Reports of Fidel Castro’s death were greatly exaggerated. The 90-year old revolutionary patriarch of Cuba, for decades reviled by much of the Western world, was said to have died on Friday. He actually just left Cuba for a day to run a marathon.
Our contemporary post-factual media reported Castro’s death following a Tweet out of Wyoming from a Laramie High School senior (it is Huffington Post policy not to disclose names of minors who cite deaths of world leaders). The teenager referenced Castro, a known cigar aficionado, when he Tweeted: “pretty sure Fidel Castro is dead of heartbreak, because I must have smoked EVERY SINGLE cigar on Earth last night. #SmokeThemIfYouGotThem”
After a retweet from the student’s 16-year old girlfriend, Fox News ran with the confirmed story, which spread like rumors of a liberal plot to implement Sharia law, at a Pulaski, Tenn. city council meeting.
In reality, the longtime dictator was in the Turks and Caicos Islands, 200 miles east of Guantanamo Bay; on Friday Castro completed the annual Turks and Caicos Marathon. Castro was running with and for the Havana chapter of Team in Training, raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, an organization dedicated to battling blood cancers.
The man long known as El Presidente finished with a personal best 5 hours, 7 minutes, and 24 seconds. Since stepping down as Cuban President ten years ago, Castro has concentrated on his own health and fitness. After Friday the spry, if elderly, controversial strongman had completed 45 marathons since retiring as president, when he passed power to his kid brother, Raul.
“The greatest―possibly only―good thing to crawl out of the American capitalist slime,” the now-vegan Castro was quoted in 2012, “is Runner’s World magazine.”
For decades, fake rumors of Castro’s ailing health seem to come and go, but this time the false facts spread faster than Mike Pence’s insistance that the bulk of the LGBT community aspires to watch women and children pee in Target bathrooms.
When told Saturday morning of Florida celebrations at his death, Fidel Castro chuckled with his mortar and pestle as he formulated a large glass of wheatgrass juice.
“Those wacky Americans, all they do is be loud and devour processed sugars. Now, it’s time for DIRECTV and ESPN Game Day before the big Michigan/Ohio State [college football] game.”
In the run up to, and aftermath of, the 2016 US presidential election, bizarre fake news has spread domestically, as well. Unable to shield the homeland from the post-truth era, the mainstream media continues to inspire massive protests around the country with disinformation about the election.
Since the November 8th contest, media outlets around the country are reporting that unsteady entrepreneur and billionaire, Donald J. Trump, was elected President. Of course on January 20th, 2017, President-Elect Hillary Clinton will take the Oath of Office following her 533-16 electoral landslide victory over the historically unqualified Trump.
Fidel Castro is reportedly considering entry in the 2017 Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii.