Granma Muses

Castro breaks editorial silence to berate U.S. over biofuels policy

Say you're a legendary communist leader sidelined by a secret illness. You're eager to break your months-long silence with an editorial, and you're looking for just the right topic. Do you choose ... your prognosis? Your island nation's health? Heck no. If you're Fidel Castro, you choose the U.S. infatuation with biofuels. An article printed today in the Communist Party daily Granma (not to be confused with the weekly Granpa) hints at Castro's views on ethanol and economics under the headline "More than 3 billion people of the world condemned to premature death by hunger and thirst." The recovering revolutionary says he's been "meditating quite a bit since President Bush's meeting with North American automobile makers" and slams the "sinister idea of converting food into combustibles." Instead, he says, countries should follow Cuba's lead and ... switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs! That, he says, "would give climate change a break without starving the poor masses of the world."