• U.S.-Cuba travel picking up steam – Bills in Congress to allow all travel to Cuba are increasingly drawing support among U.S. lawmakers and the public — but they still face an uncertain future.
• Faced with a deep recession, Cuba tries socialism lite – scaling back socialism in an attempt to save it
• Luis Armando Pena Soltren: Hijacker Arrested At JFK Airport 40 Years After Diverting Plane To Cuba
• Cuban public health authorities reported the first three deaths from the AH1N1 flu virus on the island and said that to date 621 cases of the disease have been confirmed.
• Yoani Sánchez: ‘‘Mi vida está en otra Cuba, no en otra parte”
• Jose Luis Rodriguez, President and CEO of Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, Inc. Announces the preview and launching of a new television series ‘ENLACE CUBA’