Janine Mendes-Franco · January, 2012

Latest posts by Janine Mendes-Franco from January, 2012

Cuba: Human Rights Double Standard

  31 January 2012

Lilianne Ruíz, blogging at Translating Cuba, compares a television spot “that shows a series of watercolors of butterflies from one of the five officials of the Interior Ministry imprisoned in the United States…with the stories that are told of Cuban jails, especially for political prisoners who, ever since their detention,...

Puerto Rico: Waste of Money

  31 January 2012

Dondequiera says of a US $20 million ad campaign to promote tourism: “If we could only use 1/4 of that money to police and clean our beaches, maintain the bathrooms…. I just thought you'd like to know how your hard earned tax dollars were being spent. The whole thing just...

Cuba: Upwardly Mobile?

  31 January 2012

The latest Cuban media campaign “is directed against the [expensive] mobile vendors, those sellers of fruits and vegetables who transport their goods on a tricycle or other wheeled device” – Generation Y says: “Although this is a problem that hurts us all, I don’t think we will solve it with...

Bermuda: “Constant Circus”

  31 January 2012

“The Premier is saying that she will pass more good governance laws. That’s positive,” says Vexed Bermoothes. But he still can't help but wonder: “You need laws to control the actions of your own inner circle? Seriously?”

Jamaica: Bleached

  31 January 2012

Annie Paul posts an article she wrote about Vybz Kartel and the skin bleaching phenomenon.

Cuba: Pope's Visit & Human Rights

  30 January 2012

In the wake of more repression against Las Damas de Blanco, Uncommon Sense thinks “that the pope should postpone his visit until human rights conditions improve in Cuba.”

Trinidad & Tobago: Abuse of Trust

  30 January 2012

The TnT River says of an incident in which a teacher allegedly stuck a student's head in a toilet bowl: “This is another case of child abuse which comes in a different form and from an institution entrusted with the education and all-round development of this child.”

Trinidad & Tobago: Reviving Capital Punishment?

  30 January 2012

Plain Talk comments on the issue of capital punishment: “The sad reality is that this pantomime only continues because the people are starved for choice, so every now and then these tired discussions are pulled out, dusted off and begun again in ernest to no benefit to anybody.”

Cuba: The Cardinal Rule

  27 January 2012

In the context of the country's upcoming papal visit, Angel Santiesteban writes: “What we Cubans have to achieve won’t come from anyone’s visit, nor from the ‘peace concert’, although it had good intentions, nor from the ‘U.S. blockade.’ It will come the day we demand what belongs to us by...

Trinidad & Tobago: The Value of Seniors

  27 January 2012

kid5rivers takes the Port of Spain mayor to task for his disagreement with a proposal to offer offer free utilities and transport to senior citizens, asking, tongue firmly in cheek: “Perhaps His Worship confused SCs who are worth their weight in silk with SCs who are waited upon because they...

Cuba: Playwright Passes On

  27 January 2012

Havana Times acknowledges the passing of “Cuban writer, playwright and theater director Humberto Arenal”, who passed away yesterday.

Trinidad & Tobago: Child Abuse

  27 January 2012

Guanaguanare hopes that the story of Josiah Governor, the child who was beaten to death, will “motivate us to be more humane in the way we treat our children”, while TnT River blogs about Everton Vasquez, a minor who “hanged himself after receiving a beating from his grandmother.”

Jamaica: Gully versus Gaza

  27 January 2012

Jamaica Salt considers “how Jamaican music superstars, Vybz Kartel and Mavado have taken their different paths”, suggesting: “Kartel [is] more real in a way but when it comes to survival in this life, he maybe has something to learn from the Gully God.”

Cuba: Internet as a Public Good

  26 January 2012

“In addition to triggering the greatest civic hell-raising in Internet history…the SOPA/PIPA laws have touched a nerve in Cuba’s digital community”: half-wired explains.

Trinidad & Tobago: Indigenous Portrayal in History

  26 January 2012

Review of the Indigenous Caribbean republishes a paper on “the dominant, almost doctrinal assertions made about the history of Trinidad and Tobago–with some attention paid to the ways historiographers diminished and extinguished the Indigenous presence.”

Guyana: Protest at University

  26 January 2012

Bloggers report on protests against the firing of journalist and lecturer Freddie Kissoon from the national university, here and here.

Cuba, Barbados: Power of the Hunger Strike

  25 January 2012

Uncommon Sense notes that Cuban dissident Jorge Cervantes has gone on a hunger strike after being arrested for putting up posters protesting the recent death of hunger striker and prisoner of conscience Wilman Villar Mendoza. Barbados Free Press, meanwhile, republishes a letter from a Cuban prisoner who has served his...