Literary Interlude: An Excerpt from “Shield of Achilles” by WH Auden

Reading Havana Noir this week brought this poem to mind. Although it uses a scene from the Illiad to comment on war, particularly WWII, I think it really touches upon the dehumanizing effects of brutality, especially the last verse I’ve excerpted. You can easily get the complete poem on the internet or at your library.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

She looked over his shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs
Quick, quick, to music,
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

I have come to the conclusion that blogger hates poetry. I can't tell you what I go through. The beginning of some of the lines is idented. I've tried to rectify it twice. I hope it goes through as entered this time.

FLAMUR's Call to Women in Exile

Having submitted their petition with 10,738 signatures demanding that they be allowed to use the currency in which they are paid in any establishment in the country, and in effect end the current two tier apartheid system, FLAMUR, the organization of rural women behind the "Con la Misma Moneda" campaign asks a question. Why have they not received support of Cuban women living in free countries?

What starts out as something of a challenge at the beginning of their communiqué ends on a plea for help, reminding us that they are from the interior of the country where there is no international press, there are no diplomatic offices. Their only protection lies in the notice we in free countries can bring them. These brave women with the help of young people have been collecting signatures throughout the country for months, and whatever shelter my poor words can offer, I will gladly give.

For the entire article in Spanish at Misceláneas de Cuba, click here.

Lost Time in Miami

Recently in a post about an upcoming art show, I mentioned a Cuban museum that is part of MOAS in Daytona. Immediately, I received a comment like "isn't that the artwork Batista stole?" Then in response to the recent publicity about Eusebio Leal, blogs have featured his role in stripping Cuba of its cultural patrimony, most notably an open letter written to the King of Spain by well-known author Armando Valladares this April. In this letter, he basically tells the King that the painting gifted him by the regime, through the auspices of Leal, is stolen from the Cuban people.

Finally yesterday, you may have noticed, I didn't post. That's unusual, because I have a compact with my readers. I feel that if you are gracious enough to pay us a visit, I promise to have timely and interesting, as far as my and Lou's humble talents allow, material for you to read. I didn't post because I was in Miami, a trip that involves a considerable amount of driving. At lunchtime, I paid my very first visit to the Versailles. In all these years, I had never gone. I've been to the original La Carreta across the street many a time. I'm a sucker for the cart thing they have going on there, as well as the food. But, never, the Versailles. And I can't tell you how I would like to be there this morning.

As is usual, I am told, the place was packed. I looked around the room at all those beautiful, well-scrubbed Cuban faces, and in addition to that twinge of pride I always feel on the rare occasions when I am in a large gathering of Cubans, I experienced a moment of epiphany. Of all that Cuba has lost, of all that it has been stripped by those abominations masquerading as men, here was the greatest theft of all, in these people: well-groomed, with open hopeful faces, so obviously prosperous, most seemingly there on a lunch break. I thought back to the Miami of 1965 and how it had grown and been enriched by the presence of these people, of their parents, and grandparents, and I felt Cuba's loss all the more keenly.

All this drive, all the obvious optimism about the future, this prosperity rightly belonged in Cuba. And to me, these people were representative of the millions on the island whose initiative, drive, and ingenuity, subverted by an illegitimate regime, has been reduced to scoring some facsimile of a meal for the day by whatever means at hand. Can you imagine what they could do, if they were unleashed? I can.

Ambivalence About Lending

President Bush came out yesterday with a "compassionate" proposal to ease the mortgage woes of millions of Americans. It wasn't a bad political move, either. I would like to be a big person. I would like to be noble and say, "How Wonderful!" But I'm not.

Having once, way back in the 80's, lost everything, having been forced by a lender unwilling to work with us into selling our home at a considerable discount, a lender who then turned around at the closing and slapped us with punitive “fines” which ate up our substantial down payment, as well as the extra thousand towards the principal we had paid for years, leaving a grand total of $494.00 out of the nearly hundred thousand in those two items, I have a skewed perspective on the matter.

For years in Florida I have watched people, twentysomethings in particular, who would have scoffed at the ramshackle four room Cracker home we bought later- the one with a mortgage the size of a motorcycle payment- buy large faux Mediterranean homes with price tags they could not possible afford. Snug in my now quaint cottage, I watched an impending train wreck.

