http://www.hsn.com/

My appreciated usual accomplices and visitors:

On May 15th my husband’s laptop just died. It blinked when I was working on it and the monitor turned itself off forever. It was the family computer, a practical tool that, like housing and multiple personal articles in Cuba have to shared with sons, their girlfriends and friends. It was six years old and we’d had it repaired on several occasions, but this time it decided to rest from the overwork and heat we submitted it to for years.

Just when we are engaged in the promotion of the “360 Cuba” Project, we published here, the sudden loss of this instrument central to the methodological and sustainable deployment of the program and the rhythm of publication of opinions in the blog.

The lack of support in resources — I’m one of the bloggers who doesn’t have a PC — makes me think that perhaps there has been a sustained move by the Cuban political police to obstruct our development — my husband is an opposition leader and also has a blog — stopping our development or better still, killing us through the media.

Of course that will reduce my writing output, but would not give up my right to continue broadcasting my opinions, because I consider it a duty of every citizen with their time, history and homeland, charting the reality that surrounds him with words and complaints, especially when it involves, as in the case of Cuba, a dictatorship.

This inconvenience has paralyzed us for now, but circumstances sometimes impose challenges on us which, while closing a door open windows and lead us to creativity. I looked for possible alternatives because I refuse to passively accept the situation which gives another victory to the Cuban dictatorship, and although small, a defeat to those of us who push for and defend democracy.

21 May 2013

From http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/

The eighth and final page of the tabloid Granma hesitantly tells us the story. It’s about the Conrado Benitez Cancer Hospital in Santiago de Cuba, which completed its first capital repair, after the passage of the destructive Hurricane Sandy and fifty-nine years of existence. That hospital, which in addition to serving Santiago, serves the population of Guantánamo, Granma and other eastern provinces, had only “enjoyed” cosmetic and insufficient maintenance, in the “emergency room, observation room, surgery and chemotherapy.”

How did they understand the concept of Cuba as “medical superpower” born of the highest echelons of the Cuban government? Obviously, the top leaders of the country, who are native to the region, inflated one of the many balloons have gone flat since 2006, the year that the historic leader abdicated due to illness in favor of his brother. If Santiago de Cuba is located 540 miles from Havana: will the 148 beds be enough to serve tens of thousands of patients a year in that and other neighboring provinces? Why didn’t this regime build a new cancer hospital for the region?

The main photo accompanying the article shows us the facade of a very nice center that resembles Joaquin Albarran Hospital in Havana hospital and quotes, from the lips of Dr. Rafael Neyra, that “for the first time in the hospital’s history they can count on basic measures and specialized personal to care for patients with major surgery or complications.” What range of care and services did they pay for before? Did they send these cases to Havana, far from their families and usual environment? What type and generation of equipment did they have?

All of the good now, of the health center, and the excellence of the final product that the commentary speaks of, passes through the timidity of the concept of journalism and Cubans in general, about what should be the comfort and quality of services they can expect from a hospital. The so-called free public health is a falsehood that we pay for with decades of inadequate salaries and with the appropriation by the government of the output of the workers; and still they offer us bad medical care — many times in ruined buildings with material shortages of every kind — bad hygiene and inadequate medications for the recovery of the health and quality of life of many patients.

To assess if, indeed, the installation offers proper comfort and primary care, as advocated in the report, we would have to know, by way of contrast, the hospital facilities where the leaders of the country and their family and friends and foreigners are cared for; or better yet, to enjoy the same benefits — why not? — as those who plan our lives with a false paternalistic mentality.

We need new government and general administrative visions and projections and this is achieved by abandoning the old conceptions and structures that led to the financial ruin that is now Cuba. To achieve this we must go to the root of the problems without hesitation or fears, with political pluralism, with freedom of speech and of the press, and a set of laws that protect, defend and guarantee. We will achieve this with changes, not with simple structural restorations that represent on a mocking smile at an inefficient and unproductive dictatorship.

14 May 2013

Miguel Diaz-Canel criticized the information silence imposed on us by the authorities and called it an “impossible dream” to maintain it due to the circulation of news that circulated among people who surf the internet or who have email, and the avidity of our compatriots to have alternative sources of knowledge of the news.

In the National Seminar in Preparation of the 2013-2014 School Year, held in Havana, the Cuban government’s second in command acknowledged publicly and tacitly — even without saying it — that the authorities have violated the rights of a society to free information have imposed an incidental ignorance, biased information, and an obligatory official and irresponsible journalism.

