The Cold War Ended For Some

But not for Cubans. The Miami Herald reports that Cuban blogger Yaoni Sanchez, one of Time's "heroes and pioneers" of 2008, was beaten and detained by the secret police, though fails to mention that her free health care will cover all injures sustained. Sanchez and a fellow dissident were to attend a protest march in Havana when they were intercepted by defenders of the revolution:

"No blood, but black and blues, punches, pulled hairs, blows to the head, kidneys, knee and chest," Sánchez told El Nuevo Herald shortly after she and Orlando Luis Pardo were freed. "In sum, professional violence."

"I, being a person of verbal pacifism, am shaken by this violence, because violence silences anyone," the blogger declared in a telephone interview.

Sánchez, the best-known Cuban blogger on the island and off, said she and bloggers Pardo and Claudia Cadelo and a woman friend were walking to join a "march against violence" organized by several young musicians when they were intercepted by three men in civilian clothes. Cuba's state security service agents frequently operate out of uniform.

"We were almost there when we were intercepted by three men in a car with civilian license plates who ordered us to get in," she said. "We refused. I didn't know if they were kidnappers. And the level of their violence went up."

Mentally challenged actor Sean Penn, who is in Cuba now to interview whichever doddering Castro brother is wheeled out to croak "patria o muerte," will doubtless intervene on Sanchez's behalf. And if you haven't seen it yet, make sure to watch Reason.tv's interview with bad-ass Cuban punk rocker and hero of freedom Gorki Aguila: