Monday, May 3, 2010

Odds and ends

  • The Damas de Blanco attended mass yesterday and walked along Quinta Avenida as they have done for years, but it was peaceful and there were no pro-government crowds present. Cardinal Ortega, who gave the mass at the church in western Havana, says the lowered tensions follow his appeal to the government. AFP reports in English here; a story from Spain’s El Pais is here. AFP also reports (Spanish, here) that the church has continued to try to persuade Guillermo Farinas to abandon his hunger strike, but he isn’t interested.

  • The Herald’s Juan Tamayo on the case of Dania Virgen Garcia, a dissident who was jailed for using force in a family dispute and whose family, according to human rights monitor Elizardo Sanchez, doesn’t seem to be defending her.

  • Professor Jaime Suchlicki’s arguments for maintaining U.S. travel restrictions are rebutted by Anya Landau French at the Havana Note.

  • Guardian: Cuba’s policy on travel insurance for visitors – I thought it was health insurance – is not very clear, and a UK tour operator chalks it up to the island’s “old-fashioned air, its exotic chaos.”

  • Alejandro Armengol’s column in El Nuevo Herald focuses on prisoner of conscience Ariel Sigler Amaya, and argues that keeping him and others in jail signals weakness on the part of the government.

  • NPR on the “free-market makeover” in beauty shops and barber shops, where not everyone is happy.

  • An idea from Kirk Nielsen at Poder360 for securing federal mass transit money for Miami: name the project Metrorail Marti.

  • I just ran across the website Hemos Oido, which is a “Worldwide Translation Experiment” that translates Cuban blogs. A list of blogs translated into English, with links to recently translated posts, is here.

  • I plugged it once, I’m doing it again: Check out this magnificent blog for all you need to know about Hialeah.

  • The Washington Post on Livan Hernandez and his hot start with the Washington Nationals – and his future golf career.

No comments: