Eventually the regime released a video of a Chavez chatting amiably with Castro, in some garden of Havana, kids included, mentioning the "fresh" Havana morning. Abscess has turned the man bucolic...
And yet there is plenty wrong with that picture. Oh no, no conspiracy theory here, the man is alive and recovering. My objection is elsewhere.
First if Chavez is doing so well, why not make a direct link? After all, CNN has accustomed us to Skype for many of its internal reports, and have we not recently installed (and payed for) an optic cable between Cuba and Venezuela? I saw Chavez sitting quite well to talk to Castro, so whatever is eating his crotch would not stop him to seat for a few minutes in front of a web Cam. No?
Second, why that need by VTV creeps to underline that they have in hand a recent edition of Granma? I am sure it is not because Castro and Chavez read that rag for real news. No?
Third, why all that mystery since now everybody knows that Chavez was really ill, and everybody knows really well that one does not stay away for so long from work unless one cannot help it. Even Pepe Mujica in Uruguay chimed in saying that Castro kidnapped Chavez to make sure he would follow his "treatment". Is Pepe mocking us from having become such a pathetic Cuban colony or does he really mean this insult to Venezuela's sovereignty?
The real reason is very simple:
1- the regime and his beloved leader have set their feet in the quicksand of misinformation and silly image protection at all cost. The weave is now so thick that they need to hire reliable allies like ex-tupamaro Mujica to help them yarn the tale.
2- the intended audience is of course the chavista lumpen who has no idea of what Skype can do. They are the ones that need to be reassured, herded from afar, with cheap theatrics and slow suspense, just like a telenovela. And of course it is an insult to the intelligence of anyone else....