But now, it seems I was wrong. There are so many of them that letting them learn the hard lessons we were taught could torpedo the economy. The situation reminds me that not long after our financial collapse, Donald Trump found himself in a similar situation. Of course, they didn’t take him to the wall, they way they did to us. They helped bail him out. It’s kinda like that commercial where the big banks use the little guy as a matchbook to prop up a wobbly table. Oh, well, one of the things you learn early on is that life isn’t fair.

For a more positive take, read this column at Townhall.

The Roll of the Detained in Latest Wave of Repression

Here is a compilation of the new wave of arrests by Cuban authorities that started about November 21. If there is nothing next to the name, it does not necessarily mean he or she has not been released. Information is sketchy.

Date Not Specified:
Rita Montes de Oca Chirino- threatened with jail and released hours later.
Antuán Clemente Hernández- threatened with jail and released hours later.
Rancés Calzada Coba- threatened with jail and released hours later.
Vladimir Alejo Montes de Oca- threatened with jail and released hours later.
Leosdán Alejo Montes de Oca- threatened with jail and released hours later.

November 21: All arrested with Bermúdez Toranzo.
Juan Bermúdez Toranzo- still in custody at last report.
Georbis Ferrer Plana
José Luis Rodríguez Chávez
William Cepero García
Omar Osmany
Varván del Pino

November 27:
Manuel Pérez Soria- former political prisoner after hunger strike to protest gov't's failure to provide identitypapers; arrested for lack of documentation; still in custody at last report.
Vladimir Alejo Miranda- interrogated, threatened for 6 or 8 hours and released.

November 29: All three student leaders were part of the University student petition press conference.
Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina- still in custody at last report.
Eliécer Consuegra Rivas - deported to provinces Dec 4.
Gerardo Sánchez Ortega- deported to the provinces Dec.4.

November 30:All arrested outside the Lawton police station where they were peacefully protesting the arrest of Juan Bermúdez Toranzo.
Yusniel Basterechea Quintana
Miguel López Santos- held 24 hours and released at Km 17 on the national highway.
Arisnay Rodríguez Cruz
Juan Alberto de la Nuez Ramírez- held 24 hours and fined.
Yunier Piedraita Santa Cruz -held 24 hours and fined.
Alejandro Gabriel Martínez- held 24 hours and fined.
Yuris Barreras Sánchez- held 24 hours.
Carlos Michael Morales- held 24 hours and fined.
Raúl Pérez Gavilá- held 24 hours and fined.
Rogelio Hernández Mill
Aramis Sainz Sánchez
Tania Maceda Guerra- released at Km 17 on the national highway.
Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva- released at Km 17 on the national highway.
Jesús Cordero Suárez.

December 3: in Guantanamo
Juan Carlos Hernández Hernández
Salvador Benavides

December 4: Political Police broke down the doors of a church and using tear gas arrested 20(?) dissidents who were praying for the release of political prisoners after a march of 18 blocks
Unnamed

December 5: At the train station where they were accompanying Gerardo Sánchez Ortega.
Juan Carlos Hernández Hernández
Yorleinis Duvergel
Unnamed others

Source: Reports by Luis Esteban Espinosa, Tania Maceda Guerra, and Álvaro Yero Felipe at PayoLibre.com

Different Origins, Different Creeds, One People: Judaism in Cuba Today

The sound of wooden footwear clacking on cement as he chased them figured prominently in my mother's childhood tales of tormenting the Chino who ran a laundry. I used to ask myself, "what was a Chinese guy doing in their back of beyond small Cuban town?" The question was answered later when I discovered that the Chinese constituted one of the largest minority groups in Cuba. Still later I learned, they were lured in under harsh conditions of near indentured servitude to replace newly freed slaves. Unusual.

Then there were the Polacos. I'm not sure I'm even spelling it right. Growing up I knew people like "Joseito, el Polaco." Although I could never tell any difference between him and the other Cubans I knew, I thought it meant he was somehow from Poland. Again, I was to find out that Polaco denoted anyone from Eastern Europe or descendants of the same. In one case it extended to a guy reputedly from Syria or Lebannon. His origins are shrouded in the mists of time. Seems if you were foreign and looked European and weren't Gallego, you were Polaco.

