Of the four seasons we experience during a year, spring is the season of rejuvenation. It signifies the end of the cold and dreary winter and it is the precursor of summer with its vacations and family barbeques. Spring brings forth blooming flowers and green grass and the temperature is always just right; neither too [...]

The Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar has added his name to the petition "I Accuse the Cuban Government" along with thousands of others from all over the world. Two other Spanish celebrities, Ana Belén and Victor Manuel, also signed the petition showing their solidarity with the dissidents in Cuba. Although they are only signatures, these acts [...]

If you haven't signed this petition in the memory of the martyr Orlando Zapata Tamayo, please do so now.
Here is the text of the petition in English:

For the Freedom of Cuban Political Prisoners
For the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuban jails; for respect for the exercise, promotion and defense [...]

As legend has it, the first occupants that jump off a sinking ship are usually the rats. As Shakespeare inferred in The Tempest, it is a rat's instinct that leads him to abandon an unseaworthy vessel long before its human occupants realize its eventual demise. So it should not come as a surprise to anyone [...]

One of the favorite terms used to describe dissidents that the Castro regime and its plethora of useful idiots throughout the world utilizes is "mercenary." Anyone who speaks out against their oppression is immediately labeled mercenaries in the employ of the US or whatever other foreign power or entity that is convenient at the moment. [...]

Some heroes are made by the circumstances surrounding them, and others are born to be heroes. All of them, however, share one thing: the heart of a lion. Courage and the will to fight to the end is what separates the hero from the common man. It is their steadfast determination to stand up and [...]

It was the American poet Walt Whitman who once said, "either define the moment or the moment will define you." Below are two men: One of them is defining his moment, and the other is allowing the moment to define him.

One of them, facing certain death, has the courage to stand up for what [...]

Brazilian president Lula da Silva says he "reluctantly accepts" the jailing of dissidents in Cuba because--after all--everyone in Cuba is subject to the dictatorship's so-called "judicial system." According to Lula, the logic behind his astounding and contemptible statement is that he would not want Cuba telling Brazil how they should run their judicial system.
Touching on [...]

I have spent an entire lifetime listening to endless accounts of the horrid atrocities committed against the Cuban people by a small group of vile thugs led by a megalomaniacal killer. I have heard time and time again the story of my parent's and sibling's harrowing escape from the tyranny that took over their homeland. [...]

"Un arañazo por aquí, otro arañazo por allá"

"A scratch here, another scratch there"
Like most idiomatic phrases, their true meaning is lost once they are translated into a language other than the original. But after reading this news story in Reuters about the Cuban dictatorship's new requirement for tourist visas, there is no phrase in [...]

There is an impressive and scathing Op-Ed in Epoch Times today written by Cuban-Canadian, Nelson Taylor Sol, who lives in Ottawa. While Canada continues to stream tourists, business, and cash into the coffers of the Castro regime, providing the tyranny with more resources in which to repress the Cuban people, Nelson reminds his fellow Canadians [...]

The images via Penúltimos Días of some of the more than 30 patients that died from exposure to near freezing temperatures this past January brings back memories of the WWII photographs of Nazi concentration camps. Similar to the images that shocked and sickened the world after the second world war, bodies are piled one on [...]

Sometimes it sounds like a broken record playing on my family's old console stereo system that looked more like a piece of furniture than an entertainment system:
"The Cuban embargo hasn't worked in 50 years, we should scrap it.."
--the needle jumps--
"The Cuban embargo hasn't worked in 50 years, we should scrap it.."
--the needle jumps--
"The Cuban embargo [...]

The assassination of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo committed by the criminal Cuban dictatorship could not have come at a more inopportune time for Spain's Socialist government. Just weeks into their campaign to convince the European Union that it should improve its relations with the despotic Cuban government, their argument was dealt a crippling blow [...]

For the past 50+ years, presidents and prime ministers and councils and human rights organizations and leaders and individuals have spoken out and against the murderous and tyrannical Castro regime. Words, however, have little to no effect neutralizing the dictatorship's guns, tanks, and its machine of repression that it feeds daily with the blood of [...]

After Yoani's statement regarding the embargo a few days ago in which she chose to echo Castroite propaganda by using the word "blockade," a heated discussion ensued on this blog and others. On one side of the debate there were those that came to her defense, proclaiming that Yoani's dissident credentials were unquestionable and no [...]

The Cuban dictatorship does an outstanding job of marketing their all-inclusive resorts and there is no shortage of Canadians and Europeans that think that life in Cuba is filled with mojitos, music, and surf-and-turf dinners. A group of 180 Canadian tourists, however, got a brief taste of what it is like to live in Cuba [...]

As Crist poll numbers slide, staffers leave campaign
In the latest sign of turbulence for Charlie Crist's wounded U.S. Senate bid, key staffers are starting to leave the campaign.
Political director Pablo Diaz, one of the first two staff members hired for the Senate campaign, is departing at the end of the month for "a new opportunity." [...]

After enduring the rude and needlessly provocative actions of a delegation of US government officials, no one could hardly blame the Cuban dictatorship for being upset. Greeted with open arms and an open heart by the Cuban regime, the American officials were granted the opportunity to join the rest of the world at the foot [...]

After such a promising start, we Americans have gone and screwed it up again. Hopes were high and the sweet smell of change was in the air when a delegation of American government officials arrived in Havana to begin high-level immigration talks with Cuba's regime. But as luck would have it, the Americans could not [...]