El Yuma

The iEconomy: (More) Thoughts on "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson [Updated]

2012-01-30T02:46:00.004-05:00

Below (after the jump) you can find my original post from a week ago with a quick review of Walter Isaacson's bio "Steve Jobs."

[For a little back-and-forth in the (digital) pages of the Times on Isaacson's book and on the "biographer's dilemma" go here (Nocera, Maslin, Isaacson, & a Q&A with Isaacson). Here's also a little lagniappe for my Spanish language readers: a friend in Cuba graciously translated it (not the book but my review of it) into Spanish here.]

Now the update: Over the weekend I managed to catch up on some old, yellowing copies of the New York Times from the past few weeks and discovered that the newspaper of record has dug deep and really outdone itself with a hard-hitting, long-form, investigative two-part (so far) series entitled, "The iEconomy," which focuses on the common practice of tech companies outsourcing electronic work to Chinese factories.

The series takes direct aim at Apple and its relationship with the massive Chinese contractor Foxconn, and the effect is powerful.

Part one, published on Sunday, January 22, is entitled: "How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work."

Part two, published on Thursday, January 26, is entitled: "In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad."

Each article also includes some great interactive multimedia video on The iPhone Economy and the related shift away from manufacturing in the U.S. as well as Made in China and Compliance by the Numbers. There are also a number of other, related stories in the Times including a fascinating section were we can read the (translated) reactions and comments of Chinese readers to the series and the results from a poll in the U.S. that shows consumer confusion over where Apple makes its products.

Finally, starting up again tomorrow, the prankster and searing monologist Mike Daisey will begin his second run (back-by-popular-demand) of his one-man-show, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," at New York's Public Theater (I've already got tickets for Thursday night! - see here and here for reviews).

A long-time worshiper at the iTemple of Apple, Daisey recently changed his stripes (after a visit to some Chinese Apple/Foxconn factories) and published this op-ed article in the Times the day after Steve Jobs died back in October.

If you can't make it to New York for Daisey's run at the Public, Ira Glass and his friends at This American Life have collaborated with Daisey, engineering a one hour radio version of his monologue for broadcast, called cheekily: "Willy Wonk..., no, I mean, "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory." The episode first aired on January 6 and after just one week it became the most downloaded in TAL history. (I guess Daisey and Glass also benefit from the popularity of the iPhone).

For what it's worth, here's what's showing these days on the Apple homepage.

I just finished Walter Isaacson's bio of Steve Jobs.

Here are some of my thoughts:

It's both a wonderfully sympathetic and human, as well as brutally honest, warts-and-all portrait of the life and career of a complicated, prickly, and revolutionary artist, artisan, and entrepreneur and the amazing company he co-founded and later saved and completely reinvented: Apple.

Jobs was a royal asshole and a magical genius.

He sought to plant deep and bring to harvest beautiful products at the fertile intersection of the humanities and sciences, poetry and technology, refusing to let function (a device's insides) dictate its form (its outsides). However, his products almost always achieved the best of both function and form.

He valued intuition over logic, instinct over focus groups, and lived as if the normal rules didn't apply to him, creating his own arrogant but often quite boundary-bursting "reality distortion feld."

He read "The Autobiography of a Yogi" as a teenager and re-read it again every year afterwards. His favorite artist-musician was Bob Dylan - a master rebel of reinvention himself - and among his favorite lyrics and rules to live by, driving his innovation and perfectionism was:

"If you're not busy being born, you're busy dying."

He also created a closed, integrated system and unique, magical user experience with far and away the best products (Apple, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iCloud, ...), reinventing the music, publishing, animation, and telecom industries in the process (to say nothing of the computer industry itself).

At the same time, his almost pathological need to control every aspect of a product and make the user experience as "perfect" and "zen" as possible put him at risk of becoming the very Orwellian big brother of "1984" vilified in the famous Apple "1984" ad in 1984 because he didn't want other companies to "fuck up" his artistry.

The first computer I ever used was an Apple IIe in 1983/84 in our little computer lab at St. Paul's School in Pensacola Florida. I became an IBM/PC man after that for more than 25 years mostly due to price and the fact that Microsoft came to dominate/monopolize PC operating systems through Windows.

I resisted the iPod craze in the early 2000s thinking (stupidly it turned out) that my trusty Sony Walkman cassette player/AM-FM radio did essentially the same thing. Believe it or not, soon after I moved to NYC in 2003, I bought a new Walkman at Circuit City (remember that store?) and happily used it playing my old tapes from the 80s the few times I actually went jogging. (Thinking back, I'm astounded that they were even still selling Walkmans then).

It now sits in a drawer gathering dust (along with Circuit City itself). It turns out that batteries and cassettes are so last century! Hell, even CDs are even now all but obsolete.

A year-and-a-half ago I bought my first MacBook Pro laptop and Apple (those bastards!) threw in a free iPod Touch (after a $200 mail in rebate). I guess they had to get rid of old inventory with the iPhone cannibalizing the Touch.

Though I had a Blackberry at the time that I really liked (and which had itself already supplanted my Walkman as my listening post), I sensed immediately as I began to fiddle around with the Touch (especially in a wi-fi zone) that the Blackberry's days were numbered and that I'd soon be replacing it with an iPhone.

Long story short: Today both my Blackberry and iPod Touch are in the hands of friends of mine in Cuba and I'm figuring out how I can get someone to bring my old Dell laptop down there too.

Today is also my my iPhone G4's first birthday.

And one more thing...

Full disclosure: I wrote this post on my iPhone and posted it directly on my blog via e-mail.

Ser un músico independiente en Cuba: Avanza Cuba Hoy, 11 a.m.

2012-01-25T10:32:00.002-05:00

Avanza Cuba

¿Es un problema o no, ser músico independiente en Cuba? ¿Reciben apoyo? Estas y muchas otras preguntas se responderán este miércoles 25 a las 11am hora de Miami por Radio, TV Martí y Martinoticias.com con la participación de destacados músicos como:

Amaury Gutiérrez, desde Miami
Alejandro Gutiérrez, Habana Abierta, desde Madrid
Gorki Águila & Ciro Diaz, Porno para Ricardo, desde La Habana
Orlando Luis Pardo, bloguero y fotógrafo independiente, desde La Habana
Raudel, Escuadrón Patriota, desde Ecuador
Omert Pardillo, productor y promotor de la música, desde Miami

Participa con tus preguntas y comentarios en http://www.facebook.com/avanzacuba
En Twitter: @avanzacuba
Te esperamos.

AI & HRW issue statements on Cuban prisoners

2012-01-23T20:27:00.002-05:00

Human Rights Watch: Cuba Still Muzzling Dissent

Amnesty International: Cuba releases 3 prisoners of conscience

Thoughts on "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson

2012-01-23T01:02:00.003-05:00

I just finished Walter Isaacson's bio of Steve Jobs.

Here are some of my thoughts (Mira aquí para Español):

It's both a wonderfully sympathetic and human, as well as brutally honest, warts-and-all portrait of the life and career of a complicated, prickly, and revolutionary artist, artisan, and entrepreneur and the amazing company he co-founded and later saved and completely reinvented: Apple.

Jobs was a royal asshole and a magical genius.

He sought to plant deep and bring to harvest beautiful products at the fertile intersection of the humanities and sciences, poetry and technology, refusing to let function (a device's insides) dictate its form (its outsides). However, his products almost always achieved the best of both function and form.

He valued intuition over logic, instinct over focus groups, and lived as if the normal rules didn't apply to him, creating his own arrogant but often quite boundary-bursting "reality distortion feld."

He read "The Autobiography of a Yogi" as a teenager and re-read it again every year afterwards. His favorite artist-musician was Bob Dylan - a master rebel of reinvention himself - and among his favorite lyrics and rules to live by, driving his innovation and perfectionism was:

"If you're not busy being born, you're busy dying."

He also created a closed, integrated system and unique, magical user experience with far and away the best products (Apple, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iCloud, ...), reinventing the music, publishing, animation, and telecom industries in the process (to say nothing of the computer industry itself).

At the same time, his almost pathological need to control every aspect of a product and make the user experience as "perfect" and "zen" as possible put him at risk of becoming the very Orwellian big brother of "1984" vilified in the famous Apple "1984" ad in 1984 because he didn't want other companies to "fuck up" his artistry.

The first computer I ever used was an Apple IIe in 1983/84 in our little computer lab at St. Paul's School in Pensacola Florida. I became an IBM/PC man after that for more than 25 years mostly due to price and the fact that Microsoft came to dominate/monopolize PC operating systems through Windows.

I resisted the iPod craze in the early 2000s thinking (stupidly it turned out) that my trusty Sony Walkman cassette player/AM-FM radio did essentially the same thing. Believe it or not, soon after I moved to NYC in 2003, I bought a new Walkman at Circuit City (remember that store?) and happily used it playing my old tapes from the 80s the few times I actually went jogging. (Thinking back, I'm astounded that they were even still selling Walkmans then).

It now sits in a drawer gathering dust (along with Circuit City itself). It turns out that batteries and cassettes are so last century! Hell, even CDs are even now all but obsolete.

A year-and-a-half ago I bought my first MacBook Pro laptop and Apple (those bastards!) threw in a free iPod Touch (after a $200 mail in rebate). I guess they had to get rid of old inventory with the iPhone cannibalizing the Touch.

Though I had a Blackberry at the time that I really liked (and which had itself already supplanted my Walkman as my listening post), I sensed immediately as I began to fiddle around with the Touch (especially in a wi-fi zone) that the Blackberry's days were numbered and that I'd soon be replacing it with an iPhone.

Long story short: Today both my Blackberry and iPod Touch are in the hands of friends of mine in Cuba and I'm figuring out how I can get someone to bring my old Dell laptop down there too.

Today is also my my iPhone G4's first birthday.

And one more thing...

Full disclosure: I wrote this post on my iPhone and posted it directly on my blog via e-mail.

Human Rights Watch: Dissident’s Death Highlights Repression

2012-01-21T10:56:00.000-05:00

For Immediate Release

Cuba: Dissident's Death Highlights Repressive Tactics

Stop Threats against Villar Mendoza Family

(Washington, DC, January 20, 2012) – The death of the 31-year-old dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza on January 19, 2012 following a 50-day hunger strike highlights the ongoing repression in Cuba, Human Rights Watch said today. The Cuban government should immediately put an end to the threats against his wife, Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales, and the group Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), which supports her, and drop any measures that would prevent her and dissidents from attending Villar Mendoza's funeral.

Villar Mendoza was detained on November 2, 2011, after participating in a peaceful demonstration in Contramaestre, Cuba calling for greater political freedom and respect for human rights, his wife told Human Rights Watch. He was a member of the Union Patriotica de Cuba, a dissident group the Cuban government considers illegitimate because its members express critical views.

"Villar Mendoza's case shows how the Cuban government punishes dissent," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Arbitrary arrests, sham trials, inhumane imprisonment, and harassment of dissidents' families – these are the tactics used to silence critics."

Villar Mendoza was charged with "contempt" (desacato) and sentenced to four years in prison in a hearing that lasted less than an hour, his wife told Human Rights Watch. While she was allowed to attend the trial, dissidents who tried to enter the courtroom were denied access. Villar Mendoza was not given the opportunity to speak in his defense, nor was he represented by a defense lawyer, she said.

His wife said he initiated his hunger strike to protest his unjust trial and imprisonment.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a human rights monitoring group that the government does not recognize, classified Villar Mendoza as a political prisoner in December.

Prison guards placed Villar Mendoza in solitary confinement after he initiated the hunger strike on November 25, his wife said. He told his wife he was stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement in a small, cold cell. The last time she was allowed to visit her husband was on December 29, she said.

His wife also told Human Rights Watch that government officials had repeatedly harassed her for associating with the Damas de Blanco, a human rights group consisting of wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners. She said state security officers explicitly threatened to take away her and Villar Mendoza's daughters, ages 7 and 5, if she continued to work with the Damas.

According to his wife, Villar Mendoza was transferred to a hospital in Santiago de Cuba days before he died. His wife said authorities had not notified her of his death, and that she had been informed by contacts outside of Cuba, who read the story in the international press. She said she has not yet been allowed to see his body, nor has she been informed about funeral arrangements.