Similarly, although the majority of Cubans were Roman Catholics, I learned there was a sizeable contingent of Presbyterians, at least around Matanzas. Nowadays, there are still Seventh Day Adventists. Didn't fifo attend the opening of their new church, or something like that? Growing up in the needle trades, I also knew quite a few Cuban Jews. So it was with interest that I read this NY1 article about Judaism in Cuba today.

I don't espouse, nor do I presume to judge, their having invited fifo to Hannukah. Who knows, he could have potentially been "enlightened." Whatever your political sensibilities, however, you have to appreciate the Cuban minyan: Seven men and three Torahs. Cubans are nothing, if not adaptable.

Reads: Havana Noir

Havana Noir, edited and translated in the main by Achy Obejas is one in a series of anthologies set in different metropolitan areas. Since I’m a fan of Chandler and Hammet and more recently Padura, it was with anticipation I cracked open the book. By midnight, after a few straight hours of reading, I was ready to slit my wrists. Havana here is a bleak, desolate metropolis, a landscape bereft of love, honor, softness, and most especially hope. The city depicted in these stories is a cesspool of moral depravity. As my mother would say, “Que despretigio.” Add to that the abject misery of life in Cuba, amplified for the form.

I was commenting on the same with my film school student daughter when she reminded me that’s characteristic of noir: alienation, violence, sex. Duh. But, wait, something is different here. To begin with there is only one detective in the whole collection, Alex Abella’s Jason Blue, who doesn’t do divorces or children because “I’ve got two of each and they’re not experiences I particularly want to relive.” Therein lies all the resemblance to the stories and movies of yesteryear. Random copulation, pederasty, you name it, all are fodder for the authors here. The world has changed.

Yet the stories in this book, each set in a different part of the capital, are “real.” They demand deliberation. Despite my disaffection, I found myself mulling the symbolic diminution of the cross-eyed narrator in the first entry, the symmetry of staring at the sun in Padura’s and the definition of Cuban in Obejas’ story, to name a few.

And then, there’s always one in every bunch, or siempre hay alguien que lo tiene que cagar. Despite Obejas’ use of the term “blockade’ for embargo in her intro, her selection was notable for its inclusionary nature, and political criticism, if any, was directed at the regime… except for Lea Aschkenas’ story, that is. Hers is the only one that has a group hissing at President Bush on TV and calling exiles "terrorists." In fact, her plot centers on the latter. I did some preliminary research, and her familiarity with Havana seems to devolve from having spent ten months there and having fallen in love with a Cuban, which experience she has already parlayed into a book.

I cannot say I enjoyed reading this book. I almost didn’t finish it. At the same time, I can’t highlight a story or two, because there were so many I did enjoy reading. There’s the pathos of Medina’s protagonist in his relentless, yet heartbreaking, quest to get to La Yuma, the charming local color of Arango’s story, the fascinating inner monologue of Correa’s, and many I don’t have room to mention. I recommend reading a story or two at a time, curled up in an arm chair, sipping a glass of red wine. I’ll be heading out to get Miami Noir and see how it compares. Could be I’m just a relic from a bygone era.

Where's the Coverage?

On December 1 at the University of Miami, an all day seminar was held, entitled "Cuba: What to Expect." Participants included some pretty notable figures in the field. You can view the program here. Inquiring minds would like to know what was discussed, what the participants had to say.

There is very little coverage to be had. There should be something in the Herald, but despite numerous searches, I could find nothing. The few articles I managed to unearth focus on Commerce Secretary Gutierrez's comments on our policy and, you guessed it, the embargo, the gist of which is our policy will not change, nor the embargo be lifted, unless there is change in Cuba.

In response to a questioner, doubtless interested in the old "we trade with China" argument for the lifting of the embargo, he reflected that in China and Vietnam have shown an interest in having good relations with the US and have made settlements of claims. Their people have some rights to travel, choose a job, start small businesses. A more accurate parallel, he indicated would be North Korea.

To read scattered quotes from the other participants, read the Palm Beach Post article here and the Nuevo Herald article here.
I guess it wasn't news.

Hold the presses! Found another one in the UK's Financial Times, strictly devoted to Gutierrez's remarks here.

The Face of Cuban Apartheid

CAMBIO

Literary Interlude: A Little Lite Verse

A bit of whimsy by Val on Babalublog from earlier in the week.

