Sports Unearth The Most Barbaric Side Of You...

Modern sports seem to unleash the beast within; whether you like to admit it or not. Just try talking to a so-called sportsman and see how he reacts, especially when he doesn't like your question, you or when things have just not gone his way at all in the preceding ''sporting event''...

They attack the referees (granted, many of those deserve it, had it coming and should have never been given the power to decide the outcome of any sporting event ever - but still... we ought to leave the zzzebras alone, no? They must be endangered species - for other reasons, that is!) for to do so (again, attacking the refs - mercilessly!) is effectively giving the masses the wrongest of examples as they do not respect so-called ''authority'' at all pretty darn easy enough already...
And then peeps wonder why it is chaos and outright anarchy everywhere in the world... HA.

But no matter how bad people get to behave at sporting events, one thing is for damn sure: damn good (as in unique) pictures get to be snapped at those darn things - every time!



Hence... Onwards with the barbarism! (Hmm; don`t we actually have a blog devoted to just that, too...?!? Somewhere, out there - in the Blogosphere! In this TLB Prime Network of ours...)

Our Pope In Habana

Well, whether we like him or not, he is the Pope we have, these days...! (Which may well be the end days indeed - but that is another story.) And, as he is our Pope, the leader figure of our faith and Church, we have to endorse his actions; especially when he walks on the footsteps of John Paul II...
Pardon. I mean, Karol Jozef Woljtyla!
;-)

So, Cuba gets the official visit treatment - again.
Fourteen long years after the last papal trip there...
(Hmm... And I was just reminded that one Frances died exactly fourteen years older than another Frances - her namesake and cosmic twin of misfortune, verily. Should I see some synchronicity in this re-occurrence of the number 14...? At least it's not the number 23, but still... Anyhow - all that is another -sad- story for another sad blog - so let's just move on...)

Karol met Fidel, in 1998.
This time, Palpatine could meet Raul - and that's it...!
(Sorry - couldn't resist with the Star Wars reference there; I promise I'll behave from this point on!)

Why, we could wonder - why go to Cuba now?

Is it because the Pope hopes to be able to give Fidel his Last Rites - convert and save his soul all at once, giving the ailing Roman Catholic Church quite the boost that it sorely needs on the international front?

Officially, Cuba was still an atheistic country not all that long ago - do we need to remind the world of that? What about the communist thing - need we refresh anyone's memory about that, too?

Fidel, a man of many sins, who could go any minute now - the wish for the higher ranked priest of them all to give such a prime candidate for repentance the Last Communion is entirely justified.

It's not going to happen though, most likely...

Then why - why got to Cuba now, Benedict XVI?

Probably because it is his own last chance to do so, too! And he wants to seize every last chance he has to make an impact, make of his papacy more, much more than a mere ''transition papacy'' as it has been labeled since the very beginning.

There is yet another possible reason WHY CUBA NOW: because the Pope, somehow, has gotten wind that Luminous Luciano has gone to Cuba recently...!

Where Luminous goes, so does the Papacy!

One of his underlings, envoys or whatever elses, or the Pope himself, must have read how I raved about the musical talent in Cuba, trapped in the antithesis of a star system there, with practically zero hopes to ''make it big'' as Americans understand and define it...

They must have read about my sympathy with the plight of the common Cuban, my growing admiration for Che and the other Ernesto (Hemingway) - not to mention Tropicana!

They must have heard, through careful eavesdropping only a Brown-nosed Danny Boy could conceive of, they must have listened when I was raving about cigars, Romeo Y Julieta, MonteCristo, Ciego Montero, Cohiba, cerveza, all the rum, Calidad Sonera, drinks called anything from ''Zombie'' to ''Sex-On-The-Beach'' and my lookalike, Bucanero, of course...!

They could have seen, heard or read all about all of these topics and moi on and from a variety of sources: including, not in any particular order either, my co-workers, colleagues, friends and acquaintances, family, Picasa, Blogger right here, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Vimeo, YouTube...!

(I am all over the place, y'know; but that is, also, another story...)

Speaking of YouTube though - here is something I uploaded there about Cuba indeed:

Some great Cuban music, indeed -  however, the name of the band is misleading, somewhat. for, LIVE, the quality (CALIDAD) is there  but the quality of their CDs leaves somewhat to be desired... Sad, but true... If you see them perform, give them pesos  (that special form of peso: the tourist currency,  where one peso equals a dollar...!)  but do your own recordings... if you can! 

Now do you see what I am, er, speed-typing about here, hmm?

I guess I inspired Rome to do this; dispatch O Papa there,  at this precise point in time, this exact conjuncture, a mere month after I was there (give or take a few weeks) - my name being Luciano, it could not be any other way!

I am flattered, really - but that is about it.
In closing, some brotherly advice (as I am, also, ''in solidarity with the sacerdoce'' - oath oblige...! But that is another story...)
Don't tan, Pope: and may you not want to have to spend Easter with the communists/mostly-atheists now, if anything goes wrong and your papal plane gets grounded indefinitely (it could happen...!)
That time spent with the fans of la croix gammée in your youth was damaging enough - for a lifetime.

Sempre Por O Melhor
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