Cuban barred from entering US wins Grammy award

As a follow up to my earlier posting, Ibrahim Ferrer, who was denied entry to the United States for the Grammy Awards, won the award for Best Tropical Latin Album last night. A shame that, thanks to the small minds in the State Department, he was unable to accept.

Linux successes thus far

It's been two weeks of work and this is what I've been able to accomplish:

• Fully functioning Linux installation running all major applications including Evolution for email, OpenOffice, all flavors of Mozilla (Mozilla, Firebird, and now Firefox), and XMMS media player


• Both Windows partitions being accessable in Linux


• Data sharing between one FAT32 partition, with read-write access in both Linux and Windows. This is currently being used to house most of my music files and any files I want to edit in Linux and have access to in Windows


• Anti-aliased fonts looking GORGEOUS in all applications, particularly my web browsers


• Some KDE tweaking, adding menu transparency


• My iPod access in Linux thanks to GTKPod, including my own homegrown icon on my task bar.

I continue to be frustrated by difficulties with the "all in one" chat program options out there. Both gaim and Everybuddy have problems. Gaim seems to have fixed an annoying segfault problem, but still waiting for a fix to be able to connect to Yahoo!. Everybuddy won't install cleanly and I'm waiting for the next version.

The Idiocy of US / Cuba Policy

It really is time that we stop pursuing our anachonistic policy of embargo towards Cuba. Yes, they continue to be a Communist dictatorship that denies their people even the most basic rights, but we cannot pursue isolation towards Cuba and open trade and travel with another Communist dictatorship, China.

The Cuban exile community holds far too much power in our national political landscape. Instead of allowing a flow of goods and tourists to Cuba in order to continue to allow its people the opportunity to be exposed to American values of freedom and democracy, the Cuban exiles demand a complete walling off of the country, which only aids the Castro regime in maintaining unilateral control over its people.

As a contrast to its usual invasive foreign policy, when it comes to Cuba, the Bush Administration would rather kowtow to the Cuban lobby and tighten restrictions on trade and cultural exchange. Casualties of this policy now include Cuban musicans nominated for Grammy awards, who have been denied visas by the State Department to travel to the United States for the Grammy ceremony.

How is it possible that allowing these musicans, some of who are very old and for whom this might be the last time when they will be able to appear in the United States, permission to travel can in any way aid the Castro regime? The presence of these legends can only serve to elevate a Grammy ceremony which will probably wallow in the depravity that was exemplified by the Superbowl haltime show this year.

The Buena Vista Social Club movie and soundtrack, and the artists featured on it, are a reminder to all of us of the vibrant cultural life that existed in Cuba prior to the Communist revolution, and to hide them away from Americans serves no purpose except to punish those who wish to explore their music further.