The above title was the same one I used for a short commentary I wrote in November 2008, just days after Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Today, he enters his re-election campaign — after four years of doing what he shouldn’t have done and not doing what people hoped he would do.
Read MoreNot long ago my mother turned 71. An event that mattered to few but made me reflect deeply. I remember the sort of feeling of immunity she gave us, my sisters and me, when we were little.
Read More“My name is Barbara Duenas. I’m one of the relatives of the former Cuban political prisoners who arrived in Spain in August 2010. I’m the ex-wife of Marcelo Cano, from the “Group of 75″ [imprisoned in 2003]. I live in Tarragona and I’m alone with my daughter. Since February 19, I haven’t received any assistance and I don’t know what to do.”
Read MoreIn Cuba, access to the Internet is a privilege held by a small group that includes foreign residents on the island, PhDs in any field, senior political leaders, military officers, reporters, a few artists and writers, and people with sufficient money to pay for an illegal account.
Read MoreThe visit by the Chilean student leader Camilla Vallejo (CV) to Cuba has been an opportunity to make mistakes that were well taken advantage of by everyone. It’s unfortunate that a woman as brave and as smart has been put in contact with a reality so reprehensible without her being able to raise her own criticisms.
Read MoreSomething strange often happens when I am with a foreigner and I criticize the system in my country. They’re taken aback and rebuke me for being ungrateful, naive, and ignorant, in daring to criticize the reality in which I live because I don’t know what the reality is like in other countries.
Read MoreCuban reform czar Marino Murillo has just presented “a policy that has been adopted for the experimental creation of non-agricultural cooperatives.” My first reaction is to celebrate this step.
Read MoreThose who receive money from a foreign power — one which is also the self-declared enemy of the Cuban Revolution — cannot be regarded as a simple opponents. They are mercenaries and counter-revolutionaries.
Read MoreWhenever I’m forced to come to grips with our waning cooking-oil ration (even though I pour it in a bottle whose eyedropper cap allows me to manage it carefully), I think back to an incident that I experienced years ago with a tourist from Curacao, a friend of the family.
Read MoreLast week I first attended a discussion at the Felix Varela Cultural Center, an organization that operates under the auspices of the Cuban Catholic Church. Frankly, never in my two decades of living in Cuba had I seen such a variety of political views, at least not in the same room.
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