It’s been said that the handshake originated during medieval times, as a way to ensure both parties that neither one was holding a weapon in their mitts. Give or take a few decades, that was something like five to 15 centuries ago. Literally hundreds of years.

It’s hard to fathom that — since the palmy tradition’s genesis — there’s ever been a worse effort in the medium as what “happened” between United States President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro Tuesday afternoon at a historic press conference on the communist island nation.

It’s as if Castro suddenly became an excitable boxing referee, and Obama this ubiquitous pink, white girl emoji.

On a much, much more serious note …

This from Reuters:

U.S. President Barack Obama challenged Cuba’s Communist government with an impassioned call for democratic and economic change on Tuesday, addressing the Cuban people directly in a historic speech broadcast throughout the island.

Taking the stage at Havana’s Grand Theater with Cuban President Raul Castro in attendance, Obama used the crowning moment of his visit to extend a “hand of friendship.” He came, he said, to “bury the last remnant” of the Cold War in the Americas.

But Obama also pressed hard for economic and political reforms and greater openness, speaking in a one-party state where little dissent is tolerated.

His speech was the high point of a trip made possible by his agreement with Castro in December 2014 to cast aside decades of hostility that began soon after Cuba’s 1959 revolution, and work to normalize relations. Nonetheless, Obama minced no words in his calls for change.

“I believe citizens should be free to speak their minds without fear,” Obama told the audience. “Voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections.”

“Not everybody agrees with me on this, not everybody agrees with the American people on this but I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they’re the rights of the American people, the Cuban people and people around the world,” Obama said.

While he urged an end to the longstanding U.S. economic embargo on the island, Obama added that “even if we lifted the embargo tomorrow, Cubans would not realize their potential without continued change here in Cuba.”