On February 23, 2010, another Cuban political prisoner, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died after an 85-day hunger strike, which he initiated to protest the inhumane conditions in which he was being held and to demand medical treatment.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Cuba, please visit:

http://www.hrw.org/americas/cuba

For more information, please contact:

In Washington, DC, Jose Miguel Vivanco (English, Spanish): +1-917-379-1180 (mobile); vivancj@hrw.org

In New York, Daniel Wilkinson (English, Spanish): + 1-212-216-1284 (office); +1-646-552-8063 (mobile); wilkind@hrw.org

Graham Sowa: Our Man @ Havana (Times)

2012-01-17T10:09:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting, nuanced article on the Internet in Cuba by Graham Sowa entitled, "My First Interview in Cuba," to get you thinking published at the increasingly rich and penetrating Havana Times. (You can read more from Sowa about technology and connectivity here, here, and here.)

Sowa is a "good ole' boy" from Grapevine, Texas who is enrolled in the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana. (More on that here.)

In the article, he relates the experience being interviewed about Cuban Internet access by a team of somewhat ill-informed (in his estimation) visiting students from SUNY Stony Brook. The article also touches on the debate in the U.S. over net neutrality and what Sowa sees as a tendency toward American arrogance, ignorance, decontextualization, and hypocrisy when covering Cuba.

Sowa sums up his argument with these words:

"The limited Internet access in Cuba is not a moral anomaly nor does it occur in a vacuum."

News Alert: U.S. Restores Diplomatic Relations With Cuba in Response to Reforms

2012-01-13T12:13:00.001-05:00

Psych!

But I got your attention didn't I.

I simply replaced the word "Myanmar" with the word "Cuba" in the NYT news flash.

Let's hope Cuba takes Myanmar's hint and begins to include civil and political reforms along with its long-awaited economic ones.

Legalizing opposition groups and parties would be a good start.

Let's also hope that the Obama administration is willing to encourage more and deeper reforms in Cuba by meeting Raul half-way.

But, alas, we've got a presidential election coming up and a lot of electoral votes in my home-state of Florida.

See the story on Myanmar below.

Begin forwarded message:

News Alert: U.S. Restores Diplomatic Relations With Myanmar in Response to Reforms

The United States restored diplomatic relations with Myanmar on Friday, responding to the new civilian government's rapid campaign of political and economic changes that most recently included a cease-fire with ethnic Karen rebels and the release of prominent political prisoners.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/world/asia/myanmar-frees-political-prisoners.html?emc=na

Bien dicho Arturo: "La terquedad ajena no justifica la ineptitud propia"

2012-01-11T01:15:00.001-05:00

Politólogo cubano Arturo López-Levy publica un análisis profunda y un llamado de conciencia al gobierno cubano sobre la visita (hoy) de Ahmadinejad a Cuba.

Cuban political scientist Arturo López-Levy publishes a profound analysis and call of conscience to the Cuban government regarding (tomorrow's) visit of Ahmadinejad to Cuba.

http://www.infolatam.com/2012/01/11/ahmadinejad-en-cuba-si-quiere-mas-que-lo-pague/

Cita:

"Pero la terquedad ajena no justifica la ineptitud propia. Irán no es cualquier país. No está en el interés nacional cubano ignorar que Teherán ha violado continuadamente las normas internacionales contra la proliferación nuclear, el terrorismo y de defensa de los derechos humanos, ganando el repudio tanto de la comunidad internacional como de sus vecinos (no solo Israel sino también los gobiernos y las poblaciones árabes de mayoría sunita). Cuba, como país bloqueado por la nación más poderosa del planeta, no puede darse el lujo de rechazar acercamientos de la potencia media persa, pero debería balancear esa necesidad contra los costos de generar agravios en la opinión pública norteamericana e internacional con una relación cuyos dividendos son muy modestos."

Give Gitmo back to Cuba

2012-01-10T23:46:00.001-05:00

It's a sad history, and all true.

I agree with Hansen, let's give Guantánamo back to Cuba.

Just imagine, as Hansen says, how all this might have looked "from Cuba's perspective":

"Well, imagine that at the end of the American Revolution the French had decided to remain here.

"Imagine that the French had refused to allow Washington and his army to attend the armistice at Yorktown.

"Imagine that they had denied the Continental Congress a seat at the Treaty of Paris, prohibited expropriation of Tory property, occupied New York Harbor, dispatched troops to quash Shays' and other rebellions and then immigrated to the colonies in droves, snatching up the most valuable land.

"Such is the context in which the United States came to occupy Guantánamo. It is a history excluded from American textbooks..."

Go here to read the full op-ed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/give-guantanamo-back-to-cuba.html?_r=1

Guess who's #10: The 45 Places to Go in 2012, NYT

2012-01-08T11:51:00.001-05:00

London, Havana, Lhasa and, yes, even the final frontier. A year's worth of reasons to pack your bags and take off. http://nyti.ms/z1BrPP

10. Havana, Cuba
The Cuban capital is once again within Americans' reach.

The only thing that lies between Americans and the sultry streets of Havana these days is the Florida Straits, since the Obama administration has widened the kind of travel allowed. A growing list of organizations have licenses to operate trips to Cuba, including National Geographic Expeditions, Austin-Lehman and the Center for Cuban Studies. There are also more flights from more American cities: Fort Lauderdale and Tampa recently joined New York, Miami and Los Angeles on the list, and Chicago will be added this year.

The "people-to-people" rules require Americans to interact with Cubans (sun-and-sand vacations are still prohibited) so tours involve meeting with art historians, organic farmers and others. Conveniently, new restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts, some in gorgeous colonial villas, have sprung up over the past year as the government has allowed more private enterprise. Havana is also gearing up for its 11th Biennial, from May 11 to June 11, which will draw more than 100 Cuban and international artists. VICTORIA BURNETT

Totalitarianism or Imperialism: Who's to Blame for Cuba's Lack of Open Access to the Internet? (UPDATE)

2012-01-05T23:44:00.003-05:00

Or I guess you could blame them both. After all, blaming one (the Dictator's Dilemma and the Internal Embargo) should not require us to acquit the other (the Digital Divide and the U.S. Embargo).

You can follow these links for some useful background on the related, competing concepts of the Dictator's Dilemma (Larry Press, Boas, Technosociology, Brookings, Hillary on China) and the Digital Divide (Wikipedia, DDN, Edutopia, and Pew Rx Center).

In the past 24 hours a new and quite provocative polemic has erupted about who's to blame for Cuba's lack of open access to the Internet between Havana NPR/Global Post foreign correspondent Nick Miroff on one side with his December 14, 2011 NPR story, "In Cuba, Dial Up Internet is a Luxury."

On the other side are Sue Ashdown and Nelson P. Valdés with their Counterpunch article from yesterday, January 5, 2012, "The Ethnocentric Demand Made of Cuba: Cuba, the Embargo and the Digital Divide."

My friend and colleague Arturo Lopez-Levy seems to be acting as unofficial moderator of this debate, making the following point:

Sue Ashdown and Nelson P. Valdés give some context to the discussion about access to Internet in Cuba. I will add that the so-called democracy programs' intent is to provide selective access to the Internet to the opposition with the purpose of regime change. I think that anybody who is really in favor of universal access to the Internet should denounce any restriction imposed by any government. I understand most of the complaints against the Cuban government's restrictions to access to internet. Ted Henken has pointed out some of these problems. At the same time, I believe it is not politically or academically honest to ignore the reasons and arguments pointed out by Ashdown and Valdés in this piece.

The Grape and the Grain: 10 drinking rules from a (passed) master

2012-01-02T13:47:00.004-05:00

A Short Footnote on the Grape and the Grain

(Excerpted from Hitch-22: A Memoir, pp. 352,
Twelve, 2010, by Christopher Hitchens)

1. Making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic.

2. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of refreshment is the enhancement of food.

3. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood.

4. Cheap booze is a false economy. [My personal favorite, though I follow it too infrequently.]

5. It's not true that you should never drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain.

6. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.)

7. Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed - as are the grape and the grain - to enliven company.

8. Be careful about upgrading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available.

9. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop.

10. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.

"It's over, we won!" or mere "lipstick on a corpse"?: Reflections on Cuba's "year of change"

2012-01-01T11:39:00.000-05:00

Juan Tamayo, the clear-eyed Cuba-beat reporter at the Miami Herald, chronicles a momentous year of change (en español) in the Cuban economy, while observing that it "remains authoritarian as ever politically."

Tamayo quotes Joe Garcia, a South Florida Democrat who keeps tabs on developments in Cuba and has made two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Congress, as saying, "Jorge Mas Canosa would immediately say, ‘It’s over. We won!’"

On the other hand, Tamayo points out that "Castro critics would portray the changes as nothing more than lipstick on the rotting corpse of a Soviet-styled economy."

Tamayo adds that Cuban president Raúl Castro has a different interpretation. He "timidly calls the changes not “reforms” but “updates” and has vowed to keep central planning as the backbone of the island’s economy and prevent any accumulation of private wealth."

Go here for the full article. Keep reading below for the lead in:

"The changes clearly reflect an ambitious effort to address the structural flaws of Cuba’s communist system, abandon its culture of paternalism and attack its parasitic bureaucracy — without risking the government’s power to repress dissent.
In a nutshell, Castro’s goal is to slash a bloated state sector that controls an estimated 80 percent of the economy, and to allow more space for small-scale enterprises that can produce more efficiently, pay taxes to the government and often can count on financial support from relatives or friends abroad.
It’s not been easy. Pushback from entrenched ideologues and bureaucrats appears to have undercut some of the changes, and cuts in the ration cards that provide basic food items at highly subsidized prices have pummeled Cuba’s neediest.
A Catholic church in Havana reported a hefty increase in the number of people at its free lunches in recent months. And the government reportedly stopped disability and other aid payments to about 3,000 people in the city of Santa Clara this year.
But many reforms are under way, and the pace of change increased after a congress of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba in April gave a broad endorsement to Castro’s 300-plus proposals for change."

A Bloggers' Polemic (1): Reflecting on a Year of Rigorous Debate

2011-12-31T21:04:00.000-05:00

During the past year of 2011 the Cuban blogosphere has really come into its own, developing a depth and breadth that has made it a force to be reckoned with.

Much well deserved international media attention (along with an outpouring of unsurprising Cuban government attacks) have focused on Yoani Sanchez's Generation Y and the related group blogging portal Voces Cubanas (English). At the same time, many other collective cyber-projects have appeared and attracted followings of their own. Among these, the most notable are the maturing and deepening of Havana Times, the relaunching of BloggersCuba (along with the companion site Bubusopia run jointly by Yasmin Portales and Rogelio Diaz), and the dynamic and lengthy comments section of the La Joven Cuba blog.

A number of important new individual cyber-voices and sites have also appeared in the last year to year-and-a-half, including Eduardo del Llano's blog, that of Silvio Rodriguez, Larry Press' The Internet in Cuba, Arch Ritter's The Cuban Economy, Ernesto Morales' Little Brother blog (now done from his new home in Miami), the appearance of El Sexto, as well as the not-to-miss Cafe Fuerte site, Emilio Ichikawa's blog, Tracey Eaton's vital Cuban Money Project and Vimeo sites (complementing his Along the Malecon), The Center for Democracy in the Americas Cuba Central blog with its excellent weekly news blast roundup, John McAuliff's Cuba-US People-to-People Partnership site, Estado de SATS entry into cyberspae with its own blog, and the recent redesign of the indispensable Penultimos Dias.

Finally, Ellery Biddle, Janine Mendes-Franco, and Elaine Diaz have made the Cuba page at Global Voices a source of keen observation and analysis. And the official blogosphere has also added a new voice with the addition of Iroel Sanchez's La Pupila Insomne.

Some of this activity is covered by Julia Cooke in her recent article at Guernica magazine, "Bloggers of Havana."

During the month of January, readers of El Yuma can look forward to a series of posts here where I reflect on the emergence of the Cuban blogosphere and trace the ups and downs of the "Bloggers Polemic" that ignited across Cuban cyberspace during the year.

"Hitch" on "Che"

2011-12-21T16:55:00.000-05:00

Today I was filtering through some old files from the course I teach on Cuba and came across a rich and penetrating review article about Ernesto "Che" Guevara written in 1997 by Christopher Hitchens.

The article, from The New York Review of Books, is provocatively entitled, "Goodbye to All That," and is a double book review of Jon Lee Anderson's authoritative Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life and a new translation of Guevara's own "on the road" classic The Motorcycle Diaries.

If my memory serves me correctly, I learned of the article first from my colleague, the anthropologist Ariana Hernández-Regaunt. H/T to her.

You can, and should, read the entire article yourself. But keep reading below for some juicy and quite timely excerpts, especially given what's afoot these days in the Cuban economy.

