The way Party leaders are appointed – on the basis of intelligence gathered or produced by various State Security organs –, a mechanism imposed on the Party by the “founding leadership” of the Cuban revolution, in violation of bottom-up democratic election principles, is what robs Cuba of leaders able to identify and solve problems.
Read MoreI am part of a small team of building restorers. Luckily, we are able to choose what work we do, something which isn’t common. Our boss – a friend of mine – deals with all of the red tape I would be unable to stomach, being the impatient person I am. (7 photos)
Read MoreWith time, it seems that I’ve become something of a homebody, that is to say, I don’t ever want to leave the house these days – not even to go to the movies, which is my favorite kind of outing.
Read MoreMaking Cuba’s official discourse reflect more and more aspects of everyday reality may well be one of the most important political processes undertaken on the island today. President Raul Castro’s pronouncements Sunday to the parliament were a clear expression of this process.
Read MoreOne of my high school buddies came to see me a week ago. He brought me up to date on what’s been going on in my former classroom. Of the things he told me – mostly unimportant details about school life, like the fact some people we knew are no longer in the classroom – two things surprised me some.
Read MoreI suspect that the many people in Cuba who do not read the papers, choosing to alienate themselves with The Voice – Kids or pirated TV shows from abroad, will be unaware of the Cuban president’s rather surprising speech on Sunday.
Read MorePresident Raul Castro addressed the Cuban parliament on Sunday, demanding more order and discipline from society in complying with the economic guidelines set forth by the Communist Party. He also called for stepped up actions against “social indiscipline” and administrative corruption.
Read MoreAs a child, I was unruly, argumentative and domineering…but also something of an overly sensitive crybaby. My dad would always say to me my tears didn’t go well with my character, that I was too strong a girl to cry over so many trivial things.
Read MoreAn article titled “Secret Epidemics: Cuba’s Public Health Ethics” (“El silencio epidemiológico y la ética de la Salud Pública cubana”) appears in the most recent issue of Cuba’s quarterly Public Health Journal (Revista Cubana de Salud Publica). Written by National School of Medicine physician Luis Suarez Rosas, the work criticizes the Cuban government’s information policies in the area of public health.
Read MoreRecently, Cuban-born political analyst Carlos Alberto Montaner published an article titled Education and Cynicism. The article aims to discredit Chile’s student movement and its calls for the de-commercialization of education, not by analyzing the political coordinates of the phenomenon (something which would have proven immensely interesting), but from a moralistic and dogmatically neo-liberal perspective.
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