Very, Very Early Sunday Syllables

Since I'll be in transit and in nostalgia mode mañana, thought I'd share today.

Uh-Oh. Heads up, my Venezuelan friends, guess who's coming to train your police? You guessed it. I'd hazard to say the Miranda type rights are not on the agenda. According to this Herald report, members of the Cuban police are going to Venezuela to help set up their "community policing." I say, a CDR by any other name smells as rank. Here's another Chavez news item. He says Cuba can join OPEC because they're going to produce oil someday, somehow, maybe. There was an even better story, but I lost it somewhere.

Uh-Huh. In this article from the CNA, the good news is that assimilation is alive and well. Leading the getting to be American quickly charge? Cubans and Filipinos. Lagging behind: Mexicans. Face it- the cultural elite don't like us because we're just too bourgeois.

Tsk, Tsk. Chuck Colson, one of the few figures to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of Watergate, writes a piece condemning the junta in Myanmar not only for its refusal to allow in humanitarian aid after the devastation of the recent cyclone, but also for its "ethnic cleansing of Christian minority groups."

Huh? First it was the seed museum; now we have a feature on the museum devoted to the male members of species. Seems there's an Icelandic Phallological Museum. The only specimen missing is Homo Sapiens. Not to worry, there's a description of "Elmo." By the way, what's with the nicknames?

Literary Interlude: House of Cards

Recently, I had occasion to mention Charles Simic’s poetry. Here’s a small offering of his verse. If you like it, you might want to pick up a copy of his Selected Poems at the library, or better yet the bookstore.

House of Cards

I miss you winter evenings
With your dim lights.
The shut lips of my mother
And our held breaths
As we sat at a dining room table.

Her long, thin fingers
Stacking the cards,
Then waiting for them to fall.
The sound of boots in the street
Making us still for a moment.

There’s no more to tell.
The door is locked,
And in one red-tinted window,
A single tree in the yeard,
Leafless and misshapen.

Tiny Bubbles

A while back, an unnamed European diplomat likened Cuba to a pot being heated. There are bubbles here and there, their number increasing. To read Miscelaneas de Cuba today is to be reminded of the analogy.

On Wednesday of this week, the Junta de Coordinadores de la Agenda para la Transición, loosely the committee for the transition agenda, met for the second time. This small conclave is worth noting for a variety of reasons. First, it represents a concerted effort to unite opposition groups on the island, a seeming necessity if they are to accomplish anything. Second, the list of those attending reads like a who's who of same:

Félix Antonio Bonne Carcassés, Margarito Broche Espinosa, Francisco Chaviano González, Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, Jorge Luís García Pérez (Antúnez), René Gómez Manzano, María Antonia Hidalgo Mir, Roberto de Miranda Hernández, Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, Néstor Rodríguez Lovaina, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz Pacheco, Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya e Idania Yanes Contreras.

You can read about it here . Third, it was the inspiration for this by José Luís García Pérez (Antúnez), Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (Coco) and Francisco Chaviano González. In it, they go through a lengthy examination of the term dialogue because they feel that it is dialogue that is needed. It is not a dialogue with the regime, because as they quote if "politics is the art of the possible," then the regime as authors of the Cuban tragedy, given to all species of treachery, would not seem to be an appropriate interlocutor. Instead, they would have Cubans speak with each other. They would have those in exile form their own group to then work with them.

In a separate entry, dissident Oswaldo J. Payá Sardiñas of Varela Project fame, forced to send closing remarks to a conference in Brussels, makes the point that Cuban destiny is a Cuban thing. In the full text of his remarks here, he touches eloquently on the whole gamut of issues. Read it in English here. If you follow no other link, follow that one.

I cannot agree with him on the question of dialogue with the regime. Sit down with thieves, murderers, and tyrants without any true overtures on their part? I do think that we can soften the tenor of much of our commentary without giving an inch. It's all about face. We have it; they don't. About the embargo, more later.

Finally, this declaration from Miami where Hector Palacios finds himself describes the current state of things in Cuba and offers hope.

(All text unless otherwise indicated is in Spanish.)

Business and Pleasure: Updated

Sign the Petition: Please sign a petition for the freedom of Cuba's political prisoners. Tell everyone you know and have them sign. The eventual goal is one million signatures. Read about it on Babalu here. More on the website here. You can navigate from there to the actual petition.

