Writes three-page resignation letter blaming the Herald, while admitting BTP's Cuba connections. How does that work? Sanchez explains,
While an affiliate of BTP . . . may have performed certain work in Cuba [as have all the bidders on the tunnel project], the law simply does not allow for the imposition of liability on BTP.Mr. Sanchez, your less-than-moral bobbing and weaving gets an ironic tip of the hat from us at AGI. Happy trails.
Today's Herald has a story about Miami Today in Images, a project to photograph dilapidated buildings in Havana and integrate the high definition photos into an interactive map of the city, most of which you can already do on Google Maps--minus the high resolution photos--far more efficiently. You can find the project's website here. The resolution of the photos combined with the crumbling buildings and almost barren streets is close to macabre. You can really get lost going through the images and I found I had to remind myself that I was looking at a real city, not an Oliver Stone set.
Naphtali David Rishe, the director, says it has no "political message" yet one of the links on his site takes you to affidavit to claim specific property. That may not have an overt political message, but it'll definitely inspire some knee-jerk reaction from doddering exiles. And part of it just doesn't make sense. Most of the images are of colonial buildings like the Morro. Who is going to be claiming these buildings? The Spanish? The site's url is no-more.com, which I guess refers to the dilapidation of the city, but it also sounds weirdly political.
As the article points out, reclaiming of land after the fall of Communist regimes has never been carried out with anything resembling equity.
But whether the project will eventually help people reclaim property confiscated under Fidel Castro's regime is uncertain.Cubans are better off instituting a political and proprietary amnesty after regime change rather than try to revert the clock to 1959, which is only going to slow things down and make it all worse for those on the island.''Whether this is considered proper evidence depends on who would be processing these applications,'' says Tania Mastrapa, who runs a Miami consulting practice on property reclamation in Cuba.
''I have not heard of these claim mechanisms being used in other countries,'' says Mastrapa, whose doctoral thesis at the University of Miami examined post-Communist property claims in the Czech Republic and Nicaragua and the lessons they could have for Cuba.
Say what you want about communists, they write the best headlines.
Going by what U.S. officials have said about Castro, it's clear that they have no idea what the status of his health is, or they made public what they hoped it would be. It's also clear they don't know to what extent Castro is in control. They're now being a little bit more cautious, and not writing him off completely.
Stepping back from previous assertions that Fidel Castro was near death, U.S. officials say that the image of an increasingly revitalized Castro is impeding the island's day-to-day leadership from making major changes.Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America and the Caribbean, told The Miami Herald in an interview Wednesday that Cuba was in a period of ''suspended animation'' as Castro exerted a ''controlling political presence'' on the island.
While Shannon did not directly contradict previous statements from U.S. officials that suggested Castro was close to death, he suggested that the Bush administration is more cautious in its assessment of whether Castro will return, and in what capacity.
Castro is going to be a defining figure in Cuban politics until he dies. Like Franco, he could be on a deathbed for months, not making any sense, and shitting himself through an artificial anus, and he will still be in control. The State Dept. has apparently reached this realization not very long ago.
As a Cuban-American--nay, as a human being--I wish him a terrible, yet prompt death, so I can take my nonexistent tumbadora down to Eighth St. and dance it up Ricky Ricardo style, but that's too easy, and by now, I've learned not to underestimate Castro. Even on his deathbed, he's not going to make things easy.More from The Herald.
To politicians, Cuban-Americans must seem a lot like leap years. They only exist once every four years. And even then, they only restate the failed policy that older, right-wing Cubans want to hear.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain stumped in Miami's Cuban-American community Wednesday morning as a contentious immigration debate lurched forward in Washington.
McCain gave interviews to two Spanish-language radio stations and visited the Bay of Pigs Museum, where the former Vietnam prisoner of war put his arms around elderly Cuban-American veterans and called them ``comrades.''
I wonder if McCain knows that the word comrade, like the phrase "patria o muerte, venceremos," also brings back negative memories to children of Communism.
I found this video on the CBC website while looking around for a special on Cuba I heard on the radio today. In 1959, Errol Flynn went to Cuba to experience The Revolution first hand. It appears that it was big news at the time--Flynn in Cuba, that is--because on Jan. 13, the day of this broadcast, one of the panelists immediately mentions it. I'd never heard anything about it.
During the interview, Errol Flynn says that Fidel Castro, who he considered a friend, would go on to "rank in history as one of the greats." Well, he was right about the first part. I was also amazed by how in 13 short days, the world already knew Castro was a criminal. One of the panelists asks Flynn about summary executions in Cuba. Flynn denies Castro authorized or had any knowledge of them.
Oh Errol, you can't swing out of this one on a chandelier.
There's no news to this story, but it is a good portrait of just one of the many ridiculous obstacles Cubans have to navigate everyday.
Hitchiking is a way of life in communist Cuba, where cars are scarce, a gallon of gas costs a third of a civil servant's monthly salary, and public transportation is unreliable and overcrowded. Lately things have worsened, with even acting President Raul Castro admitting in December that public transport was "practically on the point of collapse."
Last year, the government announced the purchase of 7,000 buses from China, and hundreds more Chinese buses are said to be on the way since Castro took power from his ailing brother Fidel in July.
Meanwhile, the hitchhikers are everywhere — at street corners, crosswalks, stop lights. Whole families with luggage hitch to and from the airport. On the capital's outskirts, government inspectors wave down government vehicles. Those with empty seats must take hitchhikers, a law that results in 68 million free rides a year, according to the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
I know there's nothing original about this, but I have a serious travel fetish. So, sitting at the provincial Fort Lauderdale airport bar waiting for my flight to Toronto to board and listening to Steely Dan, I figured I would rhapsodize about this for a while. (Actually, it's going to be shorter than that, 'cause I need to do a good deal of work on the plane and I have to find an outlet to charge my laptop.)
Anyway, an Albanian friend of mine is convinced that I have gypsy--yes, gypsy--in my blood. A conclusion derived purely from my "gypsy eyes"--whatever that means. But hey, I'm guessing an Albanian could pick out a gypsy from a mile away.
My family has, in three short generations, taken on two major migrations--one across a continent. While, they'll tell you that they were for political reasons, I'd like to think it has something to do with a genetic wanderlust.
Shit. This is getting way more self-absorbed than I intended, so let's sum up. Travel, good; Fort Lauderdale airport, bad.
So let's move on to actual substantive stuff. Ricardo Alarcon says Castro--not Raul--is seeking reelection in 2008. I'm not even going to discuss the ridiculousness of calling what happens in Cuba an election, I just want to tell Ricky--a sedulous AGI reader, I'm sure--that I'll give him whatever odds he wants on that bet. I'll even give him a one-to-one exchange rate on dollars to pesos. C'mon, Ricky, what do you have to lose.
Updated to add: Fort Lauderdale airport has very slow WiFi and four power outlets in the whole airport. Grrr.
The New York Times has an excellent story about Cuba's renascent Jewish Community. Like everyone else in Cuba, the community, without a rabbi and largely dependent on foreign aid, is in a constant struggle to keep its traditions alive.
As Maritza Corrales, a Cuban historian who lives in Havana and the author of “The Chosen Island: Jews in Cuba,” remarked, “To be Cuban and Jewish is to be twice survivors.”
