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Hector_Lector
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 548
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 Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Pablo Picasso, the infamous Cubist artist, was never on the record for speaking out against Castro, and yet his �painting� Gurnicker was heralded as a beacon of liberty. Typical liberal hypocrisy! |
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RyanS
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
Posts: 356
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Okay who let Hector out of his cage? I mean I kow my posts can not make sense at times but really I think this takes the cake. |
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Hector_Lector
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 548
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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| And what about that Madonna? Now she thinks she knows all about football and cigars and things, and is covered in tattoos of Mao Tse Tung and Che Guevara. She reckons Castro is great, too! |
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jessicah632
Joined: 12 Jun 2005
Posts: 36
Location: Texas, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Hector_Lector wrote: |
| Pablo Picasso, the infamous Cubist artist, was never on the record for speaking out against Castro, and yet his �painting� Gurnicker was heralded as a beacon of liberty. Typical liberal hypocrisy! |
Hoo boy.... 
Guy and Ryan (and others who have visited Cuba), I'm curious....are people very religious in Cuba? Are those churches just leftover from a previous era and are little-used (or not allowed to be used at all?), or do people actively attend mass, etc.? When I was in China, people seemed tired by the whole notion of religion - like it had just been stamped out of them. People had little Buddhist figures here and there in their houses, and several temples/churches still stood in Beijing, but were more merely historical monuments than active places of worship. It's as though people just decided to give up on religion, even though the Chinese government is substantially more relaxed on such matters than it was previously. I'm curious how religion is faring in Cuba.
--Jessicah |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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| jessicah632 wrote: |
| I'm curious how religion is faring in Cuba. |
Here's a rather lengthy but complete (and seemingly nonbiased) report:
http://www.cubanet.org/ref/dis/091504.htm |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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I didn't really check into religion other than noting few churches. I did see a presbytarian church in Matanzas.
According to the Cuban constitution, no one religion dominates officially, and Cubans have the right to worship as they see fit. No idea if there is religious repression though. If there is, I imagine it's tied up in the chase for CIA agents or dissident gatherings, probably akin to Falun Gong in China...maybe that's not the right comparison. |
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RyanS
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
Posts: 356
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:49 am Post subject: |
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| A fair number of people I talked to believed in god. Theres a 50 foot statue of Jesus on the island accross from that one bridge/waterfront everyone hangs out at.. Man-ne-con its pronounced or something. I'm Atheist myself, so I don't really pay too much attention to these kind of things. The state is Atheist but the constitution considers violence against religious beliefs is a hate crime, and allows people to preach their beliefs or lack of beliefs as they see fit as long as it doesn't incite violence. |
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grahamb
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Posts: 1945
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject: Religion in Cuba |
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Hector, you forgot to mention that guy Rubik and his Cube!
Regarding religion, the only group that I've heard of coming into conflict with the state is the Jehovah's Witnesses. One reason is their refusal to perform military service; the other is their refusal to accept blood transfusions. A Cuban friend told me that there have been cases of doctors overruling parents' wishes that their sick children should not be given blood.
I was amazed when the same friend announced that he'd had his son baptised, as he and his wife are not church-goers.
Many people are devout Catholics, although evangelical churches have made converts over the last few years. Religious icons are a common sight in houses. I once attended a funeral which had no religious content whatsoever. The funny thing was that the church bell tolled as the procession passed by on the way to the cemetery.
Don't forget Santeria, which is very popular in Havana. If you enter a house and see glasses of water everywhere, you can guarantee that someone in the house is a practitioner. I've even heard it said that Fidel himself dabbles in it, although I doubt it's true. |
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Luder
Joined: 10 Jul 2004
Posts: 74
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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| What's the spice Cubans are so fond of, found in everything, especially in rice criollo? |
Are you referring to the herb culantro, similar to cilantro, but stronger?
All you well-fed Castro apologists have me near tears. Try reading Reinaldo Arenas. Antes que anochezca, maybe.
At least I got a good laugh out of some illiterate moron's attempt to spell Picasso's Gu�rnica. |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Luder wrote: |
| Quote: |
| What's the spice Cubans are so fond of, found in everything, especially in rice criollo? |
Are you referring to the herb culantro, similar to cilantro, but stronger?
All you well-fed Castro apologists have me near tears. Try reading Reinaldo Arenas. Antes que anochezca, maybe.