Which authorities is he referring to? Evidently, the number two Cuban is alluding to the “gray quarantine” of the mandate of Raul Castro.

We all know that in Cuba people use the internet at their workplaces — those who have it — to be able to communicate with family and friends living abroad, and consume a little information about what is happening in the world from an alternative perspective to the classical posture of the unconditional government journalists.

A great part of the population is fed up with the visions and versions aligned with the party and the high command offered by the professionals of the national press, so distant from the Cuban reality that suffers daily lines to buy meager food for the day, who have to face full buses to get to work, and who at night consume super-politicized television programming, mediocre and outmoded, that seem anchored in the decade of the seventies.

The Cuban Vice President did not speak, however, about the cable that, under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez, we have had in Cuba since February 2011, which those in power tried to hide with all kinds of misinformation and rumors, and the growing demand of the computerized Cuban society to have their free access to information through the Internet be respected.

This silent but progressive demand, which is imposing a renewed conception of the information paradigms that should be established and rule in modern society. There is no point in insisting on a lifting of the so-called secrecy of the Cuban press unless the authorities take the first step to greater transparency and information freedom, if there is censorship, if they do not allow alternative news agencies, and if they harass and condemn independent journalism.

The so-called socialist models that have been imposed in Latin America, also have their share of influence in the new directions that should guide our destiny towards greater social justice. What are called the new systems of the continental left, have pulled the rug out from under the Cuban regime with their multiparty system, with their social programs, housing and technological development, among many others to cajole their people.

When thinking about the development of their countries and giving them greater benefits, they have left their Cuban ideological benefactor and sponsor as the hemispheric “ugly duckling” with regards to freedoms and rights.

But it seems that the day “is coming” when “the silence of the innocents and the lambs” that the powerful has so greatly mocked and abused, will break the wall of cyber censorship and begin at least to walk along the highways of information and communication. New times dictate this, but we expect more, much more that they owe to Cuba, to our people and our history.

11 May 2013

Cesar Portillo de la Luz (La Habana, October 31, 1922), one of the kings of Cuban music, has died. He departed this world but he left behind his songs and a guitar widowed from arpeggios and creative harmonies. He crossed the threshold of “feeling” into the light of immortality alongside other greats such as Jose Antonio Mendez, Frank Dominguez, Nico Rojas, Frank Emilio, and Aida Diestro, through Elena Burke’s voice. His art converged the melancholic equilibrium of guitars with emotions born from the genre, which marked a time of renovation in Cuban music. Our Cesar, one of the creators of “filin,” took Rebeca, his first stringed wife, and taught a generation and many musicians that one could compose and accompany the feminine instrument – evoking its forms – and he left behind to the history of Cuban music great hits such as Tu, Mi Delirio, and Contigo en la Distancia, or Realidad y Fantasia, works that earned him international fame.

His bohemian soul knew full well his (our) nocturnal Habana that he sculpted and immortalized in the notes of Noche Cubana. I know that he has not hung up his guitar, as some might think, but rather he left her waiting, hung in the walls of all the nightclubs in the capital city, through the multiple voices of interpreters from all regions and cultures and through all the phonographs that play his songs. Just in case, and in honor of our teacher, I will leave his melodies playing in my sonorous memory so that every time I come back to his raspy, fresh voice and his sober, serious image to delight myself with, I can imagine him there, in the eternal international musical scenery of the great.

9 May 2013

http://www.marketingdirecto.com/

The phrase is attributed to the old Bolero; I’ve only heard part of the chorus and it says that everything will be the same when one of the members of a loving couple returns to the marital nest. It’s also used in colloquial speech in Cuba to emphasize that something remains, monotonous or not, immovable.

In recent days the old melody has been running through my mind on seeing Nicolas Maduro arrive in Cuba on his first visit as president, and the agreements they he signed with the Antillean government.

He came just for that? Like on a vinyl record with its “technological scratchiness,” the tonality more or less new — and noisy — for Venezuelans, seems to me coughed up by an outdated jukebox from the 1950s. I don’t know about Venezuela, but here the longevity script of the totalitarian regime constitutes a verbal rather than an ideological splash, and everyone knows it’s the same rhetoric from forever to guarantee the continuity of the leaders and the group in power.

