I’m by no means an expert in death, but with half a lifetime covered, I’ve now accumulated some experience. Heading for abyss, I’ve seen the loss of one grandfather, four close friends (three by suicide and one from an accident), several dogs and cats (who were also good friends), distant relatives and many others. The conclusion I’ve drawn from all this: if death is ugly, the wake and the funeral are uglier.
Read MoreGiven my habit of running five simple laps around the track at the University Stadium, I noticed the number of people coming out to the field was increasing as the beginning of the games approached.
Read MoreThe arguments around “imperialistic hostility” and “media terrorism” are losing their genuine value in the face of abuse exercised to hide a totalitarian bent.
Read MoreOnce 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).
Read MoreI 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 MoreSomeone 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 MoreA 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 MoreWhen 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 MoreCold 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 MoreIt’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.
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