Is homosexuality natural? Faced with the scientific precept that the success of a species depends on its ability to procreate and “propagate” its genes, it would seem that the “disability” of homosexuals that many insist on is completely irrefutable. One of the issues involved is what is “normal” and what is “natural”.
Read MoreWhen I hear talk about bureaucracy, I inevitably call to mind a high Cuban Ministry of Agriculture official with whom I shared my concerns over the crops that had been lost as a result of the negligence of State entities responsible for their collection and distribution among the population.
Read MoreThe news surrounding the Cuban Film Industry Institute (ICAIC) is an indication of the changes that Cuba’s political system is experiencing, of how the State’s absolute hold on culture begins to weaken and new, autonomous spaces with a lot to say to society begin to emerge.
Read MoreMany black people and persons of mixed racial background in Cuba believe that a change in the country’s political system is needed to improve the lives of this non-white sector of the population, which today continues to endure stereotypes, discrimination and racism.
Read MoreIn “Cuba and the Incapacity of State Socialism to Change and Renew Itself,”, Pedro Campos and Armando Chaguaceda argue that “state socialism” (ownership and administration of all the instruments of production by the socialist state) is an economic system which springs primarily from the brain and character of Joseph Stalin.
Read MoreThe book highlights “the progress Cuban women have made towards gender equality since the 1950s and examines whether that progress can be sustained into the future.” It accomplishes its goal in five, concise, non-judgmental and well-documented chapters, enriched by personal profiles of some remarkably perceptive Cuban women.
Read MoreI couldn’t help asking myself what the fight against homophobia has to do with the Cuban Five, as they are known around the world. The words pronounced by Rene Gonzalez on receiving the award appear to answer this question: “We’re involved in a struggle against attitudes that have made many people suffer. The suffering over being deprived of our freedom unites us. All forms of discrimination and of depriving people of their freedom must be eliminated.”
Read MoreI am not trying to make light of the situation currently faced by more than 100 Cuban dissidents, and their families, who in 2010 were transplanted to Spain after the European nation negotiated their freedom from prison. But there’s a point to be made. Especially when one considers that in Miami live so many, for example, who espouse a daily litany that Cuba is a living hell.
Read MoreIt is a sad song that gets to me. But, even though the lyrics clearly evoke the figure of the former leader of Venezuela, the way he shared his country’s riches with sister nations and his struggle for Latin America, it is not Chavez that this song brings to mind when I hear it.
Read MoreToday, I remembered how Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti would walk down the streets of Alamar, a proletarian neighborhood in Havana conceived to harbor the socialist New Man, with his mustachioed face, his short temper and his immense dignity.
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