First, however, I give you the exquisite finale of the piece:

"The very element that gave [Guevara] his certainty and courage—his revolutionary communism—was also the element that condemned him to historical eclipse. In setting down the whole story in such a respectful but objective manner, Jon Lee Anderson has succeeded in writing, for himself and I suspect for many others, a nuanced goodbye to all that."

***

"Much of the attraction of the cult has to do with the grace of an early and romantic death. George Orwell once observed that if Napoleon Bonaparte had been cut down by a musket ball as he entered Moscow, he would have been remembered as the greatest general since Alexander. And not only did Guevara die before his ideals did, he died in such a manner as to inspire something akin to superstition. He rode among the poor of the altiplano on a donkey. He repeatedly foresaw and predicted the circumstances of his own death. He was spurned and betrayed by those he claimed to set free. He was by calling a healer of the sick. The photographs of his corpse, bearded and half-naked and lacerated, make an irresistible comparison with paintings of the deposition from Calvary. There is a mystery about his last resting place. Alleged relics are in circulation. There have even been sightings…."
[...]
"And indeed, the script for the events reads like a primer in elementary Leninism. The Dulles brothers and their corporate friends did embark on an armed destabilization of the elected Arbenz government. They did engage the support of neighboring oligarchs such as General Anastasio Somoza. They did find and pay a military puppet named Castillo Armas. And they did invade Guatemala with a mercenary force. Guevara and his “internationalist” friends watched all this with a mixture of shame and incredulity, convinced that their predictions about the uselessness of gradualism were being confirmed, so to speak, before their very eyes. But they were impotent.
Chased into the sanctuary of the Argentine embassy by the coup he had long foreseen and tried vainly to resist, Guevara spent some very concentrated time with desperate militants who would, in the succeeding decades, become guerrilla commanders in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala itself. Together, they reviewed the lessons of the defeat. Chief among these, they felt, was Arbenz’s failure to distribute arms to the people. Next came his refusal to take action against the CIA’s clever manipulation of the local press. It was a crucible moment: a young man receiving an indelible impression at a formative age. Up until then, Guevara had even by his own account been playing at revolution. Henceforth, he would not joke about Stalin. Rather, he would school himself in the intransigence of the “socialist camp,” and begin to study the canonical work of its lately deceased but not-yet-disowned General Secretary."
[...]
"Trotsky once remarked that what distinguished the revolutionary was not his willingness to kill but his readiness to die. The anti-Batista war conducted by Castro, Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Frank País was, by most standards, a near-exemplary case of winning “hearts and minds” and recruiting popular enthusiasm. Some informers and deserters and backsliders were executed out of hand, but Guevara seems at first to have shown no relish for such work. Indeed, he cashiered one of his deputies in Camaguey province, a bizarre American freebooter named Herman Marks, because of his undue eagerness to take part in reprisal killings or on-the-spot battlefield punishments. Yet Anderson has unearthed a suggestive detail. Once in power in Havana, and immediately charged by Castro with purging and punishing Batista’s police apparatus, Guevara set up an improvised drumhead tribunal at the harbor fortress of La Cabana, where he sent for Marks again and re-employed him as an executioner.
Some justified this kind of “people’s court” as utilitarian. Herbert Matthews of The New York Times had a go at defending them “from the Cuban’s perspective.” (The paper wouldn’t print his efforts.) But other foreign correspondents were appalled by the lynch trials, ordered by Fidel Castro himself, that were held in the Havana sports stadium. Raul Castro went even further in the city of Santiago, machine-gunning seventy captured Batistianos into a ditch dug by a bulldozer. When challenged by friends and family, Guevara resorted to three defenses. First, he claimed that everybody at La Cabana had had a hearing. The speed at which the firing squads operated made his argument seem exiguous. Second, as reported by Anderson, “he never tired of telling his Cuban comrades that in Guatemala Arbenz had fallen because he had not purged his armed forces of disloyal elements, a mistake that permitted the CIA to penetrate and overthrow his regime.” Third, and dropping all pretense, he told a protesting former medical colleague: “Look, in this thing either you kill first, or else you get killed.”"
[...]
"It was clear, in other words, that his authoritarian stance was taken on principle and not in response to “tactical” considerations. Huber Matos and other allegedly “bourgeois” supporters of the original revolution who were imprisoned had already found this out, as had the Trotskyists who dared to criticize Fidelism from the “left.”"
[...]
"Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they probably begin by calling “charismatic.” The last few years of Guevara’s life were a study in diminishing returns. He drove himself harder and harder, relying more and more on exhortation and example, in order to accomplish less and less. In the case of the Cuban economy, the argument over “moral” versus “material” incentives became muddied, with the system eventually resolving itself into one of material non-incentive, periodically prodded by slogans, along Eastern European lines."
[...]
"Since 1968, the “Year of the Heroic Guerrilla,” Cuban children have been instructed in almost Baden-Powell tones that if they seek a “role model,” they should comport themselves como el Che. This strenuous injunction only emphasizes the realization that Guevara’s Cromwellian, ascetic demands on people bordered on the impossible: even the inhuman. The grandson who is said most to resemble him—a young man named Canek—has quit the island in order to pursue the vocation of a heavy-metal guitarist in Mexico, and it is a moral and material certainty that many of his generation wish they could do the same."
[...]
"The very element that gave him his certainty and courage—his revolutionary communism—was also the element that condemned him to historical eclipse. In setting down the whole story in such a respectful but objective manner, Jon Lee Anderson has succeeded in writing, for himself and I suspect for many others, a nuanced goodbye to all that."

BlogTalkRadio: Twitear Desde Cuba

2011-12-21T11:27:00.002-05:00

Here is the link to an mp3 of today's Internet radio show with Columbia Journalism Professor Mirta Ojito and Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez (totalmente en Español).

Columbia School of Journalism: Tweeting Under Castro

2011-12-20T16:59:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday morning, December 21 at 10 a.m., Columbia Journalism School presents a "revolutionary" webcast, their first ever in Spanish, with Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez (@YoaniSanchez) to discuss how social media breaks down the walls of censorship in Cuba and elsewhere.

Yoani will be interviewed from Havana and talking with Prof. Mirta Ojito (@mirtaojito), author of Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus and professor and blogger Teresa Puente (@tcpuente). Please email your questions to sree@sree.net (subject = Cuba) or call in live! to the number: (646) 915-9583.

Tune in here tomorrow at 10 a.m. for this exciting broadcast!

"Hitch was one of a kind": Miriam Leiva remembers Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-20T12:25:00.005-05:00

Miriam Leiva, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, and El Yuma

(Havana, summer, 2008)

Those who have read the now late Christopher Hitchens' memoir, Hitch-22, know that it contains a chapter, "Havana versus Prague," chronicling his "internationalist solidarity" visit to Cuba in 1968. He did voluntary labor at the "Cinco de Mayo" work camp and, tellingly for him, had his passport (then a British one) confiscated for "safe keeping" during his stay so that the authorities could "look after it" and, one assumes, after him too.

I summarized the chapter in a post from June 2010 when Hitchens passed through NYC to promote Hitch-22. Here's a photo from his memoir showing him posing with two other young revolutionary internationalists.

Others may remember that Hitch visited Cuba again much more recently in the fall of 2008 when he accompanied actor Sean Penn and historian Douglas Brinkley on a junket that included Chavez's Venezuela and Raul's Cuba. Penn got the scoop in Havana, being the first "reporter" to land an interview with Cuba's new leader. Hitchens shares his impressions of Chavez here. Unfortunately for us, he never met or interviewed Castro. That would have been a doozy!

I just discovered, via an article published by Miriam Leiva in Slate (Spanish), that Hitchens was also in Havana with is family during New Year's 1995-1996. In town doing a story on Cuba for Vanity Fair (the article is collected in Hitchens book Love, Poetry, and War), Hitchens paid a surprise visit to the dissidents Miriam Leiva and her husband Oscar Espinosa Chepe (pictured with me above). He even invited them back to his hotel, none other than the presidential suite of the Hotel Nacional, for a New Year's Day breakfast!

Leiva informed Hitchens that she and her husband had become "seventh-rate citizens in their own country" as a punishment for their losing the revolutionary faith. And Espinosa Chepe commented wryly to him: "If Karl Marx were Cuban, he'd be in jail or in Miami." To wit, Hitchens juxtaposes the following pair of pregnant epigraphs to kick off his chapter, "Havana v. Prague":

"Within the Revolution, everything. Outside the Revolution, nothing." - Fidel Castro

"Ex ecclesia, nulla salus." [Outside the church, no salvation.] - Thomas Aquinas

Below, Leiva movingly remembers Hitchens' visit in 1995 and the difference it made to her and her husband both at the time and in the difficult years still to come.

A Cuban Dissident Remembers Hitchens
He wrote a story about my husband and me in Vanity Fair, and never lost touch with us.
By Miriam Leiva
Monday, Dec. 19, 2011

On Dec. 31, 1995, the phone rang, and I answered.

“This is Christopher Hitchens. I’m an American journalist, and I’d like to visit you in a while.”

He didn’t sound much like an American. My childhood English from Connecticut told me it was a sort of British English. Anyway, it didn’t matter. I was glad to hear a friendly voice that night. My husband and I were very gloomy, alone in our tiny apartment, surrounded by hostility and surveillance from the political police. We were “non-persons” at that time, just for expressing our ideas in 1992, hoping to improve Cuba’s political, economic, and social disaster. We had been fired from work—me from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and him from the National Bank. Then, we started to write as independent journalists and joined the human rights movement. We had been labeled dissidents, and relatives and friends feared to get in touch with us.

Christopher Hitchens came to chat with us. He mentioned that he intended to publish a piece in Vanity Fair. We spent a couple of hours telling him our story. As he left, he said he would expect us at the Hotel Nacional next morning for breakfast. Astounding! Foreign journalists meeting dissidents could face accusations of imperialist conspiracy and at the very least be put on the next plane out of Cuba. We thought perhaps he was too well-known and the government wouldn’t risk a big scandal by expelling him.

So we began 1996 at the Hotel Nacional’s presidential suite, meeting Christopher’s dad, mom, wife, and little daughter. It was really moving. His whole family! The hotel had sent a basket to their guests including champagne, which he opened to celebrate with us. I could hardly eat or drink. We talked and shared our tough experiences. Just getting into a fancy hotel and up the elevator was amazing for us, as Cubans were forbidden to do so. Maybe our habits as former diplomats and our lack of fear made it easy for us to walk around as if we owned the place. It’s not that we felt courageous, but that we just focused on what we were up to. We were peaceful and defenseless people: We just intended to meet some friends. We didn’t think about the police. All we really thought about was: Are we on time?

Sometime later, my husband Oscar’s American brother called and said he was amazed to see our picture in Vanity Fair on a newsstand in New York. It was Christopher’s story on us. He bought the magazine and many months later we were surprised to receive it in the mail. I’m not quite sure exactly what month the story appeared, because the political police took the magazine away along with many books and our writings when they searched our tiny apartment on March 2003. They also took Oscar, who became one of 75 Cuban prisoners of conscience.

All these years I kept in touch with Christopher through regular emails. He was concerned and expressed his support. My husband, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, and I are deeply moved, knowing he passed away Dec. 15. Hitch was one of a kind.

The Hitch and I at the 92Y.

Good Bye, Dear Leader: Kim Jong-il, Leader of North Korea, Is Dead

2011-12-18T23:40:00.001-05:00

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times

Kim Jong-il, Leader of North Korea, Is Dead

Kim Jong-il, the reclusive dictator who kept North Korea at the edge of starvation and collapse, banished to gulags citizens deemed disloyal and turned the country into a nuclear weapons state, died Saturday, according to North Korean state news media.

Called the "Dear Leader" by his people, Mr. Kim, the son of North Korea's founder, remained an unknowable figure. Everything about him was guesswork, from the exact date and place of his birth to the cause of his death to the mythologized events of his rise in a country formed by the hasty division of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II.

North Koreans heard about him only as their "peerless leader" and "the great successor to the revolutionary cause." Yet he fostered what was perhaps the last personality cult in the Communist world. His portrait hangs beside that of his father, Kim Il-sung, in every North Korean household and building. Towers, banners and even rock faces across the country bear slogans praising him.

LATE BREAKING NEWS!

2011-12-16T22:48:00.001-05:00

"There is a growing consensus that the United States' five-decade trade embargo against Cuba has not succeeded in weakening the Castro government."

-- New York Times, Dec. 16, 2011

Christopher Hitchens: The New Commandments

2011-12-16T07:25:00.002-05:00

It's difficult to take oneself with sufficient seriousness to begin any sentence with the words "Thou shalt not."

But who cannot summon the confidence to say:

Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color.

