Informed but opinionated commentary and analysis on urban transportation topics from the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty.

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AY QUE LADRONES! Cuban Post Office Steals Internet Images, Issues Tramcar Stamps

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

No, no, no, a thousand times no, we are not making this up!

Intrepid websurfers with an interest in Latin American urban transport may have come across the “Electric Transport in Latin America” site www.tramz.com by Allen Morrison. The webmaster, who provides many links to pages produced by others, has published three books on the subject, and has his own pages covering Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru – and Cuba.

It was the latter that caught the attention of Correos de Cuba, the “Post Office of Cuba.”

Without consulting the webmaster, and without giving credit to any of the photographers or collectors, CdeC issued in February 2004 a series of commemorative stamps showing Cuban tramcars www.tramz.com/cu/st/st.html. Black-and-white images were colorized and, in some cases, background details were changed, but the origin of the images is unmistakable.

Think of the last time you were whiling away time in the check-out line, eyeing some fanciful bit of “creative photojournalism” on the cover of some supermarket tabloid:

“ISN’T IT AMAZING WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH PHOTOSHOP^tm”!!!

(. . . dad-burned Commies probably used a pirated copy . . .)

One more thing. These stamps will probably be coveted by collectors . . . but not in the good ol’ U.S. of A. It is illegal, you see, to import anything of Cuban origin into the U.S., including postage stamps.

“Which government – U.S. or Cuban – is more ridiculous?” asks the webmaster.

We Opinionated Ones can’t help but wonder whether the stamp issue was approved by “El Barbudo” (“The Bearded One”) himself.

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 4/29/2004 11:39:00 AM