We are not in Kansas anymore

Ah, the 50s, when things were simple. Women stayed home to raise children, baseball players had regular sized necks, and commies, well, they were Godless. Is nothing sacred, at long last? Say it isn't so, Fidel!

In an early letter, from December 1953, Castro decides that he and his followers will forgo Christmas as a protest against authorities. " It is decided we shall not have Christmas -- not to even drink water on that day as a sign of mourning. . . . There is no point for prisoners like us to aspire to the joys of Christmas." Castro banned the public celebration of Christmas in Cuba for nearly 30 years in 1969.

And yet the letters suggest that Castro was a man of unusual spiritual depth -- and a fervent believer in God. Addressing the father of a fallen comrade, he writes: " I will not speak of him as if he were absent, he has not been and he will never be. These are not mere words of consolation. Only those of us who feel it truly and permanently in the depths of our souls can comprehend this. Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably. . . . This truth should be taught to every human being -- that the immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live? Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice -- how can they die? God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice."

If a newspaper had posted side by side photos of Fidel Castro and Ted Williams in 1959 and asked readers to guess which one was the athiest, I doubt anyone would guess right. It's a funny world all right.