Do not ever use people as private property.

Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations.

Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.

Do not condemn people for their inbornnature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them? Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly.

Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife.

Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea howunimportant your call is to us.

Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions.

Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above.

In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.

Check out the full version of this video on YouTube.

Martinoticias Hoy: Los negocios y el Cuentapropismo en Cuba

2011-12-14T10:51:00.001-05:00

"Los negocios y el Cuentapropismo en la Isla"

Los problemas económicos y la falta de experiencia, son solo algunas de las múltiples dificultades que afronta el cuentapropista en la isla. Hoy, con la colaboración de nuestros invitados, dentro y fuera de Cuba, trataremos de despejar muchas de las dudas y darle solución a interrogantes de cubanos que intentan encaminar sus pequeños negocios.

En esta edición, dedicada a los negocios y el cuentapropismo en la Isla, incluyendo la importancia de los medios de comunicación social para fomentar el espíritu empresarial cubano, contamos con la presencia vía Skype de experimentados empresarios cubanoamericanos en Union City, Nueva Jersey.

Desde Cuba contamos con la participación de los economistas Oscar Espinosa Chepe y Karina Gálvez, así como el cuentapropista Yosvani Anzardo.

La audiencia podrá participar mediante las redes sociales facebook.com/avanzacuba, Twitter: @avanzacuba y nuestra página web www.martinoticias.com.

Pueden comunicarse con nosotros a través del email: avanzacuba@gmail.com o al teléfono: (305) 437-7319.

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From Cuba's "Dictator's Dilemma" to the US' "Digital Divide"

2011-12-04T12:42:00.001-05:00

Excellent NYT op-ed by Susan P. Crawford on "The New Digital Divide" in US high-speed Internet access.

We invented the Internet and are the leading innovator in telecom, "yet lag far behind in actual use of that technology."

http://t.co/CGA2iIyM

Final paragraph:

"The new digital divide raises important questions about social equity in an information-driven world. But it is also a matter of protecting our economic future. Thirty years from now, African-Americans and Latinos, who are at the greatest risk of being left behind in the Internet revolution, will be more than half of our work force. If we want to be competitive in the global economy, we need to make sure every American has truly high-speed wired access to the Internet for a reasonable cost."

MinRex Conference on the rise of Digital Media

2011-11-29T19:09:00.008-05:00

A notable conference is taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week at Havana's Centro de Convenciones. It is titled, "Alternative media and social networks" [Taller Internacional sobre los Medios Alternativos y Redes Sociales], and is being sponsored by Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations (MinRex).

However, as this final paragraph from the Prensa Latina news report indicates, there are many, wildly different understandings of the term "alternative."

"The agenda includes the increasing importance of alternative media and social networks in the media battle Cuba and the so-called Third World countries are carrying out to include it in the international communicative scenario, states the website."

In other words, the conference seeks to discover how Cuba and other developing countries can use digital media and social networks to win the "media battle" against the dreaded "corporate Western mainstream media."

That's all well and good, but of course, the word "alternative" can also describe Cuba's own cyber-activists who seek to critically counter the official, state-run mass media in Cuba, otherwise known as propaganda.

Not all of these cyber-activists and bloggers are "dissidents," but most of them do seek to establish an autonomous space of independent, critical dialogue, debate, and sometimes dissent through the strategic use of these very same "alternative media and social networks."

For example, here's Yoani Sanchez's own take on the event and what she sees as the highjacking of the word "alternative" by the official organizers (as reported by Marti Noticias).

“The first thing that surprised me was the use of the word 'alternative.' Being an alternative is always understood as a way to confront officialdom and the status quo of the mechanisms of state information. Then you have the Cuban government organize an event which calls itself 'social networks and alternative spaces' but refuses to invite or is simply ignorant of the existence of a truly alternative community that uses social networks in Cuba.”

“It is quite curious how they try to appropriate the term 'alternative' and make us think that being an alternative is synonymous with 'party' or 'government.' No, the real alternatives are we who have no Internet connection, no one pays us a salary for tweeting, no one orients us about what we have to do; the real alternatives are we who risk our lives, our credibility, and our freedom by narrating what we narrate.”

Keep reading below or the full Prensa Latina article, "Cuba Looks at Alternative Media, Social Networks" (though you won't learn much from it).

You can read more at the Marti Noticias article cited above which is entitled, "Figuras cubanas del ciberespacio: grandes ausentes en evento de redes sociales."

Finally, Penultimos Dias also has a note on the event that includes a pair of photos, one of which features Cuban agent Raul Capote and Jean Guy Allard, and another that shows bloggers Elaine Diaz, Sandra "negra cubana tenia que ser" Alvarez, and Paquito "el de Cuba."

Cuba Looks at Alternative Media, Social Networks
Havana, Nov 29, 2011 (Prensa Latina)

Delegates from more than a dozen countries on Tuesday debate about alternative media and social networks at an international workshop convened by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The workshop "Alternative media and social networks, new scenarios of political communication in the digital field," will be held at the Havana's Conference Center, and will conclude on Wednesday.

Among participants are representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Communication in Latin America, according to Cubaminrex website.

The event will share experiences on issues related to the changes occurred in the international media environment and the role of new communication platforms, states the note.

The agenda includes the increasing importance of alternative media and social networks in the media battle Cuba and the so-called Third World countries are carrying out to include it in the international communicative scenario, states the website.

Pallí: The loans are coming!

2011-11-28T23:06:00.004-05:00

Here's a good assessment of Cuba's new real estate and loan provisions from José Manuel Pallí (H/T EthnoCuba).

"The Loans Are Coming" - The Cuba Standard

"A sip of chamomile tea to go with the Valium."

Since Cuba published the recent changes to its housing laws allowing resident citizens to sell their homes, the talk in Miami — especially among those who feel an urgent call to give a negative spin to any news from Cuba — has turned around questions like, 'Where are the home sellers going to live?'

So when I heard about Cuba's new lending system, while waiting in line for the doors to one of our glorious bazars to open up this abbreviated Thanksgiving Day, the first thought that came to my mind was we now had yet another reason to worry: Where will those Cubans who lose their homes to the bank go?

Of course, the geography around me helped dispel most of my own concerns: Here we are, in Miami — a city which has a legitimate claim to be the natural host for our next reality TV show, 'Foreclose America,' in a state of Florida where our courts of law are hooked to a life support system dependent on foreclosure filing fees, where jobs are ever more scarce, and yet nobody is deprived of his/her constitutional right to shop, maxed credit card or not. And obviously, they must have some place to keep all this new stuff they are buying — with even some space to spare for a bed or sleeping bag.

Go here for the rest of the story...

IRI: Cuban Public Opinion - Not so fast!

2011-11-27T14:05:00.005-05:00

Here's another survey report about Cuba, this time from the IRI - International Republican Institute.

It found much less enthusiasm and much more skepticism about the economic reforms so far enacted under Raul Castro.

Here's a pull quote:

"There are a lot of headlines here in the U.S. about changes coming to Cuba, but IRI's survey shows that the Cuban people themselves are not necessarily seeing it so far. They remain skeptical that the Cuban government can improve their lives."

More here and here. The report is also available in Spanish here.

AP: Small-farmer and micro-enterprise loans on the way in Cuba

2011-11-24T11:49:00.000-05:00

Cuba to launch bank loans for farmers, small-business owners, others in December

By the Associated Press

HAVANA — Cuba is announcing a new credit system that will begin offering loans to small-business owners, private farmers and other citizens beginning next month.

It is a key step that economists say is necessary to support independent workers and allow President Raul Castro's economic reform package to be effective.

The government's Official Gazette says loans will also be made available to people looking to purchase building materials, to pay for labor associated with home construction, and other needs.

The Gazette says the system will be rolled out "progressively, as the country's economic and financial conditions permit."

The rules announced Thursday take effect Dec. 20.

Padurisima (4): "¿Para qué (no por qué, sino para qué) se escribe una novela?

2011-11-24T00:21:00.000-05:00

El Yuma's favorite Cuban writer Leonardo Padura has just won the 2011 Roger Caillois Literary Prize for his novel 'El hombre que amaba a los perros' (2009) and in recognition of the entirety of his work as a novelist. He is the first Cuban writer to receive the award in its 20-year history.

"El hombre" was published in a French translation earlier this year and is set to some out in English in 2012.

The prize is sponsored by the Casa de América Latina of Paris, the Society of Readers and Friends of Roger Caillois, and the Pen Club of France.

Wilfredo Cancio Isla of the web site Cafe Fuerte has published a detailed story on the prize, giving an update on Padura's current projects.

These include a sneak preview of the new film "Siete Días en La Habana" at the 33rd Festival of New Latin American Film in Havana in December. Padura was one of the screenwriters for the seven-part film and worked together with director Benicio del Toro on the short entitled, "El Yuma," earlier this year.

Cancio also reports on Padura's latest work-in-progress, "Los Herejes" (The Heretics), the seventh title in his ongoing Mario Conde noir fiction series, which he expects to have finished by early 2012. This ambitious new installment in the hardboiled series is a "story about freedom as a human condition and need" and, as all of Padura's novels, is set in contemporary Cuba. However, the story begins in the 1640s in Amsterdam in the private library of Rembrandt!

Below is a brief embedded video of Padura speaking with from Madrid. Here is also a link to a talk he gave at Casa de America Latina in Paris last year.

NPR: Operation Peter Pan, 50 years later

2011-11-19T11:36:00.001-05:00

Children Of Cuba Remember Their Flight To America

5 min 24 sec

Add to Playlist Listen Now

Operation Pedro Pan Group

At Miami's airport, children from Cuba meet George Guarch, who worked for the Catholic Welfare Bureau in the city. Guarch took displaced children to temporary camps in Miami.

Published: November 19, 2011

by Greg Allen

Operation Pedro Pan shaped the lives of a generation of Cuban-Americans. Between 1960 and 1962, the program airlifted more than 14,000 Cuban children from Havana to the U.S. Fifty years later, those children are recalling how that flight changed their lives.

In Miami this weekend, a group of Cuban-Americans — now in their 50s and 60s — are gathering to commemorate the flights that took them from their homeland to America.

The journey began in early January 1959, after Dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country. Fidel Castro arrived in Havana soon after and took control.

Back then, Jose Azel was an 11-year-old living in Havana. Today, he's a research associate at the University of Miami.

"It was clear very early on that the regime was moving in a totalitarian direction, with confiscations, expropriations of properties and that sort of thing," he says.

Azel was soon involved in underground activities. By 1961, his mother had died and his father decided to send him out of Cuba to America. Azel says the Castro regime had started separating children from their families as part of its literacy campaign.

He recalls having just a short conversation in which his father told him he was sending him away for his safety.

"So in the minds, I suspect, of most of the parents of the Pedro Pan children, this was going to be a short-term, temporary separation," he says.

As it turned out, Azel never saw his father again. His father died in the mid-1970s without being able to leave Cuba.

The Paper That Led Thousands To Flight

It wasn't until much later that Azel learned he was one of some 14,000 Cuban children who fled the island in similar circumstances. It was made possible because of a deal a priest in the Miami diocese — Father Bryan Walsh — worked out with the U.S. State Department. The agreement allowed him to sign visa waivers for children 16 or under.

Historian Victor Triay has written about Operation Pedro Pan in his book, Fleeing Castro. In 1961, Triay says, the failed Bay of Pigs operation ended hopes that Castro might soon be ousted. Castro also clearly announced that he was turning Cuba toward communism.

"They started closing down all the schools, including and especially the private and Catholic schools. So that caused a mass panic," he says. "And, of course, these visa waivers were photocopied in Cuba with Walsh's signature. They were accepted by the Cuban government, and so these visa waivers just started to spread around the island."

There were two direct Pan Am flights every day from Havana to Miami. Soon, they were full of children — some with families, many without.

Carmen Valdivia came with just her sister. At her home in a Miami suburb, she still has a yellowed letter, her visa waiver. The paper reads, "WAIVER APPROVED By Department of State and Immigration Services."

Valdivia says she and her sister arrived in Miami with almost nothing. Security personnel at the airport in Havana took their suitcases, leaving them just what they carried in their purses.

Valdivia still has the last gift her parents gave her in Cuba: an autographed book that they both signed.

In it, she wrote: "This autograph I bought at the last moment that I was in my Cuba, the beautiful. My parents got to sign it, and I am glad that they did because this is the only thing that I have from them, and they are what I love the most in this world."

Scattered Around America

About half of the children airlifted to Miami were, like Valdivia, reunited with family members within a few years.

