Excerts from a (Rare) Fair Story on Cuba
Cuba - a place that is both strange and special, stirring and sad
BY TRACEY EATON
The Dallas Morning News
I've wandered through Havana's roughest neighborhoods at 3 or 4 a.m. and have never been touched...
Even Cubans who are famous are unusually down-to-earth. I've seen baseball players stop on the streets and patiently sign autographs for fans, who pepper them with advice on how they can improve their games. And when I've needed to interview an Olympic medalist, salsa music star or soap opera diva, it's been easy: I just go to their homes and knock on the front door....
Human-rights activists occasionally report cases of police abuse, but the officers I've seen have been polite and professional, standing quietly while motorists insist they weren't speeding....
(talkng about the lack of police corruption) I started to argue (with the cop). He must have figured I wasn't worth his time and let me go. Grateful, I offered him $1. He wouldn't take it and walked away....
Castro loyalists say Cuba is free of serious government corruption. And while much remains unknown about the circles of power on the island, a Portugal diplomat told me he finds Cuban elites refreshingly innocent.
One night, (the portuguese ambassador) said, he and two of Fidel Castro's middle-aged sons went to the Habana Cafe nightclub to hear salsa star Issac Delgado. The doorman told them the club was full, and they turned to leave. Suddenly, someone yelled, "Hey, it's the Portuguese ambassador!" and the doorman immediately let them in. Incredibly, no one recognized the Castro sons. Nor did they try to use their father's name to get a table. I can't imagine that happening anywhere else in Latin America....
Hate crimes are another rarity in Cuba, one of the most intermixed nations in the world....
Contrary to what people must imagine, Cuban officials don't pressure me to write pro-government stories. They don't censor my work, and they don't limit my travel...
Of course, the bigger question is what will happen once Castro dies or is no longer in charge. If I had to go out on a limb, I'd go against conventional wisdom and say that the socialist government will endure, at least for now...
BY TRACEY EATON
The Dallas Morning News
I've wandered through Havana's roughest neighborhoods at 3 or 4 a.m. and have never been touched...
Even Cubans who are famous are unusually down-to-earth. I've seen baseball players stop on the streets and patiently sign autographs for fans, who pepper them with advice on how they can improve their games. And when I've needed to interview an Olympic medalist, salsa music star or soap opera diva, it's been easy: I just go to their homes and knock on the front door....
Human-rights activists occasionally report cases of police abuse, but the officers I've seen have been polite and professional, standing quietly while motorists insist they weren't speeding....
(talkng about the lack of police corruption) I started to argue (with the cop). He must have figured I wasn't worth his time and let me go. Grateful, I offered him $1. He wouldn't take it and walked away....
Castro loyalists say Cuba is free of serious government corruption. And while much remains unknown about the circles of power on the island, a Portugal diplomat told me he finds Cuban elites refreshingly innocent.
One night, (the portuguese ambassador) said, he and two of Fidel Castro's middle-aged sons went to the Habana Cafe nightclub to hear salsa star Issac Delgado. The doorman told them the club was full, and they turned to leave. Suddenly, someone yelled, "Hey, it's the Portuguese ambassador!" and the doorman immediately let them in. Incredibly, no one recognized the Castro sons. Nor did they try to use their father's name to get a table. I can't imagine that happening anywhere else in Latin America....
Hate crimes are another rarity in Cuba, one of the most intermixed nations in the world....
Contrary to what people must imagine, Cuban officials don't pressure me to write pro-government stories. They don't censor my work, and they don't limit my travel...
Of course, the bigger question is what will happen once Castro dies or is no longer in charge. If I had to go out on a limb, I'd go against conventional wisdom and say that the socialist government will endure, at least for now...
posted by leftside at
10:09 AM
2 Comments:
Fidel's death will be the best thing to happen to Cuba in over 5 decades.
Might I suggest 3 books for your perusal (all available in English translations):
Reinaldo Arenas "Antes que anochezca"
Carlos Franqui, "Retrato de familia con Fidel"
Guillermo Cabrera Infante, "Mea Cuba"
--Guillermo Juan Parra
If asked, every American will tell you that the seat of power in the USA lies squarely in Washington, D.C. in the White House, in the Capitol Building, in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, in the Pentagon, in the CIA and FBI Buildings, and in the Supreme Court. While this preconceived notion makes sense, it is as far from the truth as the east is from the west. You see, America's seat of power lies squarely in South Florida in the most unlikely of places, Little Havana! It is from Little Havana that neonazi, geriatric Cuban American aristos pull the strings of the president, the supreme court, the various secretaries of state, the senate, the congress and even the CIA and the FBI! Since 1959, when millions of these aging Cuban aristos were forced out by the just freed and grateful Cuban masses led by their liberator Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, the USA stopped being a democracy and became A GERIATICRACY! It is from countless Senior Citizens Homes in South Florida, but mainly in Little Havana, the nerve center of exile politics, that reactionary former Batista henchmen [intent on reclaiming their cabanas which was taken away from them when the starving masses asked Fidel to lead them for life] run the American government! Pulitzer prize winning New York Times correspondent Melinda Gottburger in conjunction with famed TV actor Martin Sheen has for the first time identified the nerve center as the Jose Marti Casa para los Viejitos de La Pequen~a Habana. It is from this senior citizen home that former Batista henchmen now in the 90s, stoled the American election from Al Gore that put their puppet "President" Bush in the White House, it is, also, from this same "senior citizen center" that most of the 29,586 assassination attempts against the heroic Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz were financed, planned and carried out and from where they punish and starve Cuba's black and mulatto masses with their genocidal blockade in an attempt to starve them and thereby ethnically cleanse the country!
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