Diaries Archives - Page 568 of 642

Guaso and Carburo

When I was a little boy, I liked the Cuban cartoon “Guaso and Carburo.” It was an animated comic strip produced in the 1970s —I think— and involved two dogs, Guaso and Carburo.

An Indissoluble Trio and the Cuban People

In Cuba we all have a file. If you’re a student, you have one at your school; if you work, it’s at your workplace; and if you neither study or work, or if you study and work, you have another file at your neighborhood Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

Here Come the Transgenics (I)

Using the triumphalist formula of our press, they want to make us believe that transgenic produce is the solution to the country’s agricultural difficulties. A little dose of information, fragmented and manipulated, is all that’s provided to the Cuban pubic. Meanwhile, most of the debate occurs in online publications.

Rock, Rap & Reggae: Three Different Connections

Many of us islanders, who sometimes try to cast our fishing pole backwards, say “Cubans have bad memories” or that “if it wasn’t this way we’d all go crazy.” Decidedly, it’s part of the great artistry of the human brain.

Heat and Sex in Havana

If this is going to exist, it would be good that Cuban pornography was less sexist, that the women learn to relax and reach the same degree of satisfaction as the men, in short that they are allowed to seduce for pleasure.

Security Guard Proliferation in Cuba

The decision to combat workplace theft through an increase in “control” has contributed to the proliferation of security guards in all official institutions. Faced with this situation, some say that half of the work force is trying to steal while the other half is trying to prevent them.

Ice Cream from the Leader

Havana’s giant Copelia ice-cream parlor is like a Cuba in miniature. During the moments you spend eating ice cream there, you can find the same symptoms of deterioration in the services as those existing in any other corner of the country.

Tourism on the Dust of the Dead

A little blond in shorts, a T-shirt and hiking spoke to me from the television screen the other day. She was on the National Geographic channel, which is supposed to be a little more serious than the rest of those that I occasionally have time to see on cable here in Caracas. I’ve read reports in the National Geographic Magazine that have seemed interesting. However this little blond was inviting us to go on a tour in Oklahoma.

Young Environmentalists Meet in Cuba

Recently I was invited to an event that promised to be productive. Young Cuban environmentalists and representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), met to try to coordinate actions in support of nature in our country.

The Boring Government of Israel

I was inspired with a certain hope by the daring humanitarian convoy that sought to break the Israeli maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip. The activists were relying on the peaceful and philanthropic nature of their operation, despite the clarity with which the Israeli government asserted that it would not allow their landing in Gaza.