Who knows and who cares? But yet, as I read today’s newspaper, there are alleged reports that Cuba watchers from Miami to Washington were on high alert due to rumors circulating that his health has taken a turn for the worse.

I remember reporting on a similar story in 2007 in which I was reacting to rumors that Fidel Castro had died and I coined a phrase called Castro-syndrome,  which describes the anxiety Americans all over the U.S. were feeling over the pending demise of Fidel Castro.

But Castro, in fact, was not dead. In 2008, he retired, and yet nothing really changed on the island of Cuba. The Cuban people still live under tyranny, lacking human rights, and with no hope for a better future. For 50 years, Fidel Castro has blamed the United States instead of blaming himself for the brutal way he has governed.

To me Fidel Castro is a footnote of history. And I know that if his pending demise comes to fruition, he will be the top story in every newspaper around the world.

So I am not going to speculate, but I am going to hope that somehow 2009 will bring hope, prosperity and happiness to the Cuban people. And that future generations of free Cubans will remember that one dictator could try, but never overcome what is inside all of us: goodness and great hope for a better world.

Yes, he will die someday, but in the meantime, we all have to live for today – because tomorrow may never come.

 A little girl born almost 19 months ago after just 22 weeks gestation and weighing less than 10 ounces is well on her way to her terrible two’s, her mother told the Daily Mail.Amillia Sonja Taylor is the first known baby to survive after a gestation period of fewer than 23 weeks. She was just 9 1/2 inches long when she was born Oct. 24, 2006. Full-term births come after 37 to 40 weeks.

Amillia left Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami with her parents on February 21, 2007, 11 days before her actual due date and weighing just 4 pounds. She was still on oxygen at the time and needed asthma medication for her fragile lungs, the report said.