coverage of cliche

Cafecito, cafe cubano, cigar, tabaco, Cuba libre, cafe con leche, Versailles, salsa.

So CNN has this old white woman reporting from Versailles in Little Havana. And her report today started with, "They stand outside drinking their cafe cubano and smoking cigars" as a group of old Cuban guys stand around behind her. Jacques Cousteau-like, you'd think she was reporting on some rare, pellagic creature, not a gaggle of aging men.

Ever since Castro ceded power, the media, especially the local media, has used cliché after cliché about Cubans. I must have seen the image of the gap-toothed dude in the red polo dancing and leering with some woman over 20 times yesterday and in a bunch of channels.

The Miami Herald, for example, which you'd think would be most insightful and thorough in its coverage of Cuban culture, often resorts to the same clichés. It feels like they have a database of these tired cultural references that a reporter can always call up with a keystroke.

Though the restaurant was crowded Tuesday morning -- partly with television news cameras -- few patrons wanted to discuss their thoughts with news reporters over Cuban coffee. Some feared that premature celebrations could imperil Cubans on the island.

Maybe they didn't want to talk anymore because every asshole reporter that talked to them bought them a cafecito, and they are on the verge of a heart attack.

You see these pandering cliches all over the local media. You'd think that on the second day of coverage, reporters would start looking for a story that's not a bunch of Cubans standing outside Versailles, but today's Sentinel's front page had the same old man dressed all in white (including hat) holding a placard in front of the restaurant.

And of course, the bastion of Cuban cliche is Babalu Blog, which revels in tired, unremarkable Cuban references with the relish of a second-generation Cuban American who's never been to Cuba. Coño.

And this from Bob Norman:

The deal is this: A lot of Miami Cubans are just as crazed with hate as Israelis and Palestinians, as the IRA, as Sunni insurgents, as ETA members. Hence they are dancing like banshees in the street because an old man they hate is sick. Those who are trapped in a bitter past can’t be expected to act or think rationally. Make no mistake, they want to see a revolution now, regardless of the destruction and bloodshed that it might cause.

Bob can really do nuance. He's on his way to becoming another generic, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing South Florida columnist.