I’m part of that really odd ‘age group’ that doesn’t really know much about Castro and hasn’t really been impacted by the actions of Cuba and its Communist regime. I know enough about Cuba to tell you that a large portion of it’s citizens try every day to take advantage of the U.S. Policy regarding Wet Feet Dry Feet, but beyond that, I am really quite clueless.

This morning, when I woke up, the fact that Castro had resigned his post as President and head of Military Affairs for Cuba was plastered all over my RSS Feeds for Google News. It seems to have taken everyone by surprise and even more shocking is the fact that there has been little information out of Cuba today regarding the resignation of their decades long dictator. Shocking still is the fact that there’s been nary a peep from the Little Havana part of South Florida. In fact, just over a year ago, there were huge talks regarding the impact of Castro’s death and how Cuban-American’s in South Florida would celebrate this seemingly joyous occasion. Yet, today, nothing.

I have to admit, I am a bit skeptical of how this change will impact Cuban Citizens still living in Cuba. Will they embrace democracy? Will the Trade Embargo be lifted? Will Cuba become a free Democratic Country? This is a huge era of change for Cubans and likely pretty scary.

I’d like to follow up in a few days, with more news out of Cuba. More information about what the short term plans are. How the people of Cuba are faring after such a sudden resignation. Until then, please comment and discuss how you’ve felt about this news out of Cuba today. I know I have some South Florida readers, so maybe they can share a bit about how this has impacted their local communities.

I first noticed it when we lived in the Chicago area - and it’s continued in every location we’ve lived in.

“Up next, the local connection to the (Insert random tragic event here)! Stay tuned!”

What does this say about our nation? Does it say we’re media hounds and that any time something happens, people pick up the phone and give testament to their ‘first hand knowledge’ (which is usually NOT first hand) of an event or does this say we’re a bunch of stuck up morons who could care less about what is going on 100 miles away, unless it impacts us here, locally?

Likely a combination of both.

I was watching a local news station last night that had a story about the NIU shooting. Like networks all across the nation, they had a ‘local connection’ and I literally laughed coffee through my nose when they finally got to that segment and the ‘local connection’ was a man who had a grandparent (long deceased) who lived in Dekalb County (note, county, not even town). What in the world could this man tell us about NIU, about the shooter or about the current mentality? Are we actually more tuned in because this guy from Scottsdale had a family member who used to live (and has been dead for a long time) there? Does that make the story more ‘tune-in-able’?

I have to say, having lived in Dekalb county, just a few short miles from the NIU campus - my first thought was not “OMG PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL CHANEL 13!!!” - I was deeply saddened. I wondered if the next door neighbor that attended NIU for Pre-Law was there. I wondered if she’d think it was odd for me to call, two years after moving, to check in on her. I wondered if the small two lane main drag through town (and right up next to NIU) was closed and how people were dealing with that. I wondered if they closed the exits (2 and only 2) from the interstate to Dekalb, to reduce the amount of ‘gawker’ traffic from the city. Mostly, I wondered how the people I had lived next to and shopped with were dealing with this tragic event that likely shut the entire city down.

It’s really sad that major tragic events such as this are so ‘every day’ that we’ve got to have a ‘local connection’ to even care.

I was reading one news story where they stated that this was the 5th school shooting that week - and I had to go Google the topic just to find out what 4 other shootings happened that weren’t big enough to make national news (or make it to my radar at least). I was devastated to discover that I had become so numb to the world that I didn’t even know that our country had experienced a number of loses that week…

Interested in reading more about the history of school shootings? U.S. News and World Report published a “Timeline of School Shootings” on their website recently. How incredibly pathetic that there are enough of these to warrant a three page timeline, detailing school shootings across America, starting with the UT-Austin shooting in 1966.