A little bit of vulgarity for a late Saturday night.
I have not yet found my groove back for posting and there are so many things to write about. But this video that I found in Babalu is just the perfect summary of some of the stuff going on in Cuba. In short, the hunger strikes are starting to affect the Cuban dictators. So, to get rid of the problem, through the Catholic Church and Spain they are finding a way out, by sending the prisoners to Spain with their families. Thus the Castros get rid of the hunger strikers and the Damas de Blanco in a single stroke. Brilliant, no? True or not the guy in the video certainly has a point. In Spanish only, sorry.
And while you watch that video think about voting on the right side as to whether Spain will win tomorrow in South Africa.
There is an article in the Boston Globe on El Sistema, Abreu’s program for teaching music to children: There is magic in the music . An excerpt follows.
ReplyDeleteThe Venezuelan phenomenon known widely by its nickname — El Sistema, or “The System’’ — attracts many visitors, but none quite like this. Levi, Heagy, and Malek are members of the inaugural class of fellows from El Sistema USA: a handpicked group of young, monastically dedicated American musicians, based at New England Conservatory, and determined to bring this revolution in music education to Boston and other American communities.
They have come to learn the secrets of El Sistema, the almost fairy tale-like way it has turned to music as a vehicle for keeping poor children off the violent streets, giving them self-confidence, discipline, and other practical life skills, and in the process building up urban communities around symphony orchestras made up of children. El Sistema now reaches 400,000 Venezuelan children, with 70 percent living below the poverty line…. The United States’ first 10 Abreu Fellows — named for El Sistema’s revered founder, José Antonio Abreu — spent two months visiting some 50 music centers or “nucleos’’ across Venezuela, from makeshift tin-roofed structures deep in the interior of the country to the newly renovated centers like La Rinconada in the capital. They graduated from the program last month, and now they will fan out to begin spreading the gospel…
Abreu also has a canny knack for politics. He has persuaded eight successive governments to support the program, while always making sure that El Sistema remains apolitical.
Venezuelans teaching the Gringos. Whooda thunk it? I am another example of that, as Carlos Rangel’s Del Buen Salvaje al Buen Revolucionario , which I purchased in Anacao, had a strong influence on my political views.
(Rangel’s book is known in English as The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States. )
It's an interesting detail that the Castro's are offering to pay off some debts they have with Spain if the Spanish will reach an agreement with them.This is typical of the mafia tactics that Chavez also uses.
ReplyDeleteThey run up debts then they offer to pay them off only if they get some favor in return.