Others went to foster families and boarding schools around the country. That was Carlos Eire's experience. Eire has written about those years in his book, Learning to Die in Miami.

He left Cuba with his brother in 1962. They shuttled from camp to a series of group homes and foster families until his mother rejoined them three years later. For him and most other Pedro Pan children, he says it was an overwhelmingly positive experience, but one that came with a sense of loss.

"Not having your parents there, you kind of feel a sense of betrayal, that you're betraying your parents if you're too happy," he says. "Even after my mom came, even at the best moments, it was always this feeling that, 'Gee, you know, my dad's not here.' You feel this sense that you should never or can never be really happy."

As adults, many of the Pedro Pan kids have done well. Eire went on to become a professor at Yale and a National Book Award-winning author. Other Pedro Pan kids include former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez and salsa star Willy Chirino.

There's something else, Eire says, that most of the Pedro Pan kids still share, 50 years later. They're firmly opposed to any normalization of relations with the Castro regime, the regime that was responsible for breaking up their families and forcing them from their homeland.

Cuban Barbers to Gain More Freedoms

2011-11-18T21:20:00.001-05:00

Cuban Barbers to Gain More Freedoms

BY THE WORLD ⋅ NOVEMBER 18, 2011 ⋅ POST A COMMENT

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We’re taking a little off the top and trimming the sideburns for today’s Geo Quiz. Barbers in the Caribbean city we’re looking for will have a little more freedom come December 1st.

They won’t suddenly be coming out with new outlandish styles and coifs. No.

It’s a much more basic freedom: they’ll simply be able to run their own barber shops, and work outside of state control. It’s part of a trend in this city: more and more of this city’s residents are becoming self-employed.

The Communist government here is cash-strapped, and wants to slash a million jobs from its payrolls. We hope the answer to this Quiz is coming into focus now.

We’re going to turn to Ted Henken for the answer. He’s professor of Latin American Studies at Baruch College in New York. And he writes about Cuba on his blog El Yuma.

The answer to our Geo Quiz is Havana.

Blog: El Yuma
Cuba privatizes hair salons, barbershops

Freedom House, CDA, and now Brookings: Reaching out to Cuba

2011-11-18T12:19:00.001-05:00

The past month has seen the appearance of three special reports from Washington think tanks, all of which recognize the significance (if still the insufficiency) of the economic reforms being implemented over the past year in Cuba.

First was this report from Freedom House, which indicated that Cubans are hopeful about the pace, scope, and direction of reforms to date - likely the most surprising given that institution's regular criticism of the lack of both economic and political freedoms on the island.

Then came a report from The Center for Democracy in the Americas which declared that Cuba's reforms are "real, irreversible, and merit U.S. support.

Finally, today appeared the Brookings report, "Reaching Out: Cuba’s New Economy and the International Response," written by Richard Feinberg, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at that institution.

Both Along the Malecon and Penultimos Dias have already commented on the Brookings report. While I haven't read the entire thing (PDF) yet myself, I have reviewed this executive summary and can say I agree that U.S. policy should be based on empowering the Cuban people (even if it helps the government), rather than punishing the government (even if it harms the people).

Feinberg's findings:

"Development cooperation can achieve results in Cuba, improve the lives of beneficiaries, empower independent small producers, and promote decentralized decision-making to local communities."

Feinberg's advice to the U.S.:
History shows that "promoting economic reform is the most realistic option for advancing political pluralism in Cuba."

Ernesto Hernandez Busto's response to this:
"Hacia China no miren, que al parecer está fuera de la historia." [Don't look at China, which, it seems is not part of history].

These reports have appeared this fall together with a new round of economic reforms on the island itself, including the liberalization of auto sales and real estate among Cuban citizens, the declaration that the experiments with self-emloyment for barbers and beauty salons will now become permanent (more on this from Phil Peters here), and, it seems, new regulations for credit and loans as well as co-operatives.

Lots going on...

Tune in to PRI's The World this afternoon/evening to hear El Yuma discuss some of these reforms and how they are being received by Cuba's barbers and beauticians.

Hipoteca, no; compra y venta, si: 50 years after urban reform, a paradigm shift

2011-11-16T01:04:00.003-05:00

Surfing around the Internet the other day trying to get some background on the history of urban reform and housing law in Cuba over the last 50 years, I can upon a very timely and original scholarly article by Erich Trefftz, "50 Years Since the Urban Reform Law in Cuba: On the Anniversary of the Paradigm Shift"(PDF), published in August in the Revista INVI (Vol. 26, No. 27, 2011) at the Universidad de Chile.

The article is available in both English and Spanish. The Spanish title is: "50 AÑOS DE LA LEY DE REFORMA URBANA EN CUBA. EN EL ANIVERSARIO DEL CAMBIO DE PARADIGMA."

The article is noteworthy for two things...

First, after describing Cuba's pre-revolutionary housing conditions, the article gives a quick but quite detailed history of urban reform and housing policy over the last 50 years in Cuba. Second, between March and June, 2010, Trefftz carried out a survey of over 100 Cuban housing experts (in Cuba) asking them to evaluate various socioeconomic measures that could be used to improve the housing situation in Cuba.

If you can read the Spanish version of the paper, do so, as it is far more fluent than the obtuse English version.

A few things that stood out to me:

* Cuba's ownership rate is an astounding 83%!

* The Survey and Its Findings:

"Almost a hundred experts were surveyed between March and June 2010 about:

'the deterioration of existing dwellings, the accumulated quantitative and qualitative deficit and the stagnation of rehabilitation and construction. Which measures may invigorate and revitalize construction and rehabilitation?'

Those polled were asked to rate the influence of each of the 27 measures aimed at improving habitat may have; to this end, a scale from 1 to 5 was proposed, with:

5- decisive;
4- highly influential;
3- influential;
2- slightly influential; and
1- not influential.

These measures were distributed into four groups, namely:

A) tenure;
B) urban land;
C) promotion, production, and distribution of housing; and
D) funding, payment, and subsidies."

The results showed lots of support for lifting the ban on the private sale and purchase of housing but little for lifting the ban on the possibility of having more than one property.

Likewise, there was enormous support for facilitating the emergence of a private and/or cooperative housing construction sector, including the granting of self-employment licenses in housing construction, the creation of open markets for housing and construction supplies, the authorization of hiring work brigades or companies to carry out the construction, rehabilitation, and conservation of housing, and the allowance of small- and medium-sized enterprises to work in the building, rehab, and construction supply sectors.

In terms of financing, there was great support for the creation of lines of credit for the rehabilitation and construction of housing, but relatively little support for granting mortgages on urban properties as a source of funding.

A few final quotes:

"Only four experts insisted on the importance of mortgages as a way to unfreeze the sole asset of Cuban people. There were 20 experts who rejected this idea by using the argument that it should be the ultimate responsibility of the government to provide for people's accommodation.

How to reconcile these two opposing extremes? This question is going to be one of the main challenges of future housing policy. In general terms, mortgage was the most controversial measure of the survey and 30% of those polled either did not know the subject or declined to answer the questions."

[...]

"The transition from the decisions made 50 years ago, where political ideals prevailed over economic interests, to a housing management based on economic principles is an important step; however, this fact does not involve the design of a housing policy aimed at ensuring decent habitat to those deprived of resources."

* Trefftz also includes a number of vivid photos of Cuban housing stock, one of which graces the cover the the INVI magazine above.

Trefftz is a German graduate student studying for a Ph.D. in architecture at the CUJAE (Polytechnic Jose Antonio Echeverria) in Havana. This article is drawn from his doctoral thesis, "Strategies for Housing Management in the Urban Rehabilitation of Havana's Downtown Districts," which is being directed by the well-known Cuban architect and scholar Mario Coyula. Trefftz's Master's thesis, also done at the CUJAE was entitled, "Politics and Home Ownership in Cuba, a Historical and Comparative Analysis."

He would seem to be the man of the hour. He can be reached at: erich@trefftz.de

Are cooperatives next?

2011-11-15T22:03:00.002-05:00

Cuban Co-operatives Set to Expand [?]
By Patricia Grogg (IPS)

HAVANA, Nov 14, 2011 (IPS) - The creation of co-operatives forms part of the current "updating" of the Cuban economy, even though no official information has been provided about the expansion of this form of business management, which has already been tested, with mixed results, in agriculture.

Decree Law 288 updating Cuba's "General Housing Law"

2011-11-03T19:10:00.000-04:00

Here's the official PDF of Cuba's new housing law set to take effect next week.

Let the games begin!

My take on Cuba's real estate reforms

2011-11-03T13:08:00.001-04:00

This is from Damien Cave at the NYT.

This is from Paul Haven at AP and an update here.

And here's the Granma announcement in Spanish.

My quick take:

This is a very positive step in the right direction toward greater economic freedom and individual and family rights of private property. It will immediately increase the personal wealth of millions of Cubans as it restores to them one of the fundamental rights of private property - that of buying and selling it freely.

However, as with all of Raul's reforms to date and especially with the automobile flexibilizations - the devil is in the details. There are at least two key restrictions still in place here as I understand the announcement:

1) Sales are only allowed among Cuban citizens resident on the island (or to and from foreigners with permanent residence - which is understandable at this point and clearly designed to prevent a "giant sucking sound" of the transfer of title to foreigners with much much more cash than the average Cuban property owner). But of course Cuban émigrés will get around this by giving money to friends and relatives resident in Cuba so that they can purchase property for them.

2) Cubans are still limited to owning just two pieces of property: a home and a vacation home. This is clearly designed to prevent the accumulation of wealth - a constant concern of the government of Raul over the last year as he moves to "mix up" and "modernize" Cuba's rigid, inefficient statist economy.

Stay tuned...

Real estate reform comes to Cuba

2011-11-03T10:02:00.002-04:00

But how real is it?

Here's the Granma announcement.

And here's AP's take:

HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba announced Thursday it will allow real estate to be bought and sold for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes under President Raul Castro.

The law, which takes effect Nov. 10, applies to citizens and permanent residents only, according to a red-letter headline on the front page of Thursday's Communist Party daily Granma.

The brief article said details of the new law would be published imminently in the government's Official Gazette. Authorities have said previously that sales will be subject to taxes and the rules will not allow anyone to accumulate great property holdings.

The change follows October's legalization of buying and selling cars, though with restrictions that still make it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy new vehicles.

Castro has also allowed citizens to go into business for themselves in a number of approved jobs -- everything from party clowns to food vendors to accountants -- and has pledged to streamline the state-dominated economy by eliminating half a million government workers.

Cuba's government employs over 80 percent of the workers in the island's command economy, paying wages of just $20 a month in return for free education and health care, and nearly free housing, transportation and basic foods. Castro has said repeatedly that the system is not working since taking over from his brother Fidel in 2008, but he has vowed that Cuba will remain a Socialist state.

Cubans have long bemoaned the ban on property sales, which took effect in stages over the first years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. In an effort to fight absentee ownership by wealthy landlords, Fidel enacted a reform that gave title to whomever lived in a home. Most who left the island forfeited their properties to the state.

Since no property market was allowed, the rules have meant that for decades Cubans could only exchange property through complicated barter arrangements, or through even murkier black-market deals where thousands of dollars change hands under the table, with no legal recourse if transactions go bad.

Some Cubans enter into sham marriages to make deed transfers easier. Others make deals to move into homes ostensibly to care for an elderly person living there, only to inherit the property when the person dies.

The island's crumbling housing stock has meant that many are forced to live in overcrowded apartments with multiple generations crammed into a few rooms. Even divorce hasn't necessarily meant separation in Cuba, where estranged couples are often forced to live together for years while they work out alternative housing.

The new law will eliminate a state agency that regulated the exchange-by-barter of homes, meaning that from now on sales will only need the seal of a notary, according to Granma.

The government has also dropped hints in recent months about the new property law, saying it will allow family members to inherit homes even if they are not living in the property.

Cubans who can afford it will be allowed to own one home in the city and one in the countryside.

Rubio today in the WSJ

2011-10-28T07:47:00.002-04:00

Go here for the full interview.

On The Washington Post article alleging that he embellished his family history:

"I concede dates were wrong. We didn't know that. As soon as we figured out the dates were wrong, we stopped saying that. We were relying on the family's oral history which, 50 years later, was wrong."

"I disagree that it was politically advantageous to me in terms of saying it. Nobody voted for me that thought my parents came in '59 that wouldn't have voted for me knowing it had been 1956. My family story is the same one. The speeches I gave on campaign trail, I could still give them.

My parents came from Cuba, they came to the United States in search of a better life, they tried and planned to live in Cuba again, and couldn't because of communism. They returned to an exile community where I was raised."

