jluix.com

Programming is like farting.  Everyone likes his own brand.

NBC’s The Today Show will broadcast live from Havana, Cuba on June 5, 2007. The show solicits questions for Matt Lauer, the host. Here are mine.

1. Why aren’t ordinary Cubans allowed to stay in your hotel?
2. Why is the bellboy who carried your luggage, the clerk who checked you in, the waiter who served you, or anyone else in your hotel’s staff not allowed to negotiate his salary or to form a union?
3. Have you noticed also that the restaurants, beaches, and stores to which you have free access are also forbidden to regular Cubans? Why is that?
4. Why is there so much prostitution in Cuba? Why would so many beautiful, young girls sell their bodies so cheaply, many of them holding advanced degrees?
5. Why are so many taxi drivers in Havana former doctors or other such professionals?
6. Why aren’t Cubans attended at hospitals reserved for tourists?
7. You work for one of many news networks from which Americans can get their news. How come Cubans have but one source for news, and why is it run by the government?
8. Why aren’t Cubans permitted to criticize the government? Will you be allowed to? Will you?
9. Is NBC News censoring itself to maintain a bureau in Havana so it can be around to report “the big news” when it finally happens? Matt, will you be writing an Eason-Jordan-like mea culpa in the not too distant future?
10. Have you surfed the web from Cuba? Why are Cubans not allowed to access the internet?
11. Why is it illegal to fly the Cuban flag upside down?
12. Who is Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet?
13. Who are the Ladies in White?
14. Why is there only one political party in Cuba?
15. If the same person held power for 48 years, would you still consider America a democracy? Would you address said leader as “president,” or by a more descriptive title?
16. Why do so many Cubans risk their lives to escape the country by raft?
17. Why aren’t Cubans allowed to travel freely outside the island?
18. Why have a million Cubans gone into exile?
19. Do Cubans deserve the same human rights Americans demand?
20. How many years can a mountain exist
    Before it’s washed to the sea?
21. Yes, ‘n how many years can some people exist
    Before they’re allowed to be free?
22. Yes, ‘n how many times can a man turn his head,
    Pretending he just doesn’t see?

The answer, my friend, I suspect, won’t be blowin’

Update: Looks like my suspicions were correct.  Status quo at the MSM.

A Venezuelan blogger provides an insightful and passionate take on Venezuela’s slow descent into authoritarianism.
The money quote is:

…there are values that are worthwhile fighting and dying for. Freedom of expression is such a value, and chavismo cannot understand, will not understand that no amount of free aspirin in Barrio Adentro ill staffed clinics will ever compensate for the loss of freedom of expression.

Neither will Michael Moore, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton and other lovers of socialism.

On another note, RCTV was a really popular network, with a 44% market share. Not only is chavez making bread scarce, he’s just canceled the circus. Seems like a pretty dumb move. Perhaps this does mark the beginning of the end for chavismo. Freedom lovers can only hope.
H/T: Babalu Blog.

Taken by a friend, Armando Perdomo, visiting San Francisco.