On Saturday, Cuba issued an unprecedented public report on the status of an imprisoned dissident.
Guillermo Fariñas Hernández began his hunger strike in February, the day after the first Cuban hunger striker death in almost forty years. He is now
near death.
[more inside]
posted by hat
on Jul 6, 2010 -
21 comments
In 1936 in the Jim Crow South,
Robert F. Williams was an 11-year-old black boy in Monroe, North Carolina, who watched helplessly as
Jesse Helms Sr. (father and namesake of the
former senator) beat an African-American woman to the ground and
"dragged her off to the nearby jailhouse, her dress up over her head, the same way that a cave man would club and drag his sexual prey." Years later, after a stint in the segregated military, Williams returned home to Monroe and worked as an NAACP organizer, where he brought international attention to the
Kissing Case, a 1958 incident in which two black boys under the age of 10 were sentenced to a reformatory for kissing a white girl. By then, Williams had also attracted controversy for his advocacy of armed self-defense, a position he outlined in the book
Negroes with Guns. But it would all change overnight in 1961, when Williams landed on
FBI's Most Wanted list, after being charged with kidnapping a white couple that Williams claimed he was trying to save from an angry black crowd.
[more inside]
posted by jonp72
on Jun 8, 2010 -
36 comments
Snakes on a Base! In the wake of today's announcement that Raul Castro will be 'temporarily' taking power in Cuba while Big Brother (did I say that?) has an operation for some GI bleeding, The Smoking Gun has published some declassified Spec Ops planning cover sheets from the 60s and 70, listing plans to destabilize Cuba. Operation Bingo, on page 3, is especially amusing.
posted by baylink
on Aug 1, 2006 -
15 comments
A View From The Bridge: Or
Death Of A Salesman, perhaps? Hey, even
The Crucible, at a stretch!
Arthur Miller on Cuba, Castro and the U.S. embargo. Honesty and clarity refreshingly transcend the usual socialist/liberal/conservative divide. Or, at the very least, a damn good read from one of our (i.e. the world's) greatest dramatists. [
Via Arts & Letters Daily. Click here for the text-only version. ]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jan 5, 2004 -
25 comments
HBO has decided to "shelf" Oliver Stone's
documentary on Fidel Castro on the basis that the documentary
depicts Castro without judgement. Should documentary filmmaking be a "true journalistic endeavor" as the article suggests?
posted by ericrolph
on Apr 17, 2003 -
26 comments
Sensible policy toward Cuba developing, or the beginning of the end for Colin Powell? "He's done good things for his people," Powell told Rep. Jose E. Serrano, D-N.Y., who called the embargo of Cuba senseless. For most of his 42 years in power Castro has fomented revolutions and insurgencies, "but he is no longer the threat he was," Powell said.
This certainly breaks with what appears to be a fairly hawkish international stance by the administration, but maybe it's punishment aimed at Florida for not delivering a decisive victory? Poor Jeb.
posted by shagoth
on Apr 27, 2001 -
22 comments