"The essence of my story was that as a child of exiles, I understood that America was different and that you can lose your country. None of that has changed. The story is the same one."

Padurisima (3): Who's the diva?

2011-10-26T15:39:00.000-04:00

Read this passage from Leonardo Padura's novel, Havana Fever, and tell me who you think he is REALLY talking about when he describes the bolero singer and consumate diva, Katy Barqué, as someone who possesses a:

"patent disregard for any sense of historical boundaries and her attempt to cling, against the wind, tide, logic, time and fear of the grotesque, to a pre-eminence that was no longer hers ... turning her into a caricature of herself."

Leete este pedazo de la novela de Leonardo Padura, La neblina de ayer, y dime de quien esta REALMENTE hablando cuando describa a la bolerista y diva contumaz, Katy Barqué, como alguien que posee una:

"patente ausencia [...] del sentido del limite historico y al empeno al aferrarse, contra viento, marea, logico, tiempo y medida de lo grotesco, a una preeminencia que ya no le correspondia y que, [...] la habia transformado en una caricatura [...] de si misma."

Cual bloqueo? #cesenlos2bloqueos

2011-10-25T22:16:00.000-04:00

Yoani Sánchez

@yoanisanchez Cuba

Blogger residente en La Habana,

quien con sus cronicas abre una

ventana a la Cuba real.

http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony

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Can I get an AMEN!? Felipe's Silence

2011-10-25T14:23:00.000-04:00

End the Embargo, End Castro Regime's Excuse for All Its Failures

My favorite section of this masterful four paragraph double denunciation:

"The simple fact of choosing the word "embargo" or preferring the more fearsome "blockade" marks a quasi-ideological position. That issue has been so manipulated in the national press that the government doesn't recognize that among those who oppose the system are many who also oppose the United States trade restrictions on the island. The newspaper Granma assumes that those of us who demand a political opening applaud, ipso facto, the existence of the embargo. Hence, so many surprised faces when they hear our own arguments for lifting it as soon as possible; reasons that Felipe Perez Roque never said at the U.N. and that he only learned when he came to be the ousted foreign minister."

Cubans test official limits on criticism

2011-10-23T11:19:00.001-04:00

http://www.thehour.com/story/513127/cubans-test-official-limits-on-criticism

PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba (Peter Orsi, AP) -- Pedro Pablo Oliva was the kind of model citizen the Cuban government wants to show the world.

Oliva proclaimed his loyalty to Fidel Castro's revolution, his support for its goal of social equality and his gratitude for cultural largesse that nurtured his development into an internationally celebrated painter and sculptor. He even did a turn as a delegate in the regional assembly of the western province of Pinar del Rio.

But when Oliva criticized harassment of dissidents and suggested there might be room for a party other than the Communists, he was abruptly expelled from the assembly, accused of counterrevolutionary behavior. He found himself with no choice but to shutter his home-based community workshop after the government withdrew its support.

Click here to continue reading:

http://www.thehour.com/story/513127/cubans-test-official-limits-on-criticism

Epitaph for a tyrant

2011-10-21T23:18:00.002-04:00

The Deaths Of Dictators:
Neither History Nor Their People Will Ever Absolve Them
Yoani Sánchez

Pull quote:
"I would have liked to see Muammar Gaddafi before a court, indicted for the crimes he committed against his country. I think the violent deaths of the satraps only gives them an aura of martyrdom they do not deserve."

Literature as an antidote to propaganda - Jose Manuel Prieto

2011-10-21T23:06:00.003-04:00

North American Books I Read as a Child in Castro's Cuba
October 19, 2011

José Manuel Prieto, The Paris Review

Fabulous final two paragraphs:
"However, if my history of the American books I read as I child in Castro's Cuba explains anything, it's the power of literature to undo any stereotype, to annul even the most terrible accusatory campaigns and propagandistic platforms. Literature does more for the rapprochement of nations than thousands of well-intentioned speeches.

For me, literature was an antidote to propaganda—one that helped me gain a more human idea of the country presented as our main enemy, as always spying on us and ready to invade us. What image did I have, after all of these books, of Americans? They were obsessed in Faulkner, candidly provincial in Lewis, neurotic and scrawny in Salinger, brutally alone in Carver. A population—how to put it?—of humans, perfectly ordinary."

José Manuel Prieto is a New York–based novelist and translator. His latest novel, Rex, was published by Grove. He teaches literature at Seton Hall University.
Translated by Regina Galasso.

Change comes to Cuba - Freedom House report

2011-10-21T23:00:00.003-04:00

Change Comes to Cuba: Citizens' Views on Reform after the Sixth Party Congress

Executive Summary
Economic reforms are causing visible changes and raising expectations in Cuba, a Freedom House survey found. Self-employment is becoming more widespread, and more Cubans now prefer to work independently than for the government. Many Cubans welcome the opportunities that self-employment brings, but others are skeptical or even resentful about the changes taking place in Cuba.

This survey is based on field research conducted in Cuba after the Sixth Communist Party Congress, which took place in April 2011. A team of researchers trained by Freedom House conducted 190 interviews with Cubans about their perceptions and experience of change, their expectations for the future, and their access to information. The interviews were conducted from June 1 to 22 in six provinces of the country.

The main findings of the survey are as follows:

 79 percent of respondents have noticed changes in the country over the last six months, particularly the higher number of cuentapropistas (self-employed people). "There are more cuentapropistas in the streets," a respondent said. "There is one on every corner."

 Licenses issued for cuenta propia activities have become easier to obtain: 69 percent know or have heard of someone who has applied for a cuentapropista license; of them, 87 percent said the application was successful (and 11 percent said the application was still in process).

 A majority of Cubans—63 percent—have a favorable view of the reforms. The benefits of self-employment were summarized by a retired man who now sells ice cream: "Imagine, I can make more money selling ice cream than I ever did as an accountant for the government." The licenses issued for cuenta propia activities allow entrepreneurs to work legally. As explained by a man who sold CDs illegally for many years but recently obtained a license, "Now I can work without having to hide."

 There is a growing sense of optimism since the last round of field research conducted by Freedom House in December 2010. Forty-one percent believe the country is making progress, as compared to only 15 percent in the previous survey. Moreover, expectations are rising: 30 percent (up from 17 percent in December 2010) expect their family's economic situation to improve in the next 12 months, although 62 percent say it will be about the same.

 The reforms have, however, created a sense of insecurity among some Cubans. A woman from Santa Clara who works for the state said that "a lot of jobs are being cut off in the public sector; I see it every day where I work; and there is no place where you can put those people to work."

 More Cubans prefer to work in the private sector than in the state sector. Forty-nine percent say that it is better to work as a cuentapropista, while 44 percent feel that it is better to work for the government.

 The risks associated with self-employment are discouraging for some Cubans. As an old mulato taxi driver explained, "by working on your own you can make a lot of money but it is uncertain, while working for the state you get a bad salary but it is stable." Others lack the resources to start their own business. An 18-year old woman from Villa Clara said: "I would like to be a cuentapropista, but the problem is that I don't have any money to start with. I think that those who start a cuenta propia must first have some family in the United States who sends them money."

 The relative success of cuentapropistas is creating resentment among some Cubans, particularly among educated professionals. An economics graduate complained that "It bothers me that the guy who is watching your car right now and who did not finish middle school makes more money than I do and I have six years of higher education."

 A growing proportion of Cubans want civil liberties. When asked what reforms they would like to see in Cuba, the largest number of respondents said they want increased freedom of expression and the freedom to travel. The most frequent responses to the question about desired reforms related to civil liberties as opposed to improved economic conditions, which topped the list of desired reforms in the last Freedom House survey.

The vast majority of Cubans—92 percent—still get their news from government sources. Only 8 percent get their news from independent sources.

 While most Cubans are informed about major government decisions (80 percent of respondents have heard about the reforms), access to information about important international events is severely limited. Only 40 percent knew what happened to Egypt's leaders, and only 36 percent knew what started the revolution in Tunisia.

 The Cubans who receive independent news are far better informed: 57 percent knew what started the revolution in Tunisia, as compared to only 23 percent of Cubans who get their news from government sources.

Authors
Alejandro Moreno was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He studied at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, where he obtained a PhD in Political Science in 1997. He has fifteen years of experience as a professor of Political Science at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). He served as Managing Director of the 2010 and 2011 Latinobarómetro surveys, and he currently is the Vice President and President-Elect of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR).
Daniel Calingaert is Deputy Director of Programs at Freedom House responsible for civil society and media programs worldwide. He has led democracy support programs for the past 15 years and taught at Georgetown University's M.A. Program in Democracy and Governance and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He earned his D.Phil. from Oxford University.

Will The Real Terrorists Please Stand Up

2011-10-20T22:13:00.001-04:00

'Will The Real Terrorists Please Stand Up' (2011, 82 minutes) is the latest of Saul Landau's documentaries about Cuba. This one examines the case of the 'Cuban Five', intelligence agents sent to penetrate violent Cuban exile groups in Miami, who have been serving long prison sentences in the US.

Archival footage as well as extensive interviews including both Cuban state security officials and Miami exiles provides an in-depth look at Miami-Washington-Havana politics in an attempt to explain the continued hostility of US administrations towards the island.

This is the first public showing in the NYC Metro area. Sponsored by Latin America Committee of Brooklyn For Peace.

Thursday, October 27th, 6:30 p.m.
In the library of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture
Prospect Park West at 2nd St in Park Slope
#2 or #3 to Grand Army Plaza.
Contributions greatly appreciated.

Unfinished Spaces: Cuba's (counter?) Revolutionary Art Schools

2011-10-19T14:17:00.004-04:00

(Go here for full trailer.)

If you have never read the John Loomis' book, A Revolution of Forms, I highly recommend it. (Loomis is pictured to the left at last night's opening). It chronicles the birth and premature death of the cultural and architectural marvel of Cuba's National Schools of Art.

Readers are also alerted to Alma Guillermoprieto's fantastic memoir, Dancing with Cuba, which is set during the 6-months she spent teaching at one of the schools back in 1969.

Tonight here in NYC, I'm headed down to Tribeca Cinemas to see the new documentary, Unfinished Spaces, which is also about the Schools. Here's a blurb from the film's website:

Cuba's ambitious National Art Schools project, designed by three young artists in the wake of Castro's Revolution, is neglected, nearly forgotten, then ultimately rediscovered as a visionary architectural masterpiece.

In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba's National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school's first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. Forty years later the schools are in use, but remain unfinished and decaying. Castro has invited the exiled architects back to finish their unrealized dream.

Unfinished Spaces features intimate footage of Fidel Castro, showing his devotion to creating a worldwide showcase for art, and it also documents the struggle and passion of three revolutionary artists.

Directed by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray
2011 / HD / Color / 16:9 (1.78:1) / 86 min / Stereo

All the News that's Unfit to Print

2011-10-17T22:24:00.004-04:00

Unfit to Print

How the Arab Spring made life even harder for foreign journalists in Cuba.

BY YOANI SÁNCHEZ | OCTOBER 17, 2011, Foreign Policy

How the new citizen journalism and cyber-activism is challenging the old journalism.

"Opening the world's eyes to the real Cuba, after all, no longer requires a wire service dispatch; it can be done with a cell phone."

Entre «oficialistas» y «mercenarios» - Mas alla de las etiquetas en la blogosfera cubana

2011-10-13T17:42:00.000-04:00

At long last, the digital version of the new edition of the journal Nueva Sociedad is now available. You can go here to view, print or download PDFs of the various articles.

As I mentioned in a previous post two weeks ago, there is quite a rich variety of topics and countries covered in the issue under the central theme of "Politics and Cyber-Activism Today."

My own contribution to the issue is an article dedicated to describing the various branches of the blossoming Cuban blogosphere. It is in Spanish and entitled:

Una cartografía de la blogósfera cubana. Entre «oficialistas» y «mercenarios»

Leetelo y deja tus criticas, comentarios y elogios aqui!

Keep reading for the abstract first in Spanish and then in English. I also have links to PDFs of the other articles.

Pese al clima –por momentos agobiante– de polarización, en Cuba ha emergido una variedad de blogs y de blogueros que buscan sobreponerse a las dificultades políticas y materiales. Más allá de los adjetivos con que cada «bando» busca descalificar a los otros, en los últimos años la extensión de la blogósfera cubana ha sido capaz, no obstante, de construir algunos puentes y espacios que buscan salir de los «monólogos» tanto oficialistas como opositores. Todo ello en un contexto en el que tanto para el gobierno cubano como para el de Estados Unidos la web forma parte de una batalla política de mayores dimensiones.

