Dangerous Friendships
Once again the “visionary politicians of the region” filled their rhetoric with the ever real possibility of a luminous future for the entire region (and laid the blame for all the continent’s problems on the USA).
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Diaries
My High School Friend Tonito
I met Tonito when I was studying at the V. I. Lenin Pre-university High School of Exact Sciences. Not everyone there had such a noble soul or sharp brain. It was a pleasure to be around him. But Tonito had one “defect”: a kind of malice toward “socialism,” that’s to say he was against the regime of the island, which calls itself socialist. And this was in a school where to study there, by statute, one had to be “revolutionary.”
Read MoreCuba’s Winter 2010: Cold! Cold!
Someone who doesn’t live in Cuba and hears us say “damn it’s cold!” perhaps thinks, “Cold in Cuba? You don’t know what cold is.”
Read MoreHow Things Should Be (II)
A recent experience in south Havana made me think of several things. Firstly, the potential of people’s self-organization and the possibilities of institutions when they involve themselves with popular needs expressed “from below.”
Read MoreWhat Exile Had Meant
When I was little I would watch all the women in my family crowd around in my grandmother’s room, where they would open packages containing underwear, shoes, hair ornaments and those types of things.
Read MoreRussian Culture and Me (II)
Cold winds blew at the end of 1989, a particularly biting spell for Havana. The sensation of loneliness gripped us all…a sensation that would last —in the sense of its newness and depth— for at least three more years.
Read MoreThe Book Fair with the Russians
It’s clear that the 2010 Cuba International Book Fair was dedicated to Russia as both a tribute to historic Cuban-Russian relations and the current need for political ties.
Read MoreWhat Are We Celebrating?
In Latin America respect for institutions and the elimination of caudillo-ism are unresolved issues in our politics. Only by tackling these will be able to move from endemic corruption to the true rule of law, where respect for one’s fellow human being is the maxim of the countries of the region.
Read MoreTraining Memory, Avoiding Thought
The prevalence of the rote learning method in Cuba also seems to remain for a certain reason.
Read MoreHomerun for Industriales, Fowl for Its Fans
This afternoon a rooster was brought into the Latin American Stadium. It wasn’t the first time that the fans came with a bird, but it was the first time —at least the first time that I know of— that they tied one by the legs and sent it sailing like a rock from a sling.
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