Castro At The Helm!

The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on !
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ;
Yet never a breeze up-blew ;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do ;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools–
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee :
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.

(Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

Cuban officials today proudly announced that Fidel Castro is still at the helm. Reuters dutifully reported the announcement.

"He is still at the helm," Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, told reporters.

Alarcon said the 80-year-old Cuban leader was out of sight because he was following strict doctor's instructions for his recovery "which is going very well."

Castro relinquished power for the first time since his 1959 revolution when he handed over government duties temporarily to his brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro on July 31.

Alarcon said the timing of Fidel Castro's return to public life would depend on his recovery and indicated that skeptics were in for a surprise.

Alarcon dismissed as "speculation by gossip mongers" a Spanish newspaper report that Castro had had a series of three failed operations on his large intestine since last July that caused severe infection.

Somehow, the image of Castro at the helm of a ship full of the dead seems apt. It would have to be a large ship to hold all his victims over the years. Sail on, Fidel. Sail on.