The perils of privatization. Cuba has arrested a pro-democracy agent who admits working for the US government. But that didn’t come from a confession. Instead, it was reported by a Washington DC area contractor, Development Alternatives, Inc, who confirmed one of their employees had been apprehended. The US State Department and CIA have always used private firms as cover, but privatizing the payroll, instead of providing a firewall of deniability, has added a bureaucratic layer more readily exposed.

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Thursday Oct 8 is Cuba’s Day of the Heroic Guerrilla. By a brilliant coincidence perhaps, Colorado Springs is currently plastered with fliers of the heroic guerrilla himself, smiling from the windows of the least likely businesses, courtesy of the Smokebrush Gallery’s current exhibit. The sketch of Che is by artist/poet Antonio Guerrero, member of the Cuban 5 and inmate 58741-004 of the Florence Supermax. Che’s image has been successfully trivialized as a commercial icon, thanks to the Gap et al, but when Che jumps off the T-shirt, in the incarnation of Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales, the revolution lives.

Who’s being kept at SUPERMAX in Florence Colorado? Here’s a Frommer’s guide to the celebrity enemies of the state, actually an abridged list:

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