Quick Quiz for Teenagers who Wear These Shirts:

1. What was Che's last name?
2. Seriously - I've told you his first name ("Che," a nickname, he was born Ernesto); what was his last name?
3. Che was __________________'s second in command.
4. Che was a __________________ by education.
5. Che did/did not recommend rape as an effective weapon of war when consulting in the Congo.

You don't know the answer to any of these five simple questions?* 

Well then - take off that goddamned T-Shirt that you bought at the Army/Navy store. You, having been sent by your parents to a college two states away from them to major in something purposeless, have positively nothing in common with Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

But don't feel bad. Che himself was no Che. If he had been so goddamned magnificent, you'd know his name. But you know Ronald Reagan's last name. Che was like John Kennedy who had more prestige dead than he really deserved.

So you think Cuba's some kind of paradise, do you? Ever met a Cuban? Notice the gold frame around his gray and dead tooth? That's nationalized dentistry. Notice his missing finger? That's nationalized health: don't bother to sew up the wound and reset the bone when you can just cut it off. Notice what he drives? He doesn't. And those cars that are still running in Cuba have no windshields or wipers. (Those Russians and Chinese who funded his revolutions sent bullets but no cars; they screwed off when the revolution was over.) Notice where the Cuban's kids go to college? They don't, ever, if that Cuban is a restaurant cashier; they will if that Cuban is a surgeon. Cuban equality. But why should that kid aspire to be a surgeon? If he works as a cashier, he'll be in the 0% tax bracket. If he works in the medical field, he'll be in the take-everything-you-earn tax bracket and live in the same tenement as the cashier. More Cuban equality.

Michael Moore in "Sicko," one of his anti-American propaganda flicks, portrayed Cuba as some advanced healthcare paradise which does things better than the US. With that idiotic smirk on his face, he and a boatload of US veterans lay anchor off Cuba's shore and begged over a bullhorn to be let in for that magnificent treatment so readily and freely available to Cubans.

Wrong again, Tubbins. Cuba is famous for "medical tourism." Show up with a wad of cash and you can have an enviable set of dentures or a vagina in place of male genitalia. Do not, for a minute, believe that the average Cuban gets that level of healthcare.

Whatever Che envisioned when he donned a beret and stared with soulful eyes into some camera, to be immortalized on T-shirts, we do not know. But we know that what he thought didn't turn out especially well. He and Bin Laden would have liked each other, I think. Murder; it's moral. Guevara was a brutal torturer; our guys made some Iraqis wear panties on their heads and it's a scandal.

You, Mr. Guevara, had nothing to tell the world about decency or fair play. But you took a hell of a picture. Once, in your life.


* 1. Guevara
2. Still Guevara, dumb-ass. I bet you think Malcolm's real last name was X.
3. Castro.
4. Dentist.
5. He did. Che thought rape was an effective weapon that blinded the enemy with rage, thus dragging them out of hiding.