Despite the at times oppressive climate of polarization, in Cuba a variety of blogs and bloggers have emerged which look to get over the political and material difficulties. Beyond the adjectives with which each «side» looks to disqualify the others, in recent years the extension of the Cuban blogosphere has been capable, however, of constructing some bridges and spaces which look to get out of the monologues, as much pro-government as opposition. All this in a context in which, as much for the Cuban government as for the United States, the web forms part of a political battle of larger dimensions.

The issues also includes the following provocative articles:

¿Hacia una política 2.0? Potencialidades y límites de la red de redes
RAUL TREJO DELARBRE

Mucho ciberactivismo... pocos votos. Antanas Mockus y el Partido Verde colombiano
OMAR RINCÓN

Las revueltas árabes en tiempos de transición digital. Mitos y realidades
YVES GONZALEZ-QUIJANO

Testimonio: ciberactivismo y medio ambiente. El caso de Greenpeace Argentina
HERNÁN P. NADAL

NUEVA SOCIEDAD en la web 2.0. Selección de entradas del blog NuSo
DAMIÁN PROFETA / JIMENA ZULUAGA / HORUS ESTÉFANO DÍAZ, COLECTIVO HONDURAS / MARCCELLA LOPES BERTE

Country for Old Men (No)

2011-10-10T22:00:00.000-04:00

Coming soon from Foreign Policy magazine (but now up on its website).

Country for Old Men
A dissident reports from the ruins of the daddy state, where Papá Fidel is now just the patient-in-chief.
BY YOANI SÁNCHEZ | NOVEMBER 2011

Padurisima (2) - Leonardo Padura on CUNY TV (in Spanish w/ English subtitles)

2011-10-10T15:09:00.000-04:00

As readers of El Yuma know, Cuban writer Leonardo Padura was in Nueva York for a few days back in March and April. During his visit he sat down with Mexican novelist and Distinguished Lecturer at City College/CUNY Carmen Boullosa at her home in Brooklyn to tape an interview as part of the "Cuba" episode of CUNY TV's show "Nueva York."

Released on August 18, 2011, this subtitled "Cuba" episode (#97) of "Nueva York" is broken into three parts. After the lead in (0:00 - 1:30) and intro (1:30 - 2:30), we are treated to the Padura interview (2:30 - 10:35).

This is followed by a fascinating segment on Cuba's "TV Serrana" featuring interviews with Carlos Rodriguez (Realizador, TV Serrana) and Alex Halkin of the Americas Media Initiative (10:50 - 19:20).

Finally, the show concludes with a segment on "Danza Contempornea Cubana" and its recent collaboration with Cuban-America dancer and choreographer Pedro Ruíz, who is interviewed here by Patricio Lerzundi, Chair of the Journalism, Communication, and Theatre Department (JCT) at Lehman College (19:45 - 28:35).

Episode Details in Spanish and English follow

Dedicamos este episodio al arte y la cultura de la Cuba contemporánea. Comenzamos en Brooklyn donde Carmen Boullosa se encuentra con el periodista y escritor cubano Leonardo Padura, quien nos habla de la novela policiaca en español, de sus inicios como escritor en Cuba y de su última obra, “El hombre que amaba los perros”, sobre el asesinato de Trotsky.

A continuación vamos a los estudios de CUNY-TV en el corazón de Manhattan donde recibimos al realizador y cineasta cubano Carlos Rodríguez para conocer el “Cuba Media Project”, un proyecto que busca dar a conocer en los Estados Unidos el trabajo de “TV Serrana” , un canal de televisión comunitaria con sede en la sierra maestra,.

Finalizamos en el Upper West Side donde Patricio Lerzundi visita a Pedro Ruiz el primer coreógrafo cubano americano en regresar a la isla a trabajar con el reconocido grupo Danza Contemporánea de Cuba. Ruiz nos habla de su proyecto “Ventanas” y de sus emociones al pisar tierra cubana después de 25 años de ausencia.

In this episode...

Today's episode is dedicated to Cuban contemporary art and culture. We begin in Brooklyn, where Carmen Boullosa will meet Cuban writer and journalist Leonardo Padura, who will talk about crime fiction in Spanish, about his beginnings as a writer in Cuba and about his latest novel, The Man Who Loved Dogs, about Trotsky's murder.

Next, we will go to CUNY TV studios, in the heart of Manhattan, where we will be meeting Cuban producer and filmmaker Carlos Rodríguez. We will learn about the Cuba Media Project, a project which aims to promote the work of TV Serrana in the US, a community TV channel based in the Sierra Maestra.

Finally, we will go to the Upper West Side, where Patricio Lerzundi will meet Pedro Ruiz, the first Cuban-American choreographer to return to the island to work with the renowned group Contemporary Cuban Dance. Ruiz will tell us about his project Windows and what he felt when he set foot on Cuban land after 25 years.

Padurisima (1) - Yo tambien amo a los perros (The first in a series of posts about Cuban writer Leonardo Padura)

2011-10-05T15:58:00.003-04:00

Yo tambien amo a los perros! - El Yuma y Molly

Readers of El Yuma will remember that in late-March of this year, we were honored to host the Cuban writer Leonardo Padura here in New York.

While he was in town, I did my best so that Padura could visit as many academic, cultural, and media institutions as possible, taking advantage of this golden opportunity to allow him to share his sharp, critical, and unique perspective on Cuban culture and society with as broad a public as possible.

Thus, in the following series of posts, I will share with readers a number of videos and other documents related to Padura and his "andares nuyorquinos" earlier this year.

Included in this list is his visit to Baruch College, his participation in the Bildner Center's Cuba Symposium, New York's Instituto Cervantes (and Chicago), and a pair of visits to two unique Spanish-language New York TV stations: NY1 Noticias (see here, here, and here) and CUNY TV's award wining program Nueva York!

Readers should stay tuned for the English translation of Padura's latest novel, "El hombre que amaba a los perros," which he told me was underway and is due out in 2012.

For now, I direct readers to a few recent news items of interest involving Padura:

* October 5, 2011: Padura chats with AFP about Cuban culture while in Europe (see AFP report here and Marti Noticias here).

* September 20, 2011: Padura's novel "El hombre que amaba a los perros," on Trotsky's assassination wins Cuban literary prize: "Premian novela de Padura que critica al estalinismo,"Martinoticias.com.

* August 3, 2011: Padura compares Fidel's Cuba to Raul's Cuba in a Spanish-language interview with Juan Carlos Salazar, "No es lo mismo la Cuba de Raúl que la de Fidel." After reading this interview, a Cuban friend of mine who recently returned from a trip home, shared this comment with me:

"Evidentemente el no vive en la misma Cuba o en la misma Havana que yo vi hace unas semanas. Por primera vez he visto la alegria del cubano esfumada, ni siquiera musica se escucha ya en las calles. Sus libros bordean mejor la realidad que estas opiniones".

* July 11 & March 28, 2011: Fellow Cuban writer (and fellow Havana resident) Eduardo del Llano reviews Padura's novel on his blog, as does the exiled Cuban writer Antonio Jose Ponte at Diario de Cuba. Mind you, these two reviews come to VERY conclusions about the novel.

Pepe y yo

"Política y ciberactivismo hoy" - NUEVA SOCIEDAD 235, Sep-Oct, 2011

2011-09-25T14:13:00.002-04:00

En el próximo número de la revista Nueva Sociedad, "Política y ciberactivismo hoy," tengo un articulo titulado, "Entre 'oficialistas' y 'mercenarios': Cartografía de la blogosfera cubana."

En el artículo analizo las historias de los diversos movimientos de "bloggers" cubanos.

Va a salir el 1 de octubre y estará disponible gratuitamente en Internet.

Aquí esta el indice y el resumen del contenido - editado por Pablo Stefanoni.

******************************

"Política y ciberactivismo hoy"

NUEVA SOCIEDAD, NÚMERO 235, Septiembre-Octubre, 2011

www.nuso.org

(Disponible en la red el 1 de Octubre)

■ ÍNDICE

Raúl Trejo Delarbre. ¿Hacia una política 2.0? Potencialidades y límites de la red de redes

Omar Rincón. Mucho ciberactivismo... pocos votos.
Antanas Mockus y el Partido Verde colombiano

Ted Henken. Una cartografía de la blogósfera cubana.
Entre «oficialistas» y «mercenarios»

Yves Gonzalez-Quijano. Las revueltas árabes en tiempos
de transición digital. Mitos y realidades

Hernán P. Nadal. Testimonio: ciberactivismo y medio ambiente.
El caso de Greenpeace Argentina

******************************

Internet se ha vuelto parte de la vida cotidiana de cientos de millones de personas en todo el mundo, y la rápida mutación tecnológica en la arena virtual tiene, sin duda, efectos sociológicos que aún no se han terminado de establecer. La introducción de la web 2.0 agrega a su vez una nueva serie de complejidades, ampliando las posibilidades de los usuarios de transformarse en productores de contenidos y en ciberactivistas.

No es de extrañar que los efectos de estos cambios llegaran rápidamente a la política: miles de personas salieron a las calles en Túnez y Egipto –y en otras naciones de África y Oriente Medio– y de inmediato surgió una discusión acerca del verdadero papel de la web en la «primavera árabe»; muchos candidatos apuestan con más o menos éxito a reconstruir mediante la red de redes el debilitado entusiasmo juvenil por la política; otros luchan desde internet en defensa del ambiente, contra las corporaciones y contra diversos regímenes autoritarios, y no pocas veces en favor de causas reaccionarias.

Todo ello motivó a Nueva Sociedad a abordar el ciberactivismo, tomando en consideración algunos casos en América Latina y en otras partes del mundo. El objetivo es ponderar las potencialidades y los límites del fenómeno, más allá del escepticismo hacia la ciberpolítica, pero también más allá de los optimismos excesivos que hacen perder de vista la «materialidad» de la política y de las relaciones de fuerzas.

Look who's on the radio? Video/Audio of today's Q&A between my students and four Cuban bloggers

2011-09-22T17:23:00.000-04:00

Above is the 61-minute video of today's live Q&A between my students and a number of Cuba's leading bloggers. You can read a summary (in Spanish) and also view and download the audio/video file of the entire live interview at the Martinoticias website.

As a guide, below I sketch out a rough timeline of the event:

2:50 - Introduction of Baruch students

4:10 - Introductory remarks of Miriam Celaya

5:25 - Introductory remarks of Yoani Sanchez

9:25 - Introductory remarks of Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

11:33 - Comments from Professor Ted Henken

13:40 - First student question: Mike Prada to Yoani Sanchez

16:55 - Introductory remarks of Dagoberto Valdes

20:30 - Second Student question: Darin Cardenas to Yoani Sanchez

23:55 - Remarks of Antonio Jose Ponte

26:15 - Remarks of Ernesto Morales ("El pequeno hermano")

29:27 - Third student question: Zhanna Kozlovski to Miriam Celaya

34:15 - Discussion about Twitter and Facebook with Juan Juan Almeida

37:33 - Discussion of Twitter by Yoani Sanchez

38:55 - Discussion of self-censorship by Carlos Ojeda and Lisandra Diaz

40:20 - Antonio Jose Ponte

43:45 - Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

46:05 - Fourth student question: Erik Grimsland to Miriam Celaya

56:00 - Fifth student question: Wazima Suhail to Yoani Sanchez

Q&A - Las redes sociales y el futuro de Cuba: Hoy en Martinoticias.com y Radio Marti

2011-09-22T08:32:00.000-04:00

LIVE Q&A between four leading Cuban Bloggers
and my students

Radio Marti and Martinoticias.com today!

Today, Thursday, September 22, from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. Radio Marti, together with Martinoticias.com will host an interactive exchange between my students here in New York and the Cuban bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Miriam Celaya, Dagoberto Valdes, and Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo.

The conversation will focus on the state of the internet in Cuba today and possible future scenarios given the (eminent?) arrival of broadband. The event will also be an exchange of information of what technology is available in the island and how it can be supported, enhanced, and assisted.

In preparation for the event, each of my students has done some background reading on blogs and internet in Cuba and submitted one discussion question that they will pose directly to the bloggers.

Among the background readings are: Yoani Sanchez’s book Havana Real as well as the following interview I conducted with her back in 2008 about the Cuban blogosphere: “Desde Cuba with Yoani Sánchez: From Verbal Violence to Citizen Cyber-Journalism." A 13-part video of the same interview can be viewed here.

Here is a list of the TOP TEN best questions:

1- From Wazima:

"In your 2008 interview with Ted Henken you mentioned that 'a blog is a little push against the wall.' So has your blog helped push Cuba forward in any aspect or brought any change in Cuba. And who would call your inspiration and why?"

