First Anniversary of December 17th and the Voice of Reason

December 17th marks the anniversary of the first year of the release of Alan Gross, the return of three Cuban prisoners unjustly jailed in U.S. prisons and for the first time presidents from both Cuba and the United States live on their respective television networks speaking about the same thing and both on the same page.

Last year Raul Castro and Barack Obama got their acts together and decided to do something that for far too long had been silenced, they gave voice back to reason and spoke of restoring relations between their two countries.

Since that day, which on all accounts was joyous albeit an enormous surprise, much has happened in the form of restoring the diplomatic side of the relations, but not much else. Watching the debate the other night I fear much more needs to be done before November of 2017. Yet I am hopeful.

At least Cuba wasn't mentioned openly. So maybe the two pseudo Cuban contenders for their party's nomination have since figured out that siding with irrationality by actually bolstering the notion of how they would turn back all that has happened since last year's televised speeches or the less Latino hopeful candidates criticizing the current President of the United States for having "given so much in exchange for nothing" or ranting about how if he were to come down to the Caribbean's largest island before leaving office might be indicative of nothing less than ...say, treason? Of course, this is an exaggeration on my part, but heck, he was accused of not being "American" for almost two straight years!

In any case, it's been a year already. The secretary of State has opened the long closed Embassy, the Stars and Stripes waves every day, morning, noon, and night. U.S. tourists are coming down nonstop, Cuban Americans are devising ways of investing on the island in the most intuitive and inventive fashion ever. So I guess, Cuba won't be part of the debates in the near electoral future.

Maybe the candidates have figured out that the voice of reason silenced for so long is now the shout of logic that just won't keep quiet, lest they lose those historically beloved 28 electoral votes.