So having just checked out at the supermarket on Sunday, I walk over to customer service. Now as any smoker worth his or her salt knows, you absolutely never buy cigarettes at a supermarket, but I was lazy. It was then that I was reminded that I was paying for the health insurance [...]

Thought there might be some interest on the guidance supplied by the Treasury Department in response to the stealth Cuba provisions in the omnibus bill.  As Henry indicated, the travel for family members is relaxed from immediate family to close family-
b) For the purpose of this general license, the term close relative used with respect [...]

If as Jaime Suchlicki writes in this, the removal of well-known Cuban officials yesterday completes the transition from one dictator to another with raul surrounding himself with military, will journalists now refer to "the ruling military junta" in their articles?

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This schizophrenic state may seem strange, but this is what it means to me to be an American-born Cuban. To deny that Cuba is my homeland is to deny a part of myself, just as rejecting anything American would be crazy. And instead of becoming more Americanized, the part of me that is Cuban gets [...]

Frankly, I'm used to being on the other side of an argument from the intelligentsia.  However, I have to cheer on English PEN, the organization of poets and writers, in their efforts to loosen the shackles on expression in Cuba. Read their statement.  Skip the intro as it repeats the literacy and health care shibboleths and [...]

I’ve been mulling over a post on the arrogance of those who pontificate on Cuba- people like Peter Coyote and even our esteemed senator- on the basis of information and disinformation they’ve been fed by the regime’s propaganda machine even via some think tank or operating group. It takes a certain amount of arrogance to [...]

Heard there's a Son of Porkulus on the way.  Reminded me of the best quote to come out of Davos.  If you aren't already convinced we are in an alternate reality, take look at this-
"The state's role was brought to omnipotence in the Soviet Union in the last century," Putin said in his opening address [...]

Generally brief business, journalistic or academic junkets to Cuba result in praise for a system under which not a single participant would opt to live.  So it was refreshing to see just how much editor Emerison Lynn, Jr. of the Iola Register (Kansas) managed to get right after a seven day trip, sponsored by the Inland [...]

You gotta admit that the Havana regime has been nothing if not creative in its attempts to fill the economic black hole they've created.  Apparently they've turned from more agricultural concerns, read that mini-cows and fish in a barrel, to the cinema.  At a film festival in Goa, Miguel Angel Ramirez Ramos, the ambassador to India, boasted that [...]

Almost had a fit of the vapours and had to be revived when I came across this report yesterday.   As part of a review by the United Nations Human Rights Council (yup, that one), Cuba was confronted by Western democracies over its human rights' record. 
The United States abstained  did not participate in the forum, whether out [...]

The New Man and the same old story. My brother clued me into this one which was published in February and is officially titled Storming Las Vegas: How a Cuban-Born, Soviet-Trained Commando Took Down the Strip to the Tune of Five World-Class Hotels, Three Armored Cars, and Millions of Dollars. I'd like [...]

It seems interesting that our response to raul’s visit to Russia has been to virtually ignore it, even as it has been ballyhooed in the international media. I think I know why…
Russian officials promised the delivery of 25,000 tons of grain and a $20 million loan for the development of Cuba's construction, energy and agriculture [...]

Time to run out and get your February issue of Cigar Aficionado This month's issue features a "special report" on, you guessed it, Cuba-
SPECIAL REPORT: CUBA
OPEN CUBA NOW — It’s time to normalize relations with our neighbor to the south. An expert on Cuban affairs drafts an open memo to the incoming U.S. president explaining [...]

I recently came across this heartwarming human interest story which appeared in the Sacramento Bee. Maria Celia Garcia is making a movie of her parents' life before and after the revolution, including the trials of attempting to flee the regime. Now, I have no idea how old she is. But not two days [...]

What if instead of “Bush Takes Parting Swipe at Communist Cuba,” this headline read “Departing President Affirms Support for a Free Cuba.” Then, what if the first paragraph read not
President George W. Bush took a parting swipe at communist Cuba on Tuesday, saying it was a cruel dictatorship that had responded to U.S. appeals [...]

Pre-Revolutionary Cuba is predictably presented in this film as a screamingly poor, fifth-world country. It seems that every other character is illiterate. People who were there remember it differently, and United Nations statistics from the period tell a different story: Cuba was in fact the fourth most literate country in Latin America. “A people that [...]

Battling against the ignorance and bigotry that informs so much of what is written about Cuba before the communist takeover, it's always seemed that a fact sheet of sorts would come in handy. I've often depended on Humberto Fontova's excellent research, particularly his in his article about Andy Garcia's The Lost City, which [...]

Unease has been my companion in the weeks leading to January this year. I knew that it was as inevitable as the night following the day that the 50th anniversary of the Revolution would unleash paeans to the totalitarian regime in the international media. True to form, the resident shills in Havana have pumped out [...]

Responding to the declaration against the US embargo by Latin American leaders, Miguel Perez raises an interesting question in this. With a new, more liberal administration on the way, shouldn't the "imperialistas" become "amigos?" Based on what he's seen, the answer would seem to be that we will continue to be the bogey [...]

As Cuba approaches a half century of totalitarian rule, the press seems compelled to mark the occasion. Some have already been noted here. Anita Snow's entry into the lists is surprising in that peeking through the edges of the thing are some truths. In this AP article, she starts, of course, with revolutionary school [...]