2- From Darin:

"Who do you want your message to reach? The United States, Europe, Asia, or other Cubans? And why spread your message through the internet when it's very hard to get internet access in Cuba?"

3- From Zhanna:

"In your interview to Ted Henken you called your blog a 'little push against the wall.' A Russian proverb says 'knock and the door will open.' Let us hypothesize that the 'door' finally opens. The scenario used by Gorbachev 1991 proved to be way too abrupt and caused lots of socio-economic problems for all post-Soviet countries. Moreover such a change in the political regime was rather harsh for regular citizens to adjust to. Do you believe it is possible to fix a few things here and there (through reforms) to make slight and gentle transition from existing regime to another 'more satisfactory' one for all Cubans? If so what kind of reforms are the first to take place?"

4- From Mike:

"Yoani, en su ultima entrevista con elnuevodia.com usted declaro que creía que Cuba esta en 'vertigo final' en lo que se refiere a la caída del régimen comunista de los hermanos Castro. Cual considera usted que sera el rol de la comunidad cubana en el exilio, no solo en EE.UU, sino en Europa y otros países cuando esta tiranía se desmorone? Cual sera el papel de los cubanos en la isla? Habra algún tipo de antagonismo entre estos dos grupos? Y finalmente, cual cree usted que sera su rol como 'hormiga demoledora de muros' en la nueva Cuba?"

5- From Ladyane:

"In your book, Havana Real, you mentioned that instead of not revealing your identity as most bloggers did and still do, afraid of the consequences, you have chosen to do so. You literally put your family and yourself at risk for your deep commitment to the truth. Given the consequences that future generations will undertake, such as of your son, due to this activism of bloggers in Cuba, I am very much interested in understanding your thought process and what you told your son when you made the decision of revealing your identity."

6- From John:

"A survey of notable 20th century Authoritarian and Totalitarian regimes indicates that through the misappropriation and perversion of language these actors sought to claim the moral basis for governance from their dissenters. So we can look at an East German police state billing itself as the Die Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic) while taking its mandate not from the democratic will of the German people but from frustrating German democracy in the service of Marxist-Leninism. Similarly, we can look to Portugal’s Second Republic which promised the masses an Estado Novo (New State) in 1933 but then spent the next forty years defending the corporate, colonial and Catholic interests of the old order from the political currents of free trade, anti-colonialism and the separation of church and state which gave rise to the modern states of western Europe. Counter-intuitively these regimes, one right wing and one left wing, were the antithesis of what they purported to be.

Mindful of this history I was intrigued by the answer you gave Professor Henken in 2008 wherein you discussed the evolution of the title of your digital magazine from Consenso (Consensus) to Contodos (With All). At that time, you explained that you had come to the realization that you were not looking for consensus but searching for diversity and pluralism. Three years forward, where has that search led you? Having exchanged ideas and viewpoints with others has it not led you, as a citizen, to observe within the blogosphere an emerging consensus of what Cubans want of a post-Castro Cuba and is it fair to say that while you were not claiming consensus in 2007 that you were, in fact, seeking to arrive at it?"

7- From Jonathan:

"After careful review of your interview with Ted Henken, I have a question about the future of the Cuban blogosphere. You stated in one of your replies that the majority of Cubans using the internet are 'largely computer illiterates.' You also mention how you hope to develop individuals 'who are both computer literate and have the desire to express their opinions.'

Even though it's obvious that all the inhabitants of Cuba should be taught how to use the internet and how to voice their opinions, it seems to me that priority lies in the adolescents and youth of your country, being that they are the future.

My specific question to you is how do you plan on teaching people how to let the outside world know what is going on inside? You talk about how Cubans find 'holes in the wall,' so what hole will this be?

8- From Humberto:

"As I was looking over your blog Generation Y, I noticed that you post at least twice a week, posting a different topic each time, do you find it difficult to maintain that sort of standard of frequency? O do you just post when you get the chance? As I understand it, it is hard in Cuba to even access the internet, yet you manage to do it weekly. In the case that you are unable to blog, do you keep notes of what you would have like to blog or just remember it till next time?"

9- From Adriana:

"Yo puedo imaginar que en Cuba no todo mundo puede estar de acuerdo con tus pensamientos en tu blog. Solamente hablando con mi propia familia, que vive en Cuba, puedo deducir que la gente está bien separados en sus opiniones. Y ahora, con todo el cambio que esta pasando, esa diferencia es mas aparente todavía. Como tu has mantenido tus amistades con tu blog? Has perdido amigos? Y que otras dificultades has encontrado en este viaje, en termino de tu vida social?"

10- From Erik:

"Not too long after you began your blog, Fidel became ill. Shortly thereafter he handed over power to his brother Raul. Can you describe the differences, if any, in the difficulties you've dealt with while producing your blog under Fidel and under Raul? Has it become easier for you to continue your work? Also, has there been any change in freedom of speech and the press in general since the handover of power? If not, do you believe that in the near future, under Raul, things will change with regard to speech and information? And can you describe the current state of freedom of speech and the press."

Felicidades a Dafnis Prieto! 2011 MacArthur Fellow

2011-09-20T09:29:00.002-04:00

Dafnis Prieto
2011 MacArthur Fellow (NPR stories here and here)
Jazz Percussionist & Composer
New York, NY
Age: 37

Dafnis Prieto is a percussionist whose dazzling technical abilities electrify audiences and whose rhythmically adventurous compositions combine a range of musical vocabularies. A classically trained musician who absorbed from an early age the multifaceted percussive traditions of his native Cuba, Prieto transposes elements from his Afro-Cuban musical heritage onto a jazz drum kit, incorporating congas, timbales, and the layered rhythmic patterns of rumba and son. Whether performing as a solo artist, bandleader, or sideman, his playing is characterized by a finely calibrated command of textures and nuances and an ability to execute highly complex, polyrhythmic structures with extraordinary speed and precision.

As a composer, Prieto melds modern jazz harmonies, Cuban clave rhythms, other Latin and African influences, and funk-inspired arrangements to create works of great stylistic diversity that evoke a broad spectrum of moods. His 2006 recording, Absolute Quintet, showcases both his powerful and propulsive playing as well as his interest in composing for a nonstandard ensemble of organ, cello, violin, saxophone, and drums. The morphing rhythms and time signatures of Taking the Soul for a Walk (2008) further demonstrate Prieto's compositional reach and graceful way of slowing down or speeding up a given tempo. Through these and other recordings, his leadership of numerous ensembles, and additional projects involving dance, film, and opera, Prieto is infusing Latin jazz with a bold new energy and sound.

Dafnis Prieto studied at the National School of Music in Havana, Cuba, before coming to the United States in 1999. His additional recordings as a leader include About the Monks (2005) and Si o Si Quartet: Live at the Jazz Standard (2009), and he has performed at venues and in festivals throughout the United States, including the Jazz Standard, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Museum of Modern Art. Since 2005, he has served as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University.

Cuba 101: A picture is worth 2,310 pages

2011-09-05T02:14:00.002-04:00

Earlier this week, I returned from a 10-day vacation in Guatemala (more on that on Twitter and here later). I'm back on the blog and will be posting some juicy items in the coming days.

For now, I wanted to alert all Cuba-watchers that I'll be teaching a class during the fall semester entitled, "Cuban Culture and Society." The photo above shows the 7 books (!) that I'm using in my class. Thus, the picture is worth the 2,310 pages contained in these seven books.

Woe are my students!

I'd love to hear any reader feedback on my book choices. As you can see from the photo, my books are:

1. Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know. Julia E. Sweig. Oxford, 2009.
2. The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Ann Louise Bardach and Luis Conte Aguero. Nation Books, 2007.
3. Havana Real: One Woman Fights to Tell the Truth About Cuba Today. Yoani Sanchez. Melville House, 2011. You can to the publisher’s book website to view two subtitled videos of Sanchez describing her purpose in blogging and reading some of her posts aloud.
4. Havana Fever. Leonardo Padura. Bitter Lemon Press, 2009. [The original Spanish novel is entitled, La neblina del ayer (2005)].
5. Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington. Ann Louise Bardach. Scribner, 2009.

And as supplements, I'm having my students read (but not purchase) selections from the following two books:

6. Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook. Ted Henken. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2008.
7. A Contemporary Cuba Reader: Reinventing the Revolution. Edited by Phil Brenner, Marguerite Rose Jimenez, John M. Kirk, and William M. Leo Grande. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

For those interested, you can go HERE to take a look at my full syllabus!

As a teaser for those who wish they were still in college, here are two of the assignments I have planned for the semester:

Q&A with Cuban Bloggers live on Radio Marti: On Thursday, September 22, from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. Radio Marti, together with Martinoticias.com will have an interactive exchange with Cuban bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Miriam Celaya, Dagoberto Valdes, and Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo via telephone about the state of the internet in Cuba. (Radio Marti would like to include others, but some bloggers only have silence for Radio Marti...). The conversation will take place live on the radio and live on the Martinoticias.com web page. The event will be an exchange of information of what technology is available in the island and how it can be supported, enhanced, and assisted. Based on class readings, all students have to come up with a single, well-developed question they will ask the bloggers themselves live on the air!

Writing Assignment – Fidel’s letters and Yoani’s blog: During the semester students will read two surprisingly similar books by two very different authors: The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro and Havana Real by Yoani Sanchez. Each book is both deeply personal and sharply political. The first one collects the personal letters that a very young Fidel Castro (just 25 years old at the time) wrote from prison between December 1953 and May 1955. The other collects various posts from the blog “Generation Y” by the young cyber-activist Yoani Sanchez (just over 30 years old when she began blogging) written between April 2007 and December 2010. In their writings, both Castro and Sanchez describe with rich detail Cuba’s many problems (chief of which is a dictatorial political system) and pose possible solutions.

The students' task in this 7-8 page paper is to summarize, analyze, and compare and contrast each writer’s words and ideas. What are the chief problems faced by Cuba (in the 1950s and in the 2000s) according to each author and what does each one propose as solutions. How have the problems changed between each time period? How is each writer’s background and writing style similar and different? Finally, consider each writer’s use of their particular medium (letters vs. a blog) to communicate their ideas and garner support and solidarity from potential supporters. How do they relate to and negotiate with the authoritarian political atmosphere in which they operate? Finally, compare and contrast each writer’s relationship to forces, actors, supporters, and opponents outside of Cuba (especially the United States).

Mauricio, Welcome to the club!

2011-09-04T15:23:00.001-04:00

Mauricio Vicent of El Pais has had his journalist's acreditation "irrevocably" suspended by the Cubam government.

The Cuban government sure loves that word, "irrevocably."

My question is:

"Is it better to ask forgiveness or permission?"

Are Fernando Ravsberg of the BBC and Marc Franc of Reuters next?

What about Tracey Eaton?

Remember, there was also Gary Marx of the Chicago Tribune who suffered a similar fate a few years ago. And Anthony Boadle was accused not long ago of being a spy of some sort.

For those who don't know it yet, Esteban Israel of Reuters (who originally broke open the Yoani Sanchez story in October 2007) also left Cuba recently after being prohibited from reporting.
He's now headed to Brazil, I presume with his wife Shasta Darlington of CNN.

Go here for the full AP story on Vicent. I don't know if it is from Paul Haven or Peter Orsi.

My message of solidarity to Mauricio:

Consider your banishment a compliment. I know I do.

The world is wide and wonderful... Felicidades a Wendy e Ignacio

2011-08-11T18:16:00.001-04:00

Cuba frente al primer matrimonio de un gay y una transexual
Jueves, 11 de agosto de 2011
Por Fernando Ravsberg

Para ver otros 3 videos de "Wendignacio", estos de nuestro amigo OLPL haz clic aqui.

Wendy Iriepa e Ignacio Estrada tienen todo listo para casarse: el permiso de las autoridades, el vestido de la novia, la madrina... [y adivina quien es?]

Aunque parecen una pareja típica cubana, tienen una particularidad: ella es una transexual que se operó en 2007 y él es gay.

La boda, que se llevará a cabo este sábado -el día del cumpleaños de Fidel Castro-, es todo un acontecimiento en Cuba, porque allí están prohibidos los matrimonios entre homosexuales.

La pareja podrá casarse porque, tras someterse a una operación patrocinada por el Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual de Cuba (CENESEX), Wendy recibió un nuevo carnet de identidad que la reconoce como mujer.

Conozca a la pareja que dice estar enamorada en este video del corresponsal de BBC Mundo en Cuba, Fernando Ravsberg.