Cuba Solidarity Day: Another effort to publicize the plight of the people of Cuba. Visit the website. Read about it. See if there is anything you can do to help.

Letters to Biscet: One of the most heartbreaking, yet inspiring, figures of the Cuban opposition is Dr. Elias Biscet who remains imprisoned for his beliefs. For info here. His daughter Winnie would like to send him letters from well-wishers for father's day. The catch is that they have to be in Spanish. I'll translate brief notes to the best of my abilities.

Cuba Nostalgia. Getting my dancing shoes ready for this weekend. Unfortunately, I can only go down to Miami for the day, after my little jaunt to LA last weekend...both physically and economically spent, you see. Of course, I'll have to make a pit stop at La Carreta. If you've never been to one of these events, you've got to go. It's basically a Cuban convention, a celebration of all things Cuban: food, fuel, and fun, as well as a bit of cultural history and a smattering of literature. Info here.

A Growing Chorus?

I was wading through the newsstand at my local bookstore when I came across the Americas Quarterly. Lo and behold, they have a special section in the Spring 2008 Issue entitled "Cuba: Until When?" For most of us, the information is not new- the continued repression, the newly liberated and unaffordable appliances, the church’s preoccupation with its own status, and the disaffection of the people. There is an interesting discussion as to why the people do not rebel, and there are some additional sidebars of interest: moving excerpts from the prison diary of Normando Hernandez (see profile here on Uncommon Sense) who is in ill health and a write-up of Yoani Sanchez.

The one fly in the ointment, so to speak, is the position that lifting the embargo and travel restrictions will help liberate the people. They acknowledge that doing so will enrich the coffers of the regime, but they also maintain that it will be impossible for the regime to keep as tight a rein. No people to people exchanges here. Personally, if we could peacefully overrun the country, I would be all for it. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s what the misgovernment would allow.
Unfortunately, there are only teasers available online here.

Cross-posted at Babalublog

What I Would Have Posted on Sunday: The Sin of Brevity

Webicide? This Article in Newsweek posits the question, will Steve Jobs murder the internet? Answer here.

Adultery. As a once longtime resident of Staten Island, it breaks my heart to see the morass into which Vito Fosella has dragged his family, as well as his political career. His wife, a sweet and wonderful person, certainly didn't deserve this, and my prayers go out to them all.

Alerts!
Jimmy Buffett has a new book out, Swine Not? A Novel. I can only hope it's better than that Joe Merchant thing. See him talk about the book on Amazon here.

Tomorrow, I'll hopefully have something from Americas Quarterly which has a whole section on Cuba. Unfortunately, only a preview of two of the articles is available online. Just leafing through, it looked like it was on target!

Mothers' Day: A Musical Recollection

Was out of town for the weekend, and got airline revenge, so here is the belated Mothers' Day Post:

On Mothers' Day: A Musical Recollection

When I was about seven years old, the lady who would become my fourth grade teacher decided to offer piano lessons. A few of us took her up on her offer. The one difficulty was that not a single one of us had a piano, nor as children of the working class any likelihood of owning one. Thus, we were issued wooden keyboards to use for practice, a singularly uninspiring exercise.

After a bit, I lost interest. So one day, when my mother questioned me, I replied that I wasn't taking lessons anymore. In response to her quizzical look, I told her not to worry that I had spoken to the teacher. I had told her that I wasn't taking lessons anymore because my parents couldn't afford a piano.The next thing I knew, my parents trotted me down to Abraham & Strauss on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, a store we never frequented as it was above our touch. Sure enough, we left as the proud owners of a Hammond piano. Yes, they used to make pianos, too.

It was beautiful, my gleaming new piano. I was in transports. I guess because the thing cost over seven hundred 1960's dollars, they felt I should have more serious instruction and they hired a friend of a friend.This worthy young woman had graduated from a prestigious music school in Cuba and was a purist. The bulk of my instruction consisted of scales, arpeggios, and other exercises. I was not allowed to play popular music unless it was in its original form. It was- to say the very least- tedious.

In order to lighten the mood and get some enjoyment out of their substantial investment, they wrote to relatives who would send pieces of sheet music in their letters from Cuba. In the early days, about the only one I had any chance of mastering was a song entitled "Madrecita" by Osvaldo Farrés. Day in and day out for who knows how long I dutifully and grudgingly practiced this one, until my mother used to say that the flower the child carried in his heart was a stick.