Imagine the fabrication of mental medals and diplomas that they are sowing in the conscience of Venezuelans to be able to continue manipulating with a populism of false recognitions. The biggest and best medal that can be given to a person or to a people is that of true respect and consideration, with a sober management and conduct, responsible and democratic that represent the genuine interests of a country and they are truly at the service of the nation.

The democratic “bad company” and the immobility of the Castro totalitarianism makes many look with suspicion on all those who come to the presidency of their respective countries and call themselves friends of the old Cuban model. They can’t not create new paradigms with decrepit mental structures and policies.

The world turns and Cuba looks like a stationary satellite almost as old as the almendrones – the old American cars — that roam our streets. And speaking of a satellite, a few days ago we heard the news of the launching of the Ecuadorian satellite Pegasus.

My ancestors from Spain exterminated the aboriginal population of our soil and we see how over the space of fifty-four years, a family also descended from Spaniards — from Galicia, the land of my grandfather — makes us travel on the back of technological development, while other governments of our continent initiate the take of with their “first compatriots” toward a more humanistic track and take flight to modernity. At least they try, the Cuban government doesn’t even try.

2 May 2013

Image: http://www.animalesextincion.es/

Cuban TV fed us some “red and juicy” information on the 8 pm news Wednesday, April 24. It was about some water buffaloes that “escaped” from a state farm and were grazing on the side of the road or wherever they liked, with the related danger that these animals posed for the vehicles on the road.

The author of the article interviewed the director of the site, who defended himself against the criticism he’d received earlier for the same situation, but claimed to have fixed the fence and that the cattle broke it again to escape.

My kids, who are 30 and 26 and only eat pork — beef is so expensive that generally is eaten by government elite and international tourists — laugh about it and I can only join in the amusement. Their mischievous looks leave the caustic question in the air: “How well was the fence fixed?”

In my house, as most likely as in many others, we thought that perhaps to expose a cattle trampling is the only way they can find some directors to eat the meat, and above all, so that they can take a piece to their family.

These water buffaloes were imported from Vietnam and have caused problems for the Cuban livestock industry being wild herds away from state control. In that country they live in swampy areas, and because of their ability to move through the water they use them to plow in pairs — like oxen in our fields — in the rice fields. Who would ever think bring them to Cuba and drop them into our  non-flooded lands to form a herd and run freely?

I imagine the joy of the rural collective when because of an accident they can taste the meat that is prohibited to them even at a party at the center, even more so when they know that some higher up sends the meat to privileged elite events. As an old friend of mine used to joke, “the wind of the Special Period” used to satirize that “the wind of the special period” took Cuba: some are ’more equal than others.’ But equal to whom?

30 April 2013

Image from http://actualidadeducacion.blogspot.com

I suspect that a smart move to improve reputation of the Venezuelan electoral system has been to narrow the margin between the candidates. It gives them prestige before the world and gives their opponents hope to maintain the rivalry, and accept defeat until the next fight at the polls, but neither will they gain more votes than their socialist opponents. I imagine that’s why Hugo Chavez supported from there the costly investment in voting machines and voting technology in general.

The Latin American leader needed — perhaps from the idea of Cuba’s historic monarchs — to legitimize his leadership of the country and he needed other countries to back his democratic image. It’s likely that from there arose the intention to certify through suffrage the “adjustable” preference of the majority of Venezuela for socialism.

It appears that the results are not decided by the count, but rather by the “numbers called” — like in a lottery — that are most attractive to those involved “behind the scenes” of a person chosen by them — like the electoral organ — and infallible for their purposes.

Then the support of the region’s and other nations, that was previously guaranteed by the “gestures of solidarity” in the form of paper currency or oil that the so-called Bolivarian leader used to make, and the guarantee of honoring the oil commitments contracted by the deceased president.

A difference and experience from the Cuban government, which specialized in winning for years with 99 percent of the vote, and this act typical of a sick ego under the influence of North Korea seriously detracts before the democrats of the globe, seems like the totalitarian mastery accumulated here — coupled with the democratic scare that cost Daniel Ortego to lose the Nicaraguan presidency for 17 years — which they put at the service of the South American country as they always do with any leader who speaks out against the United States to tighten his grip on highest office in his country.

I understand why the candidates friendly to the Cuban government deride the mockery their opponents make of their errors and gross manipulations . I remember the story of the appearance of Chavez in the form of a little bird as told by Maduro and the jokes that comment earned him around the world. But they didn’t flinch, because they are sure that they will win.