At least I got a good laugh out of some illiterate moron's attempt to spell Picasso's Gu�rnica. |
No, I think grahamb has it...aji it's called? I asked here in Mexico and you can find it here too. I'll have to go and find it and add it to my spice rack. Many cuban dishes I tried had it sprinkled along the edges of the plate, as well as in rice. Tiny little green flakes...that look like dill but light green. To me it tasted a lot like cumin. |
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RyanS
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
Posts: 356
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Luder wrote: |
| Quote: |
| What's the spice Cubans are so fond of, found in everything, especially in rice criollo? |
Are you referring to the herb culantro, similar to cilantro, but stronger?
All you well-fed Castro apologists have me near tears. Try reading Reinaldo Arenas. Antes que anochezca, maybe.
At least I got a good laugh out of some illiterate moron's attempt to spell Picasso's Gu�rnica. |
You need to get out more if you find humour in mispellings of words.
By the way, I'm not an "Apologist" I'm a supporter. |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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All you well-fed Castro apologists have me near tears. Try reading Reinaldo Arenas. Antes que anochezca, maybe.
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Read it, and loved it. Some of his other books are better, in my opinion, but less literal. The film was far too Hollywood, if you know what I mean, but the novel is a wonderful work.
I believe I mentioned earlier that one of the greatest failings of the regime was its treatment of writers and homosexuals. (Arenas was in both categories, for those who aren't familiar with him.) Arenas suffered the persecution that far too many gay individuals, writers, and political thinkers have suffered in Cuba. He also suffered shortages, lack of food, and extreme poverty,both in his childhood, under the previous government, and in his adulthood during the embargo. His poverty was often made more extreme in adulthood when, having been labled a political malcontent, he was often unable to find work. This is persecution, and nobody here is justifying it. It isn't dissimilar to what happened to Dashiel Hammet, when he was imprisoned for refusing to name the trustees of the Civil Rights Bail Bond fund, though. Cuba isn't unique in having persecuted writers for their political leanings.
And I repeat, maybe they would have had a more tolerance for dissidents, if their nearest neighbors hadn't been dedicating considerable resources towards violating their sovereignty.
I have always wished that Arenas had lived long enough to write as insightfully about the US, his home at the end of his life, as he did about Cuba. He died a relatively young man, at a time when the world badly needs his honesty as an observer and his keen acumen as a writer.
But, in the US, he was discharged from the hospital and sent home to die of AIDS. You see, he didn't have private health insurance.
I'm not a "Castro Apologist." I'm a pragmatist who knows that the perfect system hasn't been created yet. But I'm not dismissing the successes of a system just because it has also commited excesses and errors. Why, if Cuba is so horrible, are they able to provide universal access to health care; something that still eludes the "World's Richest Country?" Why have they, trade embargo and all, emerged to lead the world in literacy rate? There are questions here that defy easy answering.
It isn't black and white.
Justin |
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grahamb
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Posts: 1945
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| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 1:22 pm Post subject: Cuba |
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That guy Ludo clearly doesn't understand irony. No doubt he thinks it's a chemical element and Hector Lector is an escaped cannibal.
Nice reply, Ryan. Short and sweet.
Justin hit the nail on the head; There are only various shades of grey. According to official US statistics, there are approximately 36 million Americans living in poverty. That's more than 12% of the population. |
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Luder
Joined: 10 Jul 2004
Posts: 74
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| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| but the novel is a wonderful work. |
Note that it isn't a novel. A novel is made up, like a fairy tale: Once upon a time, on a tropical isle surrounded by blue and green waters lived a people who had universal access to health care and were literate at the rate of 99.89%. Their interests were watched over by bearded holy men, much venerated not only by their island subjects but also by men and women from all corners of the earth. All would have been well on the island but for the presence, lurking little more than 90 miles across the straits, of a land whose sovereign had no thoughts but for the destruction of the island utopia--or, at the very least, for the destruction of the holy men's beards.
My point, I guess, is that Antes que anochezca is a true story.
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| That guy Ludo [sic] clearly doesn't understand irony. |
I'm at an utter loss as to what irony I didn't understand. Incoherence, as in many of these posts, I do have trouble understanding. But not irony. Please.
As it happens, I've read through this thread for the slightest evidence of subtle irony. In vain. In vain. Even my own is somewhat heavy-handed. Unless I'm supposed to take gross misspellings for irony. And come on! With the way people spell on this board, writing "Gurnicker" for "Gu�rnica" would have been par for the course.
And RyanS, if I laugh at misspellings, so what? I find your attempts to spell much more amusing than your endless mantras about universal access to health care and literacy rates and infant mortality and the embargo (or, as your ilk prefer to call it, the blockade) |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Grahamb, I'm interested in hearing your wife's story, if you don't mind sharing. When she left Cuba, how she did it, how you met, etc. What's her take on Cuba? |
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