In any case, I thought I would share the words, since I am scanner challenged.

"Madrecita"

Madrecita del alma querida

en mi pecho yo llevo una flor

no te importe el color que ella tenga

porque al fin tu eres madre una flor.

Tu cariño es mi bien, madrecita

en mi vida tu has sido y seras

el refugio de todas mis penas

y, la cuna de tu amor y verdad.

Aunque amores yo tenga en la vida

que me llenen de felicidad,

como el tuyo hamas madre mia,

como el tuyo no habre de encontrar.

Repeat first stanza.

Anyway, the upshot of the whole story is that despite bribery, bullying, pleading and railing, I was never a particularly inspired piano student. I can still remember Mom threatening to bury me in that piano. In the end, I took about five years of lessons before they gave up. I still have the piano which I take with me every time I move, the emblem of my shame. Still, I can play a mean "Lara's Theme, " when I play at all, that is.

Some Statistics for a Sunday Afternoon

$400 million Value of cigars sold worldwide by Cuba in 2007

$10 million What Americans are estimated to spend annually on Cuban cigars, despite an embargo

1,200 The number of Petit Upmanns JFK stockpiled before putting the Trade Embargo into effect.

79 The number of wouldbe Cuban exiles returned to the island and to probable reprisals on Saturday.

All stats except the last taken from The Denver Post here and here. Report on the last here.

More on the EcoEthanol Follies

Here's a particularly interesting take on the situation by the author of The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About — Because They Helped Cause Them, Iain Murray, as well as some interesting commentary.

My favorite quote:

Yet somehow, green is still good. There is a zeitgeist about green environmentalism that has gripped us like some form of mass hysteria so that we cannot see the very real harm it is causing. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that firms were ceasing to see any benefit from their green advertising and were now counting it as a cost of doing business. The green emperor not only has no clothes, he is oppressing the poor and burning the forests. It’s time for an anti-green revolution.

Of Petty Tyrannies

My preferred method of travel is driving, but yesterday I found myself flying out to LA. Because Sarasota is off the beaten track, so to speak, I no longer fly directly to any destination. Since I was heading out to LA, this was a good thing.

Actually I don't fly anymore if I can avoid it, just as I will never again darken Disney World's doorstep. Many entities in the name of public health and political correctness have made the decision that it is okay to torture and inconvenience nicotine addicts like myself who have very little recourse but to submit. My absolute nightmare is being stuck on the tarmac for eight hours. I literally think I would get myself arrested. I don't wish to hurt or inconvenience others, but some consideration for approximately a quarter of the population- that's more than any minority group- would be nice. How about a sealed off area somewhere? What the greatly virtuous and inordinately "holier-than-thou" crowd miss is the horribly addictive nature of smoking.

So when, it comes to flying, if you add the airport wait time to the five hours it takes to fly out, Atlanta, which has a smokers' lounge, sounds just fine to me. Alas, my first flight was late, leaving me but fifteen minutes to cross the entire length of the airport. As it was, I was literally the last person on the connecting flight to LA. So I get on the airplane after about three hours of abstinence. By the end of the flight five hours later (we got delayed a bit), I was ready to cry or kill someone.

But then that's just the general backdrop of my trip. Being something less than a dinosaur, maybe a mammoth, when it comes to technology, I booked my flight online. I didn't choose seats because I figured I didn't much care. Mistake. I check in at the Delta counter where everyone else is getting boarding passes, and I get a "request for a seat." Okay, so I don't freak, yet. They'll do it at the gate when I check in there. But when I get to the gate, they're starting to board and the guy at the counter waves the unfortunates off with "I'm working on it."

Now I'm a bit annoyed. I book my ticket months ahead of time, and here I am lumped together with the standby supplicants. You know there's going to be no room in the overhead bin by the time I get on. And, as a veteran of Sunjet, I 'm a bit suspicious that they're going to say, "Oops, no more room." So I very mildly explain my concerns to the aforementioned guy, who looks like the actor with the once shaved head on the Las Vegas franchise of CSI. Oh, he tells me "Zone 1 is just for frequent fliers." Well, 1 was followed by Zone 2, and 3 and 4. When I get my boarding pass, I'm magically Zone 9. By the time it was announced, there were three of us left. I did not complain or cause a scene, because when it comes to flying, we do not enjoy many of our rights as American citizens.

