Talk:Che Guevara/Archive 9

message: Actions at Guisa are described in Castro, Fidel 1972 (editors Bonachea, Rolando E. and Nelson P. Valdéz) Revolutionary Struggle. 1947-1958. MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London  pp. 439-442.  Here T-17 heavy armored cars are described as tanks...BTW The Sierra Maestra is in Cuba, La Sierra Madre "nice pair of boots you have there" is in Mexico.  El Jigue 10-15-06
:Yes, please don't think that I didn't see it as soon as I posted it.  It was a slip of the keyboard, so to speak.  Please note the other times when I typed correctly, thanks.  As long as you've got your red pencil out EJ, you might want to do me the kindness of correcting my source note where I spelled Batista with an extra "t" in the first syllable.  I've been meaning to correct that one as well, but perhaps you will get to it first.  On the more important topic of citing, it would be great if you had the time to provide an additional footnote in the article for Bonachea, et. al. The more (good) sources the better.  Btw, since this is the first time we've been communicating with each other, let me take the opportunity to tell you that your commentary is very instructive and I much enjoy your contributions to the discussion.  Dasondas 05:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, rather, the second syllable.  You see, it never stops... Dasondas 05:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks, El Jigüe, for posting the page numbers for the Guisa reference in the Bonachea book;  I have just added a source note for it. -- Polaris999 07:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Follow-up: Would it be appropriate for me to use the Bonachea pages you have referenced as a source for the statements in the "Guerrilla Fighter" section of Che Guevara's involvement in the Cuban Revolution which I tagged some time ago with "Citation Needed"? -- Polaris999 07:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you very much, EJ, for sharing the above information. The first-hand account of the La Coubre disaster for which you have provided a link is extraordinary; even assuming that the interview was filtered and re-filtered by censors before being broadcast by Radio Havana, it is still the most vivid description of the event that I have ever read and I have therefore placed it on the Talk page of the La Coubre article.  Re Fr. McKniff, I don't think that we can mention his assistance to the victims unless/until we find a source for it.  I read the links you referenced but fail to see any mention of his efforts to provide assistance to the victims of the La Coubre incident in them. Perhaps information about his rescue efforts will become available if the petition to begin his process of beatification is made public. -- Polaris999 16:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Actions at Guisa 

message: I have some notes I've found, they are concerned with a piece in the Communist Yugoslav journal Borba. Borba's reporters had vistied Cuba in 1966 planting the failure of Cuba to industrialize its agricultural economy within five years firmly at Guevara's feet, noting "the many half-completed or empty factories". This would be a really good source for the legacy/criticism section in dealing with Guevara's economic failings - and would neutralise any dissent from leftists due to the source itself. But I can't for the life of me remember where I got it from. Does anyone know what I'm talking about here or could anyone assist?--Zleitzen 20:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Borba journal

message: I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information.  I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list.  Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article.  Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here.  Regards, Durova 18:32, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cultural depictions of Che Guevara]] 

message: Hello all -- Someone has just "wikified" the name of CG's father in the "Family Heritage and Early Life" section.  Since there is no WP article about him, this creates a red link.  Does anyone see any justification for this, or should it be undone?  -- Polaris999 17:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Red links should only really be made to indicate an article that is likely to be written. There is simply no call to write an article on Guevara's non-notable father. His mother, perhaps is of more substantial interest but his father doesn't pass the notability test. I say remove it.--Zleitzen 20:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creating a red link 

message: Hello,
It begins with this :  Though he has been labeled by some as a hero, opponents of Guevara, including most of the Cuban exile community as well as refugees from other countries under communism, view him as a killer and terrorist. 
That's funny no ? I quote  Including most of the Cuban exile community  its a joke or what ? This community, in New Jersey and Florida, are true terrorist, you need some name perhaps ? (Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch for the most popular) some facts (October 1976, flight's explosion of Cubana Airlines, 73 killings) It's so amazing to read critics about torture when nobody say anything about the regime of Batista, and somebodys spoke about propaganda ? Let me laugh ;)
Bye and thank you for your attention.
.TSM.
::Hola, I would think that the place for that would be .--Dakota 23:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Critics Section

message: OK. I've completed a new draft of the Legacy section. What I've tried to do is combine the legacy and criticisms sections, as discussed above. When comparing writing such sections with performing surgery in a hurricane as I have above, I should have added that it is rather like performing "Frankenstein" surgery - using bits of body parts, snatches of sources, quotes and used material etc! So I apologise if the reading is slightly disjointed and that could be something to work on. Also, on re-reading the tone it may seem overly cynical to some, perhaps betraying my own POV. A few thoughts on my own rewrite. 
#My latest version is 933 words long to the previous version's 975 words.
#There are two unsourced pieces, 1. Referring to Cuban policy after CG's death which I'll stand by even though I don't have a direct source. I've tried to summarise of a number of years' history - which is difficult but can be confirmed if necessary.  2. The tourist figures at Santa Clara, which were carried over from the page version, but I couldn't find a source for.
#I've added a legacy in Cuba section, though Che is very much seen as an international figure, I believe his impact on Cubans both as a hero or a villain deserves some airing and respect.
#Apologies to Dasondas for taking a knife to that State department piece again, it's simply a result of a desperate need to cram as much as possible into as few words.
Any thoughts are welcome. And, of course, improvements to this draft are not just expected, but demanded!--Zleitzen 00:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Zleitzen, I wanted to stop by and say that your efforts are not unnoticed.  My attentions have been elsewhere for the past days, but I do intend to come back and work on this article. (This isn't a threat :) You, Polaris and EJ are very enjoyable company and make working here a welcome affair.) You are to be vociferously commended for taking on a thankless task, one that I was loath to attempt even though the need was so clear.  I don't want to lay in too heavily right now because I've only read it once, but I will say that structurally and stylistically it is a huge, dramatic improvement while contextually the first impression on my ear is still a bit POV.   There can be no denying the rock-star-like cultism that the icon of Guevara engenders in some circles; on the other hand I find myself wanting more balance in the discussion of his manifest brutality, his military ineptitude, the questionable soundness of his theories on revolution and the pathologies of his personality that alienated him over time from even his closest supporters.  Anyhow, when I find the time to dig in these are the points I will likely be trying to address -- but thanks to your efforts there is now a sound formal basis with which to work.  Dasondas 01:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

text: UPDATE I just came back to read it again, and the POV was less bothersome to me rather than more so.  A good sign. (And, btw, I don't mean to imply that any POV is necessarily **your** POV -- I see it more as a "legacy" from the prior versions of the article). There are still a few points I'd like to re-emphasize and perhaps a couple I'd like to de-emphasize, but all-in-all a very fine effort.  Dasondas 03:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Dasondas, I think that section is the hardest to coordinate, I don't expect my efforts to last long and any improvement is welcome. Again, apologies for taking the knife to various pieces that we'd discussed before, but my motivation is the presentation of succinct information rather than POV. Having no POV other than a mild disdain for Guevara's persona, but an ongoing academic and personal connection with Cuba and the Caribbean, I hope that I've managed to provide a grounding for future improvements.--Zleitzen 04:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Legacy rewrite