Wow! Castro resigned!

It's an historic event of almost impossible weirdness. Castro's 49-year reign as the seemingly eternal president of Cuba means that a) pretty much no one under the age of 60 can remember him not ruling Cuba and b) he's become this mythical, timeless, ageless figure, who must, in our collective imagination, must be 153 if he's a day over 30—more fictional than real and more legend than person. Castro also never seemed to look any different until he suddenly showed up on Drudge last night finally looking his age and, somewhat humorously, sporting an Adidas track suit.

Castro in a track suit. Photo from Drudge and this New York Times slideshow, which credits it thusly: "Tv Cubana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images." Unclear how the photo relates to his resignation, but it seems to have been taken recently.

Anyway, I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you a little poorly drawn cartoon I made while bored to tears in my high school Latin American history class. The only thing I recall from our section on Cuba was learning about the methods used by the Castro regime to maintain his cult of personality.

Apparently—or so our teacher told us—children's books that were ubiquitous enough to be equivalent to Dick and Jane in the cultural consciousness of Cubans were filled with stories of Castro's heroism, including his single-handed invasion of a small village, and an incident of mythic proportions in which Castro was somehow tossed into the sea by enemy forces but refused to let go of his guns, even though he was in danger of drowning. During the revolution, see, resources were scarce, and Castro was so committed that he was willing to risk his life to conserve weaponry. Somehow, this story was supposed to be touching reading material for small children.

Unable to imagine how incidents involving mass slaughter and firearms could be appropriate material for children's literature, I had to attempt to sketch out part of such a book for myself. Here it is for your horror and enjoyment.

More importantly, though, you now know why the art world mourns my failure to become a visual artist on an almost-daily basis.