So as I sat in the middle between two rather beefy fellows, one of whom had little familiarity with a bar of soap judging from the effluent he was giving off, I had to smile. I'm sure the guy who looks like the actor with the once shaved head really enjoyed that brief momentary exercise of power in what must be a pretty thankless occupation. As for me, my smokeless day was shot anyway. Thank you, Delta Airlines.

Y,Oh, Y!

Here's a brief and entertaining bit on Miscelaneas by José Manuel Caraballo Bravo from down Cuba way, a rumination on the decided aversion to all things y on the part of the Havana "Commission." Let me share the conclusion of his commentary-

Up to [now] the brief comments of a totalitarian government who is allergic to the "Yahoo", "Yankees", "Young people", "Yuletide", and the "Generation Y created by Yoani". If you'd like more information try to ask someone from the government for the reason; but be careful because WHY ends in a "Y".

Read it here. It's in English.

What They Don't See

What would a week be without at least one "in the know" report about Cuba from some tourist type? Most of them are rich in dramatic irony. Try this one:

Taxis are dirt cheap. You can go anywhere for a few bucks; better still hire a driver who can speak a little English who’ll drive you all over town for the night for $20.

My taxi-driver, Claudio, was a doctor moonlighting in his battered Soviet-era Lada. He drove me out to see DJoy play ear-blistering house music at the Jardins de la Tropical (Avenida 41, Playa), another terrific outdoor venue under a cover of giant banyan trees. Back in the day the Jardins was the place for couples dressed in all their finery to dance salsa, but on this night strobe lights were bouncing off the palm trees and trendy young things were happily waving their arms in the air.

How many doctors in any country are forced to moonlight as cabbies? Or is it a taxi fetish on the part of the medical professional? Does this erstwhile traveler even stop to think? No, he is bent on his own pleasure, on demonstrating his "cool" credentials.

There's more here.

Enter the Greek Chorus

More and more is starting to appear in reference to the ethanol boondoggle. Even Mr. Obama has commented. Here's one via Townhall. An inconvenient truth, indeed. The cyclone in Myanmar doesn't help the situation either.

Reaction to Yoani's Absence at the Awards Ceremony

Thanks to El Pais, we have some of the commentary.

Yoani (in a telephone interview): Nothing I have written in my blog is as pointed as my absence from the ceremony.

Sanjuana Martínez, Mexican winner of the prize for investigative reporting: I would like to send out a greeting to Yoani, whose absence is a symbol, no more no less, that there are no changes. In Cuba you can buy electrical appliances and cell phones, but there is no free press.

Gervasio Sánchez, winner of the prize for photography: The prohibition creates a greater media impact and has negative repercussions for the image of Cuba.

There's more, but my powers of translation fail me. Some even questioned Spain's policies toward Cuba.

No Prize for You!

Not surprisingly the Cuban regime has tacitly denied Yoani Sanchez's application to leave the country by deciding not to decide. Of course, Yoani will not be able to receive the "Ortega y Gasset Prize" in electronic journalism, a prestigious award granted by the Spanish newspaper El Pais being handed out today, in person. Yoani's blog, Generacion Y, has propelled her to well-deserved fame as she posts on her life in Cuba.

This was a no-win situation for the Havana Dons, as allowing her to accept the prize would highlight the conditions in Cuba. Refusing to let her go, on the other hand, emphasizes the repression of speech. 6 of 1, half dozen of the other. True to form, they chose the nastier option.

One consolation is that Ernesto of Penultimos Dias was asked to accept it in her stead. He has posted a moving open letter to Yoani. It's in Spanish. If Yoani can't be there, I can think of no better representative. El año que viene in la Habana.

Stories in English here and here.

Summer Reading

This summer promises books from some of my favorite authors. So my fellow bibliophiles, here are the highlights of the summer reading list:

Legally Dead by Edna Buchanan due out in August.

Swan Peak by James Lee Burke in July. It's a Dave Robicheaux novel, and I love Robicheaux.

The Broken Window by Jeffrey Deaver in June. It's the eighth book featuring Lincoln Rhyme, this time with a cyber twist.

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston of Relic et al fame in June. This one is a true life story of his hunt for a serial killer in Florence, Italy. It sounds like a strange story.

