Chauncey Gardner is alive and well in Havana...
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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chinese Rice Cookers: Women's Day Gift from Castro |
| 2005-03-10 |
| I'm telling you, it's a Workers Paradise! HAVANA (Reuters) - President Fidel Castro gave Cuban women some good news on International Women's Day: rice cookers are coming to every household. In a five-hour 45-minute speech to cheering women on Tuesday night, the Cuban leader announced 100,000 pressure cookers and rice cookers would be available each month at subsidized prices. A '59 Chevy in every garage and a rice cooker in every kitchen. El Jefe commands it! "Those of you who like rice cookers, raise your hands," Castro said to applause from hundreds of women. The 78-year-old leader spent two hours talking about the merits of pressure cookers. His cook must've told him all about it. Castro's gesture may have carried some irony, coming on a day commemorating women's battles for equality. But many Cuban women, who do the vast majority of domestic work despite advances toward equality under Castro, were only too happy to hear the Chinese-made rice cookers were on their way. The electric rice cooker is a treasured appliance in communist-run Cuba, where the basic diet is black beans and rice. The cookers were among appliances banned to save energy a decade ago when Cuba was plunged into economic crisis and power outages due to the loss of Soviet aid and oil. Looks like Hugo's coming through for them. Wonder if they're paying $55 a barrel? The cookers could be distributed now, Castro said, because Cuba was emerging from the crisis and had resolved its latest energy crunch, caused by a failure of the island's largest power plant last summer. With average salaries of $12 a month, most Cubans cannot afford rice cookers that now sell for $60 on the black market. Yep, a Workers Paradise! "They will be received with open arms. When the gas goes, you can make beans, boil vegetables or heat up milk for the baby," said a Cuban housewife. She said electric rice cookers are vital in rural Cuba, where households cook on wood or coal fires when gas is not available. What happens when the electricity goes out? |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #10 Lol, DN! Thai Jasmine be da best. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-03-10 10:59:07 PM |
| #9 Way back when I was 8 or so, when we first moved from New Orleans to Acadiana, my mom was at the grocery when someone mentioned in passing that the brand of rice she was shopping for "didn't stick together right..." |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-03-10 10:53:13 PM |
| #8 Is it THAT DIFFICULT to cook rice on a stovetop? And the Japanese make the best rice cookers, not the Chinese. |
| Posted by: gromky 2005-03-10 10:23:33 PM |
| #7 Great! How about some rice? |
| Posted by: Estella y Habana 2005-03-10 4:18:29 PM |
| #6 Another report adds a different slant: The program could wipe out what has become a popular, and in most cases legal, private business that uses molds to make pressure cookers from cheap aluminum. Although imported cookers are sold in stores for about $25 - more than the average Cuban earns in a month - homemade ones cost about $5.50. At subsidized prices, the government-distributed cookers will cost about the same as the homemade ones. And the government's cookers can be paid for in monthly installments. The government began moving last year to trim the already small number of people legally allowed to work for themselves. Cuba was forced to allow some private business beginning in the mid-1990s amid an economic crisis in the years after the withdrawal of Soviet aid and trade. Those modest reforms were seen as temporary, but necessary, evils. But after a slow recovery, recent discoveries of oil deposits off Cuba's coast and economic alliances with Venezuela and China, Castro clearly believes the island is strong enough to return to a more centralized economy. |
| Posted by: Steve 2005-03-10 3:24:06 PM |
| #5 The 78-year-old leader spent two hours talking about the merits of pressure cookers. Chauncey Gardner is alive and well in Havana... |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-03-10 12:04:01 PM |
| #4 Woman: A rice cooker. Oh, you shouldn't have, Your Excellency. Castro: My pleasure. Anything to further the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Woman: Pardon me, Your Most Maximum Jefe. Does this thing come with rice? Castro (to bodyguard): Have this capitalist running dog shot. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2005-03-10 11:35:18 AM |
| #3 Castro just "Jumped The Shark" |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2005-03-10 11:28:50 AM |
| #2 Oprah gives away better presents, and her audience only has to sit through an hour taping. |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2005-03-10 11:28:26 AM |
| #1 "...a five-hour 45-minute speech..." "...two hours talking about the merits of pressure cookers..." I don't know about the whole speech, but the two hours on pressure cookers surely qualifies him for a new job in the EU bureaucracy. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-03-10 10:32:03 AM |