Green eggs, no ham

I do not like fidel the ham
I do not like him
Val I am

I do not like him here or there
I do not like him anywhere
I do not like him in a boat
unless of course it doesn't float

I hope that he is rife with pain
or at least squashed under a train
I might just like him in a box
under a heavy pile of rocks

I do not like him in a house
I would not, could not, he's a louse
I do not like fidel the ham
I do not like him
Val, I am

Sunday Morning Somewhat-Funnies

Attack of the Killer Jellyfish. It was no laughing matter for the owner Ireland's only Salmon farm when a swath of jellyfish miles wide killed off at least 100,000 fish. The supposed culprit. You guessed it: higher water temperatures. Article here.

Lost in Translation. Two of Sudan's "lost boys" are returning home after two decades in Cuba. The Reuters article informs us one is a veterinarian; the other, an agronomist. They're perhaps the only people on the planet who can say life in the Caribbean dictatorship was an improvement.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. A Belgian "visual artist" opens a play(performance piece?) in Athens, I Am A Mistake, which has chain smoking performers and extols the joys of smoking. The AFP article here. Most notable for the artist's contention that smokers are the "new Negroes." To balance the presentation, a scary NYT's article about a hitherto generally unrecognized danger of smoking. No joke.

Strike Ten. The NYT's "10 Best Books of 2007" is out. I'm proud/embarrassed to say I have read nary a one, despite reading at least a book a week. I avoid this type of book like the plague. It usually involves the contemplation of someone else's navel. Actually, you can be fairly assured that these books are good, but at least one of them I have had in my hand on a number of occasions and rejected. Something about a literary movement, get my drift? So give me trash, or give me nonfiction!

H/T Penultimos Dias

Withering Fire

"Repugnant, repulsive, anti-American propaganda." Blistering review of the film Redacted at National Review Online. After complaining that the experience of watching it left him speechless, Ross Kaminsky finds his voice in time to unleash his outrage at the latest anti-war epic:

But the movie ends up being something that Goebbels might be proud of, as it repeats a “big lie”, namely that all American soldiers are murderous cretins or impotent collaborators and that the Army itself is cruel, hateful, and devious, with tedious and furious frequency.
There is much, much more. However, the review points to the real solecism of the film:

At the time of this writing, about 1,050 people had rated this film on IMDB. There is a clear trend that the older (and wiser) the viewer, the less they liked the film. More interestingly, the average vote from a US viewer is about 4/10 while Non-US viewers rate it above 7/10.

Therein lies what would have been a crime during WWII. As Kaminsky writes

The movie will be shown as a recruiting tool by Al Qaeda and will cause at least a few ordinary people to hate and mistrust America. It wouldn’t surprise me if a few of those took violent action (or financed it) as a result. That blood will be on the hands of Brian De Palma and Mark Cuban. Unfortunately, that’s probably just what they want.

To a world fed a steady diet of anti-American propaganda, coming from the Great Satan itself, this movie will serve as confirmation. We don't need enemies: we are our worst enemy.

I Can See Clearly Now

Update: It's not too late, baby. Chavez had his hat handed to him over the supposed reforms by a miniscule percentage of the voters. Inquiring minds can only suppose that the NO vote must have been much larger to force him to declare defeat. The Venezuelans have triumphed, for now. As long as he is in power, they must remain vigilant. He will not stop here.

Interesting Op-ed piece in today's New York Times by a longtime associate and former defense minister who has broken ranks with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. The money quote:

The proposal, which would abolish presidential term limits and expand presidential powers, is nothing less than an attempt to establish a socialist state in Venezuela. As our Catholic bishops have already made clear, a socialist state is contrary to the beliefs of Simón Bolívar, the South American liberation hero, and it is also contrary to human nature and the Christian view of society, because it grants the state absolute control over the people it governs.

Wow! He discovered the Mediterranean, as me good old mom would say. But he does have some interesting things to say about the forces that brought Chavez to power and especially the lack of results for the poor. Politcal parties, note he does not limit it to Chavez (one has to wonder why) have created a false properity and a notion of entitlement.