An Advancement of Learning by Reginald Hill out in April. It's not one of the Pascoe novels, but rather number two in a series where I missed one, but I'll give it a try. There's nothing like a refined British mystery with a glass of vino on a Friday afternoon.

Vineyard Chill by Phillip R Craig due out in June. This is a sad one. It's the final Martha's Vineyard mystery because Mr. Craig died after its completion. These were always light whodunits.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith out now. This is one of those titles the library purchases two of and then you're on a waiting list forever. Could be because Barnes & Noble highlighted it. Last one was the Davinci Code. Anyway, sounds like a distant cousin of Gorky Park: serial killer in Stalinist Russia, official dissembling, suspense. Speaking of which, if you haven't already read Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith you might want to do it. It doesn't disappoint.

As The Worm Turns

It warms the cockles of my heart to see the list of truth tellers grow. Who'da thunk it? This week, we add The Miami Herald, not known for being particularly fond of their own Miami Cubans. How's this for an editorial?

***

Cuba's leader tells another whopper
OUR OPINION: RAUL CASTRO'S LIE REFUTED BY A LEGACY OF SHAME

As a practical matter, it is impossible for this or any other newspaper to set the record straight every time the Cuban government tells a whopper. Orchestrating lies is the specialty of police states. Anyone who has ever listened to Radio Havana or watched a Cuban TV ''news'' program knows that Cuban leaders lie to their own people and lie to the outside world. They even lie to each other. But sometimes the lie is so blatant, so malign, so far removed from the painful reality of life in Cuba that it must be refuted, for the sake of common decency if nothing else.

That's the case with Raúl Castro's recent claim that there has not been ''one sole case of torture'' in Cuba. Even by Cuba's standards, this is an astonishing falsehood, a lie of such outsized proportions that even Raúl Castro should have been ashamed to utter it. But since he was speaking before the National Assembly, where slavish agreement is the only acceptable response to the leader's declarations, it doubtless went down like a smooth cafecito.

The truth, of course, is that torture and the humiliation of government opponents is a way of life in Cuba. The abusive legal and institutional mechanisms of the state deprive the people of Cuba of their most basic rights on a daily basis, and that extends to the practice of torture in Cuba's jails for both common criminals and political prisoners

***

The rest of the editorial here.

H/T Gusano at Babalublog

Oh, No, Not That!

Serbia will be holding parliamentary elections on Sunday. This article casts it as a contest between modernity and nationalism. Interesting to note:

Some Serbian liberal intellectuals fear a nationalist coalition government will turn Serbia into a Balkan Cuba.

"They want to bring back state socialism," said Misa Brkic, a prominent liberal economist. "They will block our joining the European Union and make Serbia a 21st-century Cuba as Cuba was for the Russians in the 1960s in its relations with the United States."

Republican Women for Hillary?

I warned that the C-word would come out of the closet to haunt McCain. Sure enough, it was brought up at a town hall meeting. See Fausta's Blog for the video. I'm telling you, if it's verified, I'm outta that camp.

What a long, strange trip it's been. I started the election cycle with "anybody but Hillary" as my mantra, although I have long admired her strength of character. It's her positions I've always objected to. But compared to Obama who? she is looking decidedly better. Maybe Anne Coulter was on to something, although I thought she was insane at the time. Now I come across this article at the Weekly Standard about how conservatives are coming to grudingly respect her. I tell you the woman is brilliant.

Who knows? If Obama doesn't finish her off quickly, we may yet see Republican Women for Hillary.

Another Perspective on Kosovo: Charles Simic

I was looking for the Mathiessen article I had read in the Digest, when I stumbled upon this by Charles Simic. Now Simic happens to be one of the few contemporary poets I like, and the hubster being originally from the former Yugoslavia meaning I've done my fair share of reading about the situation, particularly West's two volume epic, so I have to read Simic.

As I read the article, I say to myself- Simic has to be from Serbia. Now it's a novel viewpoint for me because between the Slovenski/Croatian orientation of the family and the atrocities Serbs perpetrated in the name of the "Greater Serbia," not to mention a horrible Serb in-law, I don't have a particularly good opinion of the place. Still, Simic presents a fairly complex view of the situation.

Then I go off on a link to a response by a Kosovar which in turn leads to a reply by Simic, and it hits me how similar the give and take to what Cubans go through. The same truths are seen at best through many different lenses. Just thought you'd benefit from seeing some up close info from a part of the world probably even less understood than Cuba.