Just speculation...

After watching the entire nauseating video of hugo chavez and fidel castro together over the weekend I'm prepared to offer a bit of speculation as to what really happened in Cuba over the last few weeks:

1.When fidel arrived in Havana after the 26th of July commemorations he began bleeding internally. On July 29th (according to one report) he had surgery to stop the bleeding which couldn't be stopped with medications alone.

2. Once inside, the surgeons found a mess and the surgery lasted many hours. After the surgery was complete fidel was unconscious. He would be in this state for several days. The doctors advised raul of the situation, telling him there was a chance the old fart could die.

3. After two days, raul decided that the fact that fidel was sick probably couldn't be kept secret (maybe someone saw him collapse before he went in for surgery or something) so they came up with the statement that was supposed to have been written by fidel.

4. They put off the birthday celebrations because they didn't know how long he would be unconscious or if he'd ever even pull through.

5. raul, being the scared little shit that he is, was afraid to make any public appearances while fidel was in a comatose state. He was afraid because if the old man pulled through, there might be hell to pay for any dumb crap he may have uttered.

6. Finally, after several days, fidel regained consciousness. But being a man of 80, the surgery took a great deal out of him. He's semi-incapacitated and can barely talk.

7. As soon as fidel was well enough to have visitors, they let chavez come so they could have their photo op and ruin our week.

The bad news is that fidel is still alive and that he'll probably get stronger over the coming weeks. The good news is that he's now 80 years old (the supposed life expectancy in Cuba) and he's not getting any younger. He probably also has a colostomy which makes me happy to think that the shit won't just be coming out of his mouth anymore.

Another byproduct of this whole episode is that we have witnessed a dry run of what fidel's successors will do when el penco really kicks the bucket.