During the economic boom years, ushered in by a sustained increase in oil prices, the parties dispensed favors, subsidies and alms. In the end, they taught the people about rights rather than obligations, thus establishing the myth that Venezuela is a rich country, and that the sole duty of a good government is to distribute its wealth evenly. President Chávez has been buying and selling against this idea, continuing to practice the kind of neopopulism that will reach its limit only when the country receives what economists call an “external shock.”

Interesting, but mayhap too little, too late.

As if We Didn't Know the Fix is In

Venezuela's Chavez comes across as an object of derision. There are those who call him a monkey, even Chavez has called himself a macaco in jest. But his machinations are no laughing matter. Having created a plebiscite to remain in power indefinitely under the guise of constitutional reform, he is now faced with an increasingly restive public. If he had not already co-opted the electoral process, Carter's assertions aside, his reforms would be even now heading for defeat. Opinion polls place "no" votes 10% ahead of "yes."

But what we do know is that allegations of fraud over his last race are rife. The kicker came when he appointed the head of the electoral process his vice president once his reelection was secure. If it walks like a duck.... But all of this is prelude.

Now, it seems that Chavez has learned well from his mentor in Cuba. Yesterday, he threatened to cut off US oil supplies, signalling the Americans that any help for the pro democracy movement would land them in dire straits:

“If ’yes’ wins on Sunday and the Venezuelan oligarchy, the violent Venezuelans — the ones who play the (U.S.) empire’s game — unleash violence with the tale that there was fraud ... minister, that very Monday you order a halt to the shipments of oil to the United States,”

Barring any mass miracle, "yes" will win on Sunday. Having engineered it, he knows that. It is practically a given that those who have been demonstrating for months, who have been cheated of their electoral rights, who only now see their mirror image in the desolation that is Cuba are not going to take their marbles and go home.

So just as the Castro government did with the missile crisis, he seeks to create a potential oil crisis to keep the Americans at bay. In a real showdown, though, Venezuela would be the loser. Despite the demand for oil, Venezuela's crude is very heavy. Few can process it. Witness the "new" recycled plant Chavez is developing in Cuba. But the even the specter of losing 20% of their imports would be a remarkable deterrent to the Americans, particularly in an election year and with a cultural climate that produces the likes of Sean Penn.

So, literally, the fate of their nation is in the hands of the Venezuelan people. They need to overwhelm the polls, overwhelm the fixes with their numbers. As it is, it I fear they have slept too long. Article here.

YouTube Debate: The Republicans

Sounds like the title of an Alex Haley or John Jakes novel- The Republicans- doesn't it? Anyway, "Self," I say, "how can you possibly write about a debate you refused to watch? After all, didn't you maintain that if your society is going to hell in a handbasket, you didn't have to assist in the process?" That, I did or, more accurately, did not (watch the debate).

I have, however, enjoyed the coverage of same on our blogs. For the play by play and analysis, I heartily recommend Nelson Guirados's blog, Assymetric. I've linked to the main page because he has a few posts. Just hit the "politics" button. This AM, Val Prieto on Babalublog pokes fun at the notion that anyone should be shocked that there were Democrat plants. Duh? CNN unfair? I've saved the best for last, though. Our resident student journalist, Frances Martel, posted a delightful piece anticipating the whole extravaganza, notable for its wit. Her masterful descriptions nearly made me laugh out loud. I leave you with some snippets:

Thanks to YouTube, Sam from San Francisco has no need to depart from his commune should he want to ask Barack Obama what type of marijuana he prefers to smoke now that he’s a Senator- and where he can get some. Kurt from southern Texas can wonder aloud to millions what Bill Richardson will do about permits to hunt illegals at the border. And Pam from the Maryland suburbs can demand an answer to the heaviest question weighing on American soccer moms’ minds about their preferred candidate, John Edwards: “boxers or brief?” all while she makes the kids breakfast before she sends them out on the field.

and

Perhaps one of the most defining shifts in the debate from those of the past is the revoking of Wolf Blitzer’s out-of-coffin hours during the debate. Blitzer remains calmly as host of Ambien’s worst enemy, “The Situation Room”, and has been replaced by aging hipster Anderson Cooper. Cooper, who can be seen doing “edgy” and “totally extreme” things on his program, “Anderson Cooper 360º”, weekdays at 10 PM, is essentially CNN’s version of Steve Irwin. Cooper tries to be intrepid to the point of desperation, and makes life-or-death situations out of anything from the release of a new Kenny G album to an interview with Angelina Jolie (to Cooper’s credit, the latter could quite possibly be a life-or-death situation).

