Now I appreciate Cal State's desire to follow the law; the California Constitution does prescribe the text of the oath, and says "all public ... employees, ... except such inferior officers and employees as may be by law exempted, shall, before they enter upon the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation." But surely there are times to interpret laws as requiring substantial compliance rather than strict literalism. Even the precedent that Cal State's Human Resources director JoAnne Hill cites as supposedly requiring the exact text of the oath (see the article for more on that) seems to take this view: It rejected the applicant's modified oath only after stressing that the modifications were not "surplusage" or "innocuous or merely expository," but rather "ma[d]e equivocal the essential oath preceding [the applicant's personal statement]." Likewise, the venerable principle that laws should be interpreted in a way that minimizes possible constitutional problems (here chiefly First Amendment problems related to compelled speech) counsels in favor of reading the law to provide some flexibility. In light of this, letting Marianne Kearney-Brown sign the entire oath, simply with the addition of a term, seems sufficiently consistent with the state mandate.

True, the Supreme Court has held that it doesn't violate the First Amendment to require certain narrow loyalty oaths, including support-and-defend oaths, for government employees. But the Court's justification was precisely that these oaths "do[] not require specific action in some hypothetical or actual situation"; they embody "simply a commitment to abide by our constitutional system ... [and] a commitment not to use illegal and constitutionally unprotected force to change the constitutional system."

Raul Castro will almost certainly take over the family business. If Fidel died, the machinery of the Cuban state might have decided to take another direction, but Fidel remains alive and a threat. No one in the Cuban government will cross the Castros as long as Fidel lives, retired or not. Therefore, the government direction and policy won't change a bit, and the US will face the same issues it always has with Fidel's rule. Cuba will simply be more of the same.

The next step is for the parliament to meet on Feb. 24 and declare a new Council of State, the formal communist body of 30 persons that Fidel has headed in the past. Would he now retire? Could this be the end of the Fidel era, which, beginning in 1959, makes him the longest ruling leader in the world?

Don't take any bets on it. For better or for worse, we have the indomitable Fidel of history. The man who, despite his recent words, has not so much "clung" to power as dominated power and has never allowed any new generation to assume authority.