Start building those Marriotts and Hiltons

Castro is stepping down and who knows how much it will change U.S.-Cuba relations, but hopefully it will begin a shift in the ridiculous American policy of embargoing the island, including prohibiting Americans from visiting or investing there.

While the U.S. government has been officially pretending the country doesn't exist, Canadian and European companies have been building hotels down there and offering travel packages to their citizens - and they will reap the benefits when Cuba eventually becomes a more free and capitalistic state, as it will.

Meanwhile, our own domestic politics are skewed by the policy, with the fanatically anti-Castro Cubans in Miami wreaking havoc for years, reliably voting Republican and making American candidates pander to them and try to out-bash Castro.

And the American policy is really silly. For decades, we talked, traded and dealt with the Soviet Union when it was the biggest, meanest Communist nation on Earth. We still do with China today. But somehow this tiny nation, 90 miles from Florida, is persona non grata?

Not to mention, it's been pretty counterproductive. If we had traded with the damn country over the years, it likely would have gone the way of the Soviets.

Meanwhile Castro, despite God knows how many assassination attempts, an actual invasion, and CIA plots to stir up his people against him, outlasted American presidents going back to JFK, and now steps down on his own timeline.

And we're stuck with Boy George until January.