Quote of the Day/Week- Che Guevara

We continue our series of quotes from figures who have been made into plush doll toys by the American novelty company The Unemployed Philosophers Guild with a quote from the highly controversial Argentinian revolutionist Che Guevara (1929-1967), whose image can be seen on Cuban currency, since he helped Fidel Castro come to power.

Che tried a similar revolution in Bolivia, but the results were much different. In fact, he was assassinated there at age 39 by the Bolivian army, with help from the CIA. The village where he was executed La Higurea or "The Fig Tree" is now a surprising international tourist destination. Tourists can walk the trail and literally follow in Che's footsteps, but hopefully, they will not be greeted by a firing squad.

On film, Che has been portrayed at least three times, the most curious of which has to be Omar Sharif, an Egyptian actor in the film "Che!" (1969), where the late Jack Palance played Castro. It has a mere 4.5 on the Internet Movie Database.

Since Che was a man with far, far-left views which were fervently capitalism, many find the merchandising of his image, particularly on t-shirts, to be quiet ironic.

Here is the quote from Che:

"Many will call me an adventurer_ and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes."

READ The FINE PRINT: As much as we love quoting Che Guevara, who has always been surprisingly popular, we recognize he is a controversial figure and we do not advocate Marxism as a political philosophy. But, of course, Marxists are welcome on our blogs as our Republicans!

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bolivia

http://www.philosophersguild.com

http://www.marxists.org

http://www.che-lives.com

http://www.cheguevara.com

Quote of the Week- Che Guevara

Today, we start our month-long series of quotes from fringe, far left-wing radicals, both past and present. Since we quipped Malcolm X (1925-1965) on our other blog "The Daily Vampire," we thought we'd go with another man who was shot to death at age 39, the Marxist Argentinian revoluntist Che Guevara (1928-1967). Che was killed in Bolivia, and his remains were only discovered in recent years.

Many right-wingers in America hate the fact that there are supposedly vast numbers of very liberal people wearing Che t-shirts, though I've only seen two people wear them in the last two years. One was at a coffeeshop in Boulder, Colo, and the other was at a nightclub in Chapel Hill, NC. However, last week, I did see a twenty-something guy at a Waffle House somewhere in North Carolina wearing a t-shirt with the slogan "We Shall Overcome." It was actually a white kid and his shirt showed the rebel-flag hovering over the Capitol Building. I guess he will never appreciate the sacrifices that Martin Luther King, Jr., made for our country. But, of course, extremists on our side of the fence are much worse for America than racist bigots (sarcasm intended!).

I do sympathize with the point expressed by the ultra-conservative magazine News Max and the right-wing blog ihatethemedia.com (I suppose they love Fox News though, which is part of the media, right?!) that Che did needlessly kill lots of innocent people, a point which has been well-documented.

But, the man himself is quite a fascinating figure, and no matter what one thinks of the Cuban Revolution, it remains astonishing that Che met with Fidel Castro in a hotel in Mexico City, and they successfully organized a rebellion and took over the central government of Cuba. Actually, this ironically sounds like what the Tea Partiers would like to do to President Barack Obama as I'm sure the political good-will for killing Osama bin Laden expired at 11:45 p.m., Sunday night, a mere 15 minutes after our president announced the success of the mission in Pakistan. Am I right, Bill O'Reilly?

So, here is this quote from Che; for the record I am not a Marxist though I would classified as one in rural Idaho:

"Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridicilous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love."

As for the answer to last week's road quiz, Lynchburg, Va., and Wilmington, Del., are five hours and 30 minutes apart though we suspect traffic between Washington, DC, and Baltimore would substantially add to that commute.

Quotes from The Composers- Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Today, as promised, we are featuring quotes from legendary Russian composers and today we quip Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) who the Romanitc era composer who composed symphonies, operas and chamber music. But, he is arguably best known for his ballets, which include "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake."

Since "The Black Swan" is in cinemas now, and we FINALLY saw it last week (I was actually going to post an entry called The Curse of the Black Swan because every time I wanted to see the film something went wrong; it is definitely one of the best films from 2010), the image of an actual black swan seemed nifty. At least, it did to Javier the intern*. The image (according to Javier) is from Perth, Australia.

Natalie Portman also won a Golden Globe Award for her cinematic performance as a ballet dancer in "Black Swan." But, since we were not able to watch the broadcast (though I saw on Twitter that foul-mouthed comedian Sarah Silverman did!), we could not see if Portman was wearing her trademark vegan sandals.

But, getting back to Tchaikovsky, here is today's quote from the Russian master:

"Truly there would be more reason to go mad were it not for music."

SIDEBAR: As we have mentioned before, there is a sequel to the hit book "Stuff White People Like" based on the ever-popular blog of the same name (they get thousands more hits than we do even though there are only periodic entries?!). The new book by Christian Lander is called "Whiter Shades of Pale." He will be promoting it at Book Cellar in Chicago on Thursday.

According to the blog's last entry from December, these days white people seem to enjoy Christopher Guest films on dvd (like "Waiting for Guffman"), cd compilations of Bolivian music (he has me there!) and single-malt scotch.

*-Javier is a fictional person!