Quote (Thought) of the Year

"There is no doubt that the Castro dictatorship will fall. The problem is just how much suffering it will cause, how many more sacrifices it will require -- like a barbaric totem -- prior to falling. A moment of greatness is approaching the Cuban people. One of those historic thresholds that one must know how to cross to earn the future. In our transition (in Spain), we knew how to do it: our entire society knew how to be generous and choose coexistence. We must now support the Cuban people. We must help them untangle themselves as quickly as possible from the bloodied cobwebs of that immoral and scandalously inefficient regime which, for example, just had its lowest sugar production since 1905. And once the bars of that great prison that is the island of Cuba are shattered, they will have to learn to understand and respect each other. It's a crucial moment. Let's not abandon them."

-- Rosa Montero, Spanish journalist and author, in the left-leaning El Pais newspaper, May 11, 2010.