A note to readers

I want to clarify something and hopefully save some readers some aggravation.

I notice that when I post some things, like a photo of an urban garden cooperative or a citation of a Fidel Castro “reflection,” that some readers assume I am in agreement with a writing that I cite, or that I think the cooperative represents the ideal thing for the Cuban people.

Not so.

The pictures are from my collection unless I note otherwise. I put them up because I hope readers will like them. They break up the text. If they illustrate something I may add a caption.

When I cite writings that I pick up here and there, it’s because I think they are interesting or significant in what I am trying to do, and what I assume readers are trying to do, which is to figure out what is going on in Cuba. Which includes, for my part, reading things I don’t necessarily agree with.

As for the “reflections,” some readers believe that Castro is dead and the writings are not his own. Fair enough. I don’t share those assumptions. Right now our environment on that question is information-free. Someday, we’ll know the story.

But those “reflections” sure sound like Castro and they track with what we know of his views. And beyond the Fidel question, they sometimes represent a very distinct point of view in the debate on economic policy taking place in Cuba today.

That debate may not take place within parameters that we like, it takes place in a political system that most of us surely don’t like, but it is a real debate nonetheless. My impression is that it is gathering steam. I have no idea where it will end or the results it will produce. But I do believe it’s worth watching.

So I take the point about Fidel. I appreciate all comments.

And on economics, more soon.

Surge!!!

Keeping half an eye on where new readers are coming from, I see that the U.S. eastern seaboard is pretty well covered from Boston to Miami, including a reader in the Hollywood, Florida of Ana Nicole Smith fame. Not doing bad in the Midwest, either.

Outside the U.S., I see readers in Bhopal, Santo Domingo, Chihuahua, Edmonton, Madrid, Amarillo, Hong Kong, Taipei, and points in between. And Africa is now covered with a new reader from Johannesburg. The French maintain a cool indifference, for now.

Welcome all.

Hello out there

I just took the steps necessary to track the traffic on this blog – lots of fun, lots of work to do. I’m happy to see readers from Canada’s west coast, Australia’s east coast, and points in between. Not to mention Havana (6.4 percent of readers), todos son bienvenidos. And Hanoi, Venezuela, Spain, England, Brazil, and the Netherlands too. Africa has yet to check in. A special hello goes out to the reader in Eskisehir, Turkey; if you were lost I sure hope you found where you were going.

Links

A friend asks why I have links to blogs on this page that have views different from my own. First, the list of blogs represents diverse points of view. And since this is an exercise in information, I find that a scan through a variety of Cuba blogs, each with a different focus and point of view, is a good way to stay on top of news and the issues in the Cuba debate. One thing the pro-embargo blogs teach you is that for all the change that is taking place in Cuban American opinion, the so-called hard-line point of view is not rooted exclusively in the first generation of exiles.