I suggest that nobody get excited or dizzy with siren song or truly democratic elections in Venezuela or other political models in mummified states, because according to my theory, they’re going to have socialism for a while.

24 April 2013

From: http://instrumentalenfermero.blogspot.com/

Alberto is a carpenter from Guanabo who had an operation on a growth on his neck. He says the surgery was a little complicated and so he has to put gauze with iodine and alcohol on the wound to prevent it becoming infected.

A couple of days ago, logically following the hospital’s instructions, he went to the polyclinic in his coastal town — the one where he is registered — which is on 5th between C and 496. At the emergency room they said they couldn’t see him because they had nothing to treat him with. Worried, he tried to persuade the nurse who was there; he showed her the cut under his ear and said it had to be cared for daily. He also explained that the operation was deeper than the surgeon expected and even reminded her of Hugo Chavez himself in an effort to convince her.

Due to his insistence, the paramedic took him to look in the glass case where they keep the medicines, bandages and things used for these cases and showed him that there was only one small roll of tape on one shelf. The healthcare worker was concerned that if someone came in from a knife fight or an accident, there wouldn’t be anything available to treat the wound.

Now, concerned with this logic the ailing carpenter must face the inconvenience and stress of traveling the 16 miles every day between Guanabo and Havana in the filthy, late and always packed urban transport to be seen in the same hospital where the surgery was performed.

He knows that there are other clinics he could go to, but beyond the propaganda statistics, the habitually overinflated success figures, and the misleading baptism of being a “medical powerhouse,” he is reminded of the helplessness he felt in his neighborhood, and he imagine every one of the “people’s” clinics will have the same scarcities and lack of hygiene and prefers “not to risk his neck” in those “empty slaughterhouses.”

7 May 2013

Evo Morales. Wikicommons.

I saw the news on a TeleSUR headline: “Evo Morales will run for re-election [in Bolivia] in 2014.” My thinking arises from my experience as a Cuban victim of totalitarianism and is: Does anyone doubt he will win?

4 May 2013

We’ve spent years in the opposition movement and have never stopped making our contribution, however modest, to the cause of the democratization of Cuba. It is a constant maintained by everyone involved in the fate of country, despite the many difficulties in which we develop our work.

We note how our work takes a long time to germinate because the constant police harassment policy, but still, we keep our seeds fertilized and watered for the good of the nation.

This time we wrote a program with a multidimensional architecture that seeks a respectful exchange and discussion between Cubans and the sustained and ultimate articulation with civil society in general through its project “Semillero” (Seed). With this project we plan to reach people with our constructive and legitimate message — as well as that of all the Cuban opposition — to show the different alternatives of hope and reconciliation that exist in Cuba and for her.

Our project offers, for Cuban society, an alternative to the simulation, indolence, emigration and irresponsible obedience, and as noted in the project, also the ambitious goal of “transforming each individual into an actor of his own personal and national destiny.”

Here is a link where you can read the tríptico promocional de «Cuba 360». [Only in Spanish at this time.]

1 May 2013

Poster from http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/

The annual carrying on over the victory of Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) happened this fourth month, with the national media playing it down. The elections in Venezuela were the priority of the Cuban government after the physical death of Hugo Chavez and it seems that a matter of so much preoccupation and occupation, a vital matter of political survival for them, that they quietly commemorated the victory gained April 15-19 of 1961 by the then young Revolution, against the invaders.

The remains of Sara Gonzalez* must have been spinning in the stinking waters of Havana Bay this month. Her iconic song “Giron, the Vanguard,” an allegory of that military success of the nascent Cuban dictatorship, wasn’t even heard as usual in the four days of the media hammering that usually accompanies the remembrance.

Sometimes it seems that the government thinks that we are a subnormal people or that we have learning difficulties, so they must repeat to us, over and over again, the events and dates and produce multiple TV and radio programs to  repeat the events and dates over and over again and make many radio and television programs to plant the understanding in our minds over the entire year; but the more repetitions on the anniversaries. Perhaps others, like myself, noticed the government slip-up, but they chose to let us escape, although just this one time, from the persistent official harassment, the manipulation of consciousness that historically reigns over the minds of our subjected people. What a relief!

*Translator’s note: Sara Gonzalez Gomes (~1950-12012) was a Cuban singer songwriter who was part of the Nuevo Trova with figures such as Silvio Roriguez and Pablo Milanes.

25 April 2013