Author: Alfredo Fernandez

Livina Pelegrin Vasquez was my grandmother. Her stay in this world as the mother of my mother was realized with reverential boldness up until two months ago.

It’s not uncommon in Cuba to see those people who have the enormous fortune of being able to access e-mail from their home or at work, sending emails in which they plead to people who they barely know or those with whom they’ve hardly dealt with in their lives.

Actually I didn’t expect this latest news. I’ve spent so much time longing for it that I could barely process it. In just one day, I’m now free to leave the country. It seems I can now spread my stunted wings before a world that I’m still not sure really exists.

The day that the rule of law is finally established in Cuba, the workers here will be able to take legal action against foreign entities operating on the island, or wherever they are, to return to them what was robbed with impunity: their labor power.

Cuba shouldn’t have an army. From my point of view, that would be the most important step we Cubans would take if we wanted to build a nation with a future, a country with opportunities.

These days the official Cuban press is “delighted,” since it is successfully carrying out one of its usual disinformation actions. This time it involves one of the biggest scandals in China since “the Tiananmen Square protest” of June 1989.

Today, thanks to the phenomenon of pirated CDs, the television series “Pablo Escobar: The Model of Evil,” has become the visual phenomenon that is shaking up the island.

The video camera of a cell phone can help break the siege of misinformation, especially in countries where ignoring news items is the norm imposed by a state on its citizens. A government that misinforms, spoon feeds (at best) or just hides the news.

I firmly believe that a country and its people can also end up lost, no matter how superior a sense of direction its members appear to have. A country can wind up like Lacy or whatever beloved pet with barely the possibility of finding its way home.

For those of us with access to Internet, e-mail or at least possess a flash drive, two open letters have been circulating in recent weeks that have been the subject of much comment.