Yup, I love them all!

Open Letter to Ry Cooder

President Clinton helped us bring Buena Vista Social Club out to the world. President Bush helps his gangster buddies in Miami make more money. You be the judge!
Ry Cooder

Yesterday on Babalublog, I posted three quotes found in a press release for some new campaign to keep the Bush administration from tightening the screws on cultural exchanges. Both Sean Penn and Danny Glover I dismiss out of hand. Those two have apparently never met a leftist dictator or aspiring dictator they didn't like. But Cooder, a figure from my generation and my music, that stung. Justifiably incensed, I've written a response to Mr. Cooder. Since I am having difficulty finding an email address for him, it is at the moment an open letter I share with you.

Ry Cooder:

As a child of the late sixties, it is with great disappointment that I am driven to write this letter. I have always been something of an admirer. When the Buena Vista Social Club came out, you refrained from making uninformed political pronouncements, at least I didn't hear any, so I welcomed the opportunity you provided for Cuban musicians and went out and bought the CD. Yesterday, I was blindsided when I came across the quote above which I find not only stupid but offensive. It is exactly commentary like yours which encourages further restriction. Well-intentioned people, without prior knowledge of facts, go down to Cuba where every move and meeting is orchestrated and return regurgitating the party line, serving as stooges for the Castro regime, a regime so oppressive that per capita it rivals some of the most notorious dictatorships in history. The Cubans you met could not tell you the truth. Truth is illegal in Cuba, as are dissent, independent newspapers, and meetings on the street of more than three people.

The only "gangsters" in this case are those in the Castro regime who live in plenty, siphoning off the spoils of tourism and the national production, while keeping the populace in deliberate misery. Yes, there are people in the United States who make money. There's Western Union which charges you a hefty percentage to send dollars to your relatives. The Cuban government which takes 25% of the already reduced amount to exchange it for near worthless -even in Cuba- currency. There are those who ship packages at $13.00 a pound, packages to relatives, packages made necessary by the lack of everything from food to shoes to toothpaste. There are the pharmacies that make money off shipping everything from aspirin to vitamins to antibiotics to antipsychotic drugs, shipments which are made necessary by their scarcity in Cuba. There are whole cottage industries which have sprung up in the desperate quest of those you call "gangsters" to help their families on the island. Lest you console yourself with the lie that all this want is caused by the embargo, please note that there is no embargo on food and medicine. Further, whatever hardship on the regime the porous embargo might impose is far and away superseded by the colossal mismanagement of the economy by the Havana Mafia. Take sugar, traditionally Cuba's premier export. Production is at Depression Era levels. Cuba has to import sugar. And that is but one industry.

As a Cuban American, what I find most galling, however, is your revicitimization of a people who have been wronged. Over a million Cubans were forced to flee, the majority of whom were not rich, were not supporters of Batista, many of whom supported the revolution before it declared itself Communist a year after the fact and even some who supported it afterward. Not all of us reside in Miami. How cavalierly you dismiss our suffering. How is this possible?



For a moment, Mr. Cooder, visualize George Bush and his government taking your home, your motor vehicles, stopping your royalty payments. From this moment on, you cannot say a single bad thing about him or his government. You cannot go to the supermarket to buy what you want. You will be given a ration card of provisions you may buy in a single month, provisions which will only feed you for about two weeks, less than slaves received. If you want to continue making your music, you must compose paens to the glory of the Bush government for the sum of twenty dollars a month in a currency that is virtually useless in procuring more food. Your neighbors across the street are charged with watching you.

Faced with this new reality, you decide on freedom, escape to, say, Germany, where you do not speak the language. You arrive penniless in a somewhat xenophobic country. Years later after much struggle, washing dishes maybe, living as a de facto second class citizen, you are comfortable. Then you read an article in which some punk ass German rocker calls you a Hamburg gangster because you have the nerve to demand that your new government not treat with the Bush administration. Doesn't feel good, does it?

The problem with even well-meaning people is that they start out with the colonialist presupposition that Cuba was always on par with countries like Haiti. While freedom is something you exercise each day, it is quite acceptable that those little brown people are deprived of the same, as if they are genetically unfit to have a say in their own lives. Take a memo: the supposed compassionate talking points of the liberal left are a shameless and ignorant exercise in hypocrisy. And you, Mr. Cooder, have not only fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, but are using your celebrity to expound it.

