First off, yesterday was Guy Fawkes Night, which leads me to share this:
Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot
And I'll leave it at that (the rest is actually pretty politically incorrect in this day and age so it's not worth sharing but those who are interested can look up Guy Fawkes Night on Wikipedia and get the rest).
Second, I have some pictures that my brother and my dad took when they visited Cuba last summer (June 2005), just a few months before my abuela passed on. These are things I'm pretty sure the government wouldn't want the rest of the world to see, but here they are. You can draw your own conclusions about the state of the country based on what you see.
Something worth noting, is the wooden crossbeam cross with the marker that reads "Cruz de Parra." That marks the site where Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba on the first of December, 1492, thus "discovering" the New World.