Someday, when Cubans are free to speak to foreigners, news organizations, and the like, you will have egg on more than your face. Until then, I suspect I shouldn't wait for the apology that I and thousands more like me deserve. Don't kid yourself, the politicians and policies exist because there is more than ample support for them in the community you malign.

A Tale of Two Cities: Havana

Interesting post on Generation Y, straight from the island, contrasting the two Havanas: the one in which the officials, the diplomats, and the foreigners live, and the one Cubans inhabit. As I read Yoani Sanchez's references to the Havana where they discuss "Parmesan cheese," "Ikea Furniture," "the weekend in Cancun," while in her Havana she rocks on her grandmother's chairs, navigates the black market for food, and speaks in whispers, I am struck by how much the careless, overheard conversations must sting. She ends the post maintaining she would not want to live in the other world:

I prefer the decrepit capital, crumbling more each day, at least that one is coherent and clear about what it holds inside. We've made it in our image and likeness, or more likely, we are the ones who imitate its resignation and its misery.

Cuba News

There's quite a bit this AM, and I'm in a hurry, so I'll have to brief it.

AP is out with a story of college students and a drive to petition the government to allow colleges and universities independence from state control and free speech. Despite having collected 5,000 signatures, they don't plan to submit them yet. See, they're afraid of being expelled.

From the Sidney Herald Leader, an article on how wrong-headed Bush's policy is. According to Sanchez, the author, further restriction on cultural exchanges is in the works. Response, she says, has been swift, supported by none other than Danny Glover and Sean Penn. Perhaps if "artists" did not serve as apologists and propaganda tools for a brutally oppressive regime, this restriction would be unwarranted. As it is.... There is a connected story that has so ignited my wrath that I'll post later.

And, of course, the usual statistical shenanigans from the castro government with the announcement that Cuba expects 10 percent growth this year. If it's anything like last year's purported growth of 12.6 percent, it will be yet another example of true voodoo economics. Read it here.

Stay tuned for more later.

El Cuento de la Buena Pipa...or is that Doublespeak?

"There was no political ruse whatsoever on my part or that of the Cuban Government over the choice of dates,"

Thus spake the infamous Rapporteur Ziegler about the timing of his visit to Cuba, which happened near concurrently with President Bush's address and the UN vote. If you believe that, I have a bridge I can sell you cheaply. Perhaps the best statement in the earthtimes.org article on his answer to his critics:

The special rapporteur on the Right to Food said he had been invited by a number of European Union ambassadors to meet the NGO's secretly within their embassies.

"To meet discreetly would have been an absurdity," Ziegler said. His programme had already been arranged and approved by the Cuban Government and he wanted to respect his mandate on the right to food.

"It would have been irresponsible for my part to, in whatever way even if humanly understandable, put in danger this openness," he added.

Pardonnez moi, what openness, the same they have been showing for half a decade, openness to their propaganda? I am constitutionally unable to force myself to link to anything called "earthtimes." So go there if you want the rest of the article.

How Things Change

One of the more overlooked sins of the castro regime has been its spiritual and emotional effects on people, particularly families. I'm not going to touch the alleged 8 million CDRs on the island. They deserve their own annal of infamy. And the physical and logistical distance between family members is obvious. No, there is a hidden cost. Sometimes I am reminded of the American civil war, when I hear about x family member who is a comuñanga, as if there are any truly left in Cuba, and y family member who is a gusano.

It came to my mind today when I got word that one of the refugees on that boat in the news recently, the one in which one person lost his life, was my godmother. I don't remember seeing her in the flesh, although I'm sure she was at my baptism in Cuba. In fact, all I have is one picture of her. And therein, lies the problem. Although I bear her no ill will, I've never really communicated with her. As a child and later, I could not not get past the miliciana uniform she is wearing in the photo. My parents, remarkably for them, did not push the issue.

I'm pretty sure it was wrong to write her off, and I will go visit and see what she has to say, now that both she and I are older and wiser. But my situation is symptomatic of the greater problem. How do you effect reconciliation on a